Having a child saved my life

Ever since I was 13, I suffered from mental illness. I remember being absolutely devastated when I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and depression. They prescribed an antidepressant and antipsychotic, but they gave me insomnia. For that reason, I decided not to take them. Things only got worse as time went on.

At the age of 16, I developed an eating disorder and my days would consist of 1 rice cake and a can of chicken broth. A lot of times I would starve myself all week, and then break down from hunger and binge on the weekends. It was an obsession with calories consumed and the number on the scale and on the back of my pants. It made me completely miserable and would drive me to hurt myself.

I started self harming at 17. I would cut myself when I was angry at myself for failing at something or eating food I wasn’t supposed to eat. My biggest self harm scar was made by a serrated turkey carving knife. I would go on to self harm for almost a decade more.

At 21 years old, I had found the love of my life. We met at our local community college (the only college in town). When we met it was through a mutual friend and I mostly conversed with that friend and said only a few words to my soon to be husband. I didn’t think much of the interaction.

Okay, so due to of all my issues and because maybe I’m a little too trusting (or genuinely dumb) for some time I had my address on Facebook for all to see. I am so super lucky, that nothing bad came of it (and that no one had kidnapped me). My mom saw it one day and advised me to take it down, so I did. Before I took it down, however, my address was common knowledge to anyone who followed me on Facebook, so of course my friends already knew where I lived. Apparently, Armando (my hubby), was really smitten with me and lacking pen pals while going through basic training for the Marines. He decided to ask our mutual friend if there was any way he could contact me. The friend had given him my address, so that he could write to me. I know this all could have ended up badly for me, but believe me I have learned my lesson about oversharing on social media. Luckily, for me, he ended up being a great guy (and not a murderer!)

We started out as pen pals and after a year of dating, we married in the spring. I’d like to say this is the part where I would make a comeback, but I was still very sick. It made me feel very guilty that I could not stop my self destructive habits for my husband. I loved him so much, so why wouldn’t I just stop? I would still starve myself, hurt myself, and abuse medication. All of this put a huge strain on our marriage.

Another thing that seemed to exacerbate things, was that he wanted to start having children, but I didn’t. I would think to myself, “I can’t even take care of myself, so how would I take care of a child? I would make a horrible mother.” It wasn’t that I didn’t like children. I was just too scared to have kids, because I had already convinced myself that I would fail that child and ruin their life. To be responsible for another life was a scary concept to me, and so I dragged my feet on making that decision for a number of years. When my husband would bring it up, I would tell him I wasn’t ready and I was still thinking about it (when really I was not).

Something in me told me that I was ready for a metamorphosis. We were moving into our first home and I had gained a bit of confidence in myself. I thought, “Hey, maybe I can do this mommy thing.” Shortly before getting pregnant, I vowed that I would change. So I stopped taking sleeping pills and ativan. I also vowed not to starve myself, no matter how much weight I gained during pregnancy. So at 27 years old, I became pregnant with our first child and named her Evelyn.

I loved my new daughter, but I had zero experience with taking care of an infant, so I was beyond stressed. There was so much I didn’t know about being a mom. The postpartum depression and anxiety did not help either.

It was a very difficult time when my daughter was a newborn. Postpartum depression and anxiety decided to rear its ugly head shortly after giving birth. I obsessed about something bad happening to her. I would get random thoughts and images of her getting hurt or dying. Sometimes, I would start to drift off to sleep, only to be startled awake again by the auditory hallucination of my daughter screaming in pain or crying. I would constantly break down in tears at the thought, so you better believe, I was crying A LOT. Prozac would later help to calm down those fears and made the thoughts less frequent.

At first I was resistant to getting back into therapy and back on meds. I thought that I had something to prove; that I could get better all by myself. I wanted to be super mom. After 3 months of agony and having a complete breakdown in front of my OBGYN, I finally went to the psychiatrist and went back on medication. I also started going to group meetings for people suffering from mental illness every Friday.

My daughter changed my life for the better by forcing me to take responsibility for more things and for giving me the gift of someone to take care of and to love. I take my medications faithfully now and go to therapy regularly, because I know if my mental health deteriorates it will negatively affect her. Whenever I feel down or anxious, she has compelled me to get out of my head and to be more present. She is so happy and always doing funny things. It seems to always put a smile on my face and then I feel a deep sense of gratitude. Of course, since she is very young she needs me, but I never realized how much I needed her too until she came into my life.

To end this story, I want you all to know, I am not saying becoming a mom will fix all your problems. Sometimes it takes different events in our lives to spur change. Sometimes it’s something as serious as death or something small like joining the gym. Some people don’t want to have children and that is perfectly okay. Whatever you decide to do in life, just make sure you’re mentally healthy, and that you’re doing the things you love.