Jumbled Mess

I think the hardest part about being a mother is the complicated list of decisions you have to make for yourself, your child, and your family.  The last four months, I've been trying to make a "new normal" for our family.  We all are on a diet, have a new chore chart, have an updated budget, and appear to be doing well, but some days I just feel like it's a jumbled mess.  Postpartum anxiety seems to get the best of me some days.  I've struggled with it since about Day 2 after delivery.  Whether it be that scary shows leave me up sleepless at night, no longer feeling rested, racing thoughts, constant jumbled ideas, and internal conversations that just won't turn down, I often feel like the old me is gone and this new me is a little too messy.

The hardest part about it is the lack of confidence I had in myself has grown.  I constantly feel like I am under performing, under achieving, and unable to reach my goals despite feeling like a hamster running on the wheel of life.  I am micromanaging what I eat, what she eats, what the dog eats.  I am trying to start a business, trying to run a house, and trying to care for a new baby.  No matter how much laundry and cleaning I do, I feel like I can't catch up.  I felt like I failed at breastfeeding, feel most days like I am failing at weight loss, and constantly wonder if I am doing a good enough job being a mom.  I will self report that I am overly anxious.  I have some slight irritability, some over irrationality, and constantly am going going going unable to stop.

Last night I had a dream that I was in a room at a school in trouble.  A teacher was scolding me because she thought  I wasn't trying my best but as I looked at the pages of text with a problem, I kept trying to figure it out.  Angry and bitter, I tried, but what I was doing wasn't what she was looking for.  I felt judged, belittle, humiliated in this dream.  I wanted to get up and walk out but I felt paralyzed.  I had to pee, but I didn't even voice my needs.  I just sat in silence.  Letting someone cut me down and assume things about my heart that weren't even true.  Good thing it was just a dream...

But I am realizing more and more that this postpartum anxiety isn't just going to disappear very easily.  As my body is still recovering from having a baby, my emotions are also recovering.  The other night we watched an episode of Hannibal and there was a killer under the bed.  One of my old childhood fears were of the dark and of something under my bed.  I never thought a show could make me get so nervous.  There I was in the shower before bed, peeking out, hearing sounds and feeling like there was something wrong.  I kept the lights on and played a game on my phone until the feelings subsided.  Who am I?  When did all of this happen? 

For once, I feel like one of my clients.  I, emotionally, am  not who I was.  And while I am at home resting and what some would say, living the dream, I am also dealing with a mind that has been altered by hormones.  I don't like feeling this way.   I don't know if I keep on fighting this battle alone or I reach out and talk to someone.  I am just unsure of everything.  I don't want to hurt myself or others.  I don't see things or hear things that aren't there.  I just have an unsettling amount of anxiety most days.  Being a mom is hard, but finding me again is the hardest part.  I know God has a plan, I am not defeated, but I just had to sit down and process the messiness my emotions have become since having a baby.  Most days, it's getting much better.  But so much is going on in our little lives.  I guess more than anything, I just want to know I'm normal for feeling this way.  It's normal to have a mess, feel like a mess, and sometimes actually be living in a mess. 

Our society doesn't talk about postpartum anything.  You leave the hospital and are left to "wing it".  No parenting manual, no recovery of your body training.  I think you get used to those monthly OB appointments then weekly ones.  Then the ship sails out of the harbor and you battle the raging sea alone.  Despite having a loving husband, it doesn't compare to having a network of people who understand what it's like to feel forever scared by stretch marks, forever flabby, forever changed.  My babyless friends love the baby but they don't understand me.  They don't realize every 2-3 hours, I am thinking about ounces of formula, diapers, and her routine.  They don't realize how hard it is to be away from home for more than a few hours and how even just getting a pedicure isn't just a "pop in" activity anymore.  Everything has to have a plan and a process.  Someone else besides me comes first.  It's an adjustment that no one gets until they live it.  It's a shift in your thinking, your heart, your desires, your will.  I feel everything so big these days.  Love, acceptance, rejection, judgement, etc.  I know why I had the dream.  I know why I feel all anxious on the inside, but how and when does it stop?  Will it?  

The funny thing about messes is you can live with them for a long time and manage in dysfunction without anyone really even knowing.  I suppose I'm bearing my soul and being honest because I hope that somewhere out there others feel it, too, and some how it will make me recognize it's all part of the journey.  Our church's sermon this week was on having hope that God provides everything we need no matter how little we have.  I needed the message, the hope, and the power of God's love being spoken into my life.  Not because I need a pity party, but I needed to remember I am not in charge.  I am not ultimately responsible for EVERYTHING in my world.  I just have to keep doing my best, keep relying on him, and in the end that's all I can do.  Jumbled mess, today, I am just going to sit with you.

God's world is still broken.  
There is still trouble.  
It is still not redeemed.   

I am still broken, 
still messy, 
and still in need. 

But I will keep on waiting
keep on praying
knowing it's in His hands

That a day will come
We will all see the sun
and it will be ok in the end...