I have spent a lot of time recently working on gratitude.  It can be tricky, as most things in my life. Yet, study after study shows that when you take time each day to focus on it, it can help with depression, outlook, hopelessness. Ironically, when you are struggling with those things, it can be next to impossible to grasp at.

I remember after Bella was born, having crippling postpartum depression. It is a time that is dark for me, and I still have so many feelings around it.  Shame, embarrassment, guilt are the top contenders. I kept it from the outside world, but not my family.  It is like I was keeping it together and fell apart when I got home.  Postpartum depression is hell. You have this beautiful newborn, that you helped create, grow, and bring into this world, and your body betrays you with the most horrific thoughts you can imagine. To my patients, my outside family, my friends, I was fine. To my husband and children, awful. My words told them I was fine, I could handle it, etc. My actions were terrible. The anger, the overwhelming sadness, the wanting to die everyday, trying to bond with my beautiful daughter, looking at her, and feeling nothing. Feeling empty, numb most of the time. Work was my oasis strangely. This went on for six months.  Jesse begging me to get help. I remember him buying a journal, and forcing me every night to write three things I was grateful for. The nights I could not even lift the pen, the depression weighing down, threatening to smother me, he would say, fine, tell me and I will write it. Those days, I could not come up with anything, so I went to the basics. I am grateful I have eyes and can see, I am grateful I have legs and can walk, I am grateful for my patients. I was a mess, yet “fine”. Fine became a four letter curse word and has stayed that way. This persisted until one day at work, early in January, I was even miserable there, barely functioning. Jesse had reached out to my sister and said, help, she won’t listen to me, but she’ll listen to you (I am grateful beyond words for his patience, perseverance and love during that time). She called me that day and made me spill it, and I started sobbing and could not stop.  She told me that I needed counseling asap, and that if I did not have an appointment by the next day, she would fly out here and kick my ass.  Well, she didn’t quite say that last part, but implied it. I did get counseling, which lasted for about a year, got on meds, and kicked it. I had to work hard to get those feelings of shame, guilt, and embarrassment under control. Yet, nine years later, they still creep in.  There are many thoughts that cross my mind, that are very fucked up.  One, which I cringe even writing, but what is an honest blog without me being honest, is that I did not deserve my daughter to live after I abandoned her for six months emotionally, that I deserve the hell on earth that I live each day without her. Yeah. Told you it was bad.

Which leads me to gratitude. Huh? How did I get from there to here. Gratitude that because of the therapy I had during postpartum depression, I got Cognitive Behavior Therapy skills which I use during those thought processes. I go through a whole thing in my head to diffuse those bombs which would debilitate me if left unchecked. Luckily, that degree of messed up thought does not come often. But others do.  As I have said in the past, rare is the moment when my mind is not working through some kind of memory, some flashback, some current crisis. Between all of that, and the world today, I have felt myself slip into a rough outlook more often.  Which led me to start practicing gratitude again.  It’s not that I haven’t, but this is more intentional.

I have a lot to be grateful for. Right now as I write this, I am listening to one of my favorite writing artists, Ludovico Einaudi.  His music moves me in a way that touches deep inside, stirring emotions that I don’t often acknowledge or feel. I close my eyes as he takes me on a journey, I imagine floating outside my body, and I feel my daughter, tears stream down my face, that part floating, able to touch her, the only way I can now. I am grateful for the ears to hear this beautiful music. The hands to type and share with you. I am grateful for the legs to take me on the run I so desperately need to diffuse this grief/trauma energy that would drive me crazy. I am grateful that my child is doing a smidge better, that I don’t worry every single minute that I am going to find him dead. I am grateful for my friends and family more than I can even capture in words. I am grateful for my stupid cat and dog (stupid is my term of endearment for them). I am grateful for the leap of faith F and I took when we bought this beautiful home, a safe and peaceful place for me to “be.” I am grateful for F, who is the yin to my yang, who, through the past two years has stood unwavering by my side and when in his arms, I feel the tension melt away, I feel loved, I feel safe, things I never thought I would feel or have again.

Is life rosy?  No. Do I still struggle with depression, anxiety, and PTSD, yes. Some days it is enough that I just get through the day.  Am I worried sick about my kid, yes. Am I worried about the world in which he is growing up in, yes. Which is why I am practicing moments in time, here and there of gratitude.

In my backyard, one of my go to places to stop, to breathe, to be grateful.