loving my thighs

I have stopped dieting.

Whoa. Wait a minute? Did I say that? More importantly, did I say that 2 months before MY WEDDING???


I did. Because I love my daughter.


A week ago, I was making my bed and my perfect little angel baby was playing with my makeup bag, as she is wont to do. She usually dumps it all over the floor, then finds the most ridiculous thing she can to put in the middle of the living room floor, usually an (unused) OB tampon, cause it is the perfect size for her little fist and, more importantly, because it will cause the most embarrassment found when company finds it in her little fingers.

This time, however, she had a different mission. She found the eyeshadow applicator I use for the dark gray shadow and started using it.









Really.






She held it properly. She smeared it in the correct place. She didn't poke her eye. SHE IS 15 MONTHS OLD!!!




I, of course, did not stop her. It was way too adorable. I took pictures instead.




But I also realized...she is already watching me. She is already mimicing what I do. If she can watch me apply makeup and then flawlessy apply it on herself...what am I teaching her by hating my body?

Growing up, my parents loved me unconditionally. They thought I was perfect just the way I was. But my mom was always trying new diets, always failing new diets, never being happy with the way she looked. I picked that up. My mother is a fabulous woman, completely beautiful and the most fun to have at a party. I just don't know if she knows that.

So I am going to be happy with myself. No diets. Healthy eating, yes, because, well, DUH. But no crazy diets. No going to the gym when I could be playing with her. Instead, we will go for walks. We will wrestle on the floor. I will fly her around the living room while she giggles. No more thinking, "I would be so much happier a couple of sizes smaller," because I have everything I need anyways. I am not going to wait to start living anymore.

This is what depression looks like

There is a spot at the back of my head, about where I imagine my medulla oblongata to be, where my depression emanates from. I can feel it silently buzzing when I am having a bad day. I can feel it misfiring synapses, can feel it blocking seratonin from the rest of my brain. I can see it. It is round with a monotonous look on its face; it is pencil drawn, in black and white, like the ball on the antidepressant commercial.
There are times when I get so wrapped up in how my brain feels, I forget how to move my hands. I stare at them, wide-eyed with tears rolling down my face, while I try to figure out how to grasp something. This pales in comparison to the times my brain skips a beat, matrix style, and I suddenly can't figure out what stole the last few seconds from me.
My whole body is leaden. My knees ache. My teeth hurt. I always feel like I am hungry. Apparently I am not among the lucky few who can't eat when they are sad. I try to smile, and it looks like a slash across my face. It is unnatural. People notice and ask why I am holding my face like that.
I cannot get excited over anything. Not baby's milestones, not my upcoming wedding. I want to sit in my house and never leave. I don't even want to be in sitting position. I want to be laying down where I can see the baby and the television and Jason simultaneously. I don't want to die. I just want nothing.
I have rage bubbling inside of me. Always just deep enough where it is not noticeable. Until I cannot find my oven mitt or I dropped something or Jason tries to clean up the living room when I should be doing that, after all I am the mother and I am terrible at it and I am so bad at this and how will she ever love me because I cannot keep a house clean and I am not as cool as I want to be and I am so screwed up how can you ever love me baby I don't even LIKE MYSELF and boom. I throw something at the wall. Then I feel bad about it. But always think it is really Jason's fault. But not really, it is mine cause I am such a screw-up.
No one knows outside of my home. That would be unbearable. I hide it so well at work. They may think I am a bit hard, but all the better to boss them around with.
Until one night while watching a sitcom with one of my best friends...I realize it is not my fault. IT IS NOT MY FAULT. There is something legitimately wrong with me. It is no one's fault, unless you count medulla man, the infamous seratonin blocker.
I make a call to a psychiatric help line. They set me up with a psychiatrist. He only has to spend minutes with me before I burst into tears; by the end of the hour through which I blubber, he decides I have clinical depression, mostly likely the post-partum type. A trip to my family doctor, 1 prescription and less than a week later, I smile. Naturally.
I am not all better. I will be on the drugs for a long time. Recently, due to being in between insurance companies, I was without my drugs for a week and received a GLARING reminder of why I am on them.
Things seem much more manageable now. Plus, I don't always feel like Jason is cheating on me, which he was never EVEN CLOSE to doing, but was a constant fear of mine before. So bad a fear it was that I would check his email. Now I can believe he loves me.
The thing was, I never wanted to hurt the baby. I never thought about her in a negative way. Sometimes I wanted to punch Jason and a lot of times I want to injure myself (not kill, just injure); but no one was ever hurt.
It was all just sadness. Incompleteness. Like I was wrapped in that white foamy stuff they pack things with: I could see and I could move around, but I could never really feel anything unless it was bad.
I don't know who is going to read this. Maybe no one besides the incomparable Miss Ali. But if you do stumble across it and you can relate...I know how you feel. Do yourself the biggest favour of your life and talk to someone. Not your husband/boyfriend/partner. It is too easy to believe they are overreacting. Someone a bit farther away. Listen to them. And let yourself believe that it IS going to get better. We are all rooting for you.