Editor's note: I have no idea where the spaces between the paragraphs went. Probably the same place all my socks go to. Anyway, trying to fix.

When I was a teenager, I took a lot of unnecessary risks, much like many teens before me. I didn’t plan for the future; I preferred to live in the moment and handle situations as they came up. It was totally irresponsible, but I’d never really been a planner, so I didn’t know any other way to live. When I got married and had children, though, things changed a lot. I realized that I had other people who depended on me, whose lives would be forever altered if anything happened to me. I knew my successes and failures were no longer just my own, and these realizations led to a definite change in the way I lived.

Instead of taking things day by day, I started to map out my future, or at least the future I wanted for myself and my family. Making choices became more about cause and effect and less about what would bring me the greatest amount of pleasure. In other words, I grew up.
With adulthood, though, came a lot more potential for disappointment. When my plans fell through or when I came up short in some endeavor or other, I wasn’t just letting myself down. There was so much more at stake, and the pressure to perform — at whatever it was I’d set my mind to — increased exponentially.
Postpartum depression was never in my plans, obviously. No one expects or wants to suffer, and I was no different. I wanted my motherhood experiences to be happy and loving, just like those I’d seen all around me. Developing PPD with both of my children was devastating, and I went through the common feelings of loss. Being deprived, no robbed, of the experience I’d expected was heartbreaking, but I made my way through, and I always comforted myself with the knowledge that soon I’d be back to normal.
Well, now I am back to normal, and I feel stronger and smarter because of PPD. However, things aren’t exactly as I’d imagined they’d be. I’m still on antidepressants, two of them. I still retain a little bit of the fear that I assume many women feel after an encounter with depression; I don’t always trust my emotions, and I quiver at the thought that I may relapse again. This has become my new reality, and I’m coming to terms with the fact that my definition of normal has shifted a little bit.
I’ve come to realize that this is part of growing up, too. Life never happens exactly the way we expect it to, and part of being an adult is learning to roll with the punches. Did I ever have daydreams about having to take two pills every day just to feel like myself? No. That wasn’t in my plans. But like I said, it’s become part of my new daydreams.
A few years ago, my grandmother died of brain cancer. It had only been a year since her diagnosis, and losing her was a huge blow to my family. I still think of her every day, and sometimes I have to remind myself that she’s no longer here. When I was growing up, she was a huge part of my life, and I’d always imagined my future with her in it. The void she left in the place she used to occupy in my life hasn’t gone away, and I don’t think it ever will. I’ve just had to reorganize the rest of my life to fit around it, and I deal with the implications of her absence in the best way I can.
Reshaping my expectations about my recovery from PPD has been a lot like dealing with the death of my grandmother. Although the scope of each experience is obviously very different, the process of understanding them both has been much the same.
Making peace with the fact that I will likely be on some form of antidepressant for the rest of my life was a sort of death — I had to lay to rest my expectation that life would be exactly as it was before PPD. I see now that that’s just not possible. Even if I were able to go off the medication, there’s no way I’ll ever be the carefree person I was before, and I don’t necessarily want to be.
I think my biggest problem was that I was still seeing my reliance on antidepressants as a sort of weakness. While I have absolutely no problem with medication and I wholeheartedly support anyone (including myself) who uses it, I was still thinking to myself that being able to live without them would indicate some kind of strength within me. I’ve had to let go of that mistaken notion, and I’ve embraced a new definition of strength. I’ve had to lay to rest my ideas of what my life might be like, and adopted new ideas. It’s not been an easy adjustment, but I feel so much lighter and freer now that I’m now weighed down by unrealistic expectations.
Letting go is one of the hardest things anyone faces. We all want to be the best versions of ourselves, and it’s disappointing when we realize that we’ll have to settle for less. However, in this case, I’m not settling for less. What I’ve decided is that medication is the best way, maybe the only way, for me to be the best version of myself. This doesn’t indicate any weakness in me; in fact, it signals the inherent strength that is necessary to know what’s required and then do what it takes to just get it done.

So I’m gettin’ it done.

Alexis Lesa