Coping With Stay At Home Mom Depression

What a wonderful few months it was. My fiance Brian has a seasonal job. He was off work for the whole winter and home with the us for almost THREE FULL MONTHS. What a reprieve from the stay at home mom depression and isolation! It was such a relief to have an extra set of hands to help me meet my children’s endless needs. The kids were ecstatic to have so much time with their daddy. Also Brian and I experienced this amazing rekindling of our fire during our long winter staycation together.

Brian is back at work now. And I have to be honest, it’s been rough.

I have been a stay at home mom since my son was born 4 years ago. I’ve spent a lot of that time living with latent depression – a sadness that never truly goes away. And as soon as Brian went back to work, it came back with a vengeance.

It’s not just that I miss Brian (which I definitely do). Being on my own with my kids again triggers a deep primal pain that I have been living with ever since my kids were born. I don’t just miss my partner, I miss the community I have never known in this lifetime.

Longing for a Tribe

As a stay at home mom, there are many days I don’t speak more than a few sentences to anyone who is not my children. And it makes me ache for an ancient time when we lived in tribes. When I would spend my days in the sun, sitting on the earth in a circle with my sisters, mother, grandmother’s whiles we sang and shared our work together.

So much of my journey this lifetime has been shrouded in the pain of isolation. It’s why my very first tattoo was a reminder I continue to need “We Are Not Alone”.

I grew up an only child, in a tiny rural town where I didn’t fit in and was constantly bullied. And even still I feel like I long for a community to belong to but I struggle to know where to find it.

I shared all of this on my Facebook page, ending with:

“Anyway this is all a long way of saying I’m not ok right now and if any of my women friends would like to start getting together or video chatting more often, the answer is “I would love to”. I am going to be better about reaching out to people, but it’s been hard all my life to overcome that fear of more rejection to make the first step.”

Reaching Out

In my sadness I reached out to my community, and in response my community really reached back. I am now consistently making plans for play dates and hang outs every week. This past weekend, I even had my first birthday party since I was a kid!

I may not have an idealized tribe, but I do have a network of people I am connected to. People that I know and care about. People that would be really great friends if we just spent more time together. In this technology mediated age it takes extra effort to connect deeply with others. You just gotta reach out.

Learning to Work with the Isolation

Being a stay at home mom is a lonely job. You can plan all kinds of play-dates and activities, but the reality is you still spend a lot of time alone.

Feeling lonely triggers this sadness that permeates everything. All the things I do (reading my kids a book, or making them food, or walking with them to the park) all become shrouded in a grey feeling. And for the longest time I accepted this state as my baseline “ok”. But I wasn’t really ok. I realized that when I was stuck in my stay at home mom depression, then I could not be the mother my children needed and I missed out on the many lessons they have to teach me.

A huge part of spiritual practice is accepting reality as it is without wishing it were different. This is something I definitely struggle with sometimes. I can see countless ways how modern society is an awful detrimental to the planet, as well as human happiness and well being. It is so easy to get caught up thinking “things shouldn’t be this way.” However, just like a person who was raised in an abusive family – I can’t control the environment I came into, but I do have a choice how I respond.

Recently my spiritual practice has been helping me think about my situation in a whole new way. I am learning to think of my solitude as a gift. How many people in this hectic, over-scheduled world have time to meditate for an hour every day? When I work with my isolation instead of against it, nap time becomes a sacred hour and my messy home becomes a holy space.

Things That Help Me Cope With Stay At Home Mom Depression:

Find a Guru. All wise teachers were once students themselves. Find podcasts that speak to your soul and uplifts your spirit. I have been spending a lot of time with Ram Dass recently and it has been LIFE CHANGING.
Taking time to meditate EVERYDAY. It has really been helping me feel more calm, content, and grounded throughout my day. Through meditation, I also am becoming less reactive to the little things my child do that used to frustrate me. As women and mothers we have the capabilities of being incredibly strong channels for inner wisdom. But we have to take the time to be still for the messages to come through.
Making nap time My Sacred Space to recharge my batteries. I leave the piles of dishes and laundry be. My peace of mind and well being are far more important than checking all of the things off of the day’s endless TO-DO list.
Practice Makes Perfect: When those depressed feelings begin to bubble up to the surface, it is my mind telling me it need to practice some peacefulness. I begin to repeat a mantra in my mind (“Be Free Mommy” or “Heart Be Love” or “I am becoming calm”) while taking some deep breathes and in a few minutes I am in a new state entirely.
Reach out and welcome community. I am spending as much time with other people as I can. Join support groups or volunteer groups. Plan as many play dates as possible. It is easy to feel like we are too busy to make time for socialize, but it is so essential to our well-being.Humans are social creatures with an innate need for community.
Do Not Squander Your Solitude. Instead of feeling sorry for myself on days when I don’t have plans, I am remembering that my solitude is a gift. I used to spend nap time scrolling facebook or watching Netflix. But lately I have been using it as sacred meditation/mindful learning time for myself, in which I can heal all my old trauma and awaken to new levels of spiritual understanding.

Even though stay at home mom depression has been my “normal”, it doesn’t have to be. I am learning how to use spiritual practices to cultivate new emotional responses and a new way of being.

So even though most days, I am still spending the majority of time of like this…