The Stigma of Mental Illness & Having One Child
My two year old loves babies. She likes to point them out in public, and she likes pairs of things that are big and small to be a mama and baby.
There are days where I badly wish I could give her a younger sibling. When we first bought our house, I had just finished six weeks of physical therapy, so my chronic pain from a spinal injury and hypermobile joints was greatly improved. My mental health was also good. We’d gotten out of my in-laws’ house: our goal for a whole year. I had weaned my daughter and begun to get a full night’s sleep for the first time in two years. I started thinking I could write another book and maybe even have a second child. I made baby name lists, and didn’t sell our cars eat like I’d planned. For a while I had the kind of dreams that accompanied my desire to have my first baby.
Then my neck and shoulder pain started to come back because I could no longer afford physical therapy and had lost access to childcare in order to go. I had been running a few days a week but I had to stop because it didn’t work with my spouse’s rigorous holiday work schedule. And then I had a depressive episode. They’re not something I can control. I have long term depressive disorder. It can be triggered by anything from being sick or in pain, to pre-menstrual hormones, to a stressful situation like moving, a new job, or a disagreement with someone. Even a sleepless night, which decreases serotonin, makes it exponentially worse. Guess what causes not just one, but months of sleepless nights? A newborn baby.
Even taking meds, I have depressive episodes. Sometimes they last for an evening, sometimes for weeks. Sertraline definitely isn’t the miracle drug for me that Citalopram was, but I’m not up to the challenge of coming off of it right now. The withdrawal process is hell.
When I’m depressed I shrink my life down to basics: feeding and clothing and bathing my child and meeting her needs emotionally. Eating. Resting. There are days where I can barely get off the couch. Negative thoughts overwhelm me and I obsess over past slights, or friendships that went wrong. Obsessing over things is honestly why I wrote this post: to get it out of my head, so I could go back to working on my book. I often have to tell myself not to act on my feelings, which is something I did for years. The negativity of depression has convinced me to delete people on social media, end friendships, make snide comments, and worse.
When I’m depressed I am thankful that I only have one child to care for. The hormone disruption of early pregnancy made me almost suicidal. My doctor wouldn’t let me go off my meds because I was crying all the time. Then in the last trimester I had terrible anxiety, imagining all the terrible things that would go wrong at birth. It wasn't until she came out and I saw how perfect she was that this terror ebbed, only to be replaced by the infinite terror: that of being a mother to a helpless infant. During the stress of the past few months, I lost count of how many times I told myself not to get pregnant again. Maybe just for right now, maybe never.
Not just because I can't afford it (I had a salaried job, insurance and medicaid back then). Because I don’t lie to myself anymore. I am mentally ill. “I’m a nervous person,” or “I just get sad sometimes,” are lies I told myself for years about my mental illness. I grew up in the nineties. People didn’t discuss these things often. We didn’t have Instagram bios in which to list disabilities. People took Prozac but they didn’t talk about it. “You’re mental,” was an insult. Mental illness is becoming more readily accepted, but it is still stigmatized. I’ve been compared to someone with bipolar disorder. I am not bipolar. This is like telling someone with cancer, “I’m sorry about your HIV.” These two illnesses are completely different and manifest in different ways.
I hate this about myself. I wish I could be like everyone else. Especially in a time when two kids in two years is the new normal. It has been implied that I’m being selfish. A relative once told me, “I’m not a fan of having only one child,” and however well-intended this comment was, it continues to haunt me. I wonder how many other people look at my life and aren’t a fan of it. How many think I’m making a detrimental mistake, turning my child into a narcissist or future serial killer. Even though my two year old is bright, sweet, gentle, and assertive, these things haunt me. I’m grateful for a friend of ours who told me recently: What’s best for you is what’s best for your child.
"As a culture, we have a weird obsession with women being "selfish." Mothers especially are prone to accusations of selfishness any time they make a choice that doesn't directly and obviously benefit their children. Even when mothers are encouraged to practice self-care, it's often approached with the idea that feeling happy and rested will make them better partners and parents. And while that may be true, why can't a woman ever just be happy for her own damn self? Dudes don't need to come up with excuses for why they should be able to do things they enjoy, and women shouldn't either." -Anne Theriault
While some would like to imagine me with a figurative second child, the only one that exists right now is the one I already have. I imagine people think that I only have my own self-interest at heart, but taking care of her the best way I can is also at the heart of this. Right now this is how I take care of her. I give her all of myself, without complicating my marriage or my mental illness or my relationship with her by bringing another baby into the mix.
Right now what’s best for us is this: Simplicity. Today the joints in my shoulders and arms are killing me. My neck has been sore for days, and just a few days ago, I was crying because of my anxiety. Even on the best of days, mental illness is treatable but incurable. All of us are doing the best we can. And what is best for you, as a normal-functioning human without a debilitating illness, may not be best for someone else. It’s best not to judge someone unless you’ve been in their shoes.
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