Here.

Since late October, it’s been a dark season. I truly didn’t think I would be here again, but here I am. I’ve needed to pull back from all that I had excitedly put into motion—my book, my business, my first representation on a Board of Directors, my volunteering. The exit of each of these was drastic, excruciatingly painful, beyond embarrassing and full of failure. I let people down. I hurt my friends and colleagues. I created more work and stress for others. It sucked. I worried about what each of them thought of me, crafting the most negative judgement possible and believing every single word. My teenage scarlet badge of “You’re a quitter” once again haunted my days and sleepless nights.

It’s true, though. As much as I hate it, it’s true. I quit when I can’t perform my best. I quit when I make mistakes that I feel like I can’t overcome. I quit when the “I can’t do this” in my head builds to the highest wall that I can’t scale. I quit when my anxiety becomes bigger than I am. I quit when I can’t figure out how to actually stay and make it work. When staying feels impossible, staying is not an option. My heart and mind scream to get the hell out of there. You can’t do this. Run. Run away. Leave it all behind.

I’ve struggled with my mental health for most of my adult life, for more years than I’d like to admit and for more days than I’d ever want to quantify. I honestly think I would simultaneously puke and sob if I knew this grand total.

During times of darkness, I do my best to withdrawal and not be exposed. Being seen at your worst is painful, uncomfortable and embarrassing beyond measure. I am a person that likes to present my best self and nothing less. I will do most anything to save face or fake it for fear of being truly seen. I’ve cut ties so many times that piecing together the rope to my past is an almost impossible feat. Each time, I want a clean slate, a do-over.

For most of these years, I haven’t been open to mediation. “It’s not for me”… “I’ll just power through”…“how can I be taken seriously?”… “would I be trusted… “does this weaken my faith” if I need meds? How pathetic is it I that I need meds to just be OK, to be a good wife, to be a caring mother, to be a sincere friend. But I’m here.

Over the past two years, I’ve wrestled with that fact that my son needs medication for ADHD. I’ve pushed it, and pushed it, and pushed it away. I just didn’t want this option for him. I wanted to be able to parent good enough or just help ‘fix it’ myself. I’m his mom! Shouldn’t I be able to do this?! But I couldn’t and I can’t. After seeing how insanely hard and grueling it is/was for him to control his emotions, his body and actually apply himself to learn in school (p.s. v-school sucks), we needed to do something different, something more. Finally, this past November, my husband and I made the hard decision to start the medication process for him. He is such an awesome, caring, hilarious and loving kid, but very few get to see this. Very few get to experience the real Harvey. Very few minutes of the day do I even get to experience the real Harvey. Most days, I get the name-calling, threatening, violent and pure anger/frustration side of my son. I also get to play the constant helicopter mom correcting his behavior every five minutes so his sister doesn’t get hurt or neighborhood kids don’t get tackled. It’s absolutely exhausting—for me and more importantly, for him. I can’t imagine how it feels to be micromanaged to this degree and what this does to his self-esteem and self-worth. Again, I want to puke.

So meds, Michelle? I allowed myself to get here for him. And I truly believe that it’s the right decision for him for right now. Yes, we’re no where near the right dose, or maybe not even on the right med. But we’re on the path. We’re on the path for getting him help. We’re on the path to support him the best way we can as parents. We’re making progress.

Isn’t it crazy that we can make the best possible choices for our children but forget about making the best possible choices for ourselves? I went through a rough cycle of anxiety/depression from March 2020 - July 2020. I got hit again at the end of October, and I’m still dealing with getting through the crappiness right now. When I laid it out in black and white, I realized that in the past calendar year, 7 months were spent filled with anxiety and depression. 7 MONTHS out of the year I was underperforming, pulling back, being a half-ass wife/mother/friend/employee/you fill in the blank here, and the list even goes on. I was horrified at the amount of time I spent being completely unhappy and a skeleton of a human. Truth be told, the other 5 months were pretty darn good, maybe even fantastic. But it that enough? It this any way to truly live? How can I continue like this? How could I continue to put my children and husband through this? Wait, I DON’T want this anymore.

So, medication it is.

Here I am.