Depression | Bethany Bassett

Tag: Depression

Voodoo vs. Violence

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 6 Comments

This has been a weird week. I’ve woken up most mornings feeling like someone mixed together liver and onions in my soul and not even the largest tub of orange sherbet could alleviate the horror. (Not like we can actually get orange sherbet here… Excuse me while I weep.) I’ve tried blogging, but the High Voodoo Witchpriest of Blogger keeps sticking pins into a little model of my brain, particularly the part that controls EVERYTHING. Last night, some monkeys infected with rage escaped their lab and zombified everyone in England. Then this morning over breakfast, Natalie calmly said, “Mom, I don’t appreciate your singing.” (Weird, I know. I’m a wonderful singer! Which is why I don’t even sing in front of The Hubby, for fear of overwhelming him with my wonderfulness. Ahem.)

However, no matter how liverandoniony the last several days have been, they have been periodically jolted with a kind of happiness that voodoo can’t touch: Sophie grinning and kicking and exploding into little pieces of glittery happiness while she tells me all about her day (met a new boyfriend, learned the Riverdance, ate milk). Natalie spinning in clumsy, delighted circles, singing at the tip-top of her lungs about robots and slimy snails and how the writer’s strike should be over already and how she loves us. Dan walking in the door from work, smelling scrumptiously like his red leather coat, rain, and aftershave, his arms instantly open to wrap me up. That moment just before I crawl into bed when I peek into the girls’ room and hear them breathing in harmony, their precious little faces serene and dream-dappled. That moment just after I crawl into bed when I finally relax from the day, melting into my husband and knowing we’ll be tangled together in the quiet until tomorrow.

So. Glasses are up there in our leprous credenza. Champagne is in the fridge. We’ll give away the furniture so that more than 2.5 of you can fit in our kitchen and invite someone who knows how to make a touching speech, and we’ll all share a toast to happiness. Then we’ll infect ourselves with rage and take it out on the world’s liver and onions, because everyone knows gratuitous violence is the secret to happiness. Who’s with me?

18Jan

Revenge of the All-Nighter

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 6 Comments

The Universe left me to find out a few things about life utterly on my own. For instance (stop me if you’ve heard this before), the “s” word is not “stupid.” And the “f” word is not “fart.” And the “b” word is not “butt.” And speaking of the “b” word, the phrase “That bitch has an ass-face” has much less to do with animals than I once knew.

But this post isn’t actually about the deflowering of my virgin ears. This post is about how the Universe neglected to tell me that I would PAY, years later, for those all-nighters I pulled in college. I rarely needed sleep back then. Once I fought through the brain-pummeling exhaustion to the pleasant zombie buzz, I was great. Mobile, even (though balance sometimes presented a problem). Staying up was easier for me than waking up, and I was at least 15% functional on no sleep; what more could an over-booked over-extended over-achiever want?

Flash forward to this morning. After a respectable eight-hour sleep*, I pried my rusty eyelids open, as ready as I ever am for a big day of grocery shopping with the girls, ~GROCERY SHOPPING WITH THE GIRLS~, and returning home with few casualties. Did I mention grocery shopping with the girls? Unfortunately, before my feet even hit the floor, I fell over dead courtesy of karmic retribution from College All-Nighter #54.

All I’ve been able to think about today is how the sky looks like soot-trampled gum and how snails have far too much energy and how my bed is just right over there and how that’s convenient with me being literally dead and all. Contestants on American Gladiator who have just finished the Obstacle Course of Near Demise and Certain Life-Sucking Extreme-to-the-Max Fatigue? Are barely one-fifth as tired as I am today. There is, of course, no explanation for this other than the folly of my sleepless youth catching up to me.

Darn** Universe.

*Yes, I have a newborn. No, you can’t have her.

**(Not the “d” word. Just thought you should know.)

8Jan

Mondo Beyondo

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 2 Comments

Note: I didn’t intend to post this, the results of a therapeutic journaling session, for a few reasons:
~ I feel like I’ve already bored my readers to death by writing about this last crazy year.
~ Speaking of readers, I have readers. Readers who will read this.
~ I’m still new to this full honesty concept, and it’s terrifying. (See above.)
However, reading other people’s “Mondo Beyondos” has made me feel so affirmed in this harrowing business of being human, and I want to share that feeling–that we’re all real, with jagged edges and soft, spongey hopes, and that these twelve-month blocks we order our lives around matter more than we might ever realize. So:

“What do you want to acknowledge yourself for in regard to 2007?”

I’m proud of myself for jumping off the deep end into dream-chasing mode, for letting go of control and the need for stability. I found my secret stores of flexibility during a summer of three moves–the last, a one-week dash to another continent–and I found my secret stores of bravery during an autumn of jarringly new surroundings.

I’m proud of myself for saying goodbye to handwritten journals and a new hello to online publishing–exactly what I needed to kick start my writing again. Beginning with this impulse blog project in June, I’ve found satisfaction and resolution and incredible enjoyment through writing again. These increasing pages of text have helped me explore my voice and find clarity. Even more importantly, they have convinced me that writing is my love, my dream career, and thus my aspiration.

I’m proud of myself for learning how to care for two little girls at the same time. Despite all my previous assumptions to the contrary, I found the courage to leave the house… then to drive (stick shift, on hills, with Italian drivers, oh my)… then to run errands with both of my daughters in tow. I have been a good mother, as evidenced by the perpetual smiles on my girls’ faces, and I think they will love remembering these times through photos and wisps of memory and the letters I recently started writing them.

I’m proud of myself for digging far past my comfort zone to unearth new layers of honesty this past year. I’m also incredibly proud of my decision to stop regretting my past, my present, and everything about myself. It has certainly been a challenge for someone so accustomed to self-deprecation, but it has been freeing. I’ve found myself in the shower, mulling over blunders I think I’ve made, then pulling up short–No, this isn’t me anymore; I no longer regret myself. And perhaps this will turn out to be 2007’s greatest gift to me.

“What is there to grieve about 2007?”
I grieve that my relationship with God traveled beyond doubt and anger and simply dissipated. I need to forgive myself for leaving my Bible unopened on the shelf and my questions unasked simply because I didn’t want to face the pain.

I grieve that my relationship with Natalie moved into such rough territory. I need to forgive myself for yelling at her during bouts of frustration and for not giving her enough of my undivided attention.

I grieve that I spent so many days of the year battling depression… or not even finding the strength to battle it anymore. I need to forgive myself for being chronically tired, needy, human. I also need to forgive myself for letting the “shoulds” conquer my mind and saturate me with frustration. And I need to forgive those around me for not magically making me better or knowing the solutions that I can’t seem to find.

I grieve that I accomplished so, so little throughout the year–that I didn’t learn Italian fluently or finish my book or complete art projects or practice my instruments or cook new foods or exercise regularly (or at all) or make progress on reading lists or teach Natalie more or do volunteer work. I need to forgive myself for being one person, for being unable to multitask, and for needing so much sleep.

“What else do you need to say about the year to declare it complete?”
2007 was deep and raw and intense, dark chocolate with pepperoncino eaten from the blade of a knife. It hurtled between welcome adventures and terrifying ones; it pulled us far into the joy of close friendships and then slung us away. It taught us about generosity and flexibility and courage and communication, about how we face fears and changes and the future. And even though I know it’s okay to reel in 2007’s dizzying wake for a while, I’m ready to move on.

I declare 2007 complete.

27Nov

Thief, Ogre, Janitor = Mom

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 2 Comments

It’s hard to relax when you’re a thief, stealing a few minutes for music and uninterrupted breath in your sunny corner studio. Even though all your offspring are contentedly sleeping in the other room, you coach your guilt along–I should really be cleaning or editing or studying or cooking or saving the world–as though, without the guilt, you will disappear.

You dig farther into the reserve, tonguing your 9 a.m. frustration like a mouth sore. I wasn’t going to be a yelling mom. I wasn’t going to use the TV as a babysitter. I was going to smile constantly at my children, be accessible, stimulate their creativity, enjoy every minute with them. It’s worse, even, because you used to be a Good Mother™. Now, you’re mostly ogre, and the monster is coming out in your little girl, and you have no idea which prompted the other.

You don’t mean to change the subject, but there are no solutions in sight–only dusty windowsills and dirty coffee mugs. Your serotonin levels plummet under the weight of so many unfinished tasks. The physical laws of the universe dictate that housecleaning is never finished–not when people move and breathe and inhabit said house–but universal truths are no match for your dissatisfaction at uncompleted projects. You’re a terrible janitor for the same reason you’re a stellar one.

You wish you didn’t think of yourself as a janitor; no one embraces that label. Plus, it’s an overly dramatic and negative interpretation of your role as mom. It also shows a horrid mix-up in priorities; when did janitor replace playmate and teacher? And how could something as mundane and fundamentally imperfect as a house take precedence over your own children?

You swish around the guilt in your head, vaguely wondering how much of your brain it has taken over. You wonder how different your days would be if you hadn’t grown up believing that guilt was Godliness. You wonder how you can keep it from spreading like a toxic stain over your family. If only it could just be scrubbed from your persona… How did I get stuck with myself? My personality traits, my memories, my vast inadequacies? I know how to skin emus, play Chinese flute, write iambic pentameter, pronounce words in Zulu, and teach babies to sleep through the night but not how to make myself work right.

You grimace at how self-centric your thoughts have become. You don’t know if sharing your foibles with the world at large is helpful or entertaining or hideously presumptuous, and you run through the disclaimers: I still love my family. This is just a stage, compounded by a lot of major life changes. And it’s not actually that bad; I’m just a pessimist. But you know that the disclaimers will only sound fabricated, in a “she doth protest too much” way, and presumptuous or not, un-disclaimed honesty has value.

You swallow several times, write “Stop overanalyzing!” on a to-do list, and sit down to play puppies with your two-year-old daughter. The dirty dishes–and the guilt–can wait for a while.

30Oct

Prepartum Depression

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 1 Comment

Is it possible to contract postpartum depression before one’s baby is born?

I feel like I was handed a “Get Out of Jail Free” card when Natalie was born. The depression I was expecting, due to both my mother’s lifelong misery and my own pessimistic streak, never materialized. I never felt trapped in an impossible life, resentful of my baby, overwhelmed by the minute hand. I never had to measure the success of a day by how few irrational crying sessions I managed. I never battled fatigue that pinned me down with almost-physical force. I never felt unthinkable thoughts like I don’t want to be a mother anymore.

Until now. Yesterday was our due date according to my first ultrasound, and I can’t fathom why I’m still pregnant… not when the baby is big enough to be a two-month-old, not when her sister was born four weeks early, not when I’ve spent every day of the last month analyzing contractions. It feels like punishment, especially since my mind and body no longer cooperate with the simple task of surviving. And no, realizing that she will be here soon no longer makes me excited.

I already want to delete this post because I don’t want to admit that this October has sucked, tremendously, and because I don’t want to give people the impression that I’m imperfect (Pastor’s Kid Syndrome) or–heaven forbid–neurotic. That’s why I haven’t written much lately and why I haven’t posted most of what I’ve written.

This morning, however, I was reading some of Dooce’s archives about depression as well as journal entries from a friend whose newborn daughter was born crippled, and their honesty loosened the straightjacket I’ve shoved over my struggling brain. I have plenty of relatives who cope with problems by stuffing them into a sealed vault that eventually corrodes and leaks acid over everyone around, and I don’t want to do that to myself or my family. Ever.

So this post has no point except to say I’m having a hard October, which feels a lot like admitting I’m an alcoholic or a serial killer or possibly a combination of the two. But I’m glad to open the vault. It’s my grown-up way of rebelling against my parents and also a pretty good way to actively unregret myself. Call it therapy.

22Oct

Apologius Gestationus

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I’ve been drifting somewhere off the coast of Reality for the last… week? decade? I have little sense of time anymore. I often find myself clinging to delirious excitement until my emotive muscles shake from the effort, then falling perilously low into hatred of life, love, and all things cute. Only 38 weeks, yet I feel like I will be pregnant forevermore.

I do apologize for the gestational theme of the few blog entries I’ve managed to eke out lately. This site is not a mommyblog, and if it ever becomes such, you have permission to hate-mail me into obscurity. My only excuse for solely pregnancy-related entries is that my brain has been replaced by Britney Spears’s voice whining “Baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby.” (Even worse than you’re imagining right now.)

I will be human again eventually. Promise.

17Oct

Not.enough.sleep.

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized Comments Off on Not.enough.sleep.

When Natalie comes padding, bright-eyed, into my room, I am still curled in a fetal position, my breaths overlapping like a newborn’s. My body, my mind, and my motherly instincts are cemented to the bed. Not. enough. sleep.

I find the energy to put her back in her room simply because I have to. I hug her wearily and stumble back to bed with the image of her crumpling face superimposed on my mind. Pressed back against my pillow, I remember the dirty dishes sprawling across the kitchen, the editing work my brain just can’t focus on, the pastry crust in the fridge waiting for a pie I’m too exhausted to make. I realize that waking up is the most tiring chore on my growing daily list. I think about the years of therapy I’m carving out for Natalie by this third-trimester abandonment. She’s still sobbing in her room, and I simultaneously want to shake her until she stops and to cradle her in the kind of hug that absorbs every tear. But I’m too tired for either. It’s the lowest point of my week.

(I need this baby to come soon.)

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