Welcome to RMB’s Naked Pictures of Faceless People, a series of guest posts from diverse anonymous bloggers. (Read more about NPFP’s origins.) These are the posts that are jumping to get out of us, but for whatever reason — safety, embarrassment, conflict of interest, protection of loved ones’ reputations or feelings, or so on — we don’t or won’t or can’t post at our own blogs. Anyone is welcome to submit or discuss a potential post by emailing me at arwyn at raisingmyboychick dot com.

Pink Frosting

I was planning on a green cake and using purple sugar with a dinosaur stencil. N had other ideas. She usually does. She has a mind of her own, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. She is brave and strong, and knows her own mind. She’s turning three tomorrow, so maybe I just dream that those are the things that she will be. I hope she always knows how much faith I have in her.

About two years back, I sat across the dinner table from my mother, nursing N, working hard to come out of Postpartum Depression. My mother told me that she had always been depressed, she would always be depressed, that life would never be easier, and I’d better get used to it, because I was going to be depressed my whole life, too. She was deep down black, and couldn’t see her way out or remember that there were days when life was easier. I drove home that night and swore to myself that I would never, ever say that to my daughter.

My mother baked me cakes from scratch growing up. She made us oatmeal every morning, and muffins so good that my elementary school teachers begged for the recipes. She made bread with us, and taught us how to peel carrots and use a knife safely. We were paid a penny a potato bug or Japanese beetle, and spent summers with mouths covered in the red-blue juice of blackberries and wild strawberries. She was an amazing mom in so many ways. She still is. But, there have been days, seasons, and years when she has had to swim hard to keep her head above water. I believe she always does the best she can, and I am stronger and better because she loves me.

I watch my friends confronting their own demons: hospitalized for bipolar with little ones at home; a mother in law learning a diagnosis and calling child protective services. I watch them hospitalize their children and hear them praying for the ability to keep their teenage daughters safe. I fight so hard to make it through this hell that is clinical depression, and I wonder how long I will really be able to keep it from my girls. I see my therapist regularly, I keep up on my ‘insulin’, the Wellbutrin and Lexapro that make the day to day possible. I try to ensure that flashbacks do not touch my face while I care for my daughters, that even on my worst days their needs are met. But, how much longer do I have that they don’t know?

What it will be like for my daughters? When will it become their burden, too? They have the same loaded genetic make up, coupled with bipolar and anxiety disorders from my husband’s side. I hear my friends talk about helping their children through heartaches and hospitals. I am awestruck by their strength, even as I doubt my own. I am afraid of the day when it will be our turn. I think about it in those terms: not if, when.

In the meantime, I bake my daughters cakes and teach them they are loved. I hold them tight and pray I am giving them better tools than my mother was able to give me, she who still believes that depression is a moral flaw deep within her, that she would have been fine if she had just been a stronger person. When our time comes, I pray that I have the strength to tell them it will get better. I will tell my beautiful daughters, “Look at us. This is the life you can build for yourself even after you have hit the ground. Here are the friends and family that will stand by you through the thick and the thin, who will laugh with you on your joyful days, who will celebrate the bitter and the sweet that is this life. You are not alone.”

I am so proud of my daughters. I am so proud of my mother and all she has fought through. I pray that they will all always know themselves to be the beautiful, strong women that they are.

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