It’s honestly felt like forever ago since this all happened, but it hasn’t been. I plead to all mothers to read this, but especially plead to the mothers that are currently struggling. It doesn’t matter if you’re a brand new mom, or an experienced one, no two children are alike. For those struggling with children that are falling far behind, or even stuck developmentally, the struggle is even greater. Struggling with a developmentally delayed child AND struggling with postpartum mental health issues can be unbearable.
I’m not writing this post to leave any mothers feeling defeated, lost, or scared, but I’m hoping to leave you more hopeful, and happy. I will be starting at the beginning.
My husband and I talked about our daughter (8 months old) needing a sibling. I thought I’d be best to wait given the circumstances we were in, but eventually agreed. However, my reasoning wasn’t best when deciding to have another baby. My reasons were “I could handle another year’s worth of baby stuff”, “another year – year and a half of the clingy and neediness won’t be too bad.”, “what’s another year”. Well, my “year” so to speak has lasted nearly 3, with no end in sight. I was looking at having another baby with attainable deadlines in mind.
3 months: newborn stage over
6 months: baby will start showing personality
9 months: baby will start becoming mobile
12 months: yay! Baby is a year old and will start learning to talk
I was going through motherhood with a very clear and concise schedule in mind. Like babies understand a schedule, am I right? Anyways, I was still pregnant when I started feeling depressed… apparently prenatal depression is a thing, who knew, certainly not me. Then the big day came, baby was here! I was excited for the experience of giving birth, which is strange in and of itself. But after that, I went back to feeling apathetic. I didn’t feel much for this brand new baby, this tiny baby with her tiny fingers, tiny toes, and tiny nose. I had this new sweet baby and slowly grew to be resentful of her, started to blame her for the way I was feeling, thinking “if I never had her, I wouldn’t be feeling this way.”, feeling this overwhelmingly obsessive protectiveness over my oldest. I was so afraid something would happen to my oldest, and feeling like my new baby would be the reason why I couldn’t protect my oldest because I had to take care of this new baby. Months went on, and I could see that my youngest wasn’t developing at the same pace as other babies her age, and I also continued growing more and more resentful of my youngest. There was no bond, no warm loving emotions coming from me to my youngest, there was lots of crying (from me and my youngest), and lots of dissociating. That first year was spent trying to figure out why my youngest was in so much pain, me panicking over my inability to save my oldest from some hypothetical situation, and me trying to get my mental state back together.
Year 2 was when things started to get really bad. Not only was I not feeling much for my youngest, my relationship with my husband started to feel strained (it felt that way to me, not sure about him). We passed the one year mark, and our daughter still wasn’t where she should’ve been developmentally, so we still had that to figure out. Unfortunately, I wasn’t just dealing with depression, rage, and anxiety, I was now dealing with some pretty serious intrusive thoughts. Thoughts that slowly began to take over, making me feel like I was in a vice. It was bad. I’d bounce back and forth between these thoughts, and true clarity. Thoughts that really built themselves from the depression, rage, and anxiety from the first year of postpartum. For 9 months the thoughts in my head were trying to sell me a lie.
“You’d be a better mom if you didn’t have this difficult child.”
“You’d be a better wife if your emotional and mental energy wasn’t spent on this child.”
“You’d be better off if you didn’t have this other child.”
“You’d be free if you didn’t have this difficult child.”
Those thoughts filled my head for so long, I was starting to believe them. But, those moments of clarity had me feeling guilty, devastated, and completely depressed. I spent many days and nights crying because I couldn’t believe I was having thoughts like the ones above. I spent many days and nights praying and begging God to fix everything. Then it turned into praying and begging to remove me or our kids because if I couldn’t handle my youngest, then I didn’t deserve to be a mom and all. Finally, it came down to me praying to God to remove me to prevent me from doing something I couldn’t undo. The intrusive thoughts took over so much, that it had me almost convinced that our youngest needed to be gone in order for me to be free. And by gone, I mean I almost killed my own child because of the lies that were filling my head. The lie that stated if she wasn’t here to prevent me from being a good mom, wife, and a happy person, then I’d be free. But that’s not truly what I wanted, I knew that wasn’t true. If I had 100% believed that, then she wouldn’t be here today. In a moment of clarity, the night before I almost did it, I cried and prayed to God to keep me from doing it. To get those thought out of my head. I begged for help, and literally overnight, those thoughts were gone. Poof. Erased like writing on a dry erase board. God had heard me, and answered my prayers that night and completely erased those intrusive thoughts from my mind. I had thought the days of huge miracles performed by God were in the past. I thought the days of Jesus were the last of the huge miracles performed by God. He certainly performed a huge miracle that night, it may not have been huge to the world, but it was huge to me, one that affected so many people (and those people don’t even know it!). That one miracle affected not just me, but it affected my daughter, her sister, her dad, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. After that night, I started looking to Jesus to help with the depression, anxiety, and rage, and to help me learn to accept the situation we were in involving our daughter’s developmental delays. I started with group Bible studies, then smaller individual studies. I’ve studied the story of Joseph, Hannah, and Ruth, read the entire New Testament within a month, and have been baptized after finding ACTUAL freedom in God’s word. I’ve become happier, the rage is gone, and the anxieties are gone for the most part, and that’s all thanks to God’s intervention that night.
I do have a follow up situation I believe is in direct connection to that night, because it happened exactly a year later. I had a dream one night, and I’ve never had a dream like it, and haven’t had another since. In the dream, I was teaching a few kids and three of them separated from the rest and started talking, I don’t remember what they were saying, but I do remember FEELING myself being pulled. Now, in dreams, you don’t feel anything, that’s why this pulling feeling was strange since I was actually feeling it. Anyways, I knew I didn’t want to be pulled in the direction I was being pulled towards, the kids were demons, and I was being pulled by the devil. I plopped my butt down, put my hands over my ears, and said “Jesus is my Lord and Savior”. I said it three times. Then there was a light that came from above, and something was said, something out of the Book of Psalms, and the pulling stopped, and those three kids went away. I believe the verse at the top of this page (Psalms 118:5) is what was said that drove away the demons and devil. That dream represents what happened the year prior, and I will hold on to that dream as a spiritual landmark in my walk with Christ.
Moms, if you are feeling stuck, trapped, or feel like the only way to freedom is to end the life of yourself or your child, that won’t free you. You will still be trapped by the guilt of those actions. You can still be in the situation you’re in, while attaining freedom, and it is freedom in Christ.
“He was in the stern, sleeping on the cushion. So they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher! Don’t you care that we’re going to die?” He got up, rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Silence! Be still!” The wind ceased, and there was a great calm.” (Mark 4:38-39). This verse is about Jesus calming the storm that his disciples thought would collapse their boat and kill them. In response, Jesus got up, and calmed the wind that brought the storm. I have this verse framed in our dining room to remind us that God can pull us out of some pretty dire situations.
“Nebuchadnezzar then approached the door of the furnace of blazing fire and called, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, you servants of the Most High God — come out!” So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out of the fire. When the satraps, prefects, governors, and the king’s advisers gathered around, they saw that the fire had no effect on the bodies of these men: not a hair of their heads was singed, their robes were unaffected, and there was no smell of fire on them.”(Daniel 3:26-27). This is a great example of how God may not remove us from a situation, but He will provide safety and protection to us while we’re in that situation.
Both the above examples from scripture are wonderful references to help us during our hardest struggles. I just now realize that I’m writing this just before Mother’s Day. So I hope that those who read this have found comfort in knowing that God is listening, even when it feels like He isn’t, and that He can help and save you if you believe He can.