A little intro...

It's funny I actually wanted to name this blog "Stand Up and Fight", but my husband told me it was dumb and it sounded like a Women's Lib Movement. I just laughed and realized he was kinda right. I am all about equal rights for all, but this is definitely not a women's lib blog thats for sure! :) So to be honest, I don't even know where to start.  I feel like I have so many emotions on my mind and in my heart that I could seriously take this blog post in a thousand different directions.  I have so much I want to say, but I guess I just have to start somewhere. 

I like to view my life in two distinct parts.  The first would be from birth on up until December 17th, 2011 and then the rest would be everything after. That may sound weird, but I think sometimes we have something so profound happen, that it changes the way we think and feel about everything.  That is what happened to me.  I found out I was pregnant with our first on July 16th, 2011.  That was a pretty profound day as well.  Of course we were overyjoyed with happiness and I already knew that I loved that little growing baby inside of me more than anything on Earth.  On the flip side, the minute I found out I was pregnant I started experiencing an anxiety that I really can't describe.  Knowing that I was totally responsible for this tiny human inside of me was almost more than I could handle.  It was from that moment forward that my OCD really took control of the steering wheel, and the downward spiral began. 

By downward spiral, please know that being pregnant for me and knowing I was pregnant was the happiest, biggest blessing I could have ever hoped for!!!! We were ready to get pregnant and basically said ok let's start trying and bam we got pregnant! It happened so fast and I realized how greatly blessed we were to conceive almost immediately.  However, when this should have been the happiest time of my life, I started going into a deep depression almost from the moment we found out.

Now this really was no surprise to me, as I had been struggling with anxiety and depression since my freshmen year in college.  However, with the right medication I had managed to get in under control at least most of the time. I also knew I needed to slowly wean off of my medication in the first trimester, but I didn't listen and stopped cold turkey.  Stopping my meds so abruptly along with the pregnany hormones and intesne morning sickness, it was no wonder I was headed into a deep and dark depression that lasted for months. Which ironically made me even more depressed, because I felt like the biggest ungrateful brat. Here I was with a great husband, a great family, and a soon to be baby and I hated life. I hate even saying that I hated life, but I did.

There is so much to this story that I really can't type it all.  Nor do I really want to.  Even thinking about that time in my life raises my blood pressure. The pit in my stomach comes back and that awful feeling of anxiety that tightens your chest and makes your palms sweaty returns. So let me just put it this way, I have always always had obsessive compulsive disorder. What OCD is not, is someone that is overaly anal about being organized and having their hangers all in the right direction, color coding their closet, and counting over and over.  Yes, those may be compulsive behaviors- but true OCD is extrememly mental and you cannot see it happening to someone.  You may see the look on their face change, their composure change, it may seem like they are in a world of their own and when you look at them they see right through you.  OCD is scary.  OCD is time consuming and OCD is an anxiety driven monster that takes you through the depths of the burning flames of hell and back in your own mind.  OCD is hard to control, because it is technically your own mind doing this to you.  You are  in a war against yourself and your brain.  And believe me, that is one messed up war. 

As my pregnancy continued and the warm summer months turned into winter my OCD was slowly starting to take over my life.  I was averaging about two hours of sleep at night, because it had created horrible insomnia.  Imagine listening to a record that keeps skipping on a certain part... over and over and over again.  No matter what you do or how you try to fix it, take the record out, unplug the cord, throw the record player against the wall, drive over the record player with a semi, the record won't stop.  Now imagine that being your thoughts.  That you have this one distressing thought that you can't get out of your head.  You don't want it there, you don't agree, and you can't get it to leave. Whether or not you know that this thought is even rational doesn't matter, because you are completely sucked in.  You can't sleep, you have no appetite, taking a  shower, brushing your teeth, and changing your clothes are like running a marathon.  Getting to work without tears streaming down your face is the ultimate challenge.  Being able to be at work and be in the present moment is nearly impossible.  You see with OCD you are never "in the present moment." It is like that with depression as well.  You are always either stuck in the past or stuck in the future, but you are never just in the here and now.  One of the biggest tools I have learned when I am in an OCD epsidode as my doctor calls them or having a really anxious day, is to just stop. Stop what you are doing and look around.  Realize where you are, what you are doing, what your surroundings are, the time on the clock and the date on the calander.  Realize you are breathing and your heart is beating and that essentially everything really is okay.  If you can do that- even for five minutes- it helps snap you back into reality.  You may head right back into that deep dark hole again, but at least for five minutes. For those sweet beautiful five minutes, the sun is shining, the world is turning, and things are somewhat normal. In that little bit of normalcy you get a break... A break from your mind.

As December approprached, I was entering the third trimester of my pregnancy.  I had still been refusing to get back on a anti-depressant even at the advice of my doctor.  I went to work everyday and somehow by the grace of God got things done.  I know I wasn't the person that they hired or the co-worker my friends knew, but I got up, dressed up, and showed up.  This picture below is just a few days before I was admitted to the psychiatic unit at the hospital.  I still remember taking that picture.  I was in so much pain.  I was happy to be with my sweet husband and having dinner at one of our favorite resteraunts with our friends, but I truly and honestly had a pain that I cannot describe.  It didn't matter how many people I was with or how many people were at that resteraunt, I felt utterly and completely alone.  Alone in my mind, alone in my own personal hell.

That next week when I was at work, I basically just lost it.  I went in the bathroom stall and just sobbed.  Why was this happening to me? Why can't I just be normal? Why can't I just be happy and look like all the happy pregnant women in the magazines? Why can't I sleep? Why can't I turn my brain off? Why do these thoughts just keep coming? Why, why, why, why???? I just wanted to scream. In fact later that day I went to my parents house and just started screaming. I had panic attack after panic attack and just wanted to throw the towl in.  I didn't want to live like this any longer.  However, I knew that was not an option!!! I hated that I felt that way!!! I knew how much I loved that little baby growing inside of me and how much I loved my family and husband, that no matter how much I hated myself I had to keep on going.  That I couldn't give up and that somewhere, somehow, I had to find hope.  Even just a spec of hope would do, but that it was imperative that I find it, and that I find it fast.  At that moment I was rushed to the Emergency Room- I think they all thought I was in labor at first and oh how I wished I could tell them that was my reason for being there.  Instead I told them that I felt like I was literally going crazy. After a few hours in the emergecy room they had made plans to transfer me to the psychiatric unit at another hospital. I was scared, and tired, and overwhelmed, but I had completely hit rock bottom.  I knew this was something I had to do, not just for me, but for my baby, and my husband.  I knew that whatever was going on was definitely something I couldn't fix on my own and that I needed help.  I needed professional help.  I knew I had to get better so I could be the mom I  so desperately wanted to be and that this baby deserved.  And here we are at December 17th, 2011.  It was cold and storming outside.  We left the hospital in Stillwater and went back to our house for me to pack my bag.  Chris felt helpless and naturally as a man was frustrated he could not fix the situation.  We pulled into the hospital and he walked me upstairs.  I was terrified.  I had no idea what I was walking into. 

They buzzed us in the lock down unit and pretty much everything after that is a blur.  I remember how cold I was, and the feeeling of the cold floor on my feet when they had me take off my shoes.  I remember all these other people sitting in a lounge of some sort and all of the blank cement walls. I remember them taking me to this room that had plastic windows and nothing hanging from the walls. They took my phone away and Chris was escorted out.  I sat on my bed, in my tiny cold room, pregnant, gripping my legs, and the tears wouldn't stop falling down my face.  I was there for the next 4-5 days.  Although those were hands down the most difficult days of my entire life thus far, it was the best thing that ever happened to me.  For the very first time in my life, a Doctor finally got it right.  I finally got a diagnosis, a reason, and explanation for why I had felt a certain way for as long as I could remember.  I finally got a textbook answer and the doctor handed me a bunch of printed out papers with all this information about OCD.  As I sat there and listened to him and read the material, I felt such a huge sense of relief.  I was not alone, I wasn't going crazy, I was going to get better, and there was an actual psychological reason I was going through this expereince. 

That day my friends was the start of the rest of my life.  That day gave me hope.  It was a game changer. It was a true gift from God.  There was light again. I could see it, and I could feel it.  That dark hole was getting easier to crawl out of and I felt peace for the first time.  I felt contentment.  You see fear, depression, anxiety, and all of those other negative emotions are from the Adversary.  I believe in a God of love.  I believe that hope, peace, happiness, contentment, the lack of fear, but yet confidence for tomorrow is from Jesus Christ himself.  If you are not a religious person, I respect that...but a key part of my story and recovery is from my deeply rooted faith in God.  However, know this.  Know that there is always hope. There will always be hope.  If you feel like there is absolutely no hope left, dig for it. Ask for it. Beg for it.  Ask your friends and family to help you find hope.  Find a doctor, and get down on your knees.  Hope is the answer. Once you can find it, you can truly start to live again. And believe me this is one beatiful life and you DESERVE to live it.