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Living as a Depressed Mom

Effects on My Family and Myself

By Jade TostanoskiPublished 6 years ago 3 min read
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Being a mom is already hard. While we are trying to live up to everyone's expectations of us, we often forget about taking care of ourselves. I am a proud mom of a 3 year old and a one month old, and while I love them more than anything, I struggle day to day with crippling depression. There are all different kinds of depression and the level of severity can change from person to person and from day to day. I am no expert on the subject but I can offer an insider perspective of a mom who struggles with depression.

I have dealt with depression for most of my life, but I have been a mom for only 3 of those years. Honestly, after I had my first daughter, I felt the best I had felt in years. I had a healthy baby, my fiancee and I moved out of our shit apartment and I had a higher paying job. Every now and again I would struggle with money issues or relationship issues but for the most part, things were decent. However, during my second pregnancy, I dealt with some severe sickness. I lost over 30 pounds and was frequently hospitalized, and this made me not have a social life and took a lot of time away from my family too. My daughter and her daddy would visit me in the hospital and tried to be strong for me but this was difficult on them as well.

That is when my severe depression began and it has not gotten any better after having my second child. Between not having a job, recovering from delivery, and juggling my attention between an extra attached infant and a energetic 3 year old, I was worn thin. There would be times where I would be holding both my daughters and just burst into tears. My oldest would look at me and say, "It's okay mama don't be sad," and I would just crumble. There would be days where I could not muster up the motivation to get out of bed or off the couch, so I would urge my children to have a "lazy day" with me. I would have days where I had no energy to make anything except an oven pizza for the family. These days made me feel like a terrible mom and wife, but at least I still tried to spend time with my babies. Even though my kids are so young I would think of how my deep state of depression might effect them or their views of me in the future. But then I realized that, if they even remember me in this state, it might be good for them to see me like this.

For me, it is important that my kids view me as another human. While I will always try to be strong for them, they need to know it is alright and normal to feel overwhelmed and if they need to cry they can cry. I want them to see me going through a rough time and being able to deal with it. I want them to see that it is alright to talk about their issues if they are going through a rough time in their lives. There is no shame in sharing with your kids your weaknesses or having them see you struggle. We can be humanized in our kids eyes and still be respected as parents. If anything this teaches our children more of how to survive struggle as they grow.

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About the Creator

Jade Tostanoski

I am a proud mother of two, working on a creative writing degree. I am also happily engaged to the man of my dreams and enjoy playing video games

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