July 4th weekend - my last days of any semblance of functioning. The baby and I ran away from home to visit family in Pitt. So needed, so perfect, so ahhhhh. I was a little scared to go away for the weekend without my husband. Nights were really difficult for me to deal with the baby: if I couldn't get her back to sleep quickly...3...2...1 meltdown for mom. I would yell, "why?!" and "what do you want from me" and inevitably start to cry about the baby hating me. I began to understand how shaking baby syndrome could really happen, and that was terrifying. Getting up at 5am to feed the baby and get ready for work made going to bed before 8 a reality, and still not enough. I never really slept between the pain and feedings. If my husband wasn't there to rock the baby back to sleep for me I don't know how I would have reacted.
For 3 days I didn't think about work or my home, the dogs or my obligations. I visited and enjoyed my baby, truely enjoyed my darling, for the first time in a couple months. She slept well...surprisingly...and we snuggled and played and neither of us had a meltdown the entire weekend. I felt empowered and capable. There's a lot to be said for the baby feeding off of the mother's emotions.
I didn't want to go back home. I was scared of pulling up to the house and running lost in my own levels of hell. Most of all I didn't want to think about going into the office for 5 days for 8 hours each. I knew I couldn't survive like this. I have a high threshold for pain - think drilled teeth without novacaine - and this pain was off the charts. There was no way to distinguish if the physical pain or mental pain superceeded the other or whether they merely fed one another. In either case, my world took on a sinister darkness that no one seemed to comprehend: not my husband, not my family, not my friends, not my employer; I had only felt so alone once before in my life, and that was the day my father died. What good was crying in group or at the therapist doing? What good were doctors if the tests they ran took too much time to diagnose and fix my physical ails? What good was I as a mother if I couldn't function for my daughter?
My return to the office full time also coincided with another arrow - my mother announcing that her unemployment was running out, she still couldn't find a job, would be selling our home of 32 years, and moving to Pittsburgh.
Flatline.
Now to be fair I should have been happy for my mother. She would be moving back to her childhood world, be close to her sister and the rest of her family, and afford to live more comfortably. In my mind, however, that did not translate. I couldn't accept that she would leave her first and only grandchild. I couldn't accept that the comfort of my childhood home would vanish with a signature. I felt betrayed. I lost my father. Then my family drifted apart. Now my mother was abandoning me. Yeah...the melodrama of my fractured mind began to play out a Wes Craven script. There was no way to comfort me. My mind taunted me with broken visions. I could barely breathe.
I grew up in a very greek, tight-knit family. The family was all-important, and nothing came above or interferred. We saw all our cousins weekly. All the holidays were scenes from A Big Fat Greek Wedding. And it was a sin to deviate from the family. As a teen I fought against this way of life, always criticizing my father's ways as being un-American. I believed that family would always be there, but the world outside the family was fleeting and I needed to chase those ideals or get left behind. They were so different, so freeing, so not the family. When my father passed I could never take back all that I lost with him because of my hellion days. When my father passed the family didn't survive the shock. And perhaps we felt some shame for taking it for granted. The family never recovered.
Now that I am a mother I want the family for my little girl. I want traditions and family every week and for her to know all her cousins as friends. I want her to celebrate both her Greek and her German heritages. With my mother moving and selling our family home my mind told me that the family had died. I know, rationally, that it is my duty to maintain those family relationships for my daughter. It is my responsibility to give her the family. What I pine over is an old symbol, not a family's funeral. But I can't get my mind to stay in that rational place...it runs away with horrible, hateful, fearful thoughts.
My firey temper just let itself loose. I hated everyone for not understanding. I had daily, sometimes hourly, panic attacks. No one, not even my husband, could break through my distress. But I had to continue each day like I was trying, like I cared, like I was positive. I failed all of the above: rage, condesending, spiteful, resentful fury overwhelmed my battered emotions. I lost myself and was on a path to self destruction.
My milk production began to suffer. I made mistakes regularly. I was forgetting even simple tasks both at home and at work. I felt myself fall into my head and let the abyss guide me.
28 October 2009
27 October 2009
Stalled
I...just...can't....do....it. I'm at the part where I try to talk about those early days back to the office for full days, and I just can't make myself do it. I still hurt and wince thinking about it. Here I am months later, thinking I have a grip on this thing, and the fog is lifting, and I stop.
The reality is that June was a blur. I was allowed to work 2 days from home and 3 days in the office from 7-3. Cake right? Right? Ummmm...right?
Every morning I snuggled close to my little angel. The sun came in through the shades and I fed her once more before dragging myself out of bed: dragging my painful body into an upright position. I hobbled down the steps and into the shower, took a handful of motrin and pepcid, packed my breakfast and lunch, drug myself back up the stairs, stared at her for a few more minutes then stummbled back down the stairs and out the door. Getting into the car was a chore, let alone the half hour drive sending pains throughout my lower half.
I was usually the first person into the office. I turned on my laptop, set up my pump in the privacy room and started my day. Usually I cried sitting at my desk for a bit - at least until the next early bird arrived - by then I would have to staple the smile across my face and pray I didn't have to get out of my chair too often that day. I mostly found myself struggling to concetrate on my work. I would take care of some emails and meetings, then suddenly be fighting back tears. I would yelp every time I had to stand up to go pump or deliver mail or go to a meeting, getting up and moving became an impossibility.
Those weeks in June came and went in less than a blink of an eye. Those lovely days at home I relished the extra hour of sleep and the personal feeding times. I was able to spend time actually working since I could limit my movements, thus limiting my pain, and I could steal special moments with my little girl. Then came the moment that 5 full days days a week in the office slapped me like an anvil. I paniced. There was no way. I couldn't stay home and I couldn't go to work: my world was being swallowed by an abyss.
I had found a local ppd group months earlier, but didn't want to think I couldn't do this on my own. I mean what choice did I really have. But my sisters and husband couldn't handle me any more and stopped putting it to me gently. The damage to my family became visible and almost irreconcilable. Even if just to keep the peace I had to make myself go. I went. I cried. I learned I wasn't the only one who had these feelings and lived in this fog and tried each day to wade though the darkness that consumed.
Now I found that teeny tiny bit of motivation to seek more help. I called a local doc and she ran a load of tests. She sent me to a spine doc who ran more tests. He sent me to a rheumatologist who ran more tests. Each one put another piece into the puzzle: SI joint dysfunction, bursitis, planters facitis, fibromyalgia, exhaustion, depression.
Before all the results were in I needed some help from anywhere. I couldn't afford to go on disability, so I reached out to see if I could get some support at work, perhaps I could continue with at least one day a week from home. I approached HR first since I thought that was the logical place to start. I don't know where everything went wrong, but very quickly my motivation and steps in the right direction were swallowed by the beast of working motherhood. My doctor's note wasn't accepted by HR and my boss was getting frustrated with my inability to function. I was told to consider myself lucky that I still had a job in this environment. I was scared and so beaten by the ppd that I couldn't fight back. Now I know I could have done more: persued additional medical support; spoken to an attorney even; but I felt like a child put in a time out. I couldn't open my mouth. I was afraid I would lose my job. I was terrified. And had no where left to turn.
I sobbed each afternoon on my way home. I sobbed each night falling asleep. I sobbed each morning on my drive in. And I sobbed all day at my desk, in the privacy room, and in the ladies room. I couldn't stop the tears. The tears spilled for the physical hurts, the mental hurts, all the pain the universe find assaulted me. I hated my life in every way...except for my beautiful angel...my only reason to live.
The reality is that June was a blur. I was allowed to work 2 days from home and 3 days in the office from 7-3. Cake right? Right? Ummmm...right?
Every morning I snuggled close to my little angel. The sun came in through the shades and I fed her once more before dragging myself out of bed: dragging my painful body into an upright position. I hobbled down the steps and into the shower, took a handful of motrin and pepcid, packed my breakfast and lunch, drug myself back up the stairs, stared at her for a few more minutes then stummbled back down the stairs and out the door. Getting into the car was a chore, let alone the half hour drive sending pains throughout my lower half.
I was usually the first person into the office. I turned on my laptop, set up my pump in the privacy room and started my day. Usually I cried sitting at my desk for a bit - at least until the next early bird arrived - by then I would have to staple the smile across my face and pray I didn't have to get out of my chair too often that day. I mostly found myself struggling to concetrate on my work. I would take care of some emails and meetings, then suddenly be fighting back tears. I would yelp every time I had to stand up to go pump or deliver mail or go to a meeting, getting up and moving became an impossibility.
Those weeks in June came and went in less than a blink of an eye. Those lovely days at home I relished the extra hour of sleep and the personal feeding times. I was able to spend time actually working since I could limit my movements, thus limiting my pain, and I could steal special moments with my little girl. Then came the moment that 5 full days days a week in the office slapped me like an anvil. I paniced. There was no way. I couldn't stay home and I couldn't go to work: my world was being swallowed by an abyss.
I had found a local ppd group months earlier, but didn't want to think I couldn't do this on my own. I mean what choice did I really have. But my sisters and husband couldn't handle me any more and stopped putting it to me gently. The damage to my family became visible and almost irreconcilable. Even if just to keep the peace I had to make myself go. I went. I cried. I learned I wasn't the only one who had these feelings and lived in this fog and tried each day to wade though the darkness that consumed.
Now I found that teeny tiny bit of motivation to seek more help. I called a local doc and she ran a load of tests. She sent me to a spine doc who ran more tests. He sent me to a rheumatologist who ran more tests. Each one put another piece into the puzzle: SI joint dysfunction, bursitis, planters facitis, fibromyalgia, exhaustion, depression.
Before all the results were in I needed some help from anywhere. I couldn't afford to go on disability, so I reached out to see if I could get some support at work, perhaps I could continue with at least one day a week from home. I approached HR first since I thought that was the logical place to start. I don't know where everything went wrong, but very quickly my motivation and steps in the right direction were swallowed by the beast of working motherhood. My doctor's note wasn't accepted by HR and my boss was getting frustrated with my inability to function. I was told to consider myself lucky that I still had a job in this environment. I was scared and so beaten by the ppd that I couldn't fight back. Now I know I could have done more: persued additional medical support; spoken to an attorney even; but I felt like a child put in a time out. I couldn't open my mouth. I was afraid I would lose my job. I was terrified. And had no where left to turn.
I sobbed each afternoon on my way home. I sobbed each night falling asleep. I sobbed each morning on my drive in. And I sobbed all day at my desk, in the privacy room, and in the ladies room. I couldn't stop the tears. The tears spilled for the physical hurts, the mental hurts, all the pain the universe find assaulted me. I hated my life in every way...except for my beautiful angel...my only reason to live.
08 October 2009
Time is the enemy
Three weeks left of maternity leave, why have we done this to ourselves? It's the moments like this that I long for the 1950s Leave it to Beaver world. Life seemed so simple then, and mom got to stay home and bake and raise her family. Then again, I know. I know that's not how it really works: that world is fantacized and romanticized. I can comfort myself that at least these last three weeks I get to work from home save one day a week where I can pop into the office for 4 hours and take care of office type things.
PJs, slippers, cup of dacaf coffee...beep...laptop booting up. The baby is napping in the bassinet and I figure I have about 2 hours before she wakes and wants fed and play time. Thousands of emails...I went through most of these via blackberry so the number doesn't scare me as it should. I spend the next two hours deleting and filing and forwarding and send out question emails about if something had already been taken care of. Not too bad. I'm happy that my little angel is stirring so I get a break from the real world for a few minutes.
The first day was ok. No real phone calls or meetings or disasters to clean up. I can do this. HR made me promise that I would set aside specific time to work so that my FMLA can stay properly documented...so off with the blackberry and shut down the laptop. Sigh. Now snuggles and nap for mommy.
Day two made a few calls, spoke to my boss and tried to get my brain to think w o r k again: a harder task than I imagined. It seems that all my muti-tasking skills and elephant's memory have vanished. I catch myself making...gasp...mistakes. It's only day 2...I can't beat myself up, and I really don't have the strength even if I wanted to. I'm too tired. My precious angel still thinks 2 hour feedings are the bomb and the pain in my body is raging. I'm grateful that I have this slow return...I can't take a full day in the office even if I tried.
And then day 3 arrives. I need to trek to the office to handle supply orders and fedex and see what piles are cluttering my desk from the temp. Shower. O sweet shower. The water rushes over me and I feel able and strong. I don't want to ever leave this beautiful shower...ahhhh. Now the fun part...presentable office clothes...umm...not. I don't fit into any of my pants. I pull on a pair of post maternity jeans 4 sizes larger than before the mommy me and one of my maternity tops - good thing empire waist is still all the rage. It's only 4 hours and our office is more casual than anything.
Little beauty is awake and begging for food. I'm anxious to feed her because I'll be away for more hours than I have so far. I want to hold her and nuzzle so that sweet smell can get me through the coming hours apart. I can't put her down. Hubby is encouraging me to head out so that I can get home fast, but I can't. I just can't. Here comes the wave. As I start to cry so does the baby: now I really can't leave. Hubby takes the baby from my arms, gives me a kiss, and sends me out the door.
The car ride is awful. I didn't realize the pain would be worse driving. My trip was only 30 minutes since I waited until after rush hour, but the searing pain makes it impossible to get out of the car when I arrive. It takes me about 20 minutes to gather my laptop bag and pump and purse and make my way into the building and up the elevator, collapsing at my desk.
I forgot how quiet the office can be. It amazes me that with an office of 30 people there are never more than 10 on any given day. I can hear the air conditioner buzzing and realize that it is quieter here than at home. Almost a nice break. I sit at my desk and stare at the booting computer screen. I wonder if my sweet pea fell asleep when I left? How will she do feeding from the bottle while I'm gone? Will she miss me? Will she do anything new while I'm away? I feel the tears coming back, shake my head, and get some water from the kitchen.
Everyone says hello as they pass me and ask about the baby. I smile and show some pictures, and fight back my leaky eyes. The pain in my back, hips and legs is unbearable now. I didn't comprehend how much less movement I had at home nor did I expect that getting in and out of my desk chair would bring me to my knees each time. I hurredly managed to order paper, kitchen and general office supplies, say hello to everyone and left. I made it three hours and figured I can work the last hour from home.
I sobbed the entire way home and didn't put the baby down until dawn the next morning.
PJs, slippers, cup of dacaf coffee...beep...laptop booting up. The baby is napping in the bassinet and I figure I have about 2 hours before she wakes and wants fed and play time. Thousands of emails...I went through most of these via blackberry so the number doesn't scare me as it should. I spend the next two hours deleting and filing and forwarding and send out question emails about if something had already been taken care of. Not too bad. I'm happy that my little angel is stirring so I get a break from the real world for a few minutes.
The first day was ok. No real phone calls or meetings or disasters to clean up. I can do this. HR made me promise that I would set aside specific time to work so that my FMLA can stay properly documented...so off with the blackberry and shut down the laptop. Sigh. Now snuggles and nap for mommy.
Day two made a few calls, spoke to my boss and tried to get my brain to think w o r k again: a harder task than I imagined. It seems that all my muti-tasking skills and elephant's memory have vanished. I catch myself making...gasp...mistakes. It's only day 2...I can't beat myself up, and I really don't have the strength even if I wanted to. I'm too tired. My precious angel still thinks 2 hour feedings are the bomb and the pain in my body is raging. I'm grateful that I have this slow return...I can't take a full day in the office even if I tried.
And then day 3 arrives. I need to trek to the office to handle supply orders and fedex and see what piles are cluttering my desk from the temp. Shower. O sweet shower. The water rushes over me and I feel able and strong. I don't want to ever leave this beautiful shower...ahhhh. Now the fun part...presentable office clothes...umm...not. I don't fit into any of my pants. I pull on a pair of post maternity jeans 4 sizes larger than before the mommy me and one of my maternity tops - good thing empire waist is still all the rage. It's only 4 hours and our office is more casual than anything.
Little beauty is awake and begging for food. I'm anxious to feed her because I'll be away for more hours than I have so far. I want to hold her and nuzzle so that sweet smell can get me through the coming hours apart. I can't put her down. Hubby is encouraging me to head out so that I can get home fast, but I can't. I just can't. Here comes the wave. As I start to cry so does the baby: now I really can't leave. Hubby takes the baby from my arms, gives me a kiss, and sends me out the door.
The car ride is awful. I didn't realize the pain would be worse driving. My trip was only 30 minutes since I waited until after rush hour, but the searing pain makes it impossible to get out of the car when I arrive. It takes me about 20 minutes to gather my laptop bag and pump and purse and make my way into the building and up the elevator, collapsing at my desk.
I forgot how quiet the office can be. It amazes me that with an office of 30 people there are never more than 10 on any given day. I can hear the air conditioner buzzing and realize that it is quieter here than at home. Almost a nice break. I sit at my desk and stare at the booting computer screen. I wonder if my sweet pea fell asleep when I left? How will she do feeding from the bottle while I'm gone? Will she miss me? Will she do anything new while I'm away? I feel the tears coming back, shake my head, and get some water from the kitchen.
Everyone says hello as they pass me and ask about the baby. I smile and show some pictures, and fight back my leaky eyes. The pain in my back, hips and legs is unbearable now. I didn't comprehend how much less movement I had at home nor did I expect that getting in and out of my desk chair would bring me to my knees each time. I hurredly managed to order paper, kitchen and general office supplies, say hello to everyone and left. I made it three hours and figured I can work the last hour from home.
I sobbed the entire way home and didn't put the baby down until dawn the next morning.
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