My husband and I celebrated our 41st wedding anniversary this week.
“God, forty-one years is such a long time,” I said with a sigh as I sat across from him at the Mediterranean restaurant.
He took a sip of his wine. “I’m half-way through your memoir,” he said with a grimace. (It’s the first memoir I wrote titled Healing Motherhood Rage, unpublished.) “It’s really hard to revisit how absent I was.”
Absent while I raised the kids virtually alone and raged at them. I had undiagnosed, untreated postpartum depression. Possibly borderline personality disorder, too. My behavior was awful back then and so painful to read about now.
So why bother? Why re-visit all that sorrow? And why write down all that stuff in the first place?
Rage is as addictive as heroine or alcohol
Because I wanted to leave breadcrumbs for me and my children out of that forest. I was abused by my mom, and I swore I wouldn’t abuse my kids. I didn’t physically, but I did emotionally and psychologically even though I was trying my best not to. But all that rage reared its ugly head whenever I was hungry, angry, lonely, or tired.
H.A.L.T. I tried to halt, but back then didn’t have that tool at my disposal; didn’t know to stop and consider: Was I hungry? (Eat something!) Was I angry about something else, not my kids? (Identify it.) Was I lonely? (God, yes. Call a friend.) Was I tired? (Always, but some days more than others.)
Our lives improved. It took years, and slowly, we recovered joy.
Rage is as addictive as heroine or alcohol. There’s that same physical rush of euphoria. I felt sick with remorse seconds after bursting out in anger over spilt milk, dumped clothes, tired, grumpy, slow-moving kids who clamored for my undivided attention when I had none to give.
Yeah, it was bad.
But I never gave up. I demanded attention both from my husband, and finally from the therapeutic community. I swallowed my pride and asked my mother for financial assistance to help pay for therapy because otherwise we couldn’t afford it. I looked at my behavior and delved into why I felt the way I did and worked to correct it. We got our kids into therapy. My husband and I went to marriage counseling. Our lives improved. It took years, and slowly, we recovered joy.
The willingness to admit my faults was key. Humility in facing my pain and my kids’ pain was essential. I had done wrong. It didn’t matter that I had been wronged. Well, it did, but that didn’t excuse my behavior. I’ve made living amends to myself, my husband and my children. I wrote about it to bear witness to pain and suffering, and that forgiveness and healing are possible.
Healing from mental illness takes courage and unceasing effort but the rewards are great. Forty-one years of marriage with my soulmate is one of them and loving relationships with my adult children is another.
Don’t give up. Carry On. You can make it.