How Healing Starts
By Ashley Brooks
@ashleybrookswrites
“Have you been feeling hopeless or despondent lately?”
“Who isn’t hopeless or despondent these days?” I said, cracking a smile at the nurse. It was September of 2020. I thought it was a good, if predictable, joke. The kind introverts like me make when we feel awkward about small talk.
But the nurse’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes as she laughed gamely along and then urged me again to pick a number between one and five for my yearly depression screening. I chose three. I didn’t want to seem too dramatic, even though my real answer was higher.
After all, my husband and I still had our jobs. I was able to transition my kids from school to homeschool without too much fuss. Though we knew people who had suffered, and even died, from COVID, we were lucky not to have had a positive test result in our immediate household. There was nothing really for me to be depressed about.
I failed the screening anyway.
I left the doctor’s office that day with a prescription for Zoloft and an all-clear ultrasound confirming that I was 12 weeks pregnant with our fourth baby.
***
I’m no stranger to mental health struggles, but it’s always a shock to receive an actual diagnosis, a label from a professional that says, “This is how you are, but this is not how things should be.”
Generalized anxiety disorder first entered my chart in 2018, when my physical anxiety symptoms were so severe I could barely care for my children. After three sessions, my therapist told me that I’d likely had some form of social and generalized anxiety my entire life and had been running on fumes and a variety of ill-advised coping mechanisms to slide by.
She gently suggested medication. I refused.
“I have an addictive personality,” I told her, and it was true.
I’d taken one anti-anxiety med once years ago, after a random panic attack. It was instant bliss: not caring about anything, feeling no fear or pressure or sense of looming doom. I could drift along pleasantly in the current of life. If I happened to run into a rock or rapids, well, that was okay. Maybe I wouldn’t even notice.
Once it was gone, I wanted that feeling back, badly. I could never trust myself with medication, I was sure.
So the therapist and I devised a new strategy, one that would be a long road ahead filled with healthier eating (less gluten, no more binging on sugar), regular exercise, and daily meditative prayer and affirmations. I reduced my workload and increased my child care.
Soon I felt almost normal again. But not quite.
2019 was a year filled with medical rabbit holes. It was nothing major, almost not worth mentioning. It’s just that I was always tired. “Yes, I do have three kids age five and under,” I would tell doctors who suggested that my experience was normal. “This isn’t that.”
I pushed and researched and eventually got the tests I asked for: bloodwork and thyroid checks, hormone levels, vitamin D. Normal, normal, normal.
I took supplements and detoxed with a naturopath. I continued visiting my chiropractor and getting monthly massages. I saw my therapist week by week, never skimping on my new (though time-consuming) anxiety health regimen.
Still, there wasn’t a single day where I couldn’t have slept ten, twelve, fourteen hours. At any given moment, I could have laid down and fallen sound asleep in less than a minute. Sleep became an obsession. I only wanted more.
***
I was in Dublin in January 2020 with my husband, thinking this would be the high point of our year because it was Ireland not because a pandemic was coming. We had arrived in the morning and dropped our bags off at our hotel. Check-in wasn’t for several more hours, so we wandered the city in rumpled clothes, jet-lagged and plane weary.
We ended up in the vestibule of St. Mary’s. Like many churches in Europe, there’s a small fee for tourists to enter. The woman behind the desk waved us off as we dug for Euros.
“Are you Catholic?” I nodded as my husband shook his head. “Good enough,” she proclaimed, waving us through. “There’s a short prayer service starting soon. No fees if you’re attending church!”
We walked down the center aisle beneath a soaring ceiling, past rows of aged wooden pews, rough-looking statues, and stained-glass windows glinting rainbows across the stone walls. At the very front of the church, up a set of stairs, where the choir usually sat just in front of the altar, was a priest and five parishioners.
“Welcome!” the priest boomed. “Are you here for the healing service? We’re just ready to start.” My husband, looking a little alarmed at the thought of a healing ceremony in a foreign country in a denomination he did not belong to, begged off to use the restroom while I climbed the stairs and chose a seat.
I gingerly sat between a middle-aged man and an elderly woman with a cane. The man held his hand out and introduced himself as Brian. I said hello and tried to melt into my chair, wishing I’d been able to take a shower before sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers.
I’ve been Catholic my whole life. I knew of healing services but had never been to one. The service itself was short, maybe only ten minutes. Then the priest invited anyone who wanted individual prayer to join him off to the side.
One by one, each person spoke with the priest in hushed but familiar tones, muffled laughter escaping now and then to echo around the cavernous space. These were clearly people who knew each other.
I was the last person left. Hesitantly, I stood up and took my turn. I didn’t even belong here. Healing services were for people who were actually sick, like cancer patients or people with chronic pain. Not me, someone who was just a little tired for no objective reason. Every doctor I’d talked to had made it clear that life was just tiring sometimes. I’d never have sought out a healing service at home because the answer was obvious: just get more sleep.
I was surprised when the priest made small talk first, asking where I was from, when we’d arrived, what our plans were, before finally saying in his lilting accent, “And how can we pray for you today?”
I wasn’t really prepared to answer. I stumbled over my words, saying something about spiritual healing, being angry all the time. Then I said, almost embarrassed, “and I’m tired a lot.”
“Well, that’s no good then! Let’s get that taken care of.” He was jolly but matter-of-fact, like an overconfident mall Santa promising gifts a parent might not be able to deliver. The priest smiled kindly, gave me a blessing with oil on my forehead, and spoke a short prayer over me before before adding,
“These things take time, you know. See how it is in, oh, say a year.”
***
That was one year ago. Four months ago, I was in my doctor’s office, grappling with a failed depression screening and squirming at the combined thought of antidepressants and pregnancy.
I hemmed and hawed. I tried the same line I’d used on my therapist years earlier about having an addictive personality. I asked all the questions about side effects and possible harm to the baby.
The doctor gave me all the facts and data I asked for, assured me that Zoloft has been proven safe in pregnancy and is non-habit-forming. She even threw in the handy tidbit that in some patients, extreme fatigue is their strongest depression symptom. Then, when I ran out of reasons to say no, she leaned in.
“I’m not going to make you take a prescription you don’t want. But I want you to know that you’re the fourth woman I’ve had this conversation with today. Forty percent of my pregnant patients are taking something for depression or anxiety right now.” Then, looking me dead in the eye, “This does not make you a bad mom.”
Over the years, this particular doctor has given me a running list of things that don’t make you a bad mom, including “not breastfeeding your baby” and “hiding in the bedroom with noise-cancelling headphones and a snack.” They all make sense logically in my head. Of course it’s okay to feed your baby however you need to! Of course you can take a few minutes away from your kids when you need a break!
Still, every time she makes this pronouncement it hits me like a gut punch as the lie I’d been hiding behind shatters into pieces. Every time, I cry in her office.
Then, every time, I gather up my things and walk through the lobby and treat myself to a drive-thru coffee. I go home to where all the stress and joy of kids and work and dinnertime are waiting for me. Nothing is even technically that different—except for what I believe about myself. (And, this time, a Zoloft prescription.)
Then, every time, the healing starts.
Guest essay written by Ashley Brooks. Ashley is a writer, knitter, and work-at-home mama to soon-to-be four kiddos. She believes in the power of small stories, long books, and walks in the woods. You can find her encouraging everyday creativity in others at the Chasing Creative podcast and www.ashleybrookswrites.com.