I used to be a really fun person. In fact, my nickname in
college was Fun Molly. But those are some stories for another time. Then I got
married and had three kids and Fun Molly seemed to disappear and she was
replaced with a person who worries a lot and likes to keep a tight lid on the
chaos. Some might even call me anxious.
But it was after the birth of our youngest daughter that I
experienced a form of anxiety like nothing I’ve ever experienced before and
hope to never again.
After losing our son, Joseph, when I was 8 ½ months
pregnant, and experiencing that excruciatingly painful loss, we were ecstatic
to have a healthy baby girl born a little over two years later. The pregnancy
went well and I was overjoyed to bring home baby Kate.
My mom came out to help for a week and all was well until
Kate woke up one morning at 5:30am. That’s pretty normal for a newborn, right?
Well, suddenly the excitement of having a newborn took on a new angle. I had
been so focused on having another baby, I had forgotten what having a baby actually meant.
What it meant was I would be up multiple times during the
night, waking up early in the mornings, having tired days, being tied down to
nap schedules, and no weekends away for starters. I started thinking about how
I just delayed myself from returning to any type of career by another 5 years.
I wouldn’t be able to go to Vegas with some girlfriends who were planning a
trip. Other friends would go to Palm Desert without us that year. Suddenly
having a newborn didn’t seem so fun. And I felt trapped with no escape. And my
anxiety started to build.
In addition, I’m a person who needs a solid 8 hours of sleep
to function well. I LIKE my sleep. I NEED my sleep. And so I started worrying about how I wasn’t
going to get enough sleep each night. I would lie awake, while my baby slept
(note the irony here), wondering when my baby would wake up. And when she did,
I’d feed her and lay back down and start wondering when my baby would wake up
again. I was averaging around 3-4 hours of sleep each night at that point.
It’s surprising how quickly a mind can spiral out of
control. Within a matter of days I was a diagnosable basket case. I felt like I
had drank 12 pots of coffee and I couldn’t come down off my high. I was
starting to be very concerned about my mental state and whether I would be a
safe person for my children to be around. Which really scared me. It scared me
so much that I started reaching out for help in any direction I could.
I started with an OB-GYN, who prescribed me Ambien. But it
didn’t help. I was still lying awake at night. And by this point I was getting
desperate.
So I started telling my family, friends and anyone who would
listen how stressed out I was. Some of the not-so-helpful advice I got
included, “you should eat some chocolate” and “you should pray more”. But part
of my problem was that I was praying constantly, especially during the long
nights. And God didn’t seem to be listening or answering my prayers. I have
never been in a situation where I felt so completely out of control of my mind
and body. It was taking me to a dark place I had never experienced. And I was desperate to escape. I felt
betrayed by God that he would leave me so bereft of comfort in my time of
desperate need.
In addition to the medication, my OB-GYN recommended a
post-natal therapist and meeting with her was my first step toward recovery.
First she suggested that I didn’t need to treat my sleep problem, but I need to
treat the anxiety instead. She called my condition post-natal anxiety, which is
similar to, but different from postpartum depression. She suggested I started
taking Ativan, an anti-anxiety medication. Within the fist 30 minutes of taking
it, I began to relax for the first time in weeks. Which felt wonderful.
Then I decided I needed to start exercising again to help
release some of my pent-up energy and anxiety. One of my first days back at the
gym, I was on the elliptical watching the evangelist Joyce Meyer on TV, hoping
for a word of comfort. She was talking about surrendering to God and the
message really hit home for me.
As a self-proclaimed control freak, I was really struggling
with the fact that I had no control over this fear and anxiety that was
consuming me. I have the life-long habit of suppressing my feelings and it struck
me for the first time that instead of suppressing my feelings, I needed to
release my feelings and surrender them to God. So I began the practice of physically
laying down in a posture of surrender and began to mentally release my tension
and anxiety through my hands and feet. I would spend 10-15 minutes doing this a
couple of times a week after exercising. I would also try to do this in whatever
posture I was in, wherever I was, whenever I started to feel anxious.
As a result, I began to feel a mental and physical shift in
myself, by recognizing and accepting the fact that I am not in control. In
fact, it’s a good thing I’m not in control, because it takes a huge burden off
my shoulders.
It took a combination of many things - learning to
surrender, humbling myself to take medication, and reaching out for help, to
find relief and healing. And I thank God for His provision of those things. This
passage from Psalm 31 captures the essence of my journey, “I will be glad and
rejoice in your love, for you saw my affliction and knew the anguish of my
soul. You have not handed me over to the enemy but have set my feet in a
spacious place.“
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