Growing up, I knew I possess a sensitive heart. But my mom cried during Hallmark commercials. I have a temper (which I'm still working on). But I had inherited my dad's redhead genes. I am perfectionist. But that's just the way I was made. There was always some reason. Some explainable justification for why I felt the way I did.
I thought everyone felt the way I did. Because think about it... How are young/teenage girls often described/categorized as a whole? Do words like... drama queen, emotional, hormonal, PMS (because that explains ALL emotions with negative connotations in women), sensitive... etc. come to mind? I believed it was normal to cry myself to sleep at night on a somewhat regular basis. Somehow I believed it was my fault I felt so alone... that somehow I wasn't good enough. That I was just different. That I just didn't fit in. That that was just my reality. And try as I might to change my external circumstances, my feelings never really did change. I didn't realize that maybe, just maybe, I was struggling with something outside of my control.
Life proceeded on much the same way through college. I eventually found someone how loved me for me, and things were really good. Then I got pregnant. Pregnancy was hard. Hormones do truly have a integral role in my depression and anxiety. But everything was going to be fine once the baby came. He came, but it wasn't fine. I just thought I had the baby blues. And he was a really hard baby. He probably cried close to 8 to 12 hours a day every day for the first 6 months of his life before it started to slowly improve. Once again there was always an explainable justification. I didn't want to harm myself or my baby... so surely I wasn't really depressed.
Things improved. But a month after he turned two, he had a baby brother. Soon thereafter we also realized, our oldest had some special needs and needed help. I was back to hard. But it's just life. Life is just hard.
One night I was in bed reading from the Ensign, a magazine our church publishes monthly. There was an article on postpartum depression. You can read it here. All of the sudden, my mind finally saw the puzzle pieces fall into place and understood that I was struggling with depression. It wasn't just me. I wasn't making this up. The struggle was real, and even if it isn't uncommon, it isn't normal either.
This was my 'ah ha' moment. My awakening. It didn't fix everything. But with that light, I began to find understanding. And with that understanding, I began to find direction. This was a pivotal turning point. Instead of trying to hide or turn a blind eye to my struggles, I began to turn to meet them head on.
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