ALL ABOARD!!!

Crazy.......but that's how it goes.

If there is one thing I have learned through this journey of motherhood, it is that all my preconceived notions were totally false. Every idea, every plan, every picture perfect dream has evolved into almost the exact opposite. My first desperately longed for pregnancy was marred by antenatal depression, and followed by PPPTSD after the hospitalization and near death of our first daughter. Our second daughter brought with her a year of raging colic and a black hole of postpartum depression to crawl out of. My third pregnancy ended in the house of horrors roller coaster ride of postpartum anxiety and OCD.

So, I have recently found myself on the tracks of the Crazy Train with a one way ticket to Psycho Town in my pocket. I can not board this loco-motive. There are people who need me here. I desperately want to have someone in my life who knows what this feels like and can understand me. I don't have that, so I lean on these three little people and clutch onto them for dear life. They pull me off the tracks every day without even knowing.

I desperately wish that I could go back in time and hand myself a survival guide of sorts, having lived through this, having laughed and cried and made up my own rules as I went along. If I could, this would be it:

*Have A Posse:

Find a support system - you need these people, they are vital. If you have none, you need to find some and pay them if you have to. This is loosely based on the idea that "It takes a village". Similar - but I've come to realize that it more likely takes a city. It takes a dirty grungy back-alley big city full of thugs. These people need to be ready to give a beat down. They will need to have your back like the Crypts (or the Latin Kings at the very least). This crew needs to be ready and willing to kick ass and take names.

*Clean House:

And I don't mean dusting and laundry (dear god that crap is LAST on your list). Get rid of the toxic people in your life. You make the rules. You decide who makes the cut. It might be a friend or even family. It will most likely be that person who asks why you didn't send Christmas cards this year. It might also be that other mom who wonders why you don't use your lunch break to organically grow cotton to make into cloth diapers, or how you could feed your baby that poisonous maggot shit known as formula. Anyone who questions your best-intention, unconditional loving parenting has to go. Basically, if they don't think the sun shines out of your ass...give 'em the boot.

*Put On Your Own Oxygen Mask First:

Save yourself! You need to get on the "Can't Beat 'Em? Join'Em!" team. Think like your baby, act like your baby.

Survival Mode: Eat, Poop, Sleep.

This revelation came to me one night after eating a meatball for dinner in the laundry room at 10:00 at night so no one would wake up and hear me. Earlier that day I had contemplated the moral ramifications of using the bathroom while wearing the baby in the sling. And earlier that morning at work, so unused to the practice of using the bathroom alone, and in complete silence, I fell asleep sitting on the toilet and nearly gave myself a concussion when someone next to me flushed, startle me awake, and my head slammed against the wall of the stall. I don't even like meatballs - something's got to give.

So, basically you forget about manicures. You forget about going to the gym. You forget about watching movies with F words and shaving both legs on the same day. You just eat, you sleep, and you poop. These three things will come to feel like life's biggest luxuries.

*Laugh:

If all else fails, remember to laugh at yourself. Laugh with your kids. Laugh at your husband, he's bound to do something funny sooner or later. Laughter really is the best medicine for me (that and an arsenal of anti-depressants). It's what has gotten me this far, and continues to keep me going. I hold onto the hope that when all this comes to pass, and I know it will, I will be able to look back at it all like an old home movie - shaky and blurry and sometimes upside down, but with roaring laughter in the background. I hope to remember it all that way - with most of the bad parts missing, and with birthday cakes and Christmas trees, and the way we make our voices sound in those films, as if we know we will need to go back to them someday and draw our strength from there imprinted memories. As long as I can always hear those voices, I can stay off the tracks.

Listen to: Ozzy~Crazy Train