swing low

I have been avoiding this blog like the plague for a long, long while. Maybe it's because I called it "Depression and Mania in Pennsylvania" and then I moved to Connecticut and the name no longer fit and everything seemed so rosy that I didn't feel like writing anymore. Maybe it's because I was finally stable for so, so long (which for me is 9 months). I really can't say why. I was wrapped up in the joy of being a mom and couldn't be bothered to drag myself down to thinking about my illness, let alone writing about it. I had gotten into such a beautiful groove as a mom and really, I didn't need anything bringing me down. I slowly started to wean of my medicine from April to September of 2014 and must have been on a hypomanic high the whole time under the guise of feeling completely normal. I managed a job change with my husband, and inter-state move, a new ward, a new apartment, and being a mom while still living far from family all with style and flair. I was doing so well with so little meds I honestly felt like I wasn't sick anymore. No need for an illness blog when you're cured, right?

Even the whole time I was pregnant and feeling completely miserable, I chalked up every bad feeling to the pregnancy and put the illness out my mind, subconsciously knowing it was waiting for me once my baby was here. And it was chomping at the bit the second he arrived.

My pregnancy with Beatrice was effortless and joyful, as were the first several months after her birth. My timing with her must have been fabulous because I was on a manic high the first four months of her life, needing virtually no sleep and feeling absolutely euphoric a majority of the time. Feeling like one should after bringing a life into this world. Again, instead of considering this could be a result of fortuitous timing, I chalked this up to pregnancy serenity hormones. The fact that I plummeted the week my menstrual cycles started up again seemed to confirm this theory. I spent April-December of 2013 spinning in and out of suicidal depression, numbness, and minimal functioning when I was finally stabilized in January of 2014. Of course, 2 months later, we were impressed that it was the time to start preparing for another child. Time for round two. Our final round.

My pregnancy with my sweet Oliver was, in a word, awful. I experienced horrible symptoms, was tired, unhappy, and uncomfortable the whole time, and as soon as 3 days after he was born, felt so low that I was making plans to end my life. It's been 8 weeks now and I still struggle with suicidal feelings several times a week. My meds have been tuned and tweaked several times but it seems like nothing will ever get me back to normal ever again, though deep down I know that it's possible because we've done it. Multiple times. 

But there are days where I look down at Oliver and the only thing I feel is guilt. Guilt that I've brought yet another child into the world who has to rely on someone as sick as me to be their mother. Guilt that I will spend days at a time unhappy with nothing anyone can do to help. Guilt that I may one day not be able to bear the exhaustion of my illness anymore and leave this world forever. The thoughts are so dark and horrible that I just hold my babies and cry. I spend more time like this than I care to admit. I lay awake at night weeping that I will just never be enough for these sweet children and that I've done them a horrible wrong by bringing them into this world. I'm sorry for being their mom. I wish I could die and that Bradley would find someone else, someone healthy, someone normal, someone happy, to step in and be their mom. He could have more than just the 2 children I could meagerly offer and grow a family with someone new. Someone better. Some nights I wish this so hard that I think of ways to set that plan in motion by eliminating myself.

I just had a series of very normal, wonderful days of being myself. Those days are so precious I can't even begin to describe. I like that person. I love that person. I miss that person. She is here so rarely anymore that when she is here, I constantly have this tugging in the back of my mind that she will be gone all too soon, in a flash, and I will be powerless, unable to bring her back, until she decides to randomly pop in again for a short while. Those periods have been so short since Oliver was born. I'm doing everything I can to prolong them but I am at the will and whims of the illness. The illness makes those decisions. Every day is a mystery. Will I wake up Caity? Old Caity, good Caity, happy, silly Caity whom I love? Will I be Super-Caity, who doesn't need to eat or sleep but can literally do anything that the world asks of her and more? Or will I be this empty shell of a person who is so separated and removed from that former person, that all she can do is grieve her loss? Not knowing is a crippling fear that is sometimes too much to bear. I sat yesterday, soaking in the joy of my children, my husband, my family, the beautiful weather and scenery, my beautiful life, in complete contentment, when suddenly I stopped and wondered, how much time do I have? Days? Hours? Minutes? When will I disappear again? How far? And for how long? This thought creeps into my mind every time I'm enjoying life's sweetest moments. It's unavoidable. And it's not going away. It's the fear that anyone without this ailment will never know, understand, or appreciate. I live at the will of this illness and at times, it paralyzes me with fear. No matter how good the good days get, or better yet, how normal the normal days get, I know the darkness awaits, following me and latching on and forcing me out when I least expect it.  I tried my best to soak in these past few days, the sweet ones, but they're gone now, I've been forced out, I'm the shell again, and I'm waiting for me to come back and be me again. And it's all I can do to stay alive until then.