Tinsel + spice with a side of depression

the personal one

Yesterday I plugged in my Pura scent diffuser and decided it would be okay if I pulled out the holiday scents. This was partially determined because all the other scents I had rolling around in the guest room drawer where I keep them, smell like terrible men’s cologne, and partially because we are firmly in Halloween territory now.

Anyway. I rummaged through the drawer of unwanted vials and found a holiday one I had tucked away from last year. I plugged it in and went on to make dinner.

When I came back into the living room, I walked into a wall of nostalgia. Suddenly I’m transported to a year ago when we had just moved and I thought “I should really get a Pura diffuser to make this big house feel more lived in and smell less like fresh paint.”

A year ago. Somehow, this house we “just” moved into, the same one where I keep telling myself “I must finish unpacking those boxes in the office”, is a year old. We bought it new, so it’s only as old as we are living in it.

I’ll spare you waxing lyrical about how fast time flies. But dear reader, when you’re depressed time REALLY flies. It flies and it also creeps by like one of those nightmares where you’re trying hard to run away but your legs won’t move.

I was very depressed when we moved into this house. I just didn’t know it yet. How lovely for me.

We tumbled in through its doors like fugitives. The beloved cottage we’d lived in before had shrunk as soon as the twins came home. All the rooms we’d lovingly curated for three people to live in; the kitchen we had just renovated because we decided we loved this wonky little ranch cottage and it would be our “forever home”; the windows we’d lovingly replaced with our tax refund; the roof we had just refinished because it leaked; all the floors that had been freshly sanded and re-stained at great personal cost because it meant I had to couch surf with a three year old when Chris was on tour— all of these things became irrelevant. We were so claustrophobic in that house once the twins were born. There wasn’t a single room you could go to, to be alone in. We immediately took to Zillow.

Four weeks later, with the help of my bedraggled parents (who we were on the brink of abusing because they were over every day helping us survive our own lives) and three cheerful movers (who all told us confidently that they “crossfit”) we had moved.

We did not have enough furniture for this new house— we still don’t have enough furniture— and so it felt big and white and deliciously empty. When you’re leaving a house where every closet has been crammed to the ceiling, the emptiness feels lovely.

That Pura diffuser scent (I suppose at this point I should tell you it’s called “Tinsel + Spice by capri Blue) transports me back to wandering around our lovely, big new house in my sweatpants and unwashed hair in wonder. Suddenly it didn’t matter as much that my breasts were leaking and I was operating on a collective four hours of sleep, I could get dressed with the light on because the twins now slept in the room next to ours and not two feet away.

It’s nearly been a full year since we moved and the twins are watching Miss Rachel (as is our Saturday morning tradition) while I type this in bed and drink my coffee after a lovely night of uninterrupted sleep.

So much has changed. I’ve changed in more ways than I care to divulge here, but I will say it’s been only recently that I haven’t been depressed.

I really thought moving would take me out of my postpartum “slump” (that’s what I was calling my clinical depression back then— cute!)

“Maybe I could think clearer if I just had some SPACE!” I moaned. It didn’t help. Then I tried getting more help with the kids— our nanny who has been with us on and off since Danny was little started clocking in two days a week. (I know the word “nanny” will do something to some of you, and I just want you to know that when your partner travels the world most of the year and you don’t have any family in town and you’re working part-time yourself, it’s really helpful to have a designated person playing the role of a third parent, okay?) Anyway, having her back in our lives helped tons, but it didn’t help the fog inside me.

My parents continued to show up like Mother Teresa, taking Danny out for ice cream, coming over at the crack of dawn with steamy coffee after nights where I had rocked both babies eternally and let me nap. The naps helped, but they didn’t make me feel any less hopeless.

The next step in my highly privileged existence was to go to therapy. I went (I go) every week. I love my therapist and we talked things through to death and back again, but nothing moved the needle internally.

To be honest, I felt so much shame. I was receiving so much help. My support system was ELITE. I wanted to say I was better. I wanted to pretend like it was helping the sadness in me, but it wasn’t. I was still so sad.

It was at this point my therapist gently asked if I’d be open to an anti-depressant. If she’d asked a month earlier I would have blithely told her I was “getting better”. Sure, I bawled my eyes out on the last day of a mini vacation Chris and I took that spring because I had “had such a good time and now it’s over!” No, really I’m fine. Look at me, not dreading anything at all.

But by the time she did ask, the facade I’d been propping up for myself had well and truly dropped. I was struggling to get out of bed everyday. My exercise routine sounded like an unusual form of torture. I watched so much TV. I was keenly (guiltily) aware that I couldn’t enjoy anything. Not even my kids who I intellectually knew to be completely awesome.

I made the doctor’s appointment.

She was lovely. A mom to triplets (all in college now— can you imagine? Triplets in college!!) She looked at me with so much tenderness in her eyes and listened so attentively to me explain my symptoms I’ll never forget it.

“Oh honey,” she said. And not in a condescending way, but in a I’m-here-like-a-fairy-godmother-and-it’s-all-changing-for-you-today kind of way. “Oh honey, you’re going to need these pills for at least the next two years. Let’s get you on a very low dose of Prozac and see how we get on, yeah?”

I nodded.

Supposedly it takes three weeks to really feel the effect of taking anti-depressants. Maybe it was placebo, but I felt the fog lift immediately. It was so dramatic.

I remember waking up early one morning shortly after, and cheerfully making coffee and a bottle for one of the twins. After breakfast I took them on a walk where they had a little meltdown because it was nearly their naptime and I giggled and tickled their toes and told them we were almost home so not to worry. I showered. I took up Pilates.

“Our lives are so wonderful!” I told Chris. “Have you noticed how GREAT life is?!”

He told me, he had.

Everything that had felt hard (cooking, breathing, having friends) suddenly didn’t feel hard. I wasn’t paralyzed by emails from Danny’s school. I knew what I wanted to make for dinner. I made my bed and brushed my hair.

But the weird thing is that I didn’t feel giddy or elated. I didn’t feel drugged up. I felt like myself. I felt like I was having my eyes opened to this wonderful life I had been creating even in the midst of my depression. Even though I was not okay, I knew how to build a life that had a sustainable rhythm for me and my family. I was building and setting it up, and just unable to enjoy it.

When I started taking my SRRIs, it was like I was released to enjoy the life I had created for myself and my family. It made me so proud of sad and depressed Gabby. She knew what she was doing, she just couldn’t get there on her own.

That brings me back to Tinsel and Spice by capri Blue.

It’s pumping away in the living room, reminding me of how much has changed in a year. Sure I’ve changed, but not as much as I originally thought. I’m still essentially me.

Our house is still very empty and there are boxes that need to be unpacked. I just ordered a few picture frames to hang Danny’s school art in. We desperately need a lamp in the family room and I’m pretty sure we’re reaching the acceptable expiration date on just having a mattress on the floor in the guest room.

But we’ll get there.