What I hate about Motherhood

Depression.

There have been times in my life where I have felt depression.

-My mom moving out when I was 10

-Heartbreak in the teen years

-Job hunting after college

But never have I been 6 feet under in depression until motherhood.

The 48 hours following birth are a blur of nurses giving you instructions that you will likely forget, hoping you smell or look alright even though you haven't brushed your teeth in days, and really important legal documents they make you fill out when you are extremely fatigued and sleep deprived. 

But then you go home and the meals eventually stop coming in and people start expecting you to keep moving with life.

How in the world do you keep moving with life whenever you are physically healing from the most traumatizing thing that your body has ever experienced and you have a living human being that you are responsible for keeping alive...without a manual? 

I had babysat, read all of the books, and even have a degree in early childhood - so I was ready, right? Nope. Motherhood hit me like a wave that kept taking me under and I couldn't breathe. I would cry and cry and cry for hours every day. This baby would not stop crying and nothing I did would help. My precious husband was at a loss at how to help either of us and I resented him for it. The woman he married was lost in a sea of emotions and he didn't recognize me - I didn't recognize myself, either.

At one point Phillip woke up in the middle of the night to find me in her nursery, stomping my feet out of anger, exhaustion, and hopelessness. 

And I felt so much GUILT. I had prayed, begging the Lord for a child for months. She was a miracle. And I did not like her, not even one bit. 

She needed another mother. Phillip needed another wife. They would be better off if I just packed my bags and left. 

My mind was a battlefield of emotions. Sadness that I could feel - it felt like water in my lungs, drowning me.I wanted so badly to be joyful but I couldn't find a piece of hope.

I prided myself on being independent and being able to accomplish great things on my own. Birthing a child is a very very humbling experience because during and after you need so much help doing simple things like using the bathroom, showering, even sitting up to eat. I couldn't do anything for myself, let alone an infant. I felt like such a failure.

This story does not end in a beautiful bow and inspirational quote. It is still being written because motherhood is hard. So so hard. But little by little, smile by smile, I started to find a groove. The life I knew before baby was over and I went through a grieving process with that realization. This new life was not cute - like I imagined it to be. I am not the woman Phillip married - I'm a mom now. I am not the mom I thought I would be - I'm more messed up than I thought. But goodness is my relationship with the Lord SO much deeper. 

Parenthood is a mirror to your sin. I have seen the nastiest parts of my sinful nature in this season. But God has taught me so much through Farryn because I get a glimpse of what He sees in me when I look at her. I have to watch her struggle to hold her head up, see her pain when she gets shots, and hear her cries when she can't see me.

I was struggling to hold my life together, felt so much pain from my circumstances, and cried so much because I couldn't see Jesus in anything anymore. 

Sometimes I can be in the same room with Farryn but out of her eyesight so I will sing or talk to her so she doesn't think she is alone. What I felt in those dark times was that the Lord would speak to me when I couldn't see Him, so I wouldn't feel so alone. 

Isolation is the enemy's' greatest weapon in depression. Which is why I am writing this and try to be honest about what I'm walking through. The Lord comforts us so that we can comfort others. But we cannot comfort others unless we are transparent about what is really going on in our own lives.