Guest Blog by Anonymous

*not anonymous to me, but to the world at large via my blog*

"Mental states are fluid and always changing.  You think you're having a good day and think you can tackle a task. Suddenly you are panicking about everything in your life - house cleaning, social engagements, donations, even picking up your child from daycare and your friends who are traveling. When you realize this is happening, you begin to have anxiety about needing to go on meds again, whether or not you are completing the right task first, looking like a complete failure, not finding anything to wear or having a meltdown in front of your close friends and a lounge of random people. The mental illness overtakes your reasonable side and makes you turn into what you are fearful about - someone who didn't finish what she set out to do; someone who cancels her social promises; someone who isolates herself until she is despondent. #fuckmentalillness"

A close friend of mine texted that to me about 10 minutes ago. Of the two, I'd say that anxiety is much worse than depression. I mean, don't get me wrong. Depression is the absolute pits. But the way that my PPD has manifested is into anxiety about things, and getting my priorities all mixed up. Instead of feeding my child and then cleaning something, I get frantic about cleaning and then realize that i need to feed the child.

Or I randomly decide to rearrange the furniture in my daughter's room even though both my daughter and infant son are awake and could use some mommy hangout time. I legit told my toddler to take care of the baby for a minute so mommy could move her bed across the room. I had to complete the task before I could deal with either of them, which logically I should have just left it for a minute or just not started it at all. I texted T about how heavy the furniture was and his response was "It's fucking solid" which means I'm totally going to get in shit when he gets home for moving it by myself instead of waiting for him. But I had to do it. It's like I had to prove to myself that I could do it.