Truth

Hope Is a Powerful Thing

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If you had asked me a year ago how I was doing, I probably would have smiled and said I was fine.

Most moms do.

We’re good at it.
At smiling.
At showing up.
At packing snacks, wiping tears, making dinner, remembering appointments, loving our babies with every ounce of our being… while quietly carrying things inside our own minds that nobody else can see.

The truth is, for a long time I haven’t felt fine.

Not in a dramatic, falling apart kind of way.
In the quieter way that’s harder to explain.

The kind where your brain never really shuts off.
Where you wake up already tired.
Where small things feel overwhelming and your mind feels like it’s constantly running in ten different directions at once.

I kept telling myself I could just push through it. That this is just what motherhood feels like sometimes. That being busy and being overwhelmed are basically part of the job description.

But eventually I had to be honest with myself.

White knuckling your way through life isn’t the same thing as living it.

So I did something that honestly took me a long time to do.

I started seeing a psychiatrist.

Even writing that out feels vulnerable. There’s still this strange stigma around mental health that makes it feel like admitting something is wrong with you. Like if you were just stronger, prayed harder, or more organized or more disciplined, you wouldn’t need help.

But our brains are organs. Just like our hearts and lungs and knees.

And sometimes they need help too.

After talking through everything, we decided to start a treatment plan and see if we can help my brain work the way it’s supposed to. It’s a process, and we’re still figuring out what works best. This isn’t my 1st rodeo with antidepressants or antianxiety medication, but I knew going on that shed throw some scary stuff at me.

Starting this step was scary.

What if nothing changes?
What if I still feel the same way?
What if I’ve been trying so hard for so long and this still doesn’t fix it?

But there’s another thought that keeps showing up, and it’s stronger than the fear.

Hope.

I have hope that things can get better.
Hope that the constant mental noise might quiet down.
Hope that I might wake up feeling rested instead of already behind.
Hope that I might feel like myself again.

Because if I’m being honest, I’m tired of feeling broken.

I’m tired of wondering why my brain sometimes works against me instead of with me. I’m tired of pretending everything is fine when inside it feels like I’m just trying to hold everything together.

I look at my child and I want to be the best version of myself for her. Not a perfect mom, but a present one. One whose mind isn’t constantly fighting itself.

And I know I’m not the only one walking around feeling this way.

So if you’re reading this and you’ve been struggling quietly too, let me say something I wish more people said out loud.

Getting help is not weakness.

It’s one of the bravest things you can do.

Taking care of your mental health doesn’t make you a bad mom, a bad partner, or a failure. It makes you someone who cares enough about your life and your family to fight for yourself.

I don’t know exactly what this journey will look like yet. Healing isn’t instant and it isn’t perfect. There will probably still be hard days.

But for the first time in a long time, I feel something I’ve been missing.

Hope.

And sometimes hope is the very first piece of healing.

Because the truth is this:

Sometimes the bravest thing a mother can do isn’t holding everything together for everyone else.

Sometimes the bravest thing she can do is finally admit she deserves to feel whole too.

Go hug your babies. Go hug your partners. Go hug a tree. Make a therapy appointment.

XOXOXO – Meig

A letter from your late loved one.

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Hi. This is your late loved one speaking. I don’t have long, so listen up because I have a lot I want to tell you.

First off, I get it.

Ever since I left this world you have missed me, and I know you’re bracing for the holidays without me. No matter what anyone says, this year’s festivities are going to be really tough.

In fact, let’s be honest, this festive season will probably suck pondwater. But then, Thanksgiving and Christmas are tough holidays for a lot of people. You’re not alone.

See, the misconception about the holidays is that they are one big party. That’s what every song on the radio claims. Each television commercial you see shows happy families clad in gaudy Old Navy sweaters, carving up poultry, smiling their perfect Hollywood teeth at the camera. But that’s not exactly reality.

In reality, fifty-eight percent of Americans admit to feeling severely depressed and anxious during November and December. In reality many folks will cry throughout the “most wonderful time of the year.”

Well, guess what? Nobody is crying up here in heaven. This place is unreal. There is, literally, too much beauty to take in. Way too much.

For starters—get this—time doesn’t even exist anymore. Which I’m still getting used to.

Right now, for all I know, the calendar year down on Earth could be 1728, 4045, 1991, or 12 BC. It really wouldn’t matter up here. This is a realm where there is no ticking clock, no schedule. Up here there is only this present moment. This. Here. Now. That’s all there has ever been. And there is real comfort in this.

I know this all seems hard to grasp, but if you were here you’d get it.

Also, for the first time I’m pain free. I feel like a teenager again in my body. You probably don’t realize how long I’ve lived with pain because I never talked about it, I kept my problems to myself because I was your loved one, and you needed me to be brave.

But pain is a devious thing. It creeps up on even the strongest person, little by little, bit by bit. Until pretty soon, pain becomes a central feature of life.

Sometimes my pain would get so bad it was all I thought about. No, I’m not saying that my life was miserable—far from it. I loved being on earth. It’s just that simply waking up each morning was getting exhausting.

But, you know what? Not anymore. In this new place, I am wholly and thoroughly happy.

But enough about me. I don’t have room to describe all the terrific things I’m experiencing, and you don’t need to hear them. Right now, you’re grieving, and what you need is a hug.

Which is why I’m writing to you. This is my hug to you. Because you’ve lost sight of me. And in fact, you’ve lost sight of several important things lately.

Death has a way of blinding us. It reorganizes the way you think, it changes you. You will never be the same after you lose someone. It messes with your inner physiology. It reorganizes you’re neurons.

But then, there’s one teensy little thing you’re forgetting:

I’m still around.

Yes, you read that correctly, I’m right here with you. No, you can’t see me. No, you can’t reach out and hold me. But did you know that one of the things I’m allowed to do as a heavenly being is hang out with you?

It’s true. I’m never far away. I’m in the room with you now, along with a big cloud of ancestors, saints, and witnesses. I’m shooting the breeze alongside you, watching you live your life, watching you raise your kids, watching your private moments of sorrow.

Here, in this new realm, I am in the perfect position to help you learn things. Which is what I vow to spend the rest of your earthly life doing, teaching you little lessons, lending you a hand when you least expect it, and desperately trying to make you smile. Actually, I’ve already been doing this stuff, you just don’t realize it.

What, you don’t believe me?

Well, wake up, pal. You know that tingle you get in your spine whenever you think of me? That’s me.

You know how, just yesterday, you had a beautiful memory when you were driving and it made you cry so hard that it actually felt good and you began to laugh through tears? Also me.

You know how sometimes when you’re all alone, preoccupied with something else, suddenly you get this faint feeling that someone is standing in the room with you? Hello? Me.

You’re not alone on this earth. You never were. You never will be. So during this holiday season, when cheerful families are getting together and making merry, and taking shots of eggnog, I’m going to be clinging to your shoulder, helping you muddle through somehow.

I’ll be making your spinal column tingle a lot, and I’ll be sending plenty of signs. Each of these signs—every single one—is code for “I love you.” So start paying attention to these hints.

Because this was one.

Shared from Emma McCartney