Don’t Fall Apart This Fall…

The kids are back in school, the weather is getting colder, and while I set my day to make Halloween costumes and place my orders for Sally Foster wrapping paper, I just can’t.  I spend my mornings getting back in bed after the bus has faded from sight and when I finally commit to a shower I cry with the water for nearly an hour.  I don’t know what is going on.  I don’t know why I feel so empty, and I don’t know where “I” am. I feel blank.

Numb. Completely emotionless except for sadness.  Before I know it 2:30 p.m. creeps up on me and it is time again, time to put the smile back on my face and force myself to focus on homework, dinner, and doing everything I do so that people will not know that I am not okay.

I read “Goodnight Moon” to my youngest, but even she notices mommy is off her game.  “Mommy, read it like you used to, with the voices.” I explain to her, “Not tonight honey, mommy has a headache.”  She then replies, “I’m sorry mommy,” and gives me a kiss on my check and says, “I love you.”  I feel nothing.  I don’t feel connected at all.  I know I should, I just can’t.

I slide out of her room just in time to meet my husband in the hall who asks if his new pinstripe pants are back from the dry cleaner yet.  He has a big meeting tomorrow and really needs them.  I leer at him anduncontrollably reply, “You ask me that like you don’t know where they would be if I had.  If you wanted them that bad you should have picked them up on your way home.  I can’t read your mind.  How was I supposed to know you needed those by tomorrow?  You don’t appreciate anything I do around here.”

I move past him just in time to close my bedroom door behind me and start to cry.  I cry now because I don’t connect with my kids anymore, I don’t communicate with my husband anymore and I HATE myself for being so weak and pathetic. I have a beautiful family, a great house, everything I always wanted and I don’t appreciate it.  The reality is that they would all be better off without me. ..

These words are the words of so many women.  But why don’t we know that, or hear more about it?  The sad truth is that there is such a stigma in this country that mental health is scoffed at.  Depression is for the
weak, anxiety is for the unorganized and addiction, well that is for the truly pathetic.

The reality is that if more of us would be comfortable in our own skin, the good days and the bad days, we would find out that our neighbors, friends, and family members may know exactly what we are feeling.  And if they don’t, there are plenty of women out there that do.

The truly “weak”, “unorganized” or “pathetic” thing we can do is NOT get help for ourselves.  Hiding what we are feeling to disguise our emotions in an effort to “save face” is unfair to our families and all those around
us who do care.  When you feel like you are lost don’t give up. Give yourself permission to go find you!

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