I love this, in that I believe we should all celebrate life when we can, cherishing every drop of it.

But, I also worry about this, as I know that today there are many people who are not happy, not even close, and I don’t want these people to feel (perhaps further) marginalized.

On March 8th, prompted by an emotional local news story and other, smaller issues that were more close to home, I wrote a post on my personal Facebook that has been shared since on several pages.

I am glad that there is light shining out from the terrible cracks that recent tragedies have caused in my home community. Awareness is being raised for mental illness, and issues that are typically talked about in a whisper are being presented openly.

A common refrain that I hear is that this person or that person “wasn’t sad or depressed at all” before it was too late to save them. I realize that this is said as a warning, trying to caution parents and people that “this could happen to anyone”. But, I implore you to read, again, what I wrote above. Someone can be smiling, giggly, vivacious, social…

and still be severely depressed. There is no “face of depression”. So try to be good to people. Try to look at them a little more deeply and not just at how they look in an Instagram post or what their Facebook status says about doing really something cool/being somewhere really great/feeling so ecstatic.

Obviously, mental illness is a disease of deceit, even fooling those who are ill themselves, so it is impossible for you or anyone to be able to “catch” every case of something being off. I do, however, ask that you treat those who are suffering with sympathy and not with scorn or stigmas.

Okay. I can climb off my soapbox now and talk about being happy.

For me, it is easier some days than others. I am happy throughout the day, at times, every single day; for that I am so grateful. But am I happy all day every day? No. But, who is?

I will share with you what my #happiness is today:

I mentioned recently that our little boy is going through somewhat of a mama phase, but really, it’s separation anxiety in general, which is totally age appropriate.

This morning, he woke up calling out for his “Dada”. I got up to get him, and when I turned on his light and reached into grab him from the crib, he flung his body down, crying. “Dada! Dada!” he cried. He would not let me hold him. And so I had to finally bargain with him.

“If you let me pick you up so that I can change your diaper, I will bring you into bed to be with Dada, ok?”

And so he came to me and I made good on my promise.

My son chanted all the way down the hall to our bedroom, as I carried him, saying “Dada! Dada! Dada!” and when I put him on the bed, he did not jump on his dad as I would have expected with the enthusiasm he had been showing;

Instead, he quietly crawled over to him, curled up into the crevasse that his shoulders created in his back, put his thumb in his mouth and just snuggled into his dad.

And in that moment, while my husband was still half asleep (and asking me about how my stand up comedy show in Orlando went), I felt so much happiness. I felt so happy to have these two boys in my life, two out of the three greatest that I know. And I felt happy for my son, as he has the best father, who always puts him first and loves him warmly and affectionately. And, most of all, I felt happy for my guy, as he deserves this kind of unconditional love from my son, and from all of us, which he has. He is a truly good human being. His happiness is my happiness. He deserves nothing less.

Happy #InternationalDayofHappiness

Even if it is a small thing, like hearing a song on the radio that you like, or making a green light, I hope that today brings you, at the very least, a moment of happiness.

And, if not, that’s OK, too.

Because I know, with all of my heart, that you will find that happiness again.

#IAmLivingProof

[*Author’s Note: This post was originally published using the title and term “International Happiness Day”, which I have since corrected to “International Day of Happiness”. But don’t waste your time trying to edit my post; go find your happiness.]

The post International Day of Happiness appeared first on Mommy Ever After.

Then, my parents took  my daughter to see her new favorite movie, I picked up the cake for my husband’s birthday tomorrow (more on that later; he actually reads this blog so I don’t want to spoil the surprise) and I awkwardly told the girl behind the counter of the bake shop, “Ok, bye, love you!” I apologized and we laughed.

We had some things to pick up and I had a few gifts to purchase so we went to a store, despite the absolutely torrential rainstorm outside.

As I walked into the store, I saw something from afar that I thought might work for a gift, but as I got closer, I lost my breath.

Now, see below, at what I had written not 4 hours before.

And not only did I write it, but I had included a footnote about to whom I should attribute this quote, as there is great controversy over it’s origin and author.

Sometimes you just can’t explain things; The universe sends you messages and you choose whether you want to believe in them or not.

I believe.

***

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

My hands are running back and forth across the keyboard. I know what I want to say, I am just not sure how to properly convey the message so that it is as clear as I desire for it to be.

This quote is one of many that resonates with me, and I am fortunate enough that I have some very special girlfriends with whom I trade inspirational quotes, poems and photos via text, almost daily.

I write on this site all about my own struggles. My physical and mental issues. My battles.

But there is something that you may not know.

Every single day I receive several private messages that are written differently, but that have the same underlying theme, and that is this: “I wasn’t sure if I should write to you, but I feel like we are so similar in so many ways and I can relate and connect to you and your anxieties and struggles.”

Ever single day. And every single one of these messages means an incredible amount to me. I can’t even begin to convey how much they mean to me; every time I read a new note, I share with my husband how touched I am (I do not share the notes, nor anything about the senders or content) but just that I had a dialogue that was very special. So to those of you who have been brave enough to type these notes, thank you. And to those of you who are still on the fence as to whether or not you should reach out to me,

I implore you to please write.

Because you are not alone.

It is amazing how we as humans (and I would say particularly mothers, but I am not at all trying to stereotype or marginalize) are so hard on ourselves. I remember one of the quotes that I sent to a friend, and it was something like “Imagine if we spent the whole day obsessing about the things we liked about ourselves.”

Now anxiety, like most things, has a spectrum, and there are some people who have very little. But really, most people I know feel it, feel it palpably, and it causes a deep feeling of loneliness.

I used this example before in my writing as a hypothetical, but I want to tell you about something very personal to me. Out of respect for others and to keep things as confidential as possible, I am going to be vague about the context, but I was in a group recently in which I raised my hand, frustrated. I expressed my feelings and insecurities. I shared how lonely it felt to feel different.

The facilitator of this group repeated my sentiments to the rest of the room, where there were at least 20 people present, and asked if anyone could relate to my feelings of insecurity, “different-ness”, and loneliness.

Every single hand went up.

Every single hand.

I was shocked.

In my eyes and from my perspective, the things that I was sharing were clearly not applicable to anyone else in the room. But they felt them, too, just as acutely.

That is when I realized, I am not alone.

And why I say

you are not alone.

I have held my nose and jumped in to the deep end of the pool, so to speak (a metaphor my doctor uses) when it comes to being open and honest about my own mental health issues. I share more than most people. But I realize that sharing things–admitting to these vulnerabilities–is terrifying.

But, while I can’t make a 100% guarantee, I strongly, strongly believe that if you share how you are feeling, you will end up feeling better.

Not only will you have said it–the thing that is so hard to say–but you will have said it to someone who can empathize.

You can take it off of you. You don’t have to carry it anymore.

And, at the very least, you can know that by writing, you will have touched another person’s heart.

I so wish that we, as a culture, were more sympathetic to one another. We rally behind so many causes (which is fantastic), but we don’t really take the time to acknowledge the seriousness of our mental health issues.

So if you can take away anything from this post it is this:

The way you feel–that way that you are sure that no one in the world can possibly relate to–is something that so so so so so many of us feel. Sharing those feelings takes bravery, and if you want to start by sharing with me, I can assure you that you will find empathetic ears and a caring heart. You can always Facebook message me or email me at Rebecca@mommyeverafter.com. Again, everything you say remains between us. I am your vault.

But, most of all, I want you to remember this one salient point:

You are not alone.

Just a reminder: I can offer friendship and support, but I am not a medical professional. Please consult with your doctor if you are having a really hard time struggling with your emotions or, simply go to the nearest Emergency Room.

The post You are not alone. appeared first on Mommy Ever After.

My daughter was pressed up against her bedroom windowpane, her brother by her side, following her motions and mimicking her enthusiasm.

I was folding laundry on her floor, my husband was out picking up Chinese Takeout and the kids were playing on the chairs by the window in her bedroom that faces the street.

She was actually shouting, almost jumping, with excitement.

In this moment, she made it easy to keep my pledge to “cherish the mundane”.

I am so infinitely  grateful for the outpouring of support after I opened up yesterday.

The public “likes” and comments were so meaningful to me, and I thank you to those who shared my words with others. I am humbled.

But I am also supremely grateful for the private messages I received, and the incredibly personal stories that people shared with me. I heard amazing tales of strength and survival from people whom I have known for years and some whom I have not (yet!) met. But, in one such email, when we were bonding over difficulties of the past, I wrote something about how it is really sucky that sometimes we have be so lost in the darkness in order to really see stars; but that when we do, it all seems worth it.

And then, a few hours later, my daughter and son stood side by side, on an ordinary Sunday night, after an ordinary Sunday (a time when, truth be told, I did not get out of my pajamas) and she reminded me of exactly of what I had been trying to convey earlier. Yesterday was hard. It had to revisit my darkest days. But tonight,

tonight, my daughter saw the brilliance of the light outside of her window,

and it was all worth it, indeed.

The post To see the stars. appeared first on Mommy Ever After.

T.S. Eliot

Welcome to www.MommyEverAfter.com.

It is so nice to have you.

Here, let me make you comfortable.

For the past four and a half years I have spent every day hanging out at a simple, static, steadfast site over on WordPress.

Mommy, Ever After started when I was the new mother of a two month old baby girl. I had always loved to read and write, but found myself, at that time, with no resources that were actually helpful when it came to being a new parent. Everything was either a tale of absolute enchantment OR a hyperbolic message board of terror.

So I took a leap of faith and somehow figured out how to make my very first post.

It didn’t even have a title. I used multi-colored text. Take a look:

and by the end of day one I seem to have gotten a bit more bold:

I did not know what I was doing or where I was going (or, to be completely honest, how to even define a “blog”) but I knew it felt good. And people, being voyeuristic by nature, started to read and I, being brutally honest by nature, shared it all; the good, the bad, the inane, the insane, the heavy and the hard.

I will soon be publishing a post that is a guide to this new site, because thanks to the incredible folks at Brand Revive, I have a real, big girl website now, with pages, categories, sections and more. I don’t want you to miss a thing.

But for now, I will either assume that you are an old friend, having traveled with me over here from .wordpress.com (thank you, by the way–so much) or you are new and can lose yourself in the hundreds of archived posts I have up there, neatly categorized, under “A Happy Story”.

And, I will say that the old Mommy, Ever After isn’t here anymore. That chapter has ended.

Welcome to a new beginning.

And what better way to start than with a prologue…

Emergency rooms 3 and 4 were connected, separated by a thin curtain that could easily be opened to make it a makeshift suite of sorts. In room 4, in a stretcher that appeared humongous, lay my son, 3 days shy of 2 months, hooked up to an IV, oxygen monitor and receiving O2 through a tube in his nose. In room 3, I lay, dizzy and disoriented, hooked up to an IV and receiving my third bag of fluids. A nurse handed me a yellow pill. Potassium. She told me that I was deficient and to swallow. We were in a suite in the Emergency Room of a hospital. He and I were together, but still so far apart, as we were each confined to our beds. He and I were ailing. He and I were both being poked and tested and medicated. He and I both needed help.

That snapshot is from exactly this week last year. It is also the prologue that I have written for my book proposal. Yes, I am writing a book (or at least I am trying), and at the rate I am going, the book is writing itself. I have a literary agent shopping my book to publishing houses, and I am hoping to find a good match. My story will be told in the way that it is presented above: “A Happy Story”, “A Hard Story”, and then, ultimately, “A Hopeful Story”.

When I say the book is writing itself, you can probably conjure examples that I have shared from the past year; the flood and subsequent CO poisoining; my hospitalization; the incredible closeness of my group of friends that has now become a family;

But what you do not know is that this past weekend, at the very time that we were supposed to be on a plane to St. John, we were back in the Emergency Room with my son.

Not only were we back in the same hospital, but we had the same nurse that he had had exactly the same day the year before. She wears a necklace with three charms symbolizing her three children and I remembered their names.

Being in the small triage room was surreal. How are we back here?

But, fortunately, we were not there for a feverish 8 week old with a terrible respiratory virus.

My son had an allergic reaction to Penicillin, swelled up, we called the paramedics (our besties!) and we took him to the closest hospital with the Peds department, which happens to be where we spent this week last year, as he was inpatient, on oxygen, as I was fighting for my life in my own way.

This is where the story gets kind of crazy. Before our planned trip to the Virgin Islands, I asked my Pediatrician if it would be safe to give my son a small dose of Benadryl in order to calm him during the flight (please don’t judge. This is the baby who slit his wrist on my coffee table 3 months ago). He approved, but suggested that we test out the drug on him before flying, as in rare cases it can have the opposite effect and actually make kids more wired and not at all sedated.

So, Sunday morning, I was being treated for my severe ear infection, my daughter for her own infection, and my son, prophylactically, as he was fussy, warm and pulling on his ears. Before his nap that morning I suggested giving him some acetaminophen. My husband chimed in and suggested Benadryl instead. At that point, we did not know whether our trip to St. John would be postponed or completely cancelled, so we thought a solid nap would do both of us good and it was the right time to experiment, so we dosed him up with the proper amount of the antihistamine.

But he didn’t sleep well. He was restless. And red. And, actually, my husband and I were laughing at him when we finally brought him downstairs, because he was acting–

forgive me for not being able to find a better way to say this–

high.

He stood, staring at the vacuum cleaner for 20 minutes. He doesn’t stand still for 20 seconds, ordinarily.

And we were cracking up. Evidently, he was in that small percentage of kids who have a paradoxical reaction to the drug.

But after his 20 minute date with the vacuum and some other strange behavior, I noticed that his eyes were swelling up. The redness on his cheeks had intensified and on his forehead there were big hives. His eyes swelled to near slits as I spoke to the 911 operator.

The problem was, he had not just been given one new medication in that 24 hours, he had been given two.

The police arrived immediately, before I could even change out of my pajamas, and the paramedics soon thereafter.

On the way to the Emergency Room, I just laughed. “This must be a joke, right? This year is just a joke.”

As it turns out, by the time we were seen by the Pediatrician in the ER, his swelling had gone down some. This lead them to believe that he had experienced an allergic reaction to his second dose of amoxicillin, and that the Benadryl, the coincidental, serendipitous drug, actually helped to start calm down the effects. Had we been on the plane to St. John, his allergic reaction would have happened at 30,000 feet.

The doctors and nurses were so nice. It was so much better than last year, when he had to be put on breathing tubes, given a spinal tap, a catheter and IVs, and when I was losing my mind.

But it was then that I did something that I rarely do these days; I started to cry.

I cried to the nice doctor in the dark blue scrubs and white coat.

“He has had so much happen to him in such a short life; he is only 13 months old and look what he has been through.”

But it was then that I remembered my recent epiphany;

My son has not only survived some crazy medical and safety situations, a crazy mother and an all around crazy first year, but he is huge and thriving. The doctor looked at me and told me to look at my son.

“He is a moose!” she said.

And she is right. He is so strong and resilient and now that he has had six emergency room visits, he is tougher than ever.

But,

But…

He may be a moose, he may be strong, but he is still my baby.

This is a hard time of year for me. It is the one year anniversary of when I was supposed to go to Brown’s postpartum unit,

when he got hospitalized,

when I was forced to wean him against my will,

when I had akesthesia as a reaction to Abilify,

and when things really started to crumble.

While my real support system became stronger than ever, some real, trusted people let me down, and it was a blow that was hard to handle when I was already in such a weak state.

This week last year, I truly did not know if I could go on. It is scary for me to admit that, but I would be doing you a disservice by being anything less than brutally honest. I was low, like many other people I know who have been or who currently are suffering.

And so, I have decided to do something about it.

I have already proclaimed that this will be the year of really living; of celebrating things big and small, by organizing parties and dates and by making an effort to tell the people around me how much they mean to me.

But there is something else.

This year I want to be a better person.

I want to let go of all that has weighed me down, not just for the past year, but for my entire life.

I want to be good to people. I want to go out of my way. I want to give back. I want to help. I want to be vocal and make a difference.

And that is why I decided to take yet another leap of faith, bigger than my intimidating first blog post back in June of 2010.

I have decided to put my all into Mommy, Ever After, in an effort to help others. When I have opened up about topics like postpartum, anxiety, depression, fear, doubt, self-worth and other hard things to touch upon, I have received an incredible outpouring of support and gratitude. Most of it you do not know about. Most of it has been private. Most of it has been me making emergency phone calls to friends in crisis, or driving to the hospital to hold a hand, or giving someone my phone number to use 24/7. And I do not say this in any way to applaud myself. I am humbled by the fact that there are people who trust me enough in order to confide in me their deepest of secrets and fears.

And so, in moving forward, I will have those “pity party” moments, but hopefully much less than the dance party moments.

I will continue to be an advocate, a voice, a friend.

I will strive to be the woman whom I have always dreamed of being; lighter, happier, and more content.

I will celebrate the big, of course, but also cherish the mundane.

Last night, before bed, my husband and I had just finished the last installment of the NPR Serial Podcast. We talked a little about our thoughts and then I asked him to tell me a bedtime story. I wanted him to tell me about the last few episodes of Homeland, a show that I haven’t watched in several seasons, but that I was curious about, based on all of the hype. He is the best at telling stories.

And he looked over at me and I was smiling, my full face in an enormous grin.

“What?” he asked with a tiny giggle.

“I get to go to sleep next to you,” I said. “I get to have a sleepover with my best friend every night.”

And with that, he kissed me and told me stories of Iranian leaders and CIA infiltrations until I was sound asleep.

That was how I ended my day. And then, as it does, the sun rose this morning, and there was a new beginning.

And today I did some things right, and other things still need work, but guess what?

It is the beginning. I put an end to something dear to me…

and from there, my friends, is where I shall start.

(Featured Image via Lindsay Dochtery Photography)

The post “What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning… appeared first on Mommy Ever After.

***

I love home decorating, especially covering my walls with meaningful pieces, as  511 suggests.

But in all honesty, I am not yet in a place in my life where I can collect a lot of real art;

I have my framed piece from the Festival Internacional de Musica en Barcelona in my Living Room

and a photo of Keith Richards that my dad shot as the Stones played in Hyde Park last summer, which hangs in my Entry Way.

And this and that.

I have but one piece of true art in my home, and it means a great deal to me. It is a framed and signed poem by Ray Bradbury, given to us as a wedding gift, from an incredibly person in our lives.

It is so significant for so many reasons; I am obsessed with words;

It is something so unique and rare;

It reminds me (us) of just how complex, complicated, confusing and often consuming the human mind can be.

Here is the text:

THE POET CONDIDERS HIS RESOURCES

The autumn sea, October sea
Tears darkened seams inconstantly
And stitches clouds with rain and fire
And charcoals hearths with dead desire
And turns old souls on burning spit,
Forget all Good, because of it;
Because of traveling night and clouds
Which bury moon in winding shrouds
The heart is buried , blood turned ice
And all the fruit jams, teas, and spice
Are pantry poisoned, forced to change
By weathers that incline to strange.
So what was dead now bolts upright
To knock is head on lid`s midnight,
And while all cold things jump and start,
Antarctica floes in warm heart
And tropic seas of blood are purged
By nightmare iceburgs, once submerged
Which now lift blizzard brows to seize
Sane room, sane door, sane locks ,sane keys,
And shriek the tumblers , warp the walls
With panic-colored storms and squalls.
And all of it, both live and dead ?
. . .
Trapped in circumference of my head.

Ray Bradbury 1979

Tonight I am brought back to the piece I wrote about depression, entitled, “Oh Captain, My Captain”, in which I discussed mental illness after Robin Williams’ devastating suicide.

In that piece, I made a plea to the people reading to help to protect their friends. I also tried to remind sufferers that they are not alone.

But today I had a conversation that explains it so perfectly.

If you have never experienced depression (which as of two years ago, I had not, in any way) it is very hard to understand.

It is insidious and it is debilitating.

But I think the most confusing part, despite the notion of “But you have so much, what could possibly be making you sad?”

is the feeling of abject loneliness.

Someone who is depressed feels so lonely. They can be surrounded by people, with friends, at a holiday dinner, not alone in any way, but still terribly lonely.

It feels like drowning.

I am welling up with tears even typing this, as it is the worst feeling imaginable.

I am lucky enough to have a network of soul friends, as I call them, who can relate to me on this deep level of understanding that only sufferers can. But my heart aches for them, my stomach gnaws at itself, every time I hear that they were unable to get out of bed that day, or are feeling at their lowest, or can’t imagine ever feeling better.

I am not a doctor. I am also not “better”. I am still dealing with a lot. But, if there is any message I can impart to you

(and hopefully, if you know someone in need, you can share this with them, I implore you),

it is that things can and will get better. Even at the worst of times, when you can’t move or breathe or open your eyes because everything looks too bleak, but you can’t close your eyes because your brain is pounding you with it’s incessant ruminations and chatter,

it will pass.

That spell will pass.

I believe in intervention. I believe in therapy. I believe in medicine. I believe in alternative medicine. I believe in support systems.

I believe in holding your best friend’s hand and saying “I am not going to let you go anywhere.”

This post may seem out of the blue, as the last thing I posted about was my son watching Bravo TV, but trust me, it needs to be said.

Much love.

The post “Trapped in the circumference of my head.” appeared first on Mommy Ever After.