Today is the four year “anniversary”, if you want to call it that, of finding out we were going to have twins. I looked at the memory that popped up on Facebook this morning and I contemplated for a moment what that moment was like. The ultrasound technician swiped the wand across my stomach and quickly jerked her hand away and asked if this was the first time that we had an ultrasound done. Of course, I was thinking something was wrong, but when we quickly explained it was the first ultrasound, she said, “well OK, here is baby A and here is baby B.”
I’m going to let you think on that for a moment. Let that sink in as if that was news just given to you. If you are a parent of multiples you will know what we were feeling in that moment. But if you are not a parent of multiples let me tell you it was a mixture of so many emotions. And it is a feeling that I can’t even describe to make people understand but let me say this. Our lives were forever changed by that simple little exchange of words.
Pivotal moments, have led me down some very difficult roads.
This isn’t the only pivoting moment in my life that I often reflect on. Pivotal moments, have led me down some very difficult roads. Some of them have also been good roads, but along those good roads have been some very dark and incredibly difficult times in my life as well. For example, our move to Minnesota, this was a good road for us to take. And what led us here were pivotal moments. But along this good road, there have been some very dark and difficult times for me.
If you have read any of my previous blog posts you will know that I am one who was abused earlier in my life, I struggle with depression and anxiety and have faced suicidal thoughts and have come close to taking action on those thoughts more than once in my life. I won’t go into all the details right now, but it is important to know why I have often felt weak for feeling like I just could not handle any of it.
During some of my difficult moments the past couple of years my mother in law often told me that I was very strong. And although it was wonderful to hear, I rarely believed what she said as truth. But I should have listened to her, because she was right.
I was having a conversation with my husband this morning and I asked him if sometimes he feels like he can’t share everything with me because he feels like I am too fragile or can’t handle any of this. To which he adamantly assured me he believes the opposite of that. He believes and knows that I am strong. But when I asked if he felt that way, I realized, that although I had felt that way about myself for a very long time, I no longer believed that about myself. You see, I am actually a very strong woman.
I am a stronger person because I have gone through some pretty difficult times in my life.
I am a stronger person because I have gone through some pretty difficult times in my life. I was bullied as a child, I was abused physically, mentally, emotionally and sexually. I faced the darkness of suicide and was able to overcome that. I have gone through a divorce. Been a single mom and gone back to college at 30 years old to get my degree. Moved multiple times in my life and not just from one side of town to another, which I have done that multiple times as well, but have lived in multiple states too, including our latest move to Minnesota five short years ago, this January 2nd.
I could continue, but these are the biggest pivotal moments in my life. So, after all this in life, with the most recent move, with no friends and no family around, we were sitting in the ultrasound room looking at the fuzzy pictures on the screen of yet another pivotal moment. I was a stay at home mom with plans to go back to work after we had this last child and then we saw there were two babies instead of one.
Life immediately shifted for us, yet again, in less than a years’ time, and it was a lot for this mama to comprehend. I spent the next couple of months in bed most of the time from being so ill due to my pregnancy and then that last month of pregnancy was so difficult for a multitude of reasons. Then they were born and oh my goodness that first year was so hard. I have described it before as the most beautifully difficult time of my life.
My deep depression was back as a result of the latest changes in life. And some may look at that as weakness for having “allowed” my depression to take a hold once again. But I see it differently. Depression and anxiety are a part of who I am. I have learned that I can find ways to manage and help these areas in my life, but they are also what show me how strong I am.
All of this in my life does not make me weak. I have a strength inside me that helps me to handle anything that comes along. This doesn’t mean I do not struggle. Because I do. But I can overcome that struggle by gathering that strength inside me.
I also want to make it clear that my strength doesn’t mean I don’t need help at times. Because I do. But it takes great strength to ask for help and then take it.
It has been my experience that people tend to look at people like me, people that struggle at times, as someone who is fragile. One who cannot handle the crisis in one’s life or the changes without falling completely apart. And although there have been moments of falling apart. Moments of wallowing in the sorrow or depths of darkness, I have not stayed in those places.
So, friends if you struggle with something no matter what it might be, know that asking for help, and the struggle itself, does not make you weak.
So, friends if you struggle with something no matter what it might be, know that asking for help, and the struggle itself, does not make you weak. It makes you strong. There is strength in identifying what you need help with. There is strength in asking for help. There is strength in facing the darkness no matter what the outcome might be. There is strength in going through the most difficult times in your life, that others may never go through, and coming out the other side a better human being or just a little bit stronger for it.
All the things I have gone through. The depression and anxiety that I struggle with. All of it has made me stronger, simply because I am already strong.
The author carrying her twins when they were just over a year old, as she often did, because one still has to do life, even when you have to carry two at the same time.
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