It was the macaroni that did me in. 

About a month before Clara was born, a normal day at home suddenly became one of deepest days I’ve ever had, complete with unstoppable tears and full blown panic. I’m no stranger to big emotions, and have spent a lot of life processing them. But I hadn’t gone “walls closing in” deep since the early days following Jon’s death. 

I’ve written about tears more than a few times, but while the world is still broken, we need to talk about them. Spoiler, I’m not crying nearly as much these days. But we’ll get there. First things first.

All morning Satan barraged my heart with lie after lie. He knows just where to get me when I’m weak. 

And on and on and on. Sound familiar?

Stress upon stress pressed on my shoulders. It wasn’t one earth shattering thing, but a compilation of all the ”little” things crashing down. My ear was still ringing, sometimes very loudly, sometimes quietly but always constantly. And my head had been hurting behind that ear. It was still a challenge to distinguish speech during competing noise and overlapping sounds. In a house with little children, there is almost always competing noise.

My body had begun its favorite thing during pregnancy—many contractions, early. Combined with a history of other complications, contractions meant high alert. They meant weekly visits to the OB and constantly paying attention to determine if we needed to head to the hospital. While I was immensely grateful to be carrying Clara, a high risk pregnancy is a draining place to be. 

Furthermore, all of our kitchen appliances had broken at the same time. While it’s definitely a first world convenience, over a month without a dishwasher will wear a pregnant woman down. We had a warranty on it, but it still took hoop after hoop for it to be repaired.

My children are some of God’s best gifts to me. Yet the physical toll of pregnancy while caring for three little ones with need after need was overwhelming. Ever erupting chaos felt paralyzing. Ironically, I don’t mind messy play at all—paint, play doh, water, kinetic sand— you’ll find these often at our house. But that day it was too much.

And then there were other more private things. Biggish things that weighed heavily; I felt like I needed to hold it all together and hold everyone together. I couldn’t fall apart. People needed me. 

There was also a little disappointment regarding a writing opportunity, but you know sometimes it’s the small straw that breaks the camel. As my mind and emotions spiraled downward, my dear, small ones bore with me so beautifully, but Mommy being a sobbing mess all morning left their hearts nervous and unsteady.

I sat on the couch and watched Henry dump plastic ware all over the floor and then use it to scoop kinetic sand into a bowl. He was playing purposefully, though not skillfully. But I didn’t have the energy to get up and help him, or clean up the mess. 

The scales finally tipped around lunch time. I was working on mac and cheese, mixing ingredients in with the burner off when the tell tale noise of fighting children echoed through the house. I sighed, and went to investigate. Suddenly I heard the unmistakeable sound of uncooked macaroni being poured and the cry of a hurt toddler. 

I rushed back, panicked that Henry had burned himself. He had not, but had pulled a chair to the stove, gotten the half full box of noodles (about a pound) from the island and went to town. He was completely fine, but it was the dry noodles all over the floor, the stove, and in the pot that did me in. I couldn’t breathe, and the walls closed in. I sank to the floor, and let the primal scream come. I can remember only two or three days of panic that big, ever.

When my mother-in-law answered the phone, I could utter only three words, “I need help.” I scared her half to death, but she said, “I’m coming. I’ll be right there. But are you ok?”  

“We’re all physically ok,” I managed. I heard her sigh of relief. 

And she came, no questions asked. She helped with children. She washed dishes and swept the floor. And she let me talk and talk. I also jotted two texts— one to a friend and one to my other mother-in-law (y’all know Jon’s family are still family right?) asking for prayer. 

The pit was deep, so deep it was impossible to climb out on my own. And I couldn’t preach my way out of it either. I tried to speak truth to myself but it bounced off the invisible wall surrounding my mind. 

At my next OB appointment, I mentioned the panic and commented, “I think we need to keep an eye out for postpartum depression after the baby is born.” 

But I was already struggling with it.

It took me four babies to fully understand postpartum depression. I wish had known more about it three pregnancies ago. I might have understood why I felt so crazy. And why in shame I wondered, “Who is this rage monster? Because it’s definitely not me.”

Sure, I had read about it. Sure, I had completed the depression scale at the OB office at my six week follow up. Looking back, I know I struggled with postpartum depression far more than I realized.

Did you know that depression can actually set in during the third trimester? (Raise your hand if macaroni ever caused a guttural scream.) And that it can be worse with each pregnancy? 

Did you know that it can look like anxiety and moments of intense rage? 

Did you know that excessive shame, guilt, being often overwhelmed, and feeling like a failure are also signs of postpartum depression?

Did you know it can take up to two years after pregnancy for a woman to feel like herself again? If you think about the ages of my children, I’ve either been pregnant or breastfeeding (with brief seasons of respite in between) for the last six years. According to that measure, I haven’t been “normal” for the last six years. It’s almost comical.

Add in a few other life changing experiences like the deaths of a spouse and both parents, and it’s been a wild decade indeed. 

Over the next few weeks, the walls closed in, and panic consumed me several more times. More and more I shut myself in a bedroom to escape, or to keep from hurting someone. I thought about getting in the car and driving away. Not for forever, but at least for an undetermined amount of time. 

Intrusive thoughts slipped in. “What would life look like without me in it?” I didn’t formulate a plan, but the depths of my thoughts scared me. 

But there was grace to fight back. 

I sent messages to family and friends to pray. I reached out to the ladies at church. They spoke truth and grace and peace. But I knew I needed to talk to the doctor again. 

“Are you willing to try medication?”

“Yes, I am.” 

I grew up with a parent who struggled for years with undiagnosed depression, so I had always told myself it I ever needed help I would get it. I know what depression does to a family. And I would not let it break mine. I tried counseling before and after Henry was born, but that particular counselor was a joke. I’ve also put in the work of reading parenting books, taking classes, processing past hurts, and applying the gospel.

Medication is not the answer for everyone or in every situation. But for this season, it is an instrument of grace. Ultimately it is God who lifts us out of suffering. Medication is one tool among many to fight a very real, biological problem.

I share this detail because someone might need to hear it. It’s time we talk openly of such things. I decided to start an antidepressant for the sake of myself, and for the sake of my family. The depths of my thoughts, taking care of three children, and edging ever closer to the birth of a fourth demanded urgency.

“But Ami,” says the hypothetical naysayer, “You went through the death of a spouse and never needed medication?”

“Yes, but I had hours upon hours to process, to weep, to write, to untangle the lies. No one needed me, and there weren’t four children clamoring for my attention.”

If my body hurts, it’s ok to get help. If my mind hurts me, it’s also ok to get help. Medical science is a gift of common grace. Living in a time when we have a better understanding of the brain is also grace.

It’s astonishing how steady and even my emotions feel this postpartum. Kindness and patience flow. I had forgotten what it felt like for laughter and play to be easy. I think I had gotten used to a lower baseline of happiness, and thought “This must be the way I am now.” Joy in my family, my calling as a stay at home mom, mundane tasks— all of it is so much fuller. Gone are intense swings between tears and anger, and the fight for joy.

I don’t sit in a worship gathering with my children (for our church is family integrated), and feel consumed with anxiety about what others think of me or them. I don’t worry that people don’t want to be my friends.

I can remember the truth of who I am in Christ. Words of grace and peace fill my heart, rather than words of shame and failure. 

Though it still bears all the signs of life with small children, my house doesn’t feel like chaos. I see the messes, but they don’t crush me. Bringing order to my little corner of the universe is much more joy than drudgery. 

But isn’t there also a spiritual aspect? Of course there is. Pregnancy, postpartum, and parenting (yay unintentional alliteration!) have all taught me so much about Christ.They have an uncanny ability to reveal sin. I have needed to be, and still need to be sanctified. I have needed to rest in the grace of redemption.

However, we cannot deny the reality that there are also biological factors at play in these seasons. We cannot deny depression as a real issue linked to faulty neurotransmitters, and fluctuating hormones. Unlike I was taught so many years ago, I do not believe all problems are purely spiritual or purely physical. 

I know how to preach the gospel to myself and counsel myself with the truth. I’m no stranger to defeating lies. But the intense emotional swings of late pregnancy and postpartum, made it almost impossible to get truth in. I wonder if Satan uses things like fluctuating hormones to make us more susceptible to his lies. 

I don’t despise the deep times though. For God has used them to illumine my heart with truth after truth. It’s in the valley that I’ve seen Jesus the most clearly. It’s the deepest days that have often produced the most fruit in my life. It’s the deepest days that have caused me to write. I know they are necessary and good. He holds our tears in a bottle. He grieves when we grieve. For now, however, it is good to not constantly wrestle with my mind. 

It is good for my family to have the me I want to be back. It’s good for my family to have the me who remembers who I am—a new creation, redeemed, justified, adopted, cherished, beloved, saint. 

I never thought I’d actually struggle with depression. I know Jesus, and he is our only hope in life and death. The gospel is true and it changes everything. Yet, I had to acknowledge there was something seriously wrong. Something that was not just spiritual. And it doing so, it is so much easier to apply the gospel to life and remember it is true. 

So I cry I lot less these days. 

“I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me, and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see it and fear and put their trust in the Lord.” Psalm 40:1-3

Medication or no medication, I am confident in the Rock. The work of deliverance belongs to him.

God is not apathetic to cries for mercy, rather he delivers us and sets us upon an unshakeable foundation, that is the Christ. He drew me out of the pit long ago in salvation. And he’s drawn me from the pit of despair many times since then. 

“As for you, O Lord, you will not restrain your mercy from me; your steadfast love and your faithfulness will ever preserve me!” Psalm 40:11

Unrestrained mercy. 

This is how he moves toward a humble heart. His mercy is not on a leash. We are ever recipients of unchanging, loyal, always giving what is best, faithful, love. With the Psalmist I praise him for his steadfast love. I praise him for relief, for hearing my desperate pleas. 

While the world is still broken there will still be tears. And panic. And worry. And shame. We fight these battles with the truth. They have already been won by Jesus who died and rose again. The truth changes things. But when something biological creates a force field against the truth, we fight with other tools also. 

One day even minds will be redeemed. One day there won’t be deep days. Jesus is making all things new. Ultimately he is where my confident expectation lies.

The other day Henry played gleefully with dry macaroni, pouring it back and forth between bowls, stirring it, and shaking it in measuring cups. Of course, as sensory play always does, it exploded across the living room floor. 

I glanced down at dry noodles everywhere, and smiled.