Trauma, not the kind from Grey’s Anatomy

trauma:

noun

1. a deeply distressing or disturbing experience.

2.physical injury.

When I think about Trauma, the first thing that comes to mind is the scenes from Grey’s Anatomy of people being wheeled into the ER with gaping physical injuries (definition 2 above). I have luckily never had an severe physical trauma. On the other side of the coin, I have dealt with a deeply distressing experience (definition 1). Before I went through emotional trauma I really knew nothing about it.

So why have I chosen today to talk about this. Well lets go back to my trauma. I have shared briefly about the early birth of my twins but here are more specific details. Ethan and Aiden both entered the world early and small. Ethan was the larger of the boys and we did not expect any health complications from him. Within 24 hours both of his lungs collapsed and he was on 100 life support. Ethan could not eat and was full of tubes and IVs in every part of his little body. He was sedated on morphine because he was in so much pain and they could not risk him waking up and pulling on a tube. Just talking about this in detail takes me back to that time, that very very dark and scary time. I remember staying awake all night and waiting for that red phone to ring. That phone and its red light haunt me to this day. The doctors did tell us that our little Ethan may not make it, they were very honest about this. I remember the worst day, My husband and I were sitting in the room and it was very early in the morning and one of the neonatal doctor walked in the room and told us that he needed to talk to us. We looked at each other and thought that this was the time Dr. Lopez was going to tell us that Ethan did not make it through the night. I cannot describe in words the way that I felt at the moment, it was probably one of the worst moments of my life. Thank God Dr. Lopez was coming in to get a signature from us to put an IV in his belly button that would supply him with nutrition and wanted to talk to us personally about the possible complications. We agreed and the line was put in. We were the lucky ones, we got to bring our babies home and they are healthy and happy little boys but that trauma seems to haunt me even 3 years later.

I don’t love Ethan anymore than Aiden but because what Ethan went through, when he is sick or something is wrong with him I quickly go back to that hospital bed with that red light. This is called PTSD and I now understand it and that it is part of my life.
After our Staycation Ethan was having trouble keeping his eyes open and it was worsening by the day. I thought it was a reaction to the sun or cholorine but my husband said to me “I think it has something to do with his brain.” My husband did not mean anything bad and was just making an observance as he was moving his whole face when trying to open and close his eyes. He did not know this, but that comment sent me swirling into a spiral of deep emotions. Yesterday, Ethan said that his stomach hurt and after an hour starting vomiting violently for all of the evening and throughout the night. Inside of my head, I know that this was just a little flu but I cant stop my mind from going back to that hospital bed and thinking the worst. My right brain tells me that this is not logical and that kids get sick and Ethan and Aiden will be ok when they get sick but I don’t know how. I know that PTSD is not easy to get over and for my kids sake, I need to not mentally go back to that hospital bed when they are sick. Kids get sick all the time and I cannot put myself or them through this when they just need mommy to take care of them.

I am seeking help but have never really addressed my issues with PTSD and have realized that this is something that I need to work on and try to get over.

I know that I am SO lucky that I have healthy baby boys and getting over this emotional trauma will help me be a better person and a better mom.

My heart truly goes out to the people that were not as fortunate as me and I really can’t imagine how they move forward. I do not that I know a lot of people who have been through emotional trauma and struggle with depression. There is a link between trauma and depression and I would love to be able to talk about it without it being so taboo.

XOXO- Trying to address my trauma and know that I am lucky twin mom

The invisible illness

So I have not gone for my daily walk today which means my mind has not had a chance to write and rewrite this article and I have chosen a very deep topic that I will talk about more throughout my experience but would like to break the ice as I don’t think we as a society talk about it enough, depression. The actual dictionary definition is

feelings of severe despondency and dejection.

Anybody who has struggled with depression probably finds this definition a little weak. Just so you know, I was on the other side of this before I had the twins I truly believed that those people that said they were depressed just wanted attention and felt sorry for themselves, I just want to keep myself honest. I mean I had bad days at work or would get mad because the scale did not say the number I wanted but I never suffered from depression. So where did it start? Well my children were born at 32 weeks so they were premature and had severe health complications which we will talk about another time but for the thirty days that they lived in the hospital there were literally days that we did not know if they were going to make it then WAM! they are healthy, awesome but what is a new mom to do with tiny little 4 pound babies, I just went through the most difficult time in my life and now you hand me two little babies to take home and take care of and OH it is hard! I remember thinking that I could handle it because I am Kalina the overachiever and I can handle anything, wrong! New babies don’t sleep through the night, they wake up every 2-3 hours to eat and if you are breastfeeding that means you have to be there for them to eat. On top of breastfeeding, the hospital told me to pump every 2-3 hours to make my supply increase so that meant for me that I would feed the babies when they woke up which took about 45 minutes then pump for another 30 minutes,  clean the supplies and guess what… they were awake again for another round. To say the least, I did not sleep for a long time and thank God I had a husband that helped a lot. After weeks of not sleeping your mind starts to go a little haywire and I started feeling very down which is normal…we call this baby blues or post partum depression. The problem is that my baby blues never went away and got worse. I remember the moment I knew something was serious, I told my husband “do you ever wish that you would not wake up the next day?” He was freaked out and got me every pamphlet from our baby supplies with hotline numbers. I did not call for a few days and when I decided to call they did not answer the phone or were not open…great resources for a depressed person which I will get more into another time. So, I went to my OBGYN and told them how I was feeling and what did they have for me, DRUGS! My choices were limited because I was breastfeeding so they put my on something called Paxil…ok sounds good, wrong! Maybe this drug has worked for other people but it did not work for me. Depression medications do things to your brain functions so they should not be taken lightly (obviously I am not a doctor) but I am speaking from my experience. Well after about a week on this medication I had never felt more un-normal. I literally did not sleep for that week even when I had the opportunity and felt like I was going crazy and felt very very down. I quit this drug cold turkey, not recommended by my doctor but I knew it was not good for me. I continued to breast feed and made a choice at 6 months to stop because I needed to explore other medications that could help me and I knew then that I really needed help. I talked again to my OBGYN and they gave me Prozac which seemed to work better for me, it did not make me feel crazy anyway. So to make a long story short I went back to work but still struggled from this beast that I call depression, I just was not myself. People who have not gone through this do not understand and that makes it harder. I have a very close friend that I worked with who I showed the attached picture to because I saw it on social media and thought it was a good representation of depression. My friend, who I adore, laughed and said “so you want me to build you a tent” and made a joke of it. She never knew this but I was crushed, I went into the bathroom and cried because I just wanted the person I was closest to and interacted the most with in the day to try to understand me instead of telling me which is very common “its fine, it will be better tomorrow.” which brings me to the point I want to reiterate, to a depressed person things are not fine, they may not even be able to see tomorrow so don’t say that it will be better tomorrow. Being that I have been on the other side of this, I understand how it is hard to understand and deal with at times but google “how to help a depressed person” there are actually a lot of resources. So what do I want to come of this, I hope that sharing this deeply personal story helps people that may not recognize the signs. I also want change to happen to have more resources for people who are depressed. I have a very close relationship with the March of Dimes Director in Tucson and have considered trying to talk to her about starting a program for moms that stayed in the NICU and had traumatic experiences, maybe a follow up from a nurse that really understands depression because the hotlines that did not answer the phone scare me. I was not at the point of considering harming myself but there are people that are and what if they don’t answer the phone when they call??? So, today where am I? I stopped taking depression medication about 6 months ago and I see somebody to talk to every couple of weeks. You could say I am better but unfortunately I feel like there is always this gray cloud just waiting to move in. I don’t want to battle this, I want to be the best person that I can for my children so I am doing things that help me like exercise, clean eating, venting in this forum which is a way of self expression for me and I hope to one day say that I never battle with depression and until that day I will do everything in my power to be my best self for myself and the people I love. Slowly but surely I am getting there.

PS- If you saw me on the street you would never know that I have this struggle, I am very put together, have a beautiful family and a nice home, great job, etc… it is not a stereotype and can effect anybody, please remember that.

XOXO- Trying to be better twin mom