The Feeling Always Passes
In 1994 while pregnant with my first child, I woke up from a dream where I felt I was being cut. It was not a dream where I felt my baby was being cut out of me, it was that I was being cut all over my body. I was not someone who had ever cut or self harmed but the thoughts of being cut soon overwhelmed me. The thoughts seemed real and were nearly constant by the end of my pregnancy. But, because the thoughts felt hard explain and believing that I was crazy to have this thought, I told no one.
My oldest son was born and I immediately fell into a long, bleak post-partum depression. I still felt that I was being cut. I began to believe that if I could list the layers of skin and recite this as the hands began to cut me that this knowledge would stop the cutting. It didn’t. I thought that if I held my breath, they would go away. They didn’t. I tried to lie still and wish them away. I tried to pretend they were not there. I would test the thought by looking at my skin, touching my skin and telling myself that what I felt was only a thought. The thought could not be true.
When I told my first psychiatrist, she was kind and optimistic and predicted that when my postpartum depression lifted the thoughts would abate. My depression did get better. I was no longer suicidal but the thought of being cut was stubbornly ingrained in my brain.
Through the years, I tried anti-depressants, neuroleptics, atypical antipsychotics, individual therapy, group therapy and marriage therapy but the feeling of being cut still comes roaring back again and again and again. When the thoughts are present, I suffer. But, most of the time no one would know. I have a full time job and parent four children. I juggle a hectic schedule balancing job responsibilities, children’s athletic and academic activities and try to carve out time for my own social life. I can accomplish a lot but I can also hide a lot.
In my family, hiding and not acknowledging pain was a badge of honor. Being silent was rewarded. I learned this lesson too well. When I become suicidal, I don’t acknowledge or tell people about this feeling. I am embarrassed and feel shame. How can someone professionally successful, a mother of four children with caring friends have this invasive, frantic thought of needing to be dead by the end of the week.
My recovery has not been linear. I’m very private, and still hesitate to tell people I’m feeling depressed or hypo-manic. The words, “I don’t feel well” are difficult to say. I need to trust that the response will not be wait a bit longer or try harder. I could never try harder than I have to NOT have a mental illness. Therapy has taught me some words to reframe these thoughts when they reappear. It helps to say “it is my depression that is causing this thought.” I can challenge the belief that no one wants to hear about my thoughts. I say to the thought “I don’t need you now” or “this thought is not going to help me now.” I can stand up and walk around, make a decision to be around my children or walk and get coffee. I can interrupt the feeling.
I can have two competing thoughts at the same time. I can say I want my thoughts to be private and I need a friend. The pain is real but I can feel good too. There is not a time limit on feeling good. I will not use up the good days. There is not an expiration date for my life.
This is My Brave – I have bipolar II and have intrusive thoughts. I am also a mother, a nurse and a wife.
About the Author: Laurel completed her Bachelors Degree at the University of Pennsylvania in 1992 and her Masters Degree in pediatric nursing at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in 1995. She earned a post-masters certificate as a Pediatric Primary Care Mental Health Specialist in 2019. She is the mother of four children and has been married for 27 years.
