Well, that’s a loaded and dramatic title.
My fourth flip house was something a little different, and much closer to my heart than houses 2 and 3. It was a journey I never expected to take, and one that has changed me and many of the pieces inside of me.
This is going to be one of those overshares.
Takes off shoes and lays down on couch. Settles in. Steeples fingers. Thanks for having me. It’s going to get weird in here.
I don’t habitually refer to her as “my birth mother” or anything that dramatic, but I also don’t refer to her as “mom” or “my mother” either. I don’t call her anything at all mostly; if anything I will refer to her by her first name.
That’s because the relationship between us is new. We’re in uncharted waters, and everything feels strange and foreign like we’re wading through mud in a dense fog. Neither of us really knows what we’re doing or where we’re going.
The story is this: I was adopted and raised by what are biologically my grandparents. When I talk about “my mom” or “my parents” (as in Flipping my Parents’ House here) this is who I’m referring to (or “to whom I’m referring,” if you want to get uppity). On that note, when I talk about my sisters, I am referring to what are biologically my aunts.
Upon my entry into this world my Birth Mother was not at a place in her life where caring for me or raising me was feasible. And so, my parents stepped in and offered her a solution. They offered to adopt me and begin raising me but to let her stay close by and step in when she was ready, if she chose to.
She chose not to.
There are a lot of issues that are too personal to share here, despite the fact that I’m not naming names. It feels like a betrayal to try and explain all of her circumstances and feelings from my own point of view, which I admit is wildly skewed. All I can fairly share is my own perspective and experience and how this story has affected me.
Adoption is great. Adoption is amazing and wonderful and a gift from God.
Adoption, when you are aware of and living in the same home as your biological mother throughout the course of your young life, is weird and confusing. Our bedrooms shared a wall at my parents’ house. She worked nights and lived in my parents’ home throughout my early years. She was so close I could touch her. But she didn’t want me. At least, that was my childhood deduction.
Despite having wonderful parents who stepped in for me and doted on me and loved me as their very own, I still felt an unsettling shadow of unwant looming over me, lurking in a corner behind me. I never felt any intense longing for my birth mother specifically, but I vividly felt the sharp sting of rejection from an early age. I knew when I was quite young that the mother who birthed me didn’t want me, and being around her on a regular basis served to drive this point home to me over and over again.
As human beings we are intrinsically wired to seek love and acceptance from our mothers, and mothers are born with the desire to lay down their lives to love and care for and protect their children. My perception was that there had to be something wrong with me for her to not want me.
(Please hear my heart here. I know as an adult brained human that not every female was *meant to be* or has chosen to be a mother and that many women choose other options such as adoption for their children when they find themselves pregnant, and this gift is beyond description. I do not wish to minimize the journey of or the gift that is another woman’s choice of adoption for her child. Please hear my feelings described here from a child’s eyes and heart.)
That early feeling of rejection and unwant has shaped the core of who I am today. Thanks to this I am a people pleaser. I *need* to please people and to have them like me, to palpably feel them love and accept me. That’s a fun sentence to type publicly. Woof.
If you are somewhere out there in the world and you do not like me, but you think that it has escaped my attention: it has not. Please know that I have already obsessed over it endlessly and daydreamed of a scenario in which I have won you over, and we are now the closest of friends. Is this healthy? Of course not. Exhausting? Yes. Creepy? Absolutely.
PLEASE LOVE ME.
Let’s go deeper since we’re already having so much fun here. You know how some women have Daddy Issues? I have what I can only coin as Mommy Issues (trademark, copyright, publish this in all the text books; cite me, pay me all the royalties.) I felt rejected specifically by a woman, a mother- the most important woman in a person’s life. Because of this women terrify and intimidate me. I feel an overwhelming need to be accepted and liked and loved by other women.
I’m sure this is the source of my social anxiety if we’re really getting down to it. I do well enough with my written words, but I assure you that in person I’m far less dynamic or interesting (don’t get too excited here, I am aware that the descriptors “dynamic” and “interesting” are a stretch for my written word even). The fear of saying something that could be perceived as undesirable or unlikable paralyzes me. I’m quite certain that I often come across as a cold fish or vapid or intensely shy or just generally lacking, but it’s simply this loop holding me back: say the exact right thing or say nothing at all.
As an added bonus I have a subconscious, perpetual fear of my established female friendships ending at any given time when they decide that they no longer want me.
What can I say? I’m a treasure. There will be a signup sheet to become my friend at the end of this post. Don’t all rush to apply at once- I don’t want the server to crash.
The message in this overly detailed declaration of public humiliation is this: I’m a little broken.
But that’s my favorite thing about us- humans. We’re- all of us- just a little bit broken.
None of us have made it to this point in our lives without some dents and dings. We have different things that break us, different stories that shape us and hurt us and harden different sectors of our hearts, but also wounds that light up sectors of our hearts like Christmas trees. Wounds that make us tender and compassionate and forgiving. Some of our wounds are, in fact, our gifts.
My wounds make me a better mother.
I felt like I was waiting my entire life to become a mom. But when I finally became pregnant, after all of the struggles it took to get there, I was consumed with fear. What if I didn’t love or want my baby? What if I inherited this gene that made me not want my offspring? What if the cycle repeated itself? As happy as I was to be pregnant I was absolutely terrified, and I prayed every day for God to help me love and want my baby.
But as it turned out, loving my baby was never something I needed to worry about. My love was so instant and pure and deep and full and natural. It helped to heal some of the brokenness inside me.
It was at that time, six years ago, with the birth of my first son that my Birth Mom asked if she could have a relationship with him. Record screech. I felt immediately defensive and suspicious and on edge and unsure. What could I expect? What if she tried it out but didn’t want him in the way that she didn’t want me? What if he became attached and she said, “this isn’t for me,” and walked away? I would be damned if I let my son experience that heartache and rejection. Mama bear be fierce. I don’t care who you are- hurt my babies, and I’ll claw ya dang eyes out.
But God worked on my heart. Despite a mile high wall it had built up out of resentment and bitterness and mistrust He let it open just a crack. He let it soften just a smidge. He let it be just a little bit vulnerable. Just enough to give this relationship a shot.
For the last six years she has been in our lives. Mine and my sons’. She visited once, and she kept coming back. Almost every day for the last six years she has visited my kids. She is faithful. Next to myself and my husband she is my boys’ favorite person on this planet. She is so proud of them. The look on her face when she is with them could make the Grinch’s tiny heart grow three sizes.
We have had only one short conversation in the past six years about our past, our history. She tells me that she lives with great regret about her choices. She said with tears in her eyes that she didn’t realize that her life would forever be altered when she made the decision to allow my parents to take me and adopt me.
What if she wasn’t the villain in my story after all? What if she had a narrative of her very own, full of her own brokenness and hurts that shaped her path? What if her brokenness and her choices were, in fact, my gift?
This was a hard pill to swallow, but what if I stopped judging her for just a split second and tried to actually love her as a fellow broken human?
Woah.
Don’t mistake this for a story of forgiveness. Simply put, in my newfound self-actualized, mature state I realize that she has nothing to be forgiven for. She made exactly the right choice for both of us on that day all those years ago. My life would be dramatically different than it is today had she not. This is a story of hearts being changed, hurts being healed.
35 years ago it wasn’t time for our story, and that’s okay. It is now.
Out of the ashes and all of the brokenness comes something new and living, something unexpected and different, unconventional even, but exactly perfect.
She is sixty years old, and she has worked as a night time stock person for Wal-Mart for the past 20 plus years. She is a hard worker. Her body aches, and her hands are visibly swollen and crippled with arthritis, and still she would never complain that her loads are too heavy. The person I once thought she was is changing and morphing the more that I learn about her. Because it is really only now, in these past few years, that I have allowed myself to learn anything at all about her. It should be noted that she is an intrinsically GOOD person. I am learning that she is kind, and she is generous. She has little to give, but she would give you the shirt off her back or her last twenty dollars. Not the universal/rhetorical you- but YOU, an unknown stranger reading this. Anyone. Without blinking an eye. She has worked hard, and she doesn’t have much to show for it by way of material possessions. And she’s okay with that.
So, on that note, she has never dreamed of owning her own home. It didn’t seem feasible, not for someone like her.
So, why then, when I came across a small, 842 sq. ft, two-bedroom, one bath house, couldn’t I get her out of my mind?
Why did she pop up anytime I made my plans to flip it? Why did something stir inside of me, urging this home in her direction?
I purchased the home for a great price and after repairs and improvements stood to make an excellent profit on it. At my after repairs price point someone would snatch it up in a heartbeat to make it into a rental property. It was going to be a quick, cheap, in and out job.
WHY THEN COULDN’T I STOP THINKING OF HER IN THIS HOUSE?
You see, God whispered, and I found excuses not to hear. So He spoke louder, more firmly… and I covered my ears. So He nudged me… and I turned the other direction. I had a million reasons why I could not, should not, would not do this. A million reasons why God could not be commanding me to do this very uncomfortable, strange thing. I wanted to start a business with this newfound passion, and the first rule of business is that you MAKE A PROFIT. I could not already be asked not to do that on only my fourth house, and not for this woman who rejected me and didn’t want me. NO.
Sure, her relationship with my boys was great and all, and I was becoming very wise in my old age and learning to understand her journey, but don’t start thinking that I had completely laid down all of that resentment and bitterness and hurt. Just when you think you’ve unpacked all of that ugly stuff God goes and commands you to do the very thing that reminds you that you are, in fact, still schlepping it all around.
So, no, God. Firmly, adamantly, I WILL NOT DO THIS. [Picture me in full teenager mode here yelling this and stalking off to my room and slamming the door and cranking some very emo music on my stereo and flopping dramatically on my bed to lay and think of all the reasons why I was right and God was wrong.]
So God got quiet… or so I thought.
And then, one Sunday after church, Kevin and I were sitting in our living room relaxing. Not quite napping, but not quite parenting either. You know that in between zone where you’re mildly cognizant of the little people around you maintaining life and appendages, but you’re off the clock? Parenting is closed for today. Please stay alive on your own. Make good choices.
Out of nowhere Kevin burst out, “Every time I think of the small house I think of [her]. I can’t explain it, but I feel like we’re supposed to do this for her.” He waited a very tense pause where he looked at me a little wild eyed, ready to be defensive, very unsure of how I would respond to this outburst. He and I had not discussed this- I hadn’t told him that I had already been having the same stirrings on my own heart. Because again, let’s be real here: she and I are not exactly to the braiding each other’s hair and talking about boys point in our relationship. Things are still very awkward and new at times.
You see, God didn’t go quiet, He outsourced because I wasn’t listening. While I was busy pouting and ignoring Him He was busy whispering to someone who would listen because He had a plan. In that moment, I knew without a doubt that God had set this like a ten ton weight on both of our hearts. It confirmed what I already knew: this little house was always hers, God was just waiting for me to realize it.
I was shy and nervous when I called to tell her about the house. To ask her if she would even be interested or consider something like this. She has only ever lived in a small apartment and has always been content with that. To my surprise she was open to the idea. Then, within days she was EXCITED about the prospect. She asked shyly if she would get to have her own driveway. I said, “you will get to have your own garage!” She asked if she could put a swing set in the backyard for my boys. The Grinch’s heart grew three more sizes.
And so it began: instead of flipping the small house for a profit I was renovating it with a specific person in mind. A person with whom I had a tangled and complicated history. A person with whom I was building something new.
Out of the ashes comes something living.
*Follow along in the coming weeks as I share the before and afters of this special little house. Spoiler alert: she lives there now, just over a mile from our house, so she can visit our boys frequently, and she tells me that she has never been happier.*
Cherry Lane has sold, but I did want to share the photos of it staged to sell to show how much decor can change a house.
In case you’d like a quick re-introduction to Cherry Lane, click here to meet my old friend, click here to see the plans I made for her and click here to see all of the before and afters.
I don’t stage a house exactly as I would decorate it if it were my own home; I’m not fully decking a house out. Instead I try to keep the decor to a minimum, simply using it to highlight what I consider to be the best features of the house. I want to show buyers how furniture could work in a space and to give them a narrative for each room so that they are able to picture themselves making memories in the home. Personally when looking at houses, I don’t like to see them staged. I prefer them empty, clear of all the things that distract me from what I could and would do with the space. But I’m in the minority there, so alas, I stage.
Without further ado here is Cherry Lane, with jewelry on.
EXTERIOR
This is a reminder of the home’s exterior. All that I added here when staging was a front porch rug that you can’t see in these photos. When staging a home to sell, my own past personal homes included, I always purchase a new, clean front porch rug that has the word “Home” on it. Simply the word “home” by itself, or “welcome home,” or “home sweet home.” Some version of that but always with the word “home.” This is critical. It’s my master manipulatory trick to plant the word HOME into the buyer’s brain cells before they even enter the house: THIS IS YOUR HOME. YOU ARE HOME NOW. STOP SEARCHING. I have absolutely no objective evidence to show that this trick works, and exactly zero persons have ever said to me, “do you know why I bought one of your houses? It’s because of the front porch rug. It straight up hypnotized me, you evil genius. I would have bought a different house altogether if it weren’t for you and your meddling staging.” But in my head it’s a thing,
ENTRYWAY
I simply added a cute bamboo mirror here in a wood tone that compliments the lighter wood toned floors and the living room ceiling fan (visible in the next photos).
LIVING ROOM
When staging a house I come up with an imaginary family that I could see living there, and I stage the home according to their personalities and tastes. It’s a marketing strategy. Who are you marketing this product to? Who do you see buying it? Picture actual people. It may be real life people that you know, or maybe made up people, but most importantly come up with their age and demographic. Then market/stage the product for them.
Some of the fixtures and finishes that I put in this house were a bit more trendy and edgy, so naturally I pictured a young hipster family living here. The dad wears a beanie and incredibly tight jeans and has facial hair that would make Abe Lincoln blush with envy. The mom has some rad arm tats and lavender hair. They met at Paycom, obvi. Their two kids have names like Rainstorm and Ichabod, and though one is a boy and one is a girl they have matching haircuts and dress androgynously so that you don’t gender stereotype them, so naturally you don’t know which is which. (Spoiler alert: I totes gender stereotyped and gave Ichadod a room with purples and pinks, which we all know she loves.) My overall theme for this house was a very liberal take on what I shall call “mid century mod meets boho junaglow.” Well now she’s just making stuff up.
I love this living room. If that wasn’t clear from my previous posts about this house then hear me say it now: I love this living room. And I know, I know, if you hear me say “arched fireplace” one more time you’re going to set my blog on fire. But looooooook at that cute arched fireplace. Squeal. Ugh. She kills me.
This particular living room can appear tricky when empty. It is long but on the narrow side, and there are not enough walls to place furniture on- which I love, but people get spooked without defined furniture placement walls. If this was my personal house I would float the couch with its back to the entry way, facing the fireplace. But for staging purposes and realty photo purposes that chops the living room in half. It visually annihilates the view from the front door to the fireplace. Staging vs real life. What a bummer. Also, the asymmetrical fireplace here can make you go “huh.” while scratching your head when trying to picture how to decorate. Hear my cry: YOU MUST STAGE THE TRICKY ROOMS! If no other rooms, stage the tricky ones alone. If you even remotely feel confused by a room, STAGE IT because I can promise you THE BUYERS WILL BE CONFUSED BY IT ALSO. And if they are confused by a room it will lower their chances of buying. Especially a room as important as the living room. So get creative and come up with a way to arrange the furniture in an inviting way to show that it can be done.
In my personal situation I own a single, neutral staging couch that I move from house to house. Because homegirl doesn’t have an unlimited staging budget. So I have to make it work in whatever home I’m staging. I just change up the accessories from my “accessory inventory.” Part of my budget for flipping each house is a very very very small fund dedicated toward staging the house. I have staple large items: a couch, kitchen table, beds and nightstands for the bedrooms, etc, that I move from house to house, and I reuse a lot of accessories, but I have a small fund with which I purchase some items to stage that particular house. Items that will highlight an architectural detail or give a pop of color or interest to an otherwise bland room. It is very strategic and always always, in my opinion, worth the money that I set aside out of my reno budget.
I wanted a cool color scheme for my hipster family. I went with green. I chose some mid century mod looking accent chairs because this family is cool, guys. I internationally incorporated several bamboo elements like the side table sitting between the accent chairs, and many of the shelf accessories, and the largest mantel piece. The bamboo tone of these items compliments the ceiling fan and draws your eye toward it, because it’s one of the great, unique features in this living room. NOTICE IT, PLEASE.
As for the rug- just whatever. Eyeroll. Nothing haunts me like a rug that is too small for a space, and I do it every time. I will never have the staging budget to buy appropriately sized rugs, okay guys? Just avert your eyes.
But look at that fireplace. Hey girl, hey.
Again, I don’t stage shelves as I would decorate my own personal shelves. The point is to get a SMALL AMOUNT of stuff on them to carry a color scheme through the room and to say “hey, we’re decorated,” but not to overwhelm the space. You want plenty of walls and shelf space for the eyes to rest so that buyers can see that there is plenty of room for all of their things.
KITCHEN AND DINING
This is my trusty, neutral staging table that travels from house to house. It was actually our dining table in our rent house. When we moved into our rent house while our house was being built our old dining table wouldn’t fit in the small dining room. I got on Wayfair and bought the cheapest small table I could find. No sooner was it delivered and set up in our rent house that I stole it to use for staging. I moved our beat up, slatted outdoor patio table into its place, and my family was like 🤨 They dealt.
I had some dining chairs that would have worked in this space, but they were more farmhouse-y in style, which I love, but it just wasn’t what I visualized for this space. Because hipster family. So I went on Amazon and found this set of mod Eames style chairs for crazy cheap. They fit the boho mod theme much better.
When staging a dining room, I set the table. It’s a visual cue to allow the buyers to picture themselves seated around the table as a family eating in the room. I keep it very simple and neutral and inexpensive. Just enough of a visual cue to whisper “your cruelty free zoodles will taste good here, and Waterfall will actually tell you all about his day at school around the table in THIS dining room”.
I purchased these bar stools from At Home, and I seriously love them. They’re really good quality and so comfortable. If they fit my home’s color scheme I would have used them in our personal house. I love them in this dining room and know I will come back to them for future flips. I like how they don’t compete with the cabinet color, and how the dark metal legs bring out the darker colors in the backsplash pattern.
I styled the floating shelves with green elements to tie into the living room color scheme and to bring a pop of color into the kitchen. I used some black and white stacked bowls and a black and white planter to compliment the backsplash tile. I kept the shelves simple, but the few items used make a big impact.
Fresh flowers (peonies, my fav) and some natural wood cutting boards and bamboo utensils add a touch of warmth and life to finish off the space without being overly aggressive.
MASTER BED AND BATH
My master bedroom staging is pretty lackluster and minimal. My staging budget, again, is small. I have just enough furniture in the room to say “hey, you could make a third baby in here.”
My staging furniture for this room consists of an inexpensive, neutral colored headboard, a fold up bed frame, and a blow up air mattress (staging hack!). I always use white bedding so that it looks clean and fresh. The nightstands were in our old guest room before we moved and wouldn’t fit in our rent house. They were a Home Goods find, and they’re really just the best nightstands. I love them in person. Some lamps, art hung with command strips, and a pop of color with a throw pillow and blanket, and that’s all she wrote. I do love how the headboard shape mimics the shape of the mirrors in the bathroom. That was purely a happy coincidence as I already owned the headboard.
I keep bathroom staging very simple. I always use a white shower curtain and white towels. I put out some pretty soaps in pretty soap dishes and let the amazing floor tile and rockin’ mirrors do the talking from there.
BEDROOM 2
Ichabod’s room.
The twin size bed is my son’s bed from our previous house. I love it and find that it works in almost any room, with any decor.
I purchased the inexpensive wall canvases from HomeGoods. I love a big piece of bright, quirky art in a kid’s room or playroom.
BEDROOM 3
Waterfall’s room. Although he’s never slept here. They cosleep. He’s 11.
This was my oldest son’s crib and then became my youngest son’s crib after we painted it green. I love it so so much. So I use it for staging because I’m not ready to not have it in my life anymore. I’m not crying, you’re crying.
When staging, again, I like to put some pops of bold color since my walls and trim will always be neutral. I keep the bedroom staging very very simple. We don’t need full bedroom sets to get the idea- just enough to say “here’s how you will use this room. Doesn’t it feel homey?”
HALL BATH
I JUST got done saying that I always use a white shower curtain when staging bathrooms. Well. I did in here, but when I got it hung it just washed out. I knew it wouldn’t photograph well in realtor photos so I traded it out for this simple, striped gray curtain.
I again added white towels, pretty soap, and in this room some greenery because the countertop space allowed for it.
BACK PATIO AND POOL
I phoned it in here. It had been a long day, and my kids were crying for me to come home, and I needed to go. So I put out our personal patio furniture that we were using at our rent house, and called it a day. Just enough to say “hi hipster mom and dad, you can totally sit and enjoy some dope local craft beer while delving into that Bukowski novel out here after Waterfall and Ichabod go to bed.”
THE END
So there you have it. The staging of Cherry Lane. What do you think? Are Waterfall and Ichabod living their best lives here? What are some of your favorite staging tips? Let me know in the comments!
And then she disappeared from the face of the earth for four months.
And then she came back and wrote a blog post completely unrelated to home renovation, the very thing we all signed up to read about. Eyeroll, amiright?
But it’s my blog and I’ll blog what I want to, blog what I want to, blog what I want to (obnoxiously sung to the tune of It’s My Party. I’m sorry. I promise I’m ashamed of myself.)
Today we are going to talk about mental health. Mental unhealth. Broken hearts and broken brains. I will argue that this post is in fact extremely relevant to this blog because this is the very place from which it was born. It was born out of a post-miscarriage broken heart turned (let’s all say the ugly Voldemort-esque word together): depression. I didn’t label it before, only alluded to its presence as my “very dark time,” but that’s what it was. It was a period of crippling depression. And two months ago I found myself on its doorstep once again.
It is important for me to purge this post from my head space because there is a stigma about mental health. We are all aware of it. I think it is dangerous and potentially life threatening in some cases. And so I write and tell my stories in the hope that maybe one single person will actually take the time to read it and relate and get some flipping help for their brain. One broke brained sister helping another and all that.
So let’s do this.
I experienced my second surprise pregnancy and then surprise miscarriage two months ago, the day before Thanksgiving. I was twelve weeks pregnant, and my heart was shattered. I came absolutely undone with pain. And I was terrified. Terrified of slipping back into the dark void that I found myself in 7 months prior, after my first miscarriage, where I felt nothing and everything all at once. In the days following this second loss I looked at my doctor with terrified eyes full to the brim with tears and said, “please help me. I can’t go back to that place. I have two little boys I have to be there for. I cannot disappear on them again. How do I not go back to that place?” She said gently, “I think it’s time we consider medication for a short time. An antidepressant.” Blech. That gross, taboo word.
But this wouldn’t be my first time on brain drugs.
Though depression isn’t my jam I’m no stranger to mental unhealth. It would seem that depression only comes after the passing of womb babies for me. But anxiety? Yaaaaaas Queen (are we still saying that?). Anxiety is my jam. I will get all up in some anxiety and roll around in it.
I imagine it went something like this when I was born: after some time of contemplating the menu of life before me, my little baby self finally made up her mind: “I’ll have the social anxiety with a side of hypochondria and panic attacks of unknown origin, and for dessert I think I’ll go with the unlimited sleepless nights spurred by memories of embarrassing things that I did fourteen years ago. Oh and why not (treat yoself girl!) go ahead and give me some of those anxiety induced stomach ulcers too- I hear they’re divine.”
I may not seem at face value like a person who struggles with social anxiety. And that’s because I’m really really good at faking it. (I will accept my Oscar gladly and keep my speech short.) Part of that can be chalked up to my marriage to an extrovert who loves to be around people and do things. Bless him. I recognized early on that I had to get my life together and make some compromises because never leaving our home, sadly, will not work for him. The other part of this can be tied to the fact that I am extremely self conscious of the facial anatomy that I was dealt in life. It unfortunately, without conscious intervention, settles very definitively into Resting Bitch Face. This is my nightmare and my cross to bear. As a person who *must* feel liked by others (we’ll get into that in a coming blog post. It’s a real treat)… to give off the first impression that I DO NOT LIKE OTHERS?! WHY!? Whyyyyyy meeeeee????? It’s an actual physical handicap and should be recognized as such. We need bumper stickers and a ribbon and a month. “RBF, Searching for the Cure!” In an effort to combat this, when in public I am hyperaware and go to great lengths to painstakingly contort my facial parts into a welcome mat that conveys approachability and joy (because despite what my face says, I actually do love life and people). Eyebrows up, mouth slightly open with the respective corners turned upward into a smile. Now nod and blink often so you don’t look like Nicole Kidman during her dark period with Botox. Check check check.
I go off on the RBF tangent for a reason. Because anxiety and depression don’t look a certain way. They don’t have a face, they don’t dress a certain way. They don’t mope around dressed in black wringing a handkerchief in their hands. And they’re highly evolved and adept at hiding themselves in plain sight.
Anxiety is present in the life of nearly every member of my extended family, male and female. Anxiety doesn’t discriminate; it is a nasty beast of equal opportunity. I have had moderate to severe anxiety since childhood. That being said, it reached new, unfathomable heights that could not be ignored after my second son was born.
Postpartum depression is a concept most of the world is relatively familiar with. Ask almost anyone and they can vaguely describe the symptomatology to you. But postpartum anxiety is its lesser known, hard to nail down cousin. Because having a new baby is a nerve wracking experience for every single person it would arguably be *abnormal* to experience NO fear or anxiety in the early days of dropping the bomb of a new little one into your now sleep deprived life. My understanding was that true postpartum anxiety was anxiety surrounding and related to the baby. Anxiety and fear over keeping the baby alive: is he breathing, is he eating enough, is he sick? For me this was not the case. I had little to no baby-related anxiety. But I was a wreck. I was having multiple panic attacks nightly, to the point where I was afraid to go to bed. The panic attacks spilled over into the daytime, and I was afraid to leave my house. I was subconsciously picking and chewing my cuticles and surrounding skin into a bloody oblivion. This is not normal behavior. I was a shell of a person. If you could draw a picture of fear and anxiety upright, walking around in the world, it was me. My family got on the phone to one another and ultimately held an intervention culminating in these words: seek help, or else. And ultimately I did. But not for my anxiety.
My son was 3 months old when my postpartum anxiety hit its peak, and what brought me in to see my doctor at long last was not anxiety, but stomach cancer. Because did I mention hypochondria? It turned out that my stomach cancer was actually a stomach ulcer. (The first of three that I have since had). I had given myself an anxiety induced stomach ulcer, the pain of which I had never before experienced. My doctor looked at me and my raw, bloody fingers, frazzled hair and face, ankle shaking my foot back and forth with the speed of a hummingbird’s wings, for less than 30 seconds and said “I think there is something deeper going on here. Are you okay?” No. I was not okay. I explained all of the things that I had been feeling and asked, “could this be postpartum anxiety? Is this maybe what that term means? Maybe what this is?” Yes, you dummy. And so I went on an anti-anxiety medication. I was on it for a short time until my hormones regulated and I was able to attempt to and then ultimately wean off of it. And I am forever and ever and ever amen grateful for that medicine. It brought me back. God bless it.
That decision to accept anti-anxiety medication was remarkably and indescribably hard for me. Because you guys, before this I was SMUG about mental health. Mental health, mental schmealth. I have lived with anxiety since childhood and I was functioning, overcoming, doing just FINE. Add to that the fact that I am a chiropractor and a Christian. Woah. Wait. How are those two things even remotely related to this conversation, you ask? Both of those cultures for me helped to shape the stigma that mental health is and should be manageable without the introduction of medication.
We chiropractors are crunchy, if you didn’t know that about us. It is a large part of our philosophy that many to most physical and mental health related issues can and should be managed with diet and exercise. And for me those two things truly do dramatically influence the level of anxiety in my life. I exercise regularly because it is *necessary* for my mental health, and diet is also key for me. You know the line from It’s a Wonderful Life: “every time a bell rings an angel gets its wings”? Well every time an antidepressant gets prescribed in the world an advocate for natural healthcare DIES. Picture them eating dinner with their family and then abruptly killing over mid-sentence. It’s a very taboo subject and the course of much debate in my field.
On the matter I will go on the record saying that I believe that antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs are WILDLY overprescribed, BUT THEY EXIST FOR A REASON AND THANK GOD FOR THEM WHEN THEY ARE PRESCRIBED AND USED CORRECTLY. There are no amount of minutes of exercise that I could have added to my day or gluten that I could have cut from my diet to pry me from the anxiety riddled spiral that I found myself in after Roman’s birth, and again none that could have dug me out of the trenches of the depression that I was in after my first miscarriage. THE END.
On Faith and Mental Health: I am a Christian. My faith is an integral part of my life and being. I do not exist without it. It is woven into all facets of my existence. And so, that being said, there was a large part of me that felt *ashamed* in my faith for allowing my anxiety to spiral out of control and then for depression to ravage me. What did this say about my walk with God? Why wasn’t I able to “give it all to Him”? Why wasn’t I able to find joy in all things? There are verses upon verses about being anxious in nothing and about finding joy in everything. Why had I failed in this? Please read this carefully: my doubt and disappointment during these times wasn’t in God, ever- it was in myself. I felt that I was struggling with anxiety and depression because I didn’t have enough faith. Because I was weak. Because I had failed. Please listen to me if there is even one thing that you take away from this: NO.
IF YOU ARE STRUGGLING WITH ANXIETY OR DEPRESSION IT IS BECAUSE YOU HAVE AN ACTUAL CHEMICAL IMBALANCE IN YOUR BRAIN.
Sometimes that imbalance is manageable with diet and exercise and meditation and prayer and faith and therapy. Sometimes it is not. And in those times that it is not I believe that medication has a place and that it is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s time that the stigma gets put to bed.
And so the girl who started a blog as a means to pull herself out of a deep depression stepped away from her blog to avoid a second deep depression. After this second miscarriage I decided to take a step back from everything. I Konmari’d my life. I touched all of its components and if it didn’t bring me joy I set it down. For a while nothing other than my kids or my husband brought me joy. So that’s all that I kept in my life. Slowly, I started to experiment with picking up other items and felt joy in them again, so I added them back in. Only just now have I felt that spark again to write and to blog, and even more recently to renovate houses.
The 1928 farmhouse? It has been sitting empty for the last 3 months. Last week I picked the reigns back up because I felt the spark of joy in its prospect again. This week renovations have resumed. I am excited to once again sculpt something from the ashes of this home’s past. And in that I find myself once again rising up from my own ashes and finding beauty.
There will always be fires in our lives; all we can do is continue to rise up out of them and find life and beauty among the ashes.