I have wanted to write this post for a long time, but I didn't know how to write it. I want to do it right, and I am afraid that I won't have the right words, that I will be inelegant in my articulation. But I cannot ignore it anymore, this post. It bangs around in my head and troubles me in my sleep. It wants to be written.
Sometime in the summer of 2008, I went to my doctor and asked her for medication.
I wasn't depressed. I have been through periods of depression before -- "situational," my therapist called it, because it hinged upon certain events and phases in my life. I know what depression is, and I am not a chronic sufferer (and I feel damn lucky about that).
I also know what anxiety is. I have watched friends and family members struggle under its heft. I wondered, from time to time, if I had a problem with anxiety. But eventually I, and even my therapist at the time, decided I did not have an anxiety disorder. I was stressed out for sure, but I always came back to the conclusion that I was not more stressed than my situation called for, and I had adequate coping mechanisms in place.
That summer, the summer that my baby was turning one year old and my older children were four and six, I decided that wasn't good enough. Even though I was "appropriately" stressed, in my opinion, what with three crazy boys and a household to run and summer's unstructured days swirling around my head, I was struggling. I yelled. A lot. Maybe I wasn't unjustified in my yelling, but all the same, it made me miserable. I felt like my shoulders were hung up on a clothes hanger every single day from the moment I woke up until the moment my children were in bed. Once they were there, asleep or at least safe in their beds and crib, not falling down staircases or eating or stuffing Legos up their noses or pummeling each other, I slumped. Visibly, physically, emotionally slumped. I was exhausted, and I was anxious. The anxiety made me a miserable person and a miserable mother.
The medication helped me. It gave me a pause button. I didn't yell as much, but I could still yell if I needed to yell. I didn't cry as much, but I could still cry. I felt like a stronger, more competent mother and wife. I felt like I could survive. I didn't slump at the end of the day. I felt more capable.
Last year, I weaned off the medication. Since then, I will admit that I think about returning to it. I'm not as anxious or as stressed as I was then. I feel a lot more in control. But when I yell, I always wonder... should I go back on the medication? Will my children remember me as an angry, yelling mother? Could the medication keep me from being that way? Would my life simply be more enjoyable with the help of a little anti-anxiety medication?
But even more, I wonder what the hell is going on in this country that so, so, so many of my friends, so many of my fellow mothers, also have medication. I am a huge advocate of medication for short-term or long-term use if it is warranted and if it is the best thing for someone. I know that the best, most effective mode of treatment is usually a combination of medication and talk therapy, so that a person can develop coping strategies beyond the drugs. I don't want any mother to struggle more than she needs to, and if you even have a tiny inkling that it might help you, I encourage you to try it. If it doesn't work well for you, under the supervision of a competent doctor, you should have no problem weaning off successfully, no harm done. I am glad I asked for medication, and I would and will do it again in a heartbeat if I feel I need it.
But that doesn't mean I don't wonder why so many women in our society do, in fact, need it.
What is going on here? Why are women and mothers so stressed out, or depressed, or anxious? Is it the nature of the job? Is it the inhumane way our country doles out puny maternity leave or non-existent paternity leave? Is it because we feel alone? Exhausted and overwhelmed? Hormones? I realize that motherhood, that parenthood, is not easy. I am just not sure that it is supposed to be debilitating. I will honestly tell you that when I asked for the medication, and many times since, I have felt debilitated, whether by parenthood or by life's demands or by the combination. I can also honestly tell you I do not believe I am a person inherently anxious or depressed.
I believe I know more mothers on medication or that have been on medication than I do mothers who have never used it. And those are just the ones I know about. And those are just the mothers.
So what's the matter here? I think there has to be something going on. We need to talk about it.
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14 comments:
I too have wondered this same thing. I myself have taken some medication and I think i know more people on it than off of it. Why? I don't know.
My daughter is 32 years old so it's been awhile, but I remember that feeling of being overwhelmed and unable to control all the pieces that needed to be controlled. I didn't take any medication, but rather prayed a lot.
I went back to work when Jen was 8 weeks old so I could save myself from being an alcoholic who drank every afternoon. I was not good at that mommy thing. Even though I had thought I could do it and we had planned for 3 or four children, I gave up with the one who was so difficult and I said, "that's it, she'll be an only child."
If we look back over the decades, I think we will find there were women who could handle being the mommy and staying home and doing all the good stuff. But, I think we would find more mothers who hated it and couldn't cope so mangled their own psyche as well as that of their children. We have a lot of messed up people out there, and I think it was due to poor parenting.
You are not alone - and it's not just mothers. Trust me. ;)
Thank you for your honesty. No answers here (and no experience with medication), but I do find regular walks and talks in the sunshine (without kiddos) with friends very helpful in processing stresses of days and weeks. And I do think parenthood is somewhat more "alone" these days than perhaps it was for earlier generations. I wish we had more extended family close by, especially when I think of extended family members who live on their own (yet who don't wish to travel to visit). I think they, too, would enjoy company....
I think it is partly because we live in a society that values "doing it all and never asking for help." Asking for help is weakness. But before this we had big extended families who helped without being asked. You can't do it all by yourself. Yet, you are expected to do just that.
I have to take something to sleep. Don't get me wrong. I'm totally exhausted at night. But after my head hits the pillow and I am instantly asleep, I wake up after 2 or 3 hours, my head swimming with worries and to do lists. My sleeping pills keep me asleep!
I've been asking that very question, in talking with my mother-in-law and sis-in-law lately. We have a mutual friend, an overachiever mother-type (you know, the kind that always has to at least appear like she does EVERYTHING and has EVERYTHING in order all the time). She is pregnant with her 3rd child in a bit over 3 years, on purpose, and she quit the medication that none of us knew she was taking cold-turkey. The resulting tailspin of anxiety debilitated her for weeks until she finally got back on some medication. She is also now seeing a therapist and trying to learn to let go LOL.
But she is only one of many I know taking medication of some sort or another. And I don't know the answer...I myself fluctuate between feeling good and feeling cranky/tired too much, but am hopeful that my new vitamin regimen will continue helping me with that. So far, I feel MUCH better. Maybe there is something to the Vitamin D hype (Oprah did a show on it last week too LOL)...but that would likely only address depression/tiredness, and not anxiety. I have no idea, but am curious what the real numbers are of people who are/have used medication to help cope.
I'm the same age as dkzody's daughter, and hoping to be a mother myself soon. I've been observing this trend of unhappy motherdom with some trepidation, trying to figure out how to avoid the trap that so many of my contemporaries fall into. Right now, my best guesses are this: parents (particularly mothers) worry about too many things, and do not reserve enough time for themselves.
Would you be surprised to know that women, despite joining the workforce in ever growing numbers, spend more time in childcare than they did in the 1950s? Men too, although not to as significant a percent. Children are too constantly supervised, their education and entertainment too completely scheduled by parents who are, out of the best intentions, trying to provide a nurturing environment for their child. In the long run, it hurts us all. Mothers are exhausted and overworked, children do not improvise and adapt as well as they would if they were called upon to rely on themselves more often.
Perhaps we would be happier as parents and mothers if our child's independence started a little earlier than the post-college timeline that seems common today. Why can't an 8-year old walk to the park by himself? Why does an 11-year old need to be chauffeured everywhere she goes? When I was a child I was routinely allowed to do things on my own, and contrary to popular belief the world was less safe in the 80s of my childhood than it is today. Mothers, fathers, and especially children need a break from this constant supervision, and the culture of fear in which the modern family operates.
Now that I've yammered at length, I just want to say thank you for sharing your experience, and for talking so honestly about the stress of modern motherhood. I hope more people join in this discussion.
"Will my children remember me as an angry, yelling mother?"
I have a 24 yo. the answer is yes and no.
Yes children remember their yelling parents.
Don't ever hit them, and as long as you are not cruel in your words or tone they will forgive you.
Apologize for feeling so stressed, and yelling at them, they do understand that sometimes it's not them but you and how you react.
It makes a difference to a child to hear their parent apologizes.
Do they hold it against you, NO.
Parents are imperfect and your kids will still love you.
Adolescence is much worse, this is just a warm up for having three teenagers at the same time.
Good Luck :)
I clicked over from the NYT.
Thanks for writing about this.
I can think of (at least) two answers to your question, and they're not mutually exclusive.
First, I think my parents' generation did a lot more self-medicating with alcohol than mine (today's parents) does. My folks would routinely have a pre-dinner cocktail (or 2) and wine with dinner -- unheard of in my social set today, but common then. I suspect that softened some of the edges we bump into today, not, of course, without creating its own set of problems.
Two, I do think "things have changed." One, I think parenting has gotten more "competitive" because we perceive (probably correctly) that more is at stake. Consider this: when my dad graduated from high school, any white male graduate could go to our (flagship) state university, period. Today that's not true; some restrictions (white, male) are no longer present while others have been put in place (SAT scores, GPA, etc.). Since the "old" restrictions were fixed at birth, there was no need to worry -- your kids' lot was fixed. Today I think many parents perceive that if your kid doesn't get into the right preschool, all is lost (ok, I exaggerate -- but still ...). Second, I do think we've gotten more isolated. I suspect, though I have no data to support this, that more extended families to young children are geographically distant than used to be. Also, grandparents are typically older; my DH used to spend summers -- all summer -- with his grandparents. His grandmother was 40 when he was born. My son's grandmothers were 72 and 68 when my son was born. Finally, what seem like small changes or even big improvements have detrimental effects. Consider car seats. Don't get me wrong, I think it's wonderful, wonderful, wonderful that car safety has so improved over the past decades. I've just bought for my son that makes it possible to keep him (by my choice) in a 5-point harness until he's 65 pounds. Contrast that possibility with my mom's car safety, which involved getting seatbelts installed in the back seat of her car for us kids (back-seat belts were not standard in the 1970s, at least not vehicles the vintage of my parents') -- and being mocked for doing so. The new carseats are wonderful, but I get weak at the knees at the thought of taking my son anywhere that involves more than one stop (e.g. going to the grocery store and the park. It's just too much work getting him in and out and secure, straps appropriately tightened, and so forth. (And we do walk or use public transport when feasible, for the record)
Finally, I think the Crasher makes a good point about today's kids being oversupervised and overscheduled, but the older my son gets, the more I realize that this is a collective action problem (at least for parents of only kids, which I am, not by choice...); I cannot send my son out to play (or allow him to go out to play) with the neighborhood kids if all the neighborhood kids are away playing in their scheduled, organized, distant soccer games.
I'm a mother of four small boys and I have blogged very similar thoughts in the past. I don't know what the answer is, just wanted to say you are not alone in thinking these things!
Thank you for writing about this so brilliantly...the topic has been haunting me since I became a mother just over 3 years ago.
My own experience parallels yours in many ways. As I found myself screaming at the top of my lungs one day, literally placing my 3-year-old son in his room with the door closed so that I would not hit him, I realized (again) that something was very, very wrong. My youngest was nearly one and I felt like I was limping to a finish line that didn't exist. I finally did what I'd been thinking about for months - I went to a psychiatrist and got a prescription for antidepressants. It has changed my life.
Here's the thing. I think I'm speaking for many, probably millions, of mothers when I say that we are stuck between a rock and a hard place these days. I too had phases of depression and anxiety in the pre-kid years, and I always was able to use drug-free alternatives to pull myself out: regular exercise, sunshine, yoga, plenty of sleep, adequate down time. I am an organic-eating, Western-medicine-wary, holistic kind of gal. But since having 2 very small children I literally DON'T HAVE TIME for the non-medicinal route. And I can tell you unequivocally that since being on Zoloft I am a better mother, wife, friend and human being. Is this "wrong"? If it's wrong, I honestly don't want to be right.
I have many theories on the miserable mother syndrome. The biggest is (and this is the same argument I use for medication) that the life we're leading these days simply isn't NATURAL. We are so completely isolated. Way back when, women had support in the form of extended family, neighbors, community. Further back in time we lived in tribes filled with others to help us with the raising of our children. So you could make the argument that taking antidepressants is completely unnatural and unethical, but so is living all day every day raising small children without any support.
Motherhood is HARD, no matter how you slice it. Thank you for your honesty...I loved reading what you had to say.
This was a very timely post for me. I just had dinner last week with a group of 4 other moms, and out of 5 of us, 4 had been on antidepressants at some point since having children (not to mention several other mom friends who were not present). I think the reasons vary among all the ones you mentioned - we're sleep-deprived, overwhelmed, lonely. We don't all live down the block from our moms and sisters anymore like our parents and grandparents did. And it is a competitive envrionment for a lot of us, though that probably varies regionally. It's funny that I identify a lot with dkzody, because although my story sounds like hers, I could practically be her daughter (I'm 33 and named Jen). I also went to work after my son was born to save my sanity, and I stopped at one because I just couldn't go through it again.
I learned of your blog from the New York Times, and just wanted to chime in, even at the risk of repeating comments others have made.
Having experienced bouts of depression before having children, I should not have been surprised that postpartum depression hit me like a ton of bricks.
What did surprise me, and disappoint me a little, was that after my second (and final) child was born, I found I needed to continue with antidepressants, possibly for the rest of my life.
Mothers are under an unbelievable amount of pressure. Pressure to raise exceptional children. Pressure to both bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan. Pressure from all corners, even from other mothers (and we really should know better than to burden each other with expectations and judgment).
And we rarely have the kind of support system our predecessors had - family close by to help, friends and neighbors to call on. (Venting on the internet just isn't the same.)
I'm more surprised that anyone doesn't need medicinal assistance than that so many people do.
While I wish I could function without meds, I owe it to my children to be the best parent I can be. And I owe it to myself to be happy. While meds alone don't do that, they do make it possible.
Parenting is totally countercultural. Our society is not set up to allow it, let alone support it. Americans are supposed to be workers. Parenting is supposed to be contracted out to lower wage workers. The overscheduling and whatnot happen because we've so internalized the status quo. We have no hope of changing things, so we work hard to try to mitigate for our children the effects of a society fundamentally hostile to their existence.
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