Up until now, I had been able to manage life’s circumstances relatively well, and I did an even better job hiding the parts of me that weren’t managing. What I expected to be one of the best events of my life – the birth of my first child – had become something quite different. I initially thought it was just the post-partum hormones combined with a lack of sleep. I was crying constantly. I was anxious. That darkness that descended on me when I got home from the hospital continued to linger.
What I didn’t realize was I had post-partum depression and anxiety. The depression was one thing, but the anxiety was something else. I was so desperate to sleep, but anytime I put my head down my mind started racing. What if the baby suffocates? What if he chokes on his spit up? What if I never sleep again? What am I going to do when we move and I have no support? What was that noise? Was that the baby? Is he waking up? Is he breathing? Did he poop? My mind was just on a loop, repeating the same thoughts over and over and over.
The nights were the worst. I DREADED nighttime. I had taken it upon myself to be solely responsible for feeding TJ at night because Thomas was still working (he could have taken paternity leave, but it’s one of those things where it’s secretly frowned upon if you do). So I felt like since I was on maternity leave and didn’t have to go to work, it was my job to get up at night. But those nights in the nursery were some of the loneliest times I’ve ever experienced. I don’t know why. But it just felt like the life of this delicate little boy was in my hands, and it was all on me to keep him alive. I didn’t enjoy the cuddles or the little smirks. I just sat there feeding him thinking about how I would soon have to change his diaper, swaddle him back up, and lay back down in bed while my mind raced.
My parents would come over most mornings to take over so that I could try to get some sleep, and I was so thankful. But I couldn’t sleep. I felt like I was being tortured. I kept hearing fake crying in my head. Kept picturing someone dropping the baby while I was sleeping upstairs. My mind became my worst enemy. I truly felt like I was in a living hell.
But you know what helps you sleep? Alcohol. You know what calms those annoying, relentless thoughts? Alcohol. You know what makes you less depressed (at least temporarily)? Alcohol.
Yep. Enter alcohol, my new best friend. The PERFECT treatment for all of my troubles. Every night when the baby woke up, I’d feed him, change his diaper, put him back in his bassinet, and go downstairs and take a few swigs of whatever liquor was in the liquor cabinet. My worries went away almost instantly. I no longer cared about the upcoming move to Florida. And I was FINALLY able to sleep. I’d go to sleep for 2-3 hours, the baby would wake up and cry, and we’d repeat the routine until morning. My mom would come over in the morning, I’d sneak several more swigs of my new “medication,” and I’d go upstairs to go to sleep.
Soon enough, it was almost time to close on our house. I remember it being my birthday – Thomas was at work, and I heard a knock at the door. It was a man coming to inspect the house for the new owners. This had to be some kind of joke, I complained to myself. So I packed up TJ and the diaper bag (which at the time felt like something much more involved than it actually was), and went to the nextdoor neighbor’s house to wait until the inspector was done. “This is the worst birthday ever,” I thought to myself.
After we closed on our house, Thomas went down to Florida and moved into an apartment he had rented for us while I hung back and stayed with my parents for 6 weeks because I just wasn’t ready to go yet (and there were a few last-minute things I needed to take care of for the house, etc.). It’s pretty ironic, I know. Several years ago I couldn’t wait to leave my parent’s house, now I was moving back in and didn’t want to leave. I just couldn’t come to terms with moving to Florida. It wasn’t home. I didn’t want to start over. And I was a new mom and had no idea what I was doing. It was just too much. And you know what helps you not have to deal with all those negative thoughts? You guessed it – alcohol.
So I moved into my parent’s house, and I quickly started drinking more and more. After just a couple of weeks I was drinking 2 or more bottles of wine each day. I somehow was able to hide it well. I think my parents noticed I was acting a little weird sometimes, but they just assumed I was depressed and/or sleep deprived. I hid the empty bottles in suitcases in my bedroom and had to sneak them out of the house and put them in my car to take them to the dumpster (I couldn’t put all of those bottles in the trash cans at their house) once every few days. That got old pretty quickly, and I realized that boxed wine and plastic liquor bottles were much quieter and easier to dispose of. And that’s how I lived for those 6 weeks. Of course, I was NOT an alcoholic (I’m going to do this a lot – I was CLEARLY an alcoholic; but I want you to know what was going on in my messed-up mind this whole time because I think it might be helpful). I just was drinking too much, but I had a good reason to – I needed to sleep and I was upset about moving. That’s all. Once I moved down to Florida and got situated, things would get better and I’d stop drinking. No one would ever know about this little 6 week bender, and life would go on as normal.
That’s all for now. Don’t worry, we’ve got a LOT more to cover.
To God be ALL the Glory!
Love, Grace
