Postpartum

This week has been incredibly hard. I thought I had the flu. I was throwing up all night a few nights ago. Then I slept for 20 hours straight. I’ve been pouring sweat for days. But I think it’s something more. I think something strange is going on with my body.

I haven’t been able to get proper sleep since the baby was born. Last night I had nightmares all night long. This morning I couldn’t think and I didn’t feel like my feet were on the ground.

I think these are postpartum symptoms. I thought I was dealing with my regular depression but this is something different. I don’t feel like myself some days. It’s just up and down and up and down. I’ll have a few days where I feel great and grounded and content and I think whew! glad that’s over! And then bam, it all starts back up again.

Last night my postpartum hallucinations were insane. I’ve been having auditory hallucinations since the baby was born on and off, but I thought they’d gone away. Last night they were back. It was the national anthem. I kept hearing it all night long. I woke up at one point and grabbed Michael’s arm to literally almost physically pull myself out of one of the nightmares. He said he kept trying to wake me up and it wouldn’t work. I woke the baby up twice shouting. At one point I looked at Michael and his face was different. He looked like a scary clown. I looked closer and he looked normal but as I laid back down and looked at him, I saw the clown again, so I just shut my eyes real tight and tried to find a happy thought. I’ve never had a visual hallucination before like that.

In one of my nightmares I was pulling bugs out of my skin that were burrowing into my arms and hands.

In another one of my nightmares I was chasing my sister through an old theater. I was trying to tell her she had to get out because something bad was going to happen to the building. Every time I would get close, she would look back at me and then start running again. “Jamie, please, this isn’t a game. Please, stop!” I thought she was being playful until I realized she was doing it on purpose. “Please, my hips, Jamie! I can’t keep chasing you like this!” And then I turned a corner and saw the backs of her legs and her sneakers disappear down a dark stairwell and she was gone forever.

The brain is so wild. The dream was a perfect analogy for our whole lives. I try to get close to her but she never really lets me. I tried to warn her about how dangerous Mom is, tried to save her, but in the end I failed. I lost her. I’ll never get her back. I never really had her, if I’m honest. She was only available if I was doing something for her. She confessed once that she holds deep resentment for all the things special things I thought I’d done for her when she was younger. I don’t know if she really feels that way or was just trying to hurt me. I don’t know what’s real with her at all. All I know is I love her deeply and did everything I possibly could to keep her safe and make her life easier, offer support even when she didn’t know it.

Raising this baby with no help is incredibly difficult. I didn’t think it would be like this. I thought my sisters would be here for me. I thought my mom would be here for me. But they’re not here. I tried to do repair work to our relationship before the baby was born and my Mother refused. Not only refused but “retaliated against me” in her own words. She destroyed whatever was left of my connection to my sisters by telling them lies about me. I try to talk to them about it, but they won’t talk to me. I sent a voice message to one of them after months of not hearing anything expressing how much I missed her and loved her, and she just said it was incredibly selfish and one-sided of me (?) I still don’t understand. But she called my other sister and said I’d sent her an incredibly mean voice message and Sadie just believed it. Didn’t listen to it. Didn’t call me to ask about it. Made passive aggressive posts on the internet about how she wants to punch people who are mean to her little sister. I wanted to reply to that so bad and be like, do you ever want to punch people who are mean to your older sister? But I didn’t.

I’ve begged Sadie to talk to me, and every time I do she just gives me some bullshit about how she’s busy. But finally I pushed her on some stuff like not inviting me to her daughter’s party, and she just told me I was making things awkward and she wasn’t going to argue with me. Prior to this I sent her gifts for years and she wouldn’t even tell me she got them let alone thank you, and then I would text her and ask if she was mad at me and she would get mad at me for asking. What can I do with that? You know? I can’t do anything more. I can’t make them be honest with me. If it’s easier for them to paint me as the scapegoat so they don’t have to deal with reality, then I guess that’s fine for them, but how can people live like that?

[EDIT: I just read my last diary entry and see that I already wrote about this. *face plant* I guess chalk it up to baby brain and the fact that it’s just really bothering the living shit out of me because I can’t get proper closure. It’s actual torture. I understand it’s designed to be that way, but I just can’t imagine treating anyone this way so I can’t wrap my brain around it. I feel like I’m stuck in a loop.]

I’ve heard people say “he/she can’t handle the truth,” before but I never knew what it meant until now. I realized that every time Jamie and I ever had problems in our relationship, it was when I was honest with her, showed vulnerability, was forthcoming. She can’t do that. She can’t be honest. She can’t be true to herself. She can’t talk about her feelings. She can’t hold accountability. To make it worse, my mother perpetuates those things because she knows if she pushes back she’ll push Jamie away and she’s the last person she has left in her life. When we were little Jamie would tell lies and mom would just let her. “Mom, you can’t let her lie like that,” I would say. “Oh it’s not hurting anyone. What’s wrong with a little white lie here and there?” Whenever I would stand up to Jamie and call her on a lie, Mom would have Jamie’s back and not mine. “Katy’s so mean, isn’t she.” Even worse, whenever I was honest I got punished.

I’m not like them. I can’t live a lie. I can’t live pretending. I can’t bury things and act like they don’t exist. I can’t do that. And they’ve made it very clear that unless I’m willing to pretend like the rest of them, then I’m not welcome. Unless I’m willing to tolerate blatant favoritism and abuse, I’m not welcome.

Now here I am with this beautiful child, all alone. And on days, weeks like this when it’s so difficult, Christ what I would give to have a Mom or a sister to call for comfort, support.

I almost threw it all away and called Mom today because it was so bad. And then I remembered the last time I saw her, every time I tried to talk about my feelings or hard things I’d gone through, she immediately started talking about herself, or she would use the opportunity to justify some horrific behavior of hers from the past.

I thought about one of the very last things she told me. That I’m untrustworthy, and I’ve always been untrustworthy because one time at a group slumber party when I was 12 I asked one of the girls to ask the chaperone if I could walk with my friend Molly to her grandparents house down the block. She said it was fine, so we went. When we came back, the police were there and everyone thought we had run away. Kelly, the girl we’d asked, denied everything, said she had no idea what was going on. It was still to this day one of the weirdest displays of intentional ugliness I’ve ever experienced, if not also one of the first.

“I’ve never been able to trust you ever since you left that party with Molly without permission. God what an embarrassment. I couldn’t believe you would do something like that.”

“Mom, I did ask permission. I asked Kelly! She said she asked and it was okay. I did ask permission!”

“Well you should have known better. You should have known to get direct permission from an adult. You should have known better.”

“Even if that was true, I never lied. I made a mistake. I was 12, Mom.”

“Well you still should have known better.”

“So you’re saying my entire character as a human being is forever flawed because I made one mistake as a child? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“I just can’t believe you would think that was okay.”

That’s not someone I can call for comfort or advice. This is someone who actively wants to tear me down and damage me. She always has. She’s always used me to do her dirty work. She would beg me for help and then when I would help she would either take all the credit, or turn it ugly and say I forced her into doing things. She likes it when I’m sad. She likes it when I’m sick. She’s a horrible human being. My own mother.

So who do I call when I feel completely alone? Where do I turn? I just don’t know right now.

On Monday I’m going to start looking for resources, support groups. Michael said there’s a program at UCLA called women’s life center or something like that. I need good, healthy people around me. I have to find connections with like-minded people.

I have to stay strong. Hopefully tomorrow is better.