We all have them. They nudge us, they stomp on us, they leave us for dead. They are life’s wallops. They may be pretty simple: we didn’t get that job we really wanted. They may be totally traumatic: you get the word that your dad had a heart attack and died at work. Those take your breath away, and not in a good way.
We are challenged to pick ourselves back up by our bootstraps and keep trudging along, whether we want to or not.
I recently got reacquainted with a pal of mine from high school. We were in a discussion about how I felt so comfortable with him because he knew me before life’s wallops. He didn’t get it. He didn’t know that life had been cruel to me. I had to go back and tell him that I didn’t think that life had walloped me anymore than anyone else, but that he knew me before life started the process.
In high school, I was carefree. I was naive. Nothing fazed me. I went through my day as though it was always going to be this way every day of my life. I wasn’t looking for anything to happen that would impact my life that would change who I was. Like I said, I was naive.
But life does happen. I mean, from the time I graduated from high school until I turned 30, I left my secure home and went away to college, my dad died, I moved back home and got married, I suffered from infertility, I finally had a baby, my mother died, I had another baby and separated from my husband. Yeah, that about sums it up. Life walloped me good.
Oh, and then I shut down. I sort of went crazy. The doctors called it postpartum depression. I informed them that it wasn’t postpartum depression, it was pre-partum, and partum before that, and during partum too. It didn’t matter. I was clinically depressed and non-functioning. That is always the key, how well you function. I couldn’t. And I had two young kids that needed me. I needed me. Too bad, I was down for the count.
I was lucky. I was still dealing with Hospice from the recent death of my mother. They got me into counseling. Counseling found me a shrink and I was admitted into the hospital. That was good. I needed to be taken care of. I needed to hand over the keys and recover. I had been through a lot.
They put me on some serious meds. They explained that’s why they had hospitalized me, so they could monitor the meds. I do remember that I did a lot of crying. I was feeling sorry for myself, I was feeling sentimental and blue. My mom could have whipped me into shape in about a minute. She would have had me cleaning walls or floors or something. I would have worked it out of my system. I also remember that the poor woman who was blessed to be my roommate was moved out the next morning. She needed rest and I wasn’t letting her get any.
They had wonderful chocolate cake. I think I ate a piece with every meal. That was good because I had lost so much weight. I thought losing weight was a good thing. They didn’t like me losing weight that way. They weighed me every day. I guess me gaining weight showed them I was feeling better. I didn’t think so. I thought my gaining weight was the cake.
I got to do all kinds of things while I was there. They always had art therapy classes. I thought that was infantile. Why would you give a grown woman a piece of construction paper and some crayons. But I went along, sometimes sarcastically, sometimes just because it was the next thing on the schedule. This woman wanted us to draw a picture of one of our best days. Of course, I drew a picture that had my children and my mother in it. Then she said that I needed to turn my picture over and tell what was good about the picture. I sat there for a minute and then started shaking. Then the tears came. I couldn’t do this. I had to leave. I did leave. I went back to my room and stared out the window with the tears streaming down my face. A little while later this woman came into my room and wanted to know why I had reacted as I did. I just stared her in the face and said that there could never be any good that came out of my picture. Didn’t she know that my mother had died? Didn’t she know that my life had come to an end? Didn’t she know that no matter how long I lived my life would never be right again? How could she not know these things?
I took tests all the time. They were personality tests. I always liked those. Of course, I never paid much attention to them. I just liked filling them out. Except this one. They asked me all of these life questions. “Have you experienced loss in the last two years?” Which loss did they want to talk about. My answer to that, “uh, yes”. “Have you changed jobs in the last two years?” “Uh, yes”, they didn’t ask how many job changes I had in the last two years but whatever. “Have you had a baby in the last two years.” “That was why I was here, wasn’t it?” “Has your marriage been difficult in the last two years?” “Uh, yeah.” Jeeze, these questions were getting on my nerves. They went on and on. At the end I was supposed to add up my yeses and tell them what they were. I think there were like 20 questions. I think I had like 18 yeses. When I turned it in the lady looked at my score and then at me. Her eyes were huge like she couldn’t believe it. After the class was over she came up to me and started quizzing me about all of these. I explained what all had happened in my life. She told me that usually if someone has more than 5 yeses they should be clinically depressed. She wondered how I was handling everything. I told her I wasn’t handling it, that’s why I was there.
They let me stay at the hospital for 30 days. After that and my insurance was going to run out. They knew that I was ready to go though when we were sitting in a “group” session one day and this guy who was in really bad shape went off on one of the counselors and I let him have it. I can remember that. I got very anxious and I was holding the arms of my chair like I was going to launch myself out of it at any time. All of a sudden I looked right at him and asked him “Who do you think you are? We are your friends. We only want what is best for you and you just won’t listen.” I went on like this for about 15 minutes. When I was finished I looked around at all of my new-found friends and asked “What?” They all started clapping. I didn’t get it. Later one of the counselors told me that I usually went along with what everybody told me to do and I never got mad. She told me I was pretty sarcastic if I didn’t want to do anything but they thought I was just numb. They knew that I was getting better by getting mad. I told her that I was good and mad, about a lot of things. She said that I needed that. I needed to get mad. I didn’t have to act like everything was okay. I could show people my emotions.
I’m not going to say that when I went home everything was peachy keen. It wasn’t. I still had a lot to go through. I still had life throwing the hard ball at me.
Looking back I can say all of the walloping was worth it. It made me the person that I am today. I became a better friend, a better listener, a better parent, a better spouse. I had to make some tough life choices but I made them and am a better person because of them. I became stronger in my faith, which would have made my parents so very proud.
I remember one day thinking back on that drawing that I did while I was in the hospital and the conversation that followed my meltdown. I can now tell you that there was something good that happened because both of my parents died. I moved out of my hometown. I moved to a new hometown with friends who helped me. There I began a relationship with the man who would be my husband, and a good father to my two children. He would also give me two more children that I value more than life itself. I would have never moved if Mom or Dad were still alive. I wouldn’t have needed to. But because they were gone I could make that move and it was the best thing that I ever did.
I remember singing along with a song where one of the lines “I would give up everything just to spend one more day with you” and I thought about Mom and Dad. For so long I thought I would give up anything to spend more time with them. I realized on that day that I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t give up one minute of time with any of my children to spend an entire day with Mom and Dad. I love them so much but not nearly as much as I love the life I have now, with my husband and children.
If I want to communicate anything about that time of my life it’s just that sometimes we have to ask for help. We need to ask our friends, our family, or complete strangers for help. They will help you. They desperately want to help you. Sometimes asking is hard but the sooner you ask the easier it is.
And that we are who we were raised to be. When you peel back the layers we’re still there. That little girl who could ride her bike faster than some of the boys in our neighborhood, who loved to climb trees once she was up in them, who would do anything for anybody, who had a smile for everybody. She’s still there. I’m glad there are people out there who remember her.