Mom is Just a Nickname

I’ve dealt with chronic depression ever since I was a teenager.  It’s often related to lack of sunlight, so it hits worse in the winter, but it’s not always to do with that.  Maybe it’s hormones.  I’m not really sure.  For all I know, it’s a food allergy.

What I do know, clearly and with intimate detail, is the way I feel when I’m in a low spot.  It’s starts to feel like I’m wading through pea soup fog.  It starts to feel like I’m all alone in the universe, that no one can help me and no one even CARES enough to help me.

Now, considering that I’ve got a wonderful husband who I’m quite sure loves me as well as two children who hang on me for attention every chance they get, I’m pretty sure (when I’m thinking rationally) that there are at least three people in the world who do care.  When I think logically, I realize that I have a large and loving family who cares, as well as many friends who love me.

The fog does not allow for rational or logical thinking.  It chews up all common sense and spits it out.  It blinds me to everything that I know is true in my world.  It even fouls the way I feel about other people.  So, I could be sitting there, sobbing my eyes out, drenching my husband’s shoulder as he holds me close.  But still, I’d feel totally alone and bereft.  Still, I’d be unable to tell that the love we’ve shared for ten years is not something that will fade away, that it’s not something that will break simply because I didn’t have the dishes done before he got home that particular day.  There is no logic to my thinking when the fog envelops me.

It’s frightening to realize how disconnected I do get.  When I can look back to the times when the fog in my brain was thickest, it all seems unreal.  I scoff that anyone could ever think like that, feel like that. Certainly, I couldn’t!  Certainly, I’m not depressed.  (Oh, a voice whispers in my ear, you know better!)  I tell myself I’m not so deep in the fog that I need to be on drugs like Wellbutrin or Zoloft.  I tell myself that a therapist would be of no use to me. I tell myself that I speak from experience there since not a single therapist I’ve ever gone to has ever been helpful.

The voice of reason, these days, breaks through the fog and speaks through my husband.  “Take the medicines. See the doctor. Go to the therapist.”  He must be sick of saying these things over and over for the last ten years, with mixed results.  At some point, he’ll get tired of supporting my black and blue spirit.  Ah. See, in that one sentence, I can see the breath of the fog sliding into my mind.  That’s how it works.  It insinuates itself into my otherwise rational thoughts, corrupting all that I think.

The fog itself doesn’t scare me.  It’s not even the low self esteem, the loneliness or the bitterness that bothers me (aside from the fact that they frustrate me!).  What bothers me is that I always wonder if or when the fog will ever drift lower than it has in years (since before my marriage).  It bothers to me to wonder if this period of depression will be the one that begins me on a journey of inflicting pain on myself, of physically punishing myself for being alone, of deciding that this family I’ve been nurturing for ten years no longer needs me and it’s time for me to move along and leave them to a life that is unblemished by the likes of me.

These thoughts scare me.  These are the thoughts that drive me to once more take the meds, see the doctors and try the therapists.  Maybe this time, one of these things will actually work.

Every one had a lot of good things to say in response to the post, “Is it Right to Submit to Motherhood?”  The words written struck me with a certain level of trepidation.  They made me wonder, am I approaching this motherhood thing the right way? 

Well, of course, I’m trying to change the way I’ve been coming at it for the last ten years.  Jenna suggested that motherhood was more of a “taking on another role, another part of who I am.”  Those words struck me as significant.  Motherhood is a role I play. It is not the only role I play, no matter how the last ten years might seem.

 Virginia said, “I expect respect of my time and space, just like she expects that from us.”  Stacie echoed her, “we all have rights and need our quiet time and personal space and pursuits.” Although my children don’t always respect my boundaries, as evidenced by how rarely I can pee without someone walking into the bathroom, they do try.  I’m doing my best to make the boundaries of my time and space clear, but with a four year old, I still have to be available for him quite often.  I can’t lose myself in my writing for hours on end, forgetting about lunch or snacks or play or all of those other things that are so important in his world.  I do, at times, do things the kids aren’t happy about and I tell them, “Look, it’s my turn.  If you don’t want to do this with me, go do something by yourself in your room.”  Usually, they end up staying by me.  My kids don’t seem to expect to have time and space to themselves.  They would far rather be doing things as a family than off by themselves.  And actually, I rather like that about my family right now.  I like that my kids WANT to spend time as a family.  I just need to find some way(s) to carve obvious family time and then ask for privacy at other times.  That is a challenging thing to do.  I just have this feeling that the days of happy family time are numbered as my oldest approaches her teenage years.

And finally, there’s Annie.  Her words reverberated through me.  I tried so many times to respond to her words, but I never knew what to say exactly.  Here’s her comment, in full:

i suppose its right to “submit” if at the end of it, you want a little dictator who thinks her or his needs come before her mother’s. i find the word “submit” offensive any time any one applies it to me. i don’t submit to anything for any reason. (i may agree and go along) nor do i define myself as the mother of anyone else. i am a person who happens to be a mother. my goal for myself as a mother and for my children is to create independent, functional, healthy adults. it is not to make my children happy or to create an illusion of a world that simply is not realistic. my goal is to give my children tools to cope and succeed in the world in which they are going to find themselves. to that end, part of the lesson they need to learn is that other people have needs. if i don’t teach my children that i, the rock at the center of their world, have needs – who else will? teaching a child that the parent has needs validates the child’s own needs.

To address the first part, although my children do have free access to me at just about any time of the day or night, they are not dictators.  [I realize you probably weren't aiming that straight at me, Annie, but I feel I must respond.]  My children are often complimented on their nice manners, their pleasant attitudes and their kindness to others.  They are thoughtful, considerate and sweet.  I feel I must be doing something right when so many people over the years have said the same thing about my children.

I hesitated to use the word “submit” since I also find the use of it generally unappealing and offensive.  I do not willingly submit to much of anything.  I either agree and go along, or I speak up.  I guess that means that at some point when I transitioned from me to mom, I agreed and went along with it.  Now, I find myself disagreeing with that view of myself and I’m speaking up.

I do define myself as the mother of three children.  Three children.  I only have two with me today, so I have found that saying “Mother of three” is almost the only way to show that one of my children has died.  He is not a bad memory I sweep under the rug, however I can’t rightly say that I have three children.  I do not. It’s a very confusing dynamic of words, and saying “Mother of Three” has become a way for me to express my deceased child’s impact on my life.

The rest of Annie’s words, I have no quibble with.  I also am striving to teach my children to function in a world greater than themselves.  I do my best to instill a respect for others, and I realize that should include myself.  I’m unsure of how to instill that respect for ‘me time’ though.  I welcome suggestions.  That is, after all, a large part of what I’m searching about here.

How does a mother separate herself from her children and their needs?  How does a mother teach them to respect her time, space and pursuits?

I’m lost. Lost in my children.  Lost in their wants, their needs, their activities, their days.  I’m lost in the way they think, in the way they act, in the way they learn.  Becoming lost in them was a natural occurrence.  Most moms I know have done it.  Even as our children were slowly distinguishing themselves as individuals, we were walking an opposite path into the world of interdependence.

I woke up one day and wondered who I really was.  All I could think of is, “I’m a mom.”  Surely, my brain said, surely I’m more than just a mom! Surely I have interests outside of motherhood!  But I didn’t.  Every single thing I’d taken the time to learn about in the years I’d been a mother had  to do with  some aspect of my children or motherhood.  I became knowledgeable about birth, breastfeeding, diapering alternatives, child development, child entertainment…well, the list goes on.  The things I used to spend hours caring about had fallen to the wayside.

I didn’t do crafts anymore, not even child related crafts!  I didn’t read much that couldn’t be put down easily (a la magazines or Harlequins) and I didn’t go anywhere unless it was a child-friendly place.  I couldn’t have a conversation about current world events, politics or even recent movies.  All of my conversation topics centered around my kids; and let’s face it, most people don’t want to hear about my kids’ latest illness or potty training successes!

I realized that I had lost myself in my children; I had let my role as their mother define who I am as a person.

This discovery has led me to a new season of my life and new chances to grow.  Since beginning on this new path, I’ve learned how to make jewelry, how to paint a mural, how to knit and I’m learning other things every day.  When I go to the library, I search out new genres of books, I pick books from the nonfiction section, I seek out things I don’t know about so that I can learn.

Through the process of learning new things, I’m learning about who I am. I relearning what I find enjoyable for myself, instead of for my kids.  I’m relearning all of the joys of living life as a person, not just as a Mom.