Recovery......

 I have neglected this blog more than even my art website… why?  Why, because I couldn’t write anymore…why? Because I thought I was already at the bottom and it turned out I wasn’t. I look back at that fog; I look back incredibly confused as to how the family and I coped.

 My husband, how  did he do it ? I was distant, cold, fragile, unpredictable, removed; trapped in an internal battle fighting tears and the urge to….. well, to do so much that doesn’t bare thinking about, does it. I was afraid: afraid to drive the car, leave the house, be near glass…..

 Which is why I didn’t write.

I tried sunshine, naturopathy, large amounts of steak, exercise, endless distracting telephone calls to friends and family and massive quantities of sleep.  It all helped…a bit. Some days I’d be well- happy even- coping almost.  And for a while, for a couple of days, (once even nine days in a row), I thought it was over. I saw a psychologist; Felicity was wonderfully supportive and taught me heaps. I found a new doctor: one who didn’t just throw me a prescription, but was happy to guide me through a process. Though she did make me agree that if she felt I was suicidal she got the final say on treatment….I agreed: she did. I read most of Buddhism for Mothers. I wrote, I rested, I didn’t leave the house. But the black kept rearing its ugly head...just as I would think I had it beat:  a raging despondency that saw me locked in my room….  and we all got tireder and tireder. So,  I went to my doctor, rang a perinatal pharmacist  and I came home with a packet of tiny pills and I faced my fear.

My fear that the side effects would be worse then what I was suffering. That it was better the devil I know. That’s what my fear was…..not weakness… I think. Not that I had given up….. I think…..not that people would judge me…I think

And then the most miraculous thing happened, (not really, it’s called modern science and involves many clever people….,) but my half a tablet made me feel better immediately. I mean immediately: there was a slight nausea, a slight headache, a slight whooshing feeling when I stood up, but there wasn’t the tiredness and here was no edge of abyss hovering just there, just out of sight…none of that . No weight , no darkness. I could think and make choices and I stopped sweating every move I made. I could function. I was ME!

Me! all those large, cumbersome,  honourably, intentioned multivitamins and there I was trapped in half a sugary white pill….. The relief was utterly, utterly immense. And over the next few days I unravelled from my tight coil of tension and began to connect back to the world. To my children. To my husband. To the sky and the ground and the world.

People stopped me in the street saying “geez your looking well”,  I live in a country town  people do that here. I hadn”t realised how drawn and pale and taught I had looked.  My husband kept looking at me sideways, “it’s you, isn’t it?...your back”. He gave me a week to be sure….then he purged all the pent up tension he had. His worry, his fear: for me, for us.  We hugged, we touched, we kissed and together we began rebuilding.

My children’s shoulders dropped. We started to have fun together, we hugged more: it felt right. We left the house. And the family began to heal: for the first time I could enjoy the pregnancy. I loved my incubating child’s internal rumblings, I looked forward to it joining our clan: to loving it.

I still saw Felicity but I stopped having as much to say. I stopped fearing whether I could mother three kids, whether I could cope. I didn’t need to call people as often. I still needed to manage the tiredness and to rest and to not take on too much. I tearily pulled out of all art commitments: all exhibitions and commissions. But after the initial heartache I grew to be proud of my decision …to revel in the idea of creative play. To realise without anger that my role, my life needed to just hang with the family and our friends and place no demands upon myself.

Which is why I didn’t write

I have written this piece so that I might tell you that with bub arriving by the seventh (no later). I am well. Tired, but no longer afraid. It’s a good place to be.