And the Journey Continues.....

'It doesn't matter how many years go by, how much therapy I embark on, how much I try to achieve that elusive thing known as perspective, which is supposed to put all past wrongs into their rightful and diminished place, that happy place where all the talk is of lessons learned and inner peace.

No one will ever understand the potency of my memories, which are so solid and vivid that I don't need a psychiatrist to tell me they are driving me crazy. My subconscious has not buried them, my superego has not restrained them. They are front and center, they are going on right now.'

I'm always missing someone or someplace or something, I'm always trying to get back to some imaginary somewhere. My life has been one big longing.

Prozac Nation, Elizabeth Wurtzel

Yesterday I went to yet another psychiatrist appointment to figure out if this medicine is doing what it is supposed to be doing. Jeff and I could tell that it hasn't been. I mean I am doing better, certainly better than I was two months ago, but yet not good enough. I have taken some comfort in the fact that I am seeing the nurse practitioner and not the doctor. That must mean that I'm not as screwed up as most of his patients, right? So with two kids in tow, I made my way to the doctor's office. I am always surprised at just how normal everything looks at the psychiatrist's office. Prior to becoming a patient, I thought I would see people where the depression and desperation they felt was apparent to all who looked at them. But no, I discovered that some people are just as good as I am at putting up the act of 'I'm fine, really, I'm fine.' I thought as I sat there in the waiting room, with my young children, that everyone would know that 'Hey, that woman is definitely suffering from postpartum depression. Just look at how young that baby is!' Since the nurse was running late, I tried to figure out what everyone else's problems were. I could figure out the elderly peoples' problem, but that was about it. All I know is that the woman sitting next to us looked like she was in a lot of emotional pain, and was looking for some relief that seemed utterly elusive. We are all alike in that way.

After waiting awhile, we were called back and I continued dispensing cookies and goldfish crackers and water so I could actually accomplish what needed to be accomplished at this appointment. I think Steve actually is beginning to love my appointments because it's the only time he gets so many treats. Well, the bottom line is that I need more medicine. The nurse went and got the doctor so he could explain to me that the dose I would be going to was very normal in his practice, and just how the chemicals work and why it is taking me so long to feel the way I am supposed to. I have begun to forget what that is. So there goes my theory of my not being so screwed up I needed to see the doctor. The funny thing is I look completely normal. I can discuss in-depth topics. I can smile and feel joy. Heck, I am just like your neighbors, considering that in fact you like your neighbors. But I don't feel like everyone else. I feel that I am different. I lost my naivete' and I wish I could get it back. All of the people in my playgroup have their moms and no one had to do IVF or IUIs to have their babies. The comments made are from a lack of knowledge, I know, but it gets in my nerves being asked again and again if we are going to try for a girl. Oh, and no one mentions my mom EVER. If you have never lost someone you loved that much, please know that it is okay, even desired, to talk and ask questions about the person's loved one. I mean it's not like we've forgotten what happened. I wake up every morning and think of my mom, and it doesn't always depress me. Quite the opposite, sometimes I laugh because of a certain memory I've had. And if the person does get emotional over the mention of the deceased, by talking to them about it you may actually really help them out of the bad spot they're in that day. But I digress. I just feel so different from other people. Like where do I belong?

As said in the last sentences from 'Prozac Nation', I feel like I'm always trying to get back to a time in my life that was easier, when I was happy, when the words cancer and infertility and postpartum depression never existed in my mind. I try to remember when I was last happy for an extended period of time. Please don't think for a minute that I am not happy with my children and my husband, because I thank God for them every day. I'm just trying to remember that time when I didn't wake up in the morning trying to figure out what kind of a day this was going to be.

I was an incredibly happy child. The first bad thing that ever bothered me was the death of my mother's mother, my grandma Grace. I remember thinking that I couldn't wait until her funeral because I was sure she was going to get out of that casket and everything was going to be to the way it was before. Of course, that didn't happen. And I have never stopped missing my grandmother. And life has never been the same. You know how the mothers of the family are usually the ones who hold the family together, well that's how it was with my grandmother as well as my own mother.

We moved a lot when I was a kid. I did go to the same school K-6, but I began junior high in Southern California. I LOVED it there!!! I never wanted to move back to the mid-west, but we did after the first quarter. Mom was not as estatic as I was about Cally. What still bothers me is that I never even got to say good-bye to my friends. I was on a plane the next day. I had nightmares for years about not being able to say good-bye. My therapist feels that might have been the first time I was heading down the road to depression. Maybe she's right. Who knows?

After my freshman year of high school, we moved again. This time to a very small town. I still continued to see my boyfriend from back home even though I was told I couldn't. My parents made it very clear how they felt about him. Well, I hated this town. It is still awful even today. I am not a small town girl; I'm just not. At any rate, I dated this boyfriend on and off for three years. My senior year things seemed to get better, and my boyfriend and I were back on. Well, my mother's comment of every time J. and I get together trouble happens was definitely true. My whole life was almost ruined. Afterwards, I woke up every day hating myself. I knew this time in was in a deep depression. When I talked with my mom, she told me I had to stop being so hard on myself. And then she took me to the mall. I wished she'd have taken me to a therapist instead. I never did like the shirt I picked out that day. Slowly things got better, though. I started dating a new guy and met new people. I started college the next year and immediately excelled. I was on an academic scholarship, and I maintained the grades to keep it which was good, considering I didn't have the money to pay for the college myself.

College was a good time in my life. I had moved on to new relationships and new experiences. I felt confident and proud. Life was good.

Two months after I graduated, I met Jeff and well, you know how that story ends. I began teaching and loved it. Then six months before our wedding, my mom was diagnosed with cancer and my world was never the same. To me the word cancer was just a synonym for death. Watching my mom through the five years she fought the disease, go through a mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiation and more just sucked the optimism right out of me. And if that didn't, the fact I couldn't get pregnant did. I kept thinking,'Oh, my God, my mom may not live to see my children.' She did live to see Steve, but of course, not Ryan. In Prozac Nation, when she talks about no one ever knowing the potency of her memories, I feel that way. Sometimes a memory of my mom's suffering comes over me and seems to suck the life right out of me. I can't get those memories out of my head, and I know that this contributes greatly to my depression. And I am just so angry that she ever had to go through that pain, this woman who dedicated her lives to helping others. This woman who went to church and sang in the choir, who always seemed to be able to see the bright side of things, who was always there for everyone. The room mother, the field trip volunteer, the brownie leader, the nurse, the mother. They say depression is anger turned inwards, and I tend to agree with this statement. The problem is I don't want to be angry. I want to let it go, not just bury it and pretend it doesn't exist. Jeff says I'm the strong one in this family, and I wonder if that's true. I also feel like the author of Prozac Nation when she wrote, 'My life has been one big longing.' I long for the time when I wasn't angry, when life was good, carefree. I long for the days when afternoons were spent picking plums from the trees, of swimming and four square, and wearing purple shirts because purple was the color that year in third grade. I long for a time when I loved and didn't worry about losing. I long for a time when I took for granted that my parents would always be there. I long for my childhood innocence that was lost. I long for a time when I could hear my mother's laughter. Mainly I long for a time when I was utterly and truly happy, and oblivious to death and cancer and pain.

So as my title line suggests, my journey continues. I will come out of this one day. I will never stop missing my mom of course, but I will come out of this. This drug, this therapy will help me. Until then, I will be the best mother, wife and person I can be. And yes mom, I will try to stop being so hard on myself.