Finding Happiness

Most mothers suffer from some form of depression, and this directly reflects on our husbands and children. Best case scenerio it will only be you who suffers, but the worst case scenerio (and what usually happens) is that it will affect at least one of your family members by your depression becoming their depression. The root of all of the evil and upheaval and our homes and families is moms depression. We have to fix ourselves first. There comes a point in life when you need to be selfish and really only think about yourself until you fix yourself. Unless we are happy, thinking clearly, and being attentive, to both you ourselves and our families. Your level of depression will be the determining factor in how long it will take you to change it. Some of us have become depressed after having our children, others have been dealing with depression longer, and may have gotten worse after having children, there are even some who suffer from seasonal depression and are clueless as to how or why they are only depressed depending on the season. Whatever the cause of your depression, there must be a resolution, for your family to be a reflection of perfection.

Before you can expect to be happy, you have to know why you are depressed. Scientifically, it could be related to your parents, and the chemical make up in your brain. If this is truly the case, that there is truly just a chemical imbalance, then there would seemingly be nothing more to help than to take medication. This could be the truth in more severe cases, yet I always think that even in the worst situations there is always another way. I'm not a direct advocate for medication because most times the side effects are worse than the depression that we suffer from. There are other theories as to the cause of depression such as our environment and the people we surround ourselves with, and this could very well be the case, so we have to change the way that we react to others both internally and externally. This is much easier said than done, and I can be the first to admit that I have felt sad, powerless, and hopeless all at the same time, without a limb to dangle from. I am far from fixed yet I am striving daily to better myself and my family. Hopefully during my process, I will not only be able to help myself, but all of you as well. I can no longer accept the fact that my family's imperfection, lack of motivation and total lack of emotional control is because I have been the one to teach them these behaviors and attitudes. Yet I am going to ask, how and where do we begin this process?

Depression is deep. It lies deeper within us than we would like to admit. Yes you may have just begun to have symptoms after you had your child, but your depression has most likely been laying low for longer than those nine months. There is still confusion as to where depression comes from, it could be the level of nurturing that you received growing up, or it could be the environment that you grew up in, then it could be the chemical make up of your brain itself. If the latter is the case, then there is no other cure than to balance the chemicals with chemicals, but if any if the former are true, then we are the cure to our own depression.i believe that in either situation, it will be difficult to surpass these deep rooted feelings, but we have gone through CHILD LABOR. We as women, mothers and wives not only owe our sanity to our children and spouses, most importantly we owe it to ourselves. We have to change no matter what, no matter how difficult it may be. Life is difficult and without our sanity, we will be no good to anyone, especially, ourselves or our families. There comes a time in motherhood when we have to focus on ourselves in order to repair ourselves. We are the very backbone to our family, and speaking from experience, when mommy isn't healthy, the entire family suffers. You begin to fall behind in normal situations including doctor appointments, and general well being. If mommy is stuck in such a rut that she cannot get out, what makes anyone think that her family will be properly cared for?

The first step in the transformation lies within us and us alone. Like in any process with steps, we have to first be able to admit that we have a problem. If you walk around all day yelling, being mean towards everyone for not appearent reason, get sad and depressed and don't know why, honey, you have a major problem. After you have been able to admit both to yourself and another person that you are depressed, you will begin the process of releasing those old feelings and making space for your new  feelings of motivation, happiness, loving and being loved, most likely for the first time in either a very long time, or maybe in your entire life. These new feelings are often scary and can actually trigger those old feelings of being mad and defensive, as these are our natural defenses. We now are beginning a process of changing those natural defenses to make them as unnatural as possible. As mothers, we hold our family's very well being in our hands, and with too many false moves, it is very simple to have this slip away. Once you are able to look yourself in the mirror daily and tell yourself that you are not your emotions, and that you are better than your emotions, you have conquered the first step and are ready to move on to the next step of the process.

It is never good to get a hobby before you conquer your emotions. If you do attempt to occupy your time and mind before you handle these negative emotions, they will never be handled, they will just be pushed down, allowed to further fester, and eventually will get worse. The emotions must be conquered before you do anything as a benefit or fun for yourself. You have to be strict on yourself and keep to the mentality that YOU HAVE TO CHANGE THE WAY YOU FEEL AND REACT to emotional and non emotional life situations. It is simple to believe that you are helping yourself by occupying your mind with something but, another experience that I have lived for all of us, this will never work. It doesn't matter if your hobby benefits your family, if it is occupying your mind in such a way that it takes even more away from your kids and husband, it is just as detrimental as what drove you to get the hobby to begin with.