This is a guest post by Lindsey Mead. I’ve invited a couple of kindreds to post this week while my family gears up for and makes a local move. Lindsey’s article here is a beautiful example of what Lindsey does often at her blog, A Design So Vast: reflects honestly, eloquently, and movingly about the wonder and struggle of life. I hope you’ll go read more of what she writes!
I hate asking for help. I imagine most of us feel this way. For me it’s less about admitting weakness and more about imposing; I don’t want to put anyone in the position of feeling obligated to do something for me. This is especially true because most people, I suspect, are too nice to say no. So I feel guilty about being a burden.
For most of my life this worked. I just didn’t ask anyone for help very often. I gritted my teeth and did what needed to be done. And then my ability to cope – formerly an asset that I relied on both to get me through the day and in large part for my identity – absolutely dissolved in the wake of my first child’s birth. In a two week period that remains the darkest time of my life, I fell apart utterly.
When I was pregnant with Grace I heard lots of talk about baby nurses and overnight nannies; there seemed to be infinite permutations of help. I rejected them all. First, because they were expensive. But a second, and equally important reason, was because I did not want help. I’d always been able to do everything myself, and this was going to be no different.
Well, it was different. I collapsed into a puddle of tears and regrets, stared blankly at my healthy baby daughter, and wondered if I’d made the biggest mistake of my life. At my two week appointment with my midwives, I asked for help. This was unprecedented, but for the first time in my life, I was unable to keep up the façade of competence that was my standard face to the world. After a long day in their office (because they didn’t think I was safe alone with Grace, a fact that still gives me chills) I went home with a lot of help: two therapists, a prescription for Zoloft, and the directive to hire 24 hour help for at least a short period. With a name for my situation – severe post partum depression – I felt liberated to talk to those closest to me about how I was struggling.
What happened after this changed forever my sense of my place in the world. Finally I had reached the limit of my own ability to do things alone, and I was forced to lean into the people who loved me. I was in free fall, and I was startled by the sturdiness of the net that caught me. My husband jokes that it’s still not clear who had colic in those early weeks, Grace or me, and while he’s kidding I think the analogy hints at something insightful. I, too, felt like a newborn, skinless, terrified, and dependent. In what I now understand to be a cataclysmic breakdown, I let go of something that had always been essential to my sense of myself. My unambiguous belief that I could accomplish anything I needed to through sheer force of will shattered. The certainty that had defined me for 28 years was revealed to be artificial. In the midst of those dark, tearful, sleepless weeks I understood something basic: life was about questions, not answers.
I never expected that asking for help would teach me how to live my life. It taught me the strength of my own support system and it also demonstrated that people who care are genuinely pleased to help when you need it. But it also dismantled the scaffolding of certainty that I now realize was standing between me and the sun. Without that – the sureness that I now understand was tremendously brittle, and limiting – I grew more comfortable with questions, with doubt, with all of the immense questions that parenting, and adulthood, and midlife have brought with them. And what an extraordinary and terrifying blessing that has been.
Everything Belongs
Seasons are universal. Treat yours uniquely.
Kristin,
Comment by Lindsey — May 27, 2011 @ 3:55 amIt’s such an honor to see my words here in your beautiful space! And your sketch is just perfect. Thank you, thank you, thank you. xoxo
Lindsey, thank YOU for your words here. So beautifully and movingly said. They make me think about my own darkest season, when everything I had been so certain about fell apart. Looking back, I can say so many of the things you did here about what that shattering made possible for me. But while I was in it: wow. I didn’t have eyes to appreciate with any sense of accuracy how much love and support were around me or the good fruit that was setting on because of what I was experiencing. I guess time’s passing can be wonderful in this respect: the acuteness of pain can mellow until we’re able to see the gold streaking through and all around it.
Comment by Kristin — May 27, 2011 @ 4:10 amLindsey, you are one of the most honest and poignant writers I know. And I am so grateful to have met you and to call you friend. Our kinship runs deep, I really hope you know that. Because I know this. I know this to my very core. I feel as though I could have written myself, but no where near with the clarity you just have. Though mine wasn’t post-partum depression, it was an abyss just the same. I love you for your honesty and willingess to be a part of my life.
Comment by Christine @ Coffees & Commutes — May 27, 2011 @ 4:18 amxo
I always love all your words, ladies, but this is just wonderful, Miss Lindsey. And so very, very, very true and helpful in all sorts of ways.
That sketch, Kristin, is beyond words beautiful. I hope you give a copy to Lindsey and that she hangs it in her garret space to remind her of all the good…
Love to you both.
Comment by Christa — May 27, 2011 @ 5:18 amChrista, thank you for your kindnesses. Always.
Comment by Kristin — May 27, 2011 @ 5:51 amBeautiful post, Lindsey. I firmly believe that things must fall apart in order for us to move forward. In fact, if we are living our lives bravely, they are a series of building up, falling down, and rebuilding again. Growth is what comes of this process. I also love your analogy about the post-partum period applying to both mother and baby. As a mother of an infant, I often feel like an infant myself, unsure, fragile, and yes, at times wailing and babbling nonsensically.
Comment by Elizabeth — May 27, 2011 @ 6:14 amElizabeth, something about that picture of life being a series of building up, falling down, and rebuilding again is so helpful for me to hear. Naming that process as normal and good, even, takes the scandal out of the falling down parts of life. Thanks for this food for trust.
Comment by Kristin — May 27, 2011 @ 6:25 amSomething I often tell people who apologize for requesting my help is this: “The people who care about you want to help you. Sometimes, the greatest gift you can give them is giving them the chance to help.”
Comment by Chris Yeh — May 27, 2011 @ 6:31 amChris Yeh: AMEN!!
Comment by Kristin — May 27, 2011 @ 12:03 pmI, too, had a huge struggle when I had my first child. I experienced acute anxiety, which made it impossible for me to sleep, and almost two weeks passed before I sought help. You can imagine that it was hard to take care of a newborn on so little sleep. But what great help I received once I sought it! When I had my second child, I took advantage of the first experience, and I put a whole support system in place to avoid what had happened the first time. I haven’t fully worked out why we go into something so huge and overwhelming as making a human being (!) and becoming a parent for the first time wanting to be independent. I’m now thinking about folks who decide ahead of time that they don’t want the epidural or that they will breastfeed come hell or high water. It’s so hard to know how this whole new and strange experience will unfold… I say get whatever help you can afford! There is nothing like a fantastic lactation consultant! At a minimum, be ready to call your ob-gyn and your pediatrician sooner rather than later.
Comment by Susan Fine — May 27, 2011 @ 12:30 pmSusan, I love this line of yours: “It’s so hard to know how this whole new and strange experience will unfold.” Doesn’t that seem true of all of life? Shattering certainty, for me, has made room for much more gentle proclamations about what I’ll surely do (like the examples you wrote about not doing an epidural or breastfeeding at all costs), and more possibility of changing my mind or taking a very different course without a crushing sense of shame (not things I could historically do so well). Thanks for your good words here.
Comment by Kristin — May 27, 2011 @ 1:58 pmLife just seems to be a series of things that builds you up with another that breaks you down. Our ability to learn and adapt will keep us grounded. I am a person who cringes to ask for help for very similar reasons as yours – the thought of imposing. There is some hint of weakness as well. And how true that your child in infancy taught you that there are some things you cannot change by sheer force. If it didn’t come then, it surely would at some other time. Funny how these children are a mind of their own.
Comment by Cathy — May 27, 2011 @ 5:27 pmI still struggle with this sometimes…thinking I can do it all. Thank you for this beautiful reminder.
Comment by kelly — May 27, 2011 @ 8:23 pmWhat a beautiful, raw post. Like others have said, I definitely relate to these feelings without having dealt with the exact same situation. I appreciate when people are open and honest about the very real parts of life. I think the world would be a better place if we felt we could share these moments with each other without judgement and receive compassion, empathy and love in return. We are only human, after all. Bravo for this post, Lindsey.
Comment by Lily — May 29, 2011 @ 7:09 amOh yes. Asking for and receiving help – two of the hardest things to do in our society that rates independence above all – and yet, vital to our survival. Beautiful post Lindsey. Thank you, as always, for your words.
Comment by Alana — May 29, 2011 @ 9:56 pm