How Wallpaper
Saved My Life

Wallpaper has been one of the single most joyous experiences of my life. It has guided me, inspired me,  motivated me, and it has never failed to lift my spirits.

When people say to me:

“Isn’t wallpaper out of style” (never)

“Isn’t it hard to take down” (not really)

“Don’t some people say it is tacky” (maybe people with no taste)

“Is it just a trend? (Is Snoop Dog trendy? ICON – Wallpaper – Iconic)

“Is it expensive ?’ (Now that one can be a little true…).

Choosing wallpaper makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.  Because life, now life eludes me, ‘how to’, ‘what to, the ‘right to’, but wallpaper’s contribution to this world is simple, to beautify and bring joy.  And really, what a great accomplishment for trees and paper. Good job trees!  You provide clean air and beautiful walls (hopefully recycled of course).

The first time I installed wallpaper was in the tiny little bathroom in my very old (but new to me) home shortly after the birth of my second child.   I was fully, deeply into a lock down depression. To make it extra fun to medicate, no one knew if it was ‘just’ postpartum or just my ‘normal’ depression.

Random note:  I still sometimes have to choke down my jealousy when people talk about how they experienced postpartum.  Or more specifically when people’s bodies figure out a way to GET RID of depression. Like wow, what would that be like? To have some insight into how awful depression is, yet never have to go back to that place of suffering.  Like how amazing would that be?  A life where you aren’t waiting for Stan to tap you on your back.  And when he does, because he will, you train yourself to simultaneously brace yourself if he decides to stay or pray that he is teasing.

During this time, Stan was not in a teasing mood. He was fully present and banging his chest like Tarzan.  I suspect two kids, no sleep and a diet of chocolate, wine, coffee and baked goods were probably not helping.  At one point I remember making a deal with myself that I would only eat desserts if I baked them myself. I thought this would motivate me to eat less dessert. It did motivate me. It motivated me to become a very good baker. Thankfully, I still had lots of maternity clothes I could wear which supported my nutrition plan.

So fueled on this excellent diet of carbs, alcohol, baked goods and caffeine, lack of sleep and the constant needs of an infant and toddler, I was loving life.

The days were so so so long.  I could swear they were 40 hours long and not 24.  It was Groundhog Day – Every. Single. Day.

But this my friends is when wallpaper came into my life.  Until then, I continued to endure many a long day where I felt like my head and heart may explode.  My head from its torturous thoughts, and my heart from this roller-coaster of new motherhood.  Who knew you could love your kids so fiercely but still want to run away from them.  So, for you ladies who are out there doing this… remember you are fucking warriors.  You are in the trenches, remember to come up for air,  to turn your face towards the light.

I have made valiant attempts at achieving oblivion every night. Sleep is the holy grail for most people with mental illness, and I am in no way unique.

Sleep is so hard to come by, and good sleep is even harder. Please do not mention melatonin, it sucks for people like me. I once took 15 out of curiosity and literally nothing happened. I supposedly had good drugs to help me sleep, what one would call the good stuff: Drug A for anxiety (trying to squash the stepping-out-in-front-of-a-bus scenario) and Drug B for the supposed night-time oblivion (never happens).

As things got worse and worse in my brain, I would slowly add a few things into the mix. Usually this meant some Drug C, Drug D, and if I had an inkling of a cold, some Neo-Citron nighttime. This should be enough drugs for most people to sleep through anything. Like one of the characters in movies who slowly wakes to realize they have slept through the zombie apocalypse. Wouldn’t that be the best sleep of your life? I digress (#ADD).

It is mostly accepted that depression is hard to fight, and even harder to fight if you can’t sleep. If your brain can’t rest, it is not going to help your serotonin levels. As your depression worsens, so does your sleep. To add fuel to the fire, this tends to worsen anxiety because as you are trying to rest, which is nearly impossible, you are worrying about tomorrow: “How the fuck are you going to survive, if you don’t get some sleep?!”

Unfortunately, my pharmaceutical combo was barely taking the edge off Stan, setting me up for more nights of extremely mediocre sleep. Meaning at least four trips to the bathroom, reading with my flashlight in the middle of the night until my husband would wake up in frustration that I, checks notes, woke him up by reading? (Not sure I buy that one.) Usually by then, I would just give up completely and go downstairs to watch something boring on Netflix. It had to be boring because hopefully boring will help you fall back asleep. At some point, a child would wake me up in the morning looking for food which would force me into the vertical position which became a huge accomplishment.

So, sleep was bad.

This is normal for clinically-depressed people. Every survey you take will ask you about sleep, and here is the BIG BUMMER: You can’t sleep but you CAN’T WAKE UP EITHER. Most mornings my husband would say, “Just get up, you are up anyway”. This is so crazily irritating because A) it is true and B) is NOT true.

Explanation: When my husband says this, I experience it as: “Get up, you lazy ass. What is your problem?” It is not his fault; he is just a very practical person. My other, gentler voice just starts begging, “Please, please, just let me rest. If I just keep my eyes shut a little longer, maybe I will want to get out of bed. If I can doze just a little longer, maybe, just maybe, my brain will steer towards life, and living, again.”

And most importantly, I will want to open a wallpaper book again.

Circling back to my call with my psychiatrist.

At this time it wasn’t like I didn’t know I was depressed/manic. I had gone through all the questions: the wtf? How is this happening again? Why, why me? And all the pleading: Please, please God, no (I’m an Atheist and yet God always comes back into the picture in these moments), just please don’t let Stan back into my life.

But slowly and surely, Stan crept back in. 

He was invading my every thought and every orifice until I had to admit that my medication had ‘pooped out’ (this is actually a medical term that is funny – a rare treat). Essentially it means that your body has become resistant to your meds or the combination of your meds, which of course at 48, I had a healthy combination of.

Everything, everywhere, all the time was overwhelming. A bad review, a good review, a new idea, an old idea (was it ethical to use the same wallpaper twice – nail bitter), the state of the world,  not finding my underwear. You name it, my brain could attach a very long list as to why any and all of those things could mean that the world was coming to an end. It also meant it was becoming harder and harder just to get out of f’ing bed. Like soooooooo hard. Like being forced to run a marathon with no actual physical preparation (or what I can imagine that would feel like given I would never actually run a marathon – I am not that crazy) (yet;-)).

I didn’t realize how depressed I was until a little ‘blip’ happened.  

I knew I was fucking depressed, but who wasn’t? Sometimes it is hard to ‘fit’ depression into life’s daily sprint. You know, the daily sprint that somehow I am still totally confused by, stuck in, but I believe I signed up for, on purpose? The house, the job, the marriage, the three kids, the mortgage, etc.

It’s not like anybody I knew was T-H-R-I-V-I-N-G. Almost three years of pandemic parenting, anxious teenagers with their own mental health issues to cope with, and a ‘I hope she is surviving all this neglect because the other two need so much right now’ third child. Life was hard. Even for the lucky ones (which I constantly remind myself I was), it was just a daily grind until you could finally justify crawling into bed to watch Netflix and stare at your wallpaper behind your TV (hot tip: don’t be afraid to hang things on wallpaper).

I had hoped a lifetime of mental health management had given me something called ‘insight’. And yet … here I was again. Right into it. The thought … this thought that just would NOT leave my brain. Every free moment of my brain is sinking right into this … this beautiful, simple, increasingly comforting thought: What if I could just get hit by a bus?

Not just any bus.

It had to be an older model City of Ottawa bus.

It had to be at night.

It had to be just the right timing.

It had to be going fast enough.

It had to be empty.

With a wide flat front.

Did I mention going fast enough?

And I just knew,

Just knew,

If it was fast enough,

Maybe complete oblivion was possible.