Clarification

I honestly can't remember if I've specified this in my blog.
So many blog posts are just written in my head.

I'm not sure when I started feeling depressed after this last baby, but I struggle with mood once I put them on baby food. I never had baby blues with any of them, but once they don't use me as their sole food source my hormones get wonky. Some might suggest well don't feed them baby food as soon, they don't need it. My babies need it. They get so hungry. I have plenty of milk, but I guess when a baby starts moving, I just don't produce enough calories, they can't be nursed enough.  My babies have all crawled at 5 months, are all starving by that age. Some started baby food at 4.

But I've digressed, so I got terrible food poising right before I started my last baby on cereal. (Another digression, I got food poisoning with both of my last babies and it amazes me I can nurse them, and they are fine, while I wonder if I might die. There is a reason they call it poisoning.) So I got terrible food poising, which screwed up my digestion for months, and my hormones are heavily depend on healthy bacteria in my body. So the food poising I think started me on the brink of depression, then using baby food made it worse, and since it wasn't my first rodeo, I went from thinking maybe something isn't right, to over being in the depths of the darkest deepest depression I've ever known. Thinking I hate everyone and everything I know.

So that was somewhere in June or July 2014. I felt terrible most of the summer, then once I got my two older kids back in school I started to find my feet again. Like I believe I said in an earlier post, I did an acupuncture treatment a few days before Christmas. I walked out of that office feeling like I finally woke up after months of drowning.

Other than 6 weeks after I weaned my baby I felt fine most of the spring and summer. Thankfully I popped back really quick after my mental dip in March from weaning. I was mindful of my mental health wanting to keep it good but my physical health was so awful, I didn't worry too much about falling down the depression hole again. I couldn't, I was too absorbed with my physical problems. Then July hit again, the end of July this time. Two weeks before my third child turned 3, I just started feeling shaky. I was so discouraged by my physical health, and it just really threw me for a loop when my babies were 18 months and 3 years instead of 0 months and 18 months. Knowing 18 months had past, and I was in worse shape now then I had been then. I'm not good with reverse progress I'm much to stubborn and willful to put up with that. I have no idea why, but it really rocked me. I mentioned it to my mom on my 3 year old's birthday and she said, do you wish they where those ages? I said of course not, which is true I'm not a baby person, but still something broke in my brain synapses that month. I've never been able to bounce back.

Ironically enough I was so excited about my three year old's birthday I had been so sick for his first two birthdays I could barely buy him a present or bake him a cake. So for his third where I wasn't sick I was so excited, but the summer hoopla threw me hard. So I wasn't sick for his, but it make me sick? Where's the justice in that? It wasn't just that. His baby brother going to nursery, his sister who had been in half day school longer than his whole life was going to full day school, and for whatever reason all that passage of time broke my brain. Plus my oldest son was going into 4th and at the last minute I got anxiety over that because 4th grade was such an awful year for me.

It breaks my heart though, my husband has been so awesome over the last couple of years of all this crazy baby growing. He has endured everything I have, but sometimes I wonder if his position is more helpless than mine. I was so happy the first 9 weeks of summer, I had the house running like a well oiled machine, as school got close he confided he was excited for the kids to go back to school. He said you are happy now, but you always do better once they are in school, so I can't wait to see how happy you'll be then. Unfortunately then something happened around week 11 of summer, and its been a rough fall. That is not a pun, I'm referring to the season as in Autumn. He has endured plenty of panic attacks from me.

Have I mentioned I scare people. Not on purpose, I just can't lie about myself. I've never been good at sugar coating. People will ask me so you feel better now, right? I am capable of not telling people I'm depressed, in fact most didn't know until after I got better last time. So I can withhold truth, but I can't lie. So I won't bring it up, but if you ask, I can't lie. (my blog is different its my brain not a conversation.) So when people ask if I'm better, I tell them the truth. I said, actually I don't think I am. I was for a long while, but I don't know what happened, I'm bad right now. And they look at me, like I dropped a bomb. I guess I did. I guess don't ask if you can't handle all the possible answers. I'm truly ok with someone not asking, not bringing it up. It doesn't bother me. Now I can imagine some people I know, saying, Lesli you can't respond like that. But what they don't understand is its the only way my brain is capable of replying right now. Its either that or staring at them blankly, which I've been know to do. My attention span, my social skills they are just off currently, I do what I can.

Occasionally family asks what they can do to help. Since we don't live by family I say, nothing, I'm good, I mean I'm not but I will be eventually. And we are enduring, so we'll be fine. This is now a test of time, not a test of the unknown. Even if we did live by family I don't think they could help. I've never been good a receiving help, and I'm always been fiercely independent. Actually that's not true, I wouldn't mind someone providing a little bit of free babysitting, but it is what it is. Plus I'm incapable of reciprocation. That is the worst part of all of this, when someone service me I can't reciprocate.

I will not ask people for babysitting, and I don't hire a babysitter very often because I'm cheap. My husband is quite helpful at getting me out of the house, but its tricky. I recently learned a sign of postpartum depression is fear of being alone. That would explain why even though on bad days, when I hate my family. I don't actually want to leave the house. When I'm depressed I get fearful of leaving the little ones. That is actually a main reason I don't usually pay babysitters I can't handle the thought of leaving my little ones. I can barely take care of them, so how could someone else? I've recently had to realize when I'm paying a babysitter all I'm paying them to do is keep them from getting injured or if they do get injured getting them help. When I'm at home, I'm in charge of 6 millions balls all juggled at once. Still I don't leave my kids with just anyone. When I'm not struggling with depression I can understand the benefit of leaving them, but honestly I can't leave them with most people when I'm sick. When I'm really sick I can barely leave them with Brent, which is terribly pathetic, because I'm also not capable of taking care of them without him when I'm really really bad. I mean I can take care of them, but I can't do everything around the house and take care of them. I went months without doing dishes last year because I just couldn't. I could only bathe them (once or twice a week, its was that bad), sort of feed them, and do laundry. I'm not sure why I never gave up on laundry.

We did have a milestone! Last week Brent and I went to the temple together. That means we were gone for four hours and unreachable for two. It's the first time we've been to the temple together without family watching our kids since we had more than two kids. I can't attend much when I'm pregnant, I have a bad habit of passing out. Although it turns out I still have that habit even when I'm not pregnant. Low blood pressure. Eating salt is beyond helpful, but you know you don't always have Ritz crackers around. I also don't go much with a nursing baby, I hate pumping, and most of my babies didn't like bottles anyway. Some may think of these as excuses, but they are all very valid mortal experiences.

Anyway, this post was suppose to be short. I was sick 6 months last year. And then I was fine until I got sick in August again. Except that's not true, because I had physical health problems for a lot of that in-between time.

I don't know.

Sometimes I wonder if anyone has stuck with all these depression posts. Sometimes I wonder why I write them all. Mostly for me. But if its all for me, why are these posts public? I don't know maybe someone out there will get more understand for my bluntness, or someone will realize they aren't alone.