Just before midnight on Thanksgiving Monday 1985, we welcomed our son. He was the first grandson for the Wilbert Roste clan, following nine grand-daughters. We joked about how we had our baseball team of girls, so now we could start on the boy's team. We didn't quite make a complete team, but each of the four families eventually had one son.
I should have been the happiest woman alive, I kept saying to myself. I had a very good man, a sweet daughter, and now a healthy boy. What more could I want?
Ed was nearing the end of his long road being a student. Following high school, he had worked to save up for two years of Bible School. He worked again, and then attended three years of pre-med, with plans to become a missionary doctor. He succeeded at having the top marks in the Science department at Trinity Western University. During those years, we were married and I worked in the Presidents Office at Trinity Western until just before our first daughter Jenna was born. Ed worked hard in the summers to provide for our family, with jobs as a playground supervisor, painter and tree planter. For his fourth year he transferred to UBC, and then started to rethink his career path. With children to support, he wanted to be not only a good provider, but also a great father to them. He decided to attend BCIT, a technical school where he took a course as a laboratory technologist. Just before the last year, he was offered a scholarship for the pulp and paper division, so he decided to go that route.
We were still living in the basement of my husband's parents home in Burnaby. I couldn't have wished for better in laws. Jenna loved crawling up the stairs to see her grandparents, and they seemed thrilled to have her come up for a visit. They were very supportive, hard working people. A few weeks following my son's birth, my mood started to change. A sense of sadness came, along with thoughts of failure. My thoughts of being an inadequate mother seemed to make sense to me, and one thought would lead to another, bringing me deeper and darker into a pit my mind was creating. I didn't argue with these 'thoughts' that were circling in my head, in fact....they continued to increase over days, weeks and months. With this increased mental anguish, came a decrease in appetite and more troubled sleep. Over time, sleep seemed almost impossible. Thankfully, I had a baby to nurse and change, so I kept going. I couldn't believe that my life was reduced to this, and to do any housework seemed almost an impossibility. I lost a lot of weight. The life and joy was being completely drained out of me. It seemed as though my mind was my enemy, constantly accusing me of being unable to love my family properly or even do the bare essentials.
Because I admired my Mother in law, I was afraid to let her see who I really was. I didn't want her to know what a poor wife I was for her son, or how inadequate I felt as a mother. Rather than drawing on those who loved me for strength and help, I wanted to hide away from everyone. It seemed as though Ed and I were drifting apart as well. He was working so hard to study and provide us a future, and I didn't want to bring him down. He tried hard to encourage me when he found me crying day after day, but it seemed to no avail. I would just end up feeling more hopeless, and after many months of my symptoms worsening, I honestly felt my husband and children would be so much happier without me. During this time, I never went for counselling or to the doctor, because I didn't think we could afford any of it. We were barely scraping by, able to buy only the essentials. We cut costs wherever we could, using cloth diapers, freezing and canning fruits and vegetables in the summer when the prices were the most reasonable, and making homemade presents for our children. For clothing, we shopped at rummage sales and I sewed some of Jenna's dresses for her. We learned valuable lessons about frugality in those years.
I hoped that I would eventually get back to normal, but it wasn't happening. Random people at our church in Burnaby would come up to me and ask if they could pray for me. Even though I felt a lot of shame, I was also very thankful that others were reaching out to me. Unfortunately, nothing seemed to really change. Because of this I would end up feeling more hopeless. It really worried me that my kids were going to be affected by my state of mind. I began having crazy thoughts, like throwing my baby off the sundeck, and I felt terrified and ashamed. I hated myself and who I was becoming! I tried to listen to scripture, but it seemed like I just felt more condemned. What had been the source of joy, comfort and instruction now seemed to be like my enemy! I became more hopeless, thinking even God couldn't help me. As my symptoms worsened and I couldn't sleep anymore, I began having thoughts of ending my life. I thought life could be much happier for my family if they didn't have to see me crying every day, sad all the time, feeling like I was empty and couldn't love anymore. One day after fourteen months of spiralling downward, I grabbed some random pills and took 3 or 4. Inwardly, I knew that probably wouldn't hurt me, but I think I was crying out for help, wanting to be released from the prison of my mind. I acknowledge to Ed what I had done, took some Ipecac syrup, and went to see the doctor.
Thankfully, Dr. John was a Christian, and a very understanding one at that. He had delivered Michael, and had instantly held him up and prayed God's blessing on his life, and then had Ed cut the cord. Now Michael was around 16 months old, and had been a very content and happy baby. Dr. John put me on medication, and recommended counselling simultaneously. It was a wonderful gift to be able to go for counselling and medical help in our church building. Burnaby Christian Fellowship was an amazing church, with Pastors from a variety of denominational backgrounds. The Counselling Group was and still is very effective in helping hurting people. They had support groups for all kinds of issues, including women who had suffered physical and sexual abuse, and people who struggled with sexual sins. I was so thankful to be able to meet with Carol, who was non judgemental and a very good listener. It seemed that for the first few sessions, all I did was cry. Eventually though, through taking the anti-depressants, getting counselling, and talking to one of our pastors, Robert Birch, my mood started to rise. It felt like I was coming alive again.
What I didn't realise was that as this swing upward was taking place, I wasn't just going back to normal, I was going from a severe low to a manic state. In the next post, I will try to describe what my high was like. It felt so wonderful to be up there, and it felt like I was close to God again.
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