Today is not forever

Crouching, in the shower, as your chest heaves and waves of shame and anger and desperation crash over you. Hating yourself, hating everything about you. Praying, pleading to God for help, as sobs shake your body and stringy, gluey globs of snot and tears drain down the plughole. A little girl opens the shower curtain, "You okay, Mummy?" Please God, let this be over soon.


Before I got this way I never really understood. I made all the right noises, and said a lot of the right things.... but in the back of my mind I was silently judging. How can people feel that bad? I just couldn't get it. Why did they let it get so bad? Why couldn't they get themselves back up? I kind of thought depression was just pure selfishness.

And, in it's way it is. But it's also fear. Crippling fear and ugly self-loathing in a way you'd never dreamed possible. It's not coping, no matter how hard you try. If it was possible by sheer force of will, to not be depressed... nobody would be. I wouldn't wish this on anyone. I know how the smallest tasks can seem like Everest. I know how easy it is to plaster a smile on when you are out, and then go home, alone and desperate.

I find it so hard, feeling this way while I have to care for these tiny people.  And there's that lingering question; would I feel this way if I wasn't a mother? They bring my stress and tension into the foreground with devastating sharpness. I wish I wasn't responsible for them, while I am like this.

But at the same time, they are my saving grace. If I didn't have to get up every day, and care for them... I don't think I would get up in the morning. They make it so hard... but they keep me trying, fighting. On the bad days they can make things so much worse, but they can also make the bad days so much better too. The fact that they need me, makes me get up, keep moving, even if some days it's barely a shuffle. Fall down seven times, stand up eight.

I'm grateful for this. Because of it I am going to be a much better, much more compassionate, understanding person. But I am looking forward (so much) to the day when I can be the person who used to feel this way, instead of the person who does.