We will adapt.

Full disclosure: I am a bit of a Trekkie. (Live long and prosper…) However, I never really got into the entire Star Trek franchise until my first child was born.

Borg drone: You will not survive. You cannot survive without the collective.”

Seven of Nine: (My hero) “I will adapt.”

Borg drone: By getting weaker; less perfect.”

Seven of Nine: “I will adapt as an individual…..” “I will become stronger.”

Dr: “Seven….are you frightened?

Star Trek Voyager

“I am Borg.”

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She sank down gingerly into the tepid sitz bath and saw the water turn pink. After the hemorrhage they wouldn’t let her get out of the hospital bed long enough to change her newborn’s diaper or bathe him, let alone take a shower.

Norah Jones played softly over the stereo, and the lavender candle was lit. This was going to be her time. She’d always loved taking a deep hot bath with scented oils and Ella Fitzgerald playing on the CD player, but this time she couldn’t relax. She sat stock still, stuck in a trance to some song about a carousel that I hope to never hear again, and as she stared at her face in the reflection on the chrome faucet, she felt it coming, rising up from her toes to the tip of her head.

Have you ever felt apocalyptic doom?

Right up in front of her eyes a great black wave rose up and washed over her, consuming her as she clutched her knees to her chest and shivered. Saturated with it she saw the reflection in the chrome start to cry.

Raised in a religious home, she thought, “It’s the devil attacking me,” So she prayed with all her heart. But the darkness did not leave.

Oh no.

This isn’t right.

God…Please no.

Don’t do this to me!

Don’t prove them right.

-I had just had my first episode of Postpartum psychosis and devastating depression.

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She stayed right where she was until her husband came looking for her. An incendiary flame coursed through her body. “Don’t let him see you cry. He never wanted this. This was you’re doing….”

“ …You murdered your marriage”. The haunting whispers started soon after; the ones that repeat themselves over and over again in your core until you go mad, the voices you can hear with your heart and brain but not with your ears….yet.

“No, no, no. I’m sorry. I’m fine. I’m just tired and a little scared of first night home with baby, you know? She waved it away by way of explanation, but the tears kept coming.

“ I just need sleep.” She hadn’t slept for three days and nights in the hospital and Braxton Hicks had her up for nights before that. They set up the little, white, wicker bassinet next to her bedside so she could touch the baby if he got fussy but he was fast asleep. Everything was going to be OK. She laid down apprehensively, afraid to wake him, but she couldn’t close her eyes. Everything felt foreign, misshapen. What was this reality? Everything looked strange and even the air felt heavy and filled her lungs differently.

All of her senses were on the highest alert, and she begin to feel his breath and soft mouth on her cheek, rooting for milk, but no… He wasn’t there. He was asleep beside her in the bassinet, which suddenly looked ghostly and otherworldly in the dark room. His warm sighs and tiny, rapid breathing in her ear held her in a frozen trance, and she felt the full weight of him on her chest as she stared wide eyed at the ceiling. “Jesus help me please.”

Still my runaway heart raced and pulsed loudly, but not loud enough to drown out the loud whispers that didnt wake my husband.

“You murdered your marriage…”

I don’t remember anything else from that night and I don’t think I’m meant to.

Till next time.

Chelsea