photo: Jennifer Butler Basile
The sunset draws me in.
It pulls me west,
to the continuation of life, light.
If I move toward it,
if I suck the gloaming dry of its marrow,
I gain that much more
hope
possibility
potential.
The day is not yet done.
Author Archives: Jennifer Butler Basile
Rejuvenation
bleach
scrub
shave
sleep
supplement
maintain
refresh
want
need
require
refused
Riddle Me This One
A zebra walks into a bar – no wait, that’s the beginning of another type of story entirely.
Imagine this if you can.
Nine children invited to a birthday party.
Nine (different) stuffed safari animals hidden about the yard.
Nine children loosed upon the camouflaged beasts.
In a perfect equation, each child would find one animal and go home with said animal.
In reality, there are any number of permutations:
- Overzealous child with 20/20 (or x-ray) vision finds more than one (or all) animal(s)
- Each child finds one animal, but it is not the one he or she wants
- An all-out brawl, not unlike a lion mauling a zebra on the savannah, ensues over who gets which animal
Now imagine you’re taking one of those standardized tests that are all the rage these days and solve for Z (which is for zebra, by the way). What is the solution? What say you?
Well?
To all Ingenious Fathers Everywhere
He said, “Kenny look!” and pointed out in the hallway. Even before I could think my head turned around and I followed Dad’s finger. When I saw nothing and looked back Dad was smiling a mile a minute, acting like he hadn’t done anything but I noticed that his toothbrush was gone. I let him know he didn’t fool me. “Dad, how come you always hide your toothbrush, why don’t you keep yours with ours?”
Dad laughed. “Well, Kenny, I guess I don’t keep my toothbrush with the rest of yours because unlike your mother, I was a little boy once myself.”
I thought about this for a second, then said, “What does that mean?”
Dad picked up my toothbrush and said, “Look at this, not only is this instrument perfect for brushing teeth, it has other wonderful uses too. You see, Kenny, I know that in a little boy’s eyes there isn’t anything in the world that is better for general cleaning than a toothbrush, and the greatest thing about it is that with a good rinse afterward no one can tell what it was used for.
“I also know that the best toothbrush for cleaning stuff is always someone else’s. So, rather than wondering what my toothbrush last cleaned, I think it’s better that it only goes places that I know about.”
— from The Watsons Go to Birmingham: 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis
One Blessed Moment
A mail truck swinging in ahead of you as you swoop down a hill.
A child vomiting on you as you’re about to walk out the door.
Sometimes the universe conspires not against you, but for you.
Saving you from the speeding ticket that lay in wait just beyond the mail truck.
Forcing you to stay home and not only soothe your child, but cleanse yourself of the worries of the day.
When your world is spinning at an alarming rate, there is no room for error.
But certain things cannot be ignored;
Course must be altered –
if only for one blessed moment.
Mind Games
What is it about the anxious mind that creates a sense of urgency where there really need not be one?
Yes, we are busy.
Yes, there are things to do,
schedules to adhere to the insides of our minds,
errands to be run,
appointments to be met.
But what is it that turns that mind into a manic maelstrom?
That makes setting priorities an absolute impossibility,
that makes logic ooze out our ears,
that brings the piles of ‘pending’ into focus, yet nothing else.
The urgency is not in response to anything urgent at all;
it is the anxious mind’s way of attempting to exert control over –
an over-scheduled life?
a transitional phase?
poor planning and posturing on our part?
We go and go and go
until –
what?
Reality smacks us on our asses?
A Tahitian vacation beckons?
We find the right cognitive behavioral therapist and drugs?
The unwitting interference of fate may be the only solution,
for we’re far too busy worrying to actively pursue any other option.
Unintentional Hiatus
My month-long series on maternal mental health ran up to the end on a high-note. It organically happened that I took Sundays off (which happened last year, too, I believe) and I missed one Monday. But the second to the last day of the month led into a multi-day outdoor assault – my own family’s feet on the rocky outcroppings of a letter-boxing trail and my husband and I splitting wood like the lesser versions of Paul Bunyan that we are – keeping me away from blogging for much longer than I anticipated.
Shouldn’t have been a big deal, missing that last day of the month, right? Wouldn’t have been – save my anal-retentive perfectionist tendencies and overbearing need to summarize. I couldn’t post any inane essay on my pre-series schedule before concluding the series. And life was ratcheting up, not allowing me to sit and form any cohesive set of thoughts.
My youngest’s preschool program finished for the year, also ending those blessed two and three-quarter hours of writing time twice a week. Some of it had also become crush tortilla chips while surfing the web after writing time, but it was alone time nonetheless.
image from Peggy Lampman
Perhaps the biggest challenge to my settled psyche, however, is the change in schedule itself. I can hear the words of my wise LICSW repeating in my head, telling me the beginnings and endings of school years are transitional times for everyone in the household. I still try to tell myself it’s no big deal, but apparently it is. Yes, we’ll all be liberated from hectic mornings and rigid schedules, but we’ll all have to get used to spending all day everyday with each other. None of us will have freedom from each other. No alone time. No individual activities. No uninterrupted playtime with friends – be it other children or corn chips.
Then it started raining. I half-heartedly set myself to chipping away at the piles of laundry and dishes that had accumulated whilst we frolicked with sharpened woodland tools outside. And I went and read this amazing – in its content, expression, and ability to scare the bejeezus out of me – article about motherhood that messed with my already fragile state of juju (which may, in fact, become the starting point for the summary posthumous post of my series).
So I’m here. In some state of transition. But aren’t we all. God damn walking the tightrope/balancing life again. Isn’t there just some set state of equilibrium I can have installed in my inner ear?
Work in(g on) Progress
When I started this blog chronicling my survival as a mother postpartum, I sought out other blogs with a similar focus. My research took me all the way to South Africa. I found Lebogang and her blog, For His Love. A woman living a totally different life in a totally different part of the world felt the exact same way as me. I was so glad to read my story on her pages with a different set of characters and timeline, especially since she was further along in her story, which meant I, too, would make it. After all, that’s what the badge in the bottom right hand corner of her page said:
I survived postpartum depression. You can too.
This image was like a magic talisman to me. I clicked on it, half-expecting, I think, the spontaneous appearance of the how-to handbook for solving all my problems. This mythical handbook did not appear – but Postpartum Progress did, which is, really, the next best thing.
Postpartum Progress is the brainchild of Katherine Stone. She has built and branded a maternal mental health empire. It started, as she says, with the blog, then a conference, and is now building its nonprofit status. But while it started with Stone and her own struggle with postpartum OCD, its success is in the amazing community she’s created for women who all-too-often feel completely alone.
Simply their social media feed is enough to inspire hope, with affirmations, informational tidbits, and links to in-depth articles. The blog and website offer a wealth of information and resources, that would help any woman while away the wee hours of the panicked postpartum morning before the doctor’s office opens. And that may be precisely the point that Postpartum Progress exists. To offer a voice and ear 24/7 to a struggling population whose problems do not adhere to office hours and are not as cut and dry as a short symptom list.
A disclaimer on all their pages states that the information and advice is not a substitute for professional care and consultation. However, it is a place to start the journey and a companion throughout it. It offers a place for women who have no vocal allies in their everyday lives, due to stigma, to find friends and examples of success despite struggle.
It is organizations like Postpartum Progress that give me hope for the empowerment, validation, and vindication of all women suffering from perinatal mood disorders. Even ones like me, who are post postpartum.
A Common Language
I’ve been thinking a lot about how to ensure that available mental health resources get into the hands of the women who need them. When and where resources are available, there seems to be a gap between the offering and the accessing. As always, I think back to when I first slid on the shoes of the women now making the postpartum trek.
Women of all socioeconomic, racial, and educational backgrounds share one extremely daunting obstacle when in need of such help: they must articulate their exact problem in order to get the help they need.
In a complex web of medical jargon, insurance restrictions and loopholes, and a frustratingly-absent physical presentation of symptoms (for the most part), it falls upon the sufferer to demand treatment for the condition that, no doubt, impairs the very confidence, decision-making skill set, and strength it takes to do so.
It’s an ironic catch-22. The doctor has the tools to ‘fix’ you, but you must lead her to the workshop. The doctor is the artist, but cannot pick up the paintbrush unless you led her to the canvas. The horse must determine the source of water before the doctor can lead it there.
There is no solution unless the patient gives the doctor information to determine the problem.
When I hinted that I felt like running away a few months postpartum, my midwife recommended I talk to a LISCW. This therapist helped me chip away at the enigma that dragged me down, but it was I who eventually had to request medication from my physician. When that dull cloud still hovered, I made the final call to increase dosage. More recently when I intimated to her that I still felt low sometimes, I apparently wasn’t descriptive enough because I was told the meds shouldn’t make me feel flat; there should be ups and downs.
How well my mental health situation is addressed directly correlates to how accurate I am in describing it. How empowering and crippling at the same time. If I do not share every pertinent detail in clearly descriptive language, I will not feel better. I will not get the meds, therapy, tests, information, etc. that I need to make anything resembling a full recovery.
Regardless of my level of medical literacy, the debilitating effects of depression and anxiety can keep me from adequately representing my plight. Regardless of the quality of care available to me, its benefits will not be afforded to me if I do not say just how much I need it. Nothing will be given to me unless I ask.
How do we on the receiving end of such conversations draw the stories out of the women who need help? How do we teach/speak the language to give them a voice? How do we release the language bubbling beneath their skin? In that wordless abyss is the bridge between therapeutic, wholistic maternal care and the women who need it.
What Postpartum Depression Recovery DOES NOT Look Like
Read this article, peeps. Truth. Simple, yet sage advice. Your rational side may know it all already, but that stubborn irrational side of you needs to hear it again. Believe me, I’ve been there and felt all these – and so has Katherine Stone, the author.
What Postpartum Depression Recovery DOES NOT Look Like.
Chopping Potatoes 