Story #85 - Cristina, Bowie MD (USA) - COVID, Perinatal Mood Disorders, Mental Health Care, Feminism & Finding our Independence
My youngest kid is three, and my oldest, five.
I'm still grappling and working through my own issues with depression. I've suffered from it since I was 17 and becoming a mother exasperated the symptoms. It also brought back difficulties I'd buried deeply and brushed off for so long.
It wasn't so apparent with my first because I was still working. Going back to work had allowed me to sustain a connection with other adults. My daughter was in daycare, and if I needed, I could take the afternoon off to attend appointments or have space for myself. My partner and I also used to have an equal share of the domestic charge. Now, it's different.
We live in Bowie, MD, because DC is too expensive. After having our second child, we decided that I would stay home because daycare would have consumed my whole income.
It took me about six months to realize how bad I was feeling.
I had been working since I was 15, and, suddenly, I had completely lost my independence. It's hard to wrap my head around the fact that I now have two little ones who are dependent on me, all while being in a position where I myself am financially dependent on a man.
Those two things—not being able to come and go as I want and financial dependency—are an incredibly difficult pill to swallow.
When my oldest was two, I remember already feeling overwhelmed by motherhood. I would yell at her. It still makes me cry as I tell this story to you because my reactions were horrible. I hate that I was like that towards her, and I have so much guilt about it.
At the time, I had to wait for my husband's new health insurance coverage to start going to therapy and take medication. I knew I needed it based on my previous struggles with depression. I'm aware it's always going to be there one way or another, so I have to be mindful of how much I'm letting it affect me.
Most of the time, these episodes would happen when my husband was traveling for work. He was away a lot, usually for a week or two at a time. I'd single parent, try to stay afloat, and tell him that I needed help when he'd come back. Physically, emotionally, and mentally, I was drained.
I began therapy one year ago now, and I see a huge difference. I've learned how trauma had affected me as a woman, wife, and mother who has dealt with insecurity her whole life.
For example, I spent the last week [at the beginning of the quarantine] alone. My husband was traveling, and I could feel I was internally melting. I didn't want to interact with my children and shifted to a "fight or flight" mode. I "had to" push through it because I was alone, and no one could come and help. When he got home yesterday, I was finally able to breathe a little. He took over and put them to bed. But paradoxically, I also have a hard time letting him do these things. Letting go of our routine and the "fight" mode to rest. It's a challenge.
My husband is secret service with the Department of commerce. He also worked in the Air force. When I became pregnant, he left the military and started working as a civilian. For our first baby, he was doing 9 to 5, which was lovely. Now, he switched back to a role with an irregular schedule, but two kids added to the mix. There's a bit of resentment there. I was such an independent woman before. He still has his freedom and adult interactions at work. When he drives back home, he has alone time with his thoughts. For me, it's the opposite: I'm always on. There are no 20 minutes to self-reflect while listening to the radio. We've had to work through that too, and he does understand now that I've explained my needs.
My mom doesn't understand why I'm such a feminist. It's generational, I suppose. She had to anticipate everyone's needs and put dinner on the table every night. To me, marriage is something that should be equal. We use the same amount of toilet paper, and both spouses produce the same amount of dirty clothes! Luckily, my husband understands. He had a stepfather who taught him that partnership means that you do everything together.
He tries to make it up to me by getting me a hotel room once in a while. Because of his job, he's earning a lot of miles and points, and he uses them to book a room so I can sleep and watch TV by myself, not being responsible for anything. We take that space for granted before we have children or decide to make a transition from working to stay-at-home mother.
Another coping mechanism we had found to be effective before the quarantine was to put the kids in school half of the day. I could go exercise, and then we'd meet with friends two or three times a week to have playdates. It was a way to do stuff as a family, see other parents, and stay busy. I've learned that "staying busy" keeps me away from the dark hole of "I can't function." I've never been suicidal, but I've felt many times the desire to walk out. Some days are simply so overwhelming that I want to withdraw from all responsibilities.
With COVID, everything changed.
(Family photo)
It's so difficult not to be able to do these things with the kids. They were used to their routine, and I feel I'm letting them down. That routine wasn't only for them, but for me, too. Mommies need their playdates as much as the children.
Sometimes, I turn on music for dance sessions so I can sit there and zone out while they're over there having fun, but that's been incredibly difficult.
I have interactions with my husband, which I guess count as socialization, but I find myself on the phone all the time—scrolling through social media endlessly. I'm not proud of these coping mechanisms. Like, what am I showing my children? That my phone is more important than them? It's going to flip on me at some point, and I don't want to set a precedent at such a young age.
I take antidepressant daily and anxiety meds as needed. Nowadays, I take them more during the week because they're bored or the weather isn't nice enough. Entertaining them is sometimes too much. I've had anxiety attacks that started during my pregnancy, and they come back whenever there's a stressful situation. It's not something that used to happen to me before. Although it's frequent for women to develop depression or anxiety disorders during their pregnancy, it's not talked about as much as postpartum depression.
For example, when I was pregnant, there were times when I couldn't breathe and had to go to the hospital. It was so scary. After birth, I noticed that certain situations strike a nerve. I remember walking into my kids' playroom and seeing toys covering the entire floor. I could feel myself about to burst like soda out of a can. I was crying and yelling about the toys that needed to go back into the bins.
Before I had children, I could go out for a run or remove myself from the stressor. I had the choice to walk away and leave. You are stripped of this option when you become a parent, and it can be incredibly distressing.
I had to find other technics to help when I feel like I'm about to explode. One that works fairly well is the 10-seconds reset. I count or remove myself and close my eyes for 10 seconds. It makes my children realize that they have been pushing boundaries, and it helps everyone to reset. My daughter is especially sensitive to this. A couple of days ago, I was on the phone, and they were bickering. I asked them multiple times to lower their voice, but they didn't. I did the 10-seconds reset and told them to finish their dinner and go straight to bed.
When I went to tuck them in, my daughter was upset. She said, "I'm sorry I upset you." She was able to gather herself and feel sorry for the way she acted. It was not because I made her do it, but because I showed her that it's ok to have feelings and express them before you're kicking and screaming to the point that it hurts.
To be able to stop and ask yourself why you're so angry or feeling so many emotions isn't work that I've done alone. I'm a year into therapy and self-reflection that has helped problem-solving.
It’s still a challenge, but to know that I don't have to do it all helped me crawl out of this space. It's ok not to cook. It's ok not to be perfect. In the end, cereals are a perfectly acceptable dinner.