SAGE
”The urge I had to kill her was nothing compared to how much I love her. So I knew that these thoughts were intrusive. I knew they weren't mine, but the fact that I had them, and often, made me feel so inadequate”
“I planned my death. I would be driving and think “Oh, I could sit on the train tracks and wait for a train to come get me.” And my daughter, I planned on drowning her in the tub, or smothering her with a pillow. I would have fantasies about throwing her out a window. She could sit with me in the car, and wait for a train to hit us”
“Right after having her things just got progressively worse. They put me on Zoloft and that's when symptoms got crazy. But the urge I had to kill her was nothing compared to how much I love her. So I knew that these thoughts were intrusive. I knew they weren't mine. But the fact that I had them, and often, made me feel so inadequate. And that just made me want to die even more. I am not worthy to be her mother. Heavenly Father trusted me with this child and I'm already having these thoughts of harming her? Like wow, I've failed not only my daughter but God. Like I'm going to hell right? ”
"They took me down to the ER and my husband came to be with me. I told him “I talked to the doctors, like you said, and apparently it's more serious than we thought.” The main doctor was useless. I saw him like maybe twice? And the only time he did come in to was to say “Hey, I'm gonna send you to so-and-so” and he never talked directly to me. I talked to the students. I talked to the psychiatrist. The kept saying “Tell me, are you hearing voices?” and I told them it wasn’t like that. I'm not like, it's not like that! I then talked to some lady on Skype and she asked me the same questions as the psychiatrist. And she asked me if I would feel safer at the hospital or back at home? I explained I wanted to be home because of my daughter, she physically still needs me. I had a safety plan in place because I understood how this was done. I even told them that tonight, my husband will be with me, I will not be alone tonight. After explaining that to her she said “Well I'm going to recommend to the doctor that you go to the hospital because you are a danger to your baby.”
I think it's hard because I get that they want to be as safe as possible because what if something did happen happen? But I think there's better ways to go about it. I didn't understand why they would give me the choice and then take it away.
"The EMT while putting me into the ambulance said “Protocol says I have to strap you to the stretcher, but I'm not going to do that because you deserve dignity.” We get to the ER and he tells me “You know what? I don't know what's going to happen at the psych ward, so let me walk you up there. I don't want you to be alone.” So we walk up, and I'm standing back there. I don't have my phone. My baby has gone. I told my husband to pick me up my laptop and tablet so I could get some sketching done while I'm there. But that's not how psych wards work. You don’t take anything with you. They didn’t give me a kit when being admitted so I ended up using old soap I found on the floor when taking a shower. The whole thing is just white walls. It was so sterile, it made me so uncomfortable. "
“My daughter was still breastfeeding so whenever she was hungry he would have to get her out of bed, put her in the car seat and drive to the hospital. They weren’t allowed to come at night because they said I needed to have a good night's rest. So he ended up just feeding her formula with the syringe because that was the only way she would eat.”
“I finally got in to see a doctor and after I explained everything that had happened he said “You absolutely do not belong here, I'm so sorry. I'm going to get you out today.”
“I'm drawing a lot more now. I have energy to go on walks. It's easy for me to get out of bed, and that's something that I haven't had since the second trimester of pregnancy.
I'm stressed still, but it's normal mom stress.”
All images were shot on HP5 +3 and developed by theFINDlab