Mom's Sadness

I'll bet it is fairly safe to assume that when you found this blog on whatever search engine you used, you did not imagine that it would be this way. Maybe you imagined a site such as couponmom.com, or some other comparable site, which did nothing more than search for deals, matching coupons, and compiling lists. Or maybe you imagined a blog such as thegkamoroushousewife.com, claiming to teach you how to clean house, bake cookies, make hair bows, and be sexually attentive to your husband all while never smudging your bright red lipstick. I am on no way bashing these sites for what they do, or claim to teach us mothers, but I will say that sometimes, as a mother, this is just not what we are looking for in a blog. For a mother who suffers from any form of mental illness, it is very difficult to adhere to the schedules and constraints of the "perfect housewife" yet no one ever wants to admit that she is having a difficult time managing her family,

More mothers than can to admit are depressed in some form. Most times it is mislabeled as being moody, or in some cases, it is over diagnosed as Post Partum depression. Yet with so many varying forms of depression, without the proper care, it will never be properly diagnosed or managed. Depression is not a case of just being moody, overly emotional, or plain old mad. Depression is deeper than any of these feelings. It is a chemical imbalance in the brain, caused by various factors including saratonin and oxytocin. These two chemicals which are produced in the brain are believed to not only have an impact on maternal depression, but also how this ripples onto the children. I am no scientist, and will not begin to assume that I know how the chemical makeup of our brains is calculated and maintained, but what I do know is that it is very true that the more depressed the mother, it definetly affects the children, and can cause depression, anxiety, and other mental disorders in them that will be difficult to reverse without the mother being treated first.

I have written about maternal depression on more than one occasion, and will most likely continue to write about maternal depression as this issue hits very close to home with me. I am a prime example of the Depression Ripple Affect, as I like to call it, one mother passing on her depression to her daughter and so on. I come from a long line of depressed women, beginning with my grandmother, and possibly my great grandmother, yet she was never the type to admit if she were depressed or not, she just flushed it away with the trash. My grandmother, on the other hand, was not as good at hiding as her mother. Her depression got the best if her from the time of her first born, throughout her marriage, and having three other daughters preceding the first. This depression rippled down to those children who were mentally weaker then the others, it seemed to affect the youngest daughter them most, yet the third daughter was affected, however minor. This ripple was not something that was hidden very well, if at all. I'm not sure if any of the siblings have ever actually put this together as I am right not. My grandmother was, and still is a very depressed woman. As we speak, she sits in her assisted living home that she has lived in as long as I can remember, while her two living children want nothing to do with her. The eldest two siblings are the only two living children she has, yet it seems as though they have turned the tables in their own mother and sent her off, just the way she did when they were small children. These two children seem to display more anger and hate than depression, yet it may even be safe to assume that all four of the children were affected by their mothers depression in a chemical level, and not only an environmental level.

My mother suffered from sever depression before she took her own life at the age of 35, and this did affect me and my siblings, however short our time was exposed to her. We were not raised by he, and only lived with her for a total of three years of my lifetime. No matter the amount of time that I was exposed to my mother, I too now suffer from various different forms of depression, and I fear that at least one of my four children will also suffer from some form of depression. The one thing that has become very appearent is that it has now become my responsibility to end this cycle in my family. I have it stop this vicious cycle of anxiety, depression, and anger that has plagued my family for generations. It is my responsibility to cure my own depression so that I am not teaching my children from poor examples. Our children only imitate what they see in their parents and other adults that are involved in their lives. 

We as mothers are responsible for everything that happens in and around our homes and families, yet if we suffer from depression, anxiety, anger disorder, or any other mental illness, everything in our homes will also suffer. Once I became a mother, two things happened, the first and most important being that I am now responsible for the well being of someone else. The second thing that changed is that now what I do and how I react will affect this child forever. It was my fault that I didn't change too much from before I had children until now, and I should have gotten help for my own depression, but I am not a bad mother, neither is any other mother who is in my similar position. We are not at fault for being depressed, we are not at fault for not being able to afford proper care,yet we are at fault for taking out our depression, anxiety, and anger on our husbands and children. This should be our motivation for change. Despite beliefs, we are able to help ourselves if we are able to motivate ourselves. We need to be open with our husbands and ask them for the support needed so that we can beat this on our own. We are able to beat this and end the vicious cycle if we are motivated and consistent with our regimine.