Something's Got to Give

I have struggled with depression most of my life. Being a mom to a special needs child has not exactly helped with that. (While I'm on the subject, can I just say how much I've come to loathe the term "special needs"? I suppose all children have "special" needs. The term just sounds like they should be wrapped up and coddled and pitied and should never even hope for any semblance of a regular life.) Motherhood brings its own set of neuroses and feelings of inadequacy. Layer a developmental disorder over that and add the attendant guilt, anger, isolation, and yet more inadequacy, and it's enough to make anyone nuts, let alone someone who was already halfway there in the first place.

Things have come to a head for me lately because of many things. It's summer, which means fewer clothes, which means more of the body I hate is on display for public derision. This summer, there's even more of me on display than usual, because Nate loves water and that means lots of going to the pool. My hair is in a state of...I don't even know what. I'm trying to potty-train Nate. (Unsurprisingly, it is not going well--initial success and then lots and lots of failure.) I am feeling very much like a fat, ugly, friendless loser who is failing her child in all sorts of ways and earns only the smallest of points for meeting the bare minimum on the mom and housewife fronts.

The thing is, I know, intellectually, that I'm being way too hard on myself. I wouldn't judge anyone else this harshly. It's one thing to have high standards for one's own behavior; it's quite another to have impossible standards that set one up for perpetual failure. I know these things in my brain. It's that shadowy, dark, whispery part of me that I can never quite stifle that rejects the truth and succeeds in making me miserable.

Let's face it: it's never been easy to be a woman, or a mother. There has always been pressure to align one's looks with the accepted ideal. There have always been standards for how one should dress and behave and what is acceptable and what is not. To an extent, these things are helpful. They help us maintain a sense of law and order. But at a certain point (and I think most of us can agree that we're way past that), these things become a yoke that we've created, oftentimes in order to sell something. At the end of the day, when we're bombarded with endless images of perfection, it's amazing any of us are able to stand under all that psychological weight. We're all damned if we do and damned if we don't. We're either too fat or too thin, too hairy. We wear too much makeup or not enough. Our hairstyles are too frumpy, too extreme, too grey, too long, too short. Our clothing is too cheap, too mumsy, not stylish enough, too tight, too loose. If we stay home with our children, we should feel guilty for not having "real" jobs and contributing monetarily. If we work, we are chided for "letting some one else" raise our children. Our parenting choices will be commented upon, regardless of what we choose to do. And lord help those of us who have children who sometimes have public meltdowns. We're the recipients of hairy eyeballs and muttered disparaging remarks about our disciplining.

So, see, some of this pressure is internal, and some of it is external. I don't have to accept the ridiculous standards that are thrust upon me. I know that. But those standards feed that shadowy part of me. They give it fuel. That part of me that suspects that I don't deserve all the good things in my life (and oh, how many good things I have and am grateful for) grows fat on the disappointment and disapproval that comes with failing to meet those standards. I have yet to figure out how to control that shadowy part, and all I can do is try to beat it down so that it doesn't crowd out the rest of me, who enjoys and is deeply grateful for all of the blessings that are part of my life.

I know that even though I feel that I'm failing, in reality, I'm doing just fine. We do not live in squalor. Messiness, sure, but not squalor. The bills are paid. We are all well-fed (even if the smallest of us seems to exist on peanut butter, boogers, and air, at least that's only by choice). My son is thriving and progressing and he knows he is loved and accepted. And my failure to live up to the airbrushed ideals of marketing campaigns shows that I am an average human.

If my life were a TV show, this is where I'd end this post with some pithy wrap-up that ends it all on a positive note. But this is real life, and it just doesn't work that way. Even though I know all of the above intellectually, there is a great divide between knowing it there and knowing it in the darkest parts of my heart. There is no quick answer, no affirmation that will apply in all circumstances like a soul-soothing balm. I will fight depression for the rest of my life. I know that no matter what I do, I will never feel that it's enough, or that it's right. And most of the time, I can use that to my advantage. I can use it to push myself to do better, to try harder. But every once in a while, I can't. I run out of steam, and it will always be that way. Maybe that dark part of me is too hungry to remain unfed.

I realize that some of this may sound melodramatic and alarming. I promise that I am not in any danger, and I know myself well enough to know that I will pull out of this in a few days, and that it will come back again, and I'll deal with it in the same way again. It's a cycle, and not one I appreciate or am proud of, but it's my own. If you're battling the same thing, I raise a glass to you. Here's to perpetual inadequacy. Ain't it a bitch?