I stared at the computer screen, blinking back tears as my eyes took in the images of my daughter proudly showing off the tooth she had lost that day. I wanted to reach my arms through the screen, hug my girl tight, and tell her how excited I was. But I couldn’t. Instead, I sat in the small computer lab housed in the wing of the mental hospital where I was an inpatient for the first time and felt waves of hopelessness and despair wash over me.
Depression had led me to this place — dark thoughts having run away with all reason and logic — and I knew I needed to be here to be safe. But that did not change the fact that I knew what I was missing at home. At night when I was alone in my bed in the psych ward, I would think about my girls and worry that I was ruining them for life by being gone and being ill. I worried that I would never be able to be the mom I thought I should be. How could I, when I was barely hanging on to life itself?
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Erin Mount 