Sideblinded

I don't know what happened.

Actually, I know exactly what happened, but I didn't really see this sneaking up on me the way I feel it did.

Over the past week or so, lots of things which had been accumulating in my heart built up and built up...and exploded. On Friday, I began unraveling.

Picture a woven grass mat, in the shape of yours truly. Someone was slowly removing the horizontal threads, one by one, beginning at the very top, and getting as far as somewhere around my heart. With the stabilizing threads gone, the vertical ones began peeling away like fine layers of tissue paper....and I began to fall apart.

It's not a midlife crisis, because I'm not at midlife yet. (I hope I'm not at midlife yet!) It's not a complete mental breakdown, because I'm pretty sure I don't need a psych ward just yet. I don't feel suicidal or homicidal, thanks be to God. It's not the people around me who are at the core of this--it's me. It's all internal. I just really need to sort it out inside.

I'm pretty sure this is exactly what's meant by postpartum depression.

I got to nearly four months out from my Snuggle Bug's birth, and I just lost it. My composure, that is.

In my heart: Losing Gabriel, and not fully grieving. My mom not being present to me pretty much at all, ever, even through losing one baby and having another. My dear friend losing her seven-week-old son when my sweet baby was but three days old, and the complete and total shock, grief, panic and anxiety which ensued (and continues). The big, fat drop in hormones following the first three months of baby-moon. My Grandma not doing so well. The complete and utter dysfunction of my birth family.

So on Friday, I called my Knight in Shining Armor, My Darling. He rushed to my rescue, good man that he is, and whisked me to my midwife's house. (The house in question was purchased as a health care facility right smack in the middle of the Amish area north of here.) I was seen by the good doctor who lives in residence on Friday, and then by the counselor who is on site on Saturday. Each began her session with me with prayer...a very good start! The doctor began by letting me know that it is not she who heals, but the Lord who provides healing.

The medication I'm now on will, God willing, help me level things out and begin to heal. I have a lot of work to do, and a lot of things to sort out in my heart and mind. I'm clinging to Philippians 4:6-7 and waiting quietly, if not patiently, for Him to work this for good, as He promises He will with all things.

In His time, I know that He will reveal to me the purpose He has for this dark time. For now, I am squinting in my mind's eye, trying to keep His light in focus.