Heart Of Darkness: Part 2

Fast forward to 2002. Summer of that year was very hard. Pierce was losing all of the skills he had learned that year in school. We were still being told that he just had a speech delay, and that it would be gone by Kindergarten. By the time school started again in the fall of 2002, his teacher could tell something wasn’t right. About that time is when I started having trouble sleeping. By Christmas, Pierce's teacher suggested we get a psych. evaluation for him. I had absolutely no interest in celebrating Christmas that year, but I had to for the kids. I start to hate being around other moms. They would talk about their normal children, and I felt I had nothing to contribute to the conversation. I started to feel so jealous. I couldn’t stop going to events, because people would wonder if something was wrong. I wouldn’t want anyone to talk about me. I’m a pretty good actress (or so I’ve been told), so I would go to scrapbook night, or a Pampered Chef party and no one suspected I was screaming inside.

Winter of 2003 was an especially bleak one. I have a pretty detailed account in my therapy journal, but I'll spare you and give the highlights. On January 14th, the 3rd report card came out. There, in black and white, was confirmation that Pierce was in serious trouble. In addition to our struggles with Pierce, I started to think I'd never see the sun again. We had lots of snow (a total of 17 inches here in Nashville, which is a big deal for us), and cancelled school. On January 16th, 8 inches of snow began falling while kids were in school. Everyone has a story about that day. Total chaos. Once school was finally cancelled, it took me 2 hours to get to there, and another 2 hours to get home. In February, Reagan got the stomach flu and became so dehydrated that she had to spend about 24 hours in the hospital. These incidents may feel like no big deal to you, but for me, they were pushing me closer and closer to my breaking point. In March, we began the process of having Pierce evaluated for autism. I've already explained in previous posts the grieving process that happened during this time. I wasn't grieving a child lost in death, rather the loss of my dreams for him. I started to feel like a monster. I didn’t want to adjust to having an autistic child, I just wanted a normal child. I hated myself for feeling that way. I didn’t feel like a devoted mother and a loving wife. I wasn’t sleeping at night, so I was exhausted all day. I also started to feel pain in my joints. Because of my extensive family history of Lupus, I began to worry that I may finally have succumbed to the disease as well. All I felt was despair. I would cry out to God, but I felt like he wasn’t listening to me. I would go to church and to Ladies Class and leave in tears. Occasionally this was actually being said, most times it wasn't, but what my sick mind was hearing was that I wasn’t good enough. If I just prayed harder and studied harder and trusted God more, my pain and hopelessness would go away. I would ask God, “What am I doing wrong?”. Eventually, I reached a point where the only thing I could feel was numbness. I had no more tears to cry. I couldn't hear God or feel His presence, and I had no energy left to try to speak to Him. The pain of depression is crippling, but to feel nothing is absolutely terrifying. I may have had a few thoughts of suicide, but mostly I just wanted to run away. I wanted to jump in my car, leave everyone and everything, and just drive, as if I could drive away from my demons. Finally, by the end of March, Tim tried to get me to talk about why I was so distant. I told him that I felt absolutely no love for him at all. That's when he knew I desperately needed help. 

Tim and my mother encouraged me to talk to my doctor about everything I was experiencing at my upcoming annual checkup. I had her test me for lupus and check my thyroid, but she was pretty convinced that I was in a deep depression. When depression goes on long enough, it can start to cause you physical pain as well as mental anguish. She felt like that was what was happening to me. Sure enough, the lupus and thyroid tests came back normal. I told a friend, one of the very few I had confided in, that I wasn’t sick, I was just crazy.