This post is for Strong Start Day from Kat Stone at Postpartum Progress.

I remember Then. I remember waking up to the screams of my baby girl, another day. Stumbling through what felt like water, brushing the not-quite-sleep from my eyes, wondering how I would get through it.

When my daughter was born through about twenty-four months old, I was in the throes of what I now believe to be undiagnosed PPD.

If only I could've had a crystal ball to the Now, to when I would be doing a job I believed in, that used my skills to their utmost, in a house that would become my Forever Home, with neighbors who invited us to housewarming parties and bought my girl Halloween socks, and not the house that encompassed a leaky, Silence-of-the-Lambs basement and mice and ghetto birds whirling above us at all hours of the night.

I now see the exhaustion in my face.

I wish I could've talked to the me, Then, to tell her all about the me Now.

It's real. PPD is real.

And there is nothing that can comfort you when your brain is telling you it will never be better, that the pain will never go away, that the world as you know it will never return to normal.

It was a slow path away from the job to which I offered nothing and to which nothing was offered me, from the home office with no air condititioning, in which the atmosphere often reached ninety degrees with no solace, no comfort. A slow path from being told I was stupid and inept to a being told I gave writers a path, a gleam of hope. A slow path from three hours a day spent crying and googling sleep solutions to a happy, well adjusted seven-year-old who sits on my lap and rests her nose in my neck and tells me I am the best mommy in all the world.

I'm sure it was confusing and annoying to my love in life, who must've thought the happy, ambitious woman he married had disappered forever, leaving a whining puddle of goo in her wake.

That was the Then.

This is the Now.

I wish I could tell you some amazing story of renewal, a doctor that helped me. I didn't really have that. I had a slow path of waking up each morning and slowly seeing the light. When my daughter finally slept through the night around age four, I started to recover. When I got the therapy that actually made sense to me, my mind stopped waking me in the middle of the night, churning and refusing to go back to sleep. When I finally accepted that I needed some medication to relegate my inadequate brain chemicals, my inordinate influx of stress hormones, and I combined that with visualizations and meditation that enabled me to envision a life walking around walls instead of throwing my body against them, that became the Now.

I am happy.

I didn't think -- in the Then -- that I ever could be.

Again, here, I see emptiness.

It scares me to think how seriously depressed and anxious I was in the Then. I couldn't handle the normal ups and downs of life at all. Every red traffic light and misplaced set of keys became a major crisis, when they needn't have been. We moved here and I lost two cats in a row, one of whom had been my substitute baby for nine years, and that may seem like nothing to most people, but to me, when Sybil died, it was the end of my youth. It was the end of having a wubbie, a talisman. When my first cat died and my daughter was three and we had just moved to this town where I knew no one and couldn't even find the gas station without help, I was hanging on to life as I knew it with my fangs. Life was red in tooth and claw, and I honestly didn't know if I would enjoy it again.

My daughter was three.

It should've been over by then, right?

The brain is a strange organ. It regulates or lacks regulation of happiness. It tells you things will be all right or everything is going to hell in a handbasket, and regardless of you intellectual ability to realize it's all a crock of shit, you believe it. As my former psychologist used to remind me: The intellectual frontal lobe and the reptilian feeling brain are not actually connected all that well. You can understand intellectually that nothing is wrong and if your reptilian brain disagrees, then my friend: You.Are.Fucked.

There was a time, in the Then, that I thought I was. The writing didn't matter. The job didn't matter. Motherhood didn't matter. Nothing mattered but the hurt, and the dark, and the hours without sleep.

As I sat down to think about this post for my friend Kat Stone, whose daughter could be my daughter's twin sister, I realized how happy I really am in the Now. I love my husband, my daughter, my job, my writing, my family, my friends, my life. And with the exception of the job -- nothing has changed but my perception of it.

The mind is a powerful organ.

And sometimes, it is wrong.

If you cry when you read this, if you or a friend or sister is stuck in the Then, please encourage her to get help. Life is short. I wish I could've spent fewer years in the Then. I wish I could've spared my husband and child and family and friends the Me that was in the Then. I wish I could've spared myself the Then.

It was unnecessary.

I didn't learn anything other than it doesn't have to be that way.

Kat has dedicated her online life to supporting those who suffer from PPD. I sincerely wish I had known Kat in the Then. The entire time we've been friends I've been in the Now. But when she asked me to share my experience to raise awareness, I could only say yes.

Because you or someone you know might still be living in the Then.

I welcome all to the Now.

Kat's trying to raise $30k on Postpartum Progress to:

• Develop a compelling national awareness campaign for postpartum depression
• Create & distribute new and improved patient education materials for distribution by hospitals
• Translate our "plain mama English" information and support into Spanish and other languages

If only I'd had that instead of a free blanket in the hospital and a host of instructions for how I could scar my baby for life by doing things wrong. Kat says  only 15% of all women with perinatal mood and anxiety disorders ever receive professional treatment.

I certainly didn't, in the Then. How much more I understand about my brain and how it works and how it impacts not only me but all the people in my sphere. My little girl is a happier girl because I got help. She doesn't have to deal with a mommy who screams and cries every day like she did when she was 0-3.

I'm going to go donate. If you have had PPD or know anyone who has or even who can relate to what I've said here, please help out Kat, who's dedicated her life to helping women overcome what affected both her and me and countless other members of this community of women.

Let's live in the Now.

Today, Kate shares a home fitness recommendation (shockingly well timed as I've been thinking of taking ballet but haven't found a class that works with my schedule):

I have written before of my love of ballet, a love that has been kept at a very long arm's length by my lack of necessary talent, drive, and height. However, a recent discovery allows me to feel like a prima ballerina for a few minutes each day: Ballet Conditioning -- a wonderful DVD by Element (the producers of Pilates Weight Loss for Beginners) -- offers several hours of appealing and fun exercises, all based on classical ballet positions and stretches and all aimed at toning and lengthening different muscle groups.

With my desk chair serving as a barre, the positions bring me back to the ballet classes of my childhood -- tendu! plié! port de bra! -- and I have a moment of living inside the grace and elegance of dance. But don't be fooled: this is a hard workout that will leave your thighs burning and your arms feeling like rubber.

My sister Blondie has long wanted to go to Oztoberfest in Wamego, Kansas, home of the Oz Museum. While I love the witch's skywriting (natch), Blondie is truly obsessed with the movie. Last weekend, the little angel and I drove over to Topeka and met up with Ma, Pa and Blondie to for the trek to Wamego.

I found the original book by L. Frank Baum dark and had no idea there was an entire series of Oz books, nor that the author went on to ghostwrite a girls' series and a bunch of other middle-grade fantasy. Or that he is credited with creating the first American fairy tale. I also didn't know that The Wizard of Oz is the most-seen movie in history.

I guess that's what getting shown during winter break every year for sixty years will get you, eh?

While I have no personal obsession with the story or the movie, I was interested in the special effects. Obviously, they're not good by modern standards, but pulling off flying monkeys at the time was pretty impressive. The flying monkeys were four-inch tall models, and there were only a few of them. WHOA.

I skipped past most of the museum to focus on my favorite part -- the skywriting of SURRENDER DOROTHY.

Finally! Answers. 

All in all, the museum reminded me of the Toy and Miniature Museum in Kansas City. Interesting in the way anything is if you get into the details enough. 

However, there is no end to the creepy of this enormous statue of the Tin Man in the lobby of the museum. Check out how he is eyeballing my sister.

Looks like someone has been hitting the oil can a little too hard, no?

http://oascentral.blogher.org/RealMedia/ads/adstream_jx.ads/blogher.org/CoverGirl_Sep11_Review_001/@x13

The following is a sponsored post from the BlogHer Publishing Network review program and COVERGIRL. Don't judge, I'm saving to get Beloved a belated bday gift.

Also! Whenever there is a sponsored post, I will also write an editorial post that day. To see all the posts about eyelashes and mascara, check out the round-up on BlogHer.

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I've never put a ton of stock in make-up. That said, much like putting on clothing made of something other than cotton and using hairspray, make-up helps me feel dressed and ready to leave my house. When I worked in downtown Kansas City, I wore full make-up every day. Now that I work from home, I usually only wear mascara/powder/blush. On the days I put on eye shadow and eyeliner and lipstick, boy howdy, something is getting done.

So let's talk mascara. I've always been blessed with lashes plenty thick and long. However, they have blond tips and are very hard to see without the help of good mascara. Unfortunately, the side effect of most mascaras is either a) smearing under my eyes -- I have long wished I could find a way to bottle the excessive oil from my skin and sell it on the black market to old ladies or b) clumping. The smearing seems to have improved since the midnineties in almost all brands, but the clumping is totally getting worse as each brand tries to let your lashes gain muscle without exercise.

Today we will be testing out COVERGIRL LashPerfection mascara. The fact sheet tells me it has *micro-chambers*. I am fascinated by a product that retails for $5.99 and has such technology. MICRO-CHAMBERS!

Here is a really horrible before picture showing you my bloodshot eyeballs but really attempting to show you the color of my lashes before the mascara.

Wow, is that ever unattractive. But necessary for the SCIENTIFIC TESTING. Also, I'm wearing no make-up in this photo. See that oil? How do I sell that oil? I'm trying to buy Beloved a birthday gift here.

As you can see, I have blond-tipped lashes which from afar look like they stop a few millimeters short of where they actually do without cosmetic aid. Also, they curl up pretty naturally, so I stopped using an eyelash curler after I accidentally bent my lashes in half and had to wait two days for them to go back to normal while walking around looking like an idiot.

In the foreground, we have the COVERGIRL LashPerfection wand without any mascara on it. I was attempting to photograph the MICROCHAMBERS, but they must be invisible to the human eye. In the background is another COVERGIRL mascara wand for comparison. I got it at the CVS booth at BlogHer and I can't remember what kind it is.

For comparison's sake, here's the wand of my normal favorite mascara coated with goo. I like this one because it comes off really easily.

AND NOW! MASCARA-OFF! (I wasn't asked to do this, I just thought it would make the post more interesting. And I was curious how COVERGIRL would do against a more-expensive-but-also-drugstore brand.)

It is really hard to take a picture of your own eyeball. This eye has the COVERGIRL LashPerfection on in brown. I did actually feel my eyelashes being lifted by the wand, which was interesting. Also, I'm wearing two coats here on my top lashes and was impressed with how separated they look.

Here's my old faithful in brown-black. Normally I would wipe away those clumps, but I had to show you, um, look! Clumping! It's not a huge difference, but there is a difference and my normal brand costs around $15 compared to the COVERGIRL at $5.99.

When it came time to take off the mascara, I just washed my face. I didn't seem to need eye make-up remover. It's not waterproof, but there also wasn't a lot of racoon eyes going on, either.

I have to say, I might switch.

And now! Who would like to win a $50 drugstore.com gift card for your efforts at looking at my eyelashes? Good luck!

Sweepstakes Rules:

No duplicate comments.

You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:

a) Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post

b) Tweet about this promotion and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post

c) Blog about this promotion and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post

d) For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

e) Enter between October 4-November 4.

This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older.

Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail.

You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.

The Official Rules are available here.

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While we’re on the subject, you might want to check out the “Looking Your Best” posts in the Life Well Lived section of BlogHer.com. There are some great application tips and ideas for switching up your look for fall!

I hope you all had a fantastic weekend! After knocking off a huge deadline on Friday (that was hanging over me all of September), it was so wonderful to decompress and enjoy the weekend with Laurel and Violet. Even though I miss Jon when he's away, I find it really fun to fly solo with the girls -- we had the best time! Anyhow, I wish you all a lovely week, and if you're looking for stuff to do, here are some fun event ideas for this week, spanning haunted happenings, salamanders, autism education, reading initiatives, stargazing, trains, and eco-living. Enjoy!

Image credit: How Stuff Works

It's been two weeks since I embarked on the Do More. Live More. Be More. challenge. I'm curious about whether you have shared a promise for the campaign -- it's a reflective task that's easy and enters you to win cool prizes (I mean, really, who doesn't dig cool prizes?). Anyway, I wanted to report in about how my challenge is going. The six buckets I wrote about experimenting with were: purging, pickups, event planning, household, travel, and virtual assistant.
Purging. This is a tough one, I haven't gotten to it yet. I ended up dropping off one bag of baby clothes to Isis (for Room to Grow) since I was going there anyway but I otherwise haven't done any major purging, primarily because I need to set aside time to drag out what needs to be purged. Perhaps I need to hire a rabbit to help me with that!

Pickups. TaskRabbit has been a huge help here. We're still a one-car family (though admittedly, this is becoming more challenging, particularly as it relates to transporting Laurel and her friends around) and most days of the week I do not have the car. I have used TaskRabbit to help me get items at the hardware store, pick up a birthday cake, and track down copies of Parents magazine (I'm in the October issue!). All of these things are super helpful (the birthday cake pickup saved me yesterday!) but one thing that has made a huge difference is hiring a rabbit to do our CSA pickup. We knew from the start that the timing of the pickup is not great for our schedule but we're committed to our CSA. Having someone take care of the pickup for us (Bev, you rock!) has been fantastic, allowing our family to have a lovely and relaxed transition into evening and dinner. So nice.

Event planning. The preparation for Pivot has been insane. It was awesomely helpful to have a rabbit help stuff my Posh Peacock goodie bag contributions and the Boston TaskRabbit team is amazing and offered to help out with many Pivot tasks that were going to be hard for our little co-hosting team to coordinate (e.g., transporting goodie bags, picking up refreshments), as well as helping us with a rabbit for check in at the event. So if you need help with event planning, hire some rabbits to help you rock your party!

Household. Jon and I have a lot of to-do's here but unfortunately almost all of them cannot be outsourced. With the exception that I'm considering hiring someone to fix the paint job I did on our front door (whoops).

Travel. I definitely have some needs here but travel planning has been on the back burner while I close out some major client deadlines and events.

Virtual assistant. As I predicted, this is the hardest bucket for me. I just don't know where to start and what to outsource. I need to think about this some more because I really could use some help!

That's where I'm at! What am I missing? What would you love to outsource? And don't forget to go share a promise!

Image credit: Rawich / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Okay, so I realized I work at BlogHer. And I also realize I am moderating a panel at BlogHer Writers '11. So this is going to look very fake and sales-y, and that's actually not what I'm all about. I will be very direct if I am doing that.  Here is me being direct: I'm writing this post of my own volition and speaking only for me, not for BlogHer in any, way, shape or form. 

Now bear with me while I jump up and down around my library for a second, throwing hardbacks in the air with glee for the love of publishing. Ouch. Of course one just hit me in the head.

I am just really excited about this because it's going to be chock-full of Penguin Publishing editors, authors and publicists as well as a bunch of bloggers who have crossed the print line. And anyone who has read this blog ever knows that I am a publishing fiend, unable to resist any opportunity to find out more about the world's most confusing business. You'd think I'd know everything after a book, right? 

That is not true. Especially with what's happened in the past five years to publishing. 2008 feels like 25 years ago, not four.

There are no guarantees in life, but it never hurts to try for the face-to-face if the opportunity presents itself. 

The conference is three weeks away. It's in NYC. It's only one day -- Friday, October 21. There are basically two tracks -- one for newbies, one for people like me who have been through the publishing wringer before and have the glutton-for-punishment need to do it again. You can get the whole schedule here.

I'm moderating a panel about marketing -- my experience with BlogHer Book Club has been educational and so much fun for me. I've "met" online two of the three Penguin authors who will be speaking -- Jean Kwok (Girl in Translation) and Ann Napolitano (A Good Hard Look). (Haven't yet met or "met" Dominique%20Browning. Will have that on the docket, for sure.) Look! I even get to be on a panel with Jean.

Track 1: Your Role as Marketer in Today's Publishing World

Writers are–or need to be–marketers, and your command of social media provides a critical edge: both pre-book deal, to validate you have a following, and post-book publication, to help you sell your book. BlogHer editor Rita Arens (editor of Sleep is For the Weak) moderates a discussion with Penguin Business Development Manager Colleen Lindsay, author Jean Kwok (author of Girl in Translation), independent PR consultant Lauren Cerand, and Penguin marketer Lydia Hirt.

I'm also waiting eagerly to see old friends/speakers Kamy Wicoff, Carleen Brice, Jane Schonberger, Kathy Cano-Murillo, and a bunch of other heavy hitters I don't know well yet.

And ... the part I'm most excited about is the small-group mentoring. Here are the topics available:

Seeking fiction agent
- Seeking nonfiction agent
- Seeking help with a book proposal
- Memoir group
- Literary novel group
- Genre novel group (romance/mystery/thriller/scifi, etc.)
- Children’s (YA/middle grade/picture book)
- Humor/novelty (ex: LOLcats/Cake Wrecks, etc.)
- Cookbooks
- Shorter works/anthologies
- Expert platform nonfiction 
- Book blogging

That? Is something that never happens. Except it's happening. Next month. Good Lord, I can't wait. (For those who are wondering, the conference is $199.)

AM GIDDY. PLEASE TO JOIN.

END WRITERLY FREAK-OUT.

FOR NOW.

Hooray for October starting tomorrow! Kick off the new month with any or all of these 11 event picks that caught my eye:

1. A cool event for small and large cyclists.

2. Of course you want to see a revolutionary street spectacle of never-before-seen proportions.

3. Just say yes to healthy local food for all.
4. And also this local food festival for kids and families in Cambridge.

5. A fall forest festival in Franklin Park.

6. My first priority at this harvest festival would be procuring apple cider donuts.

7. So much craftiness in store at Lowell Open Studios.

8. Salem is ready to rock the haunted happenings.

9. I could use advice on how to resurrect our teeny tiny garden from the experts at this harvest festival and perennial divide.

10. Yay for fresh pressed cider!

11. As a fan of the Little House books, I think Laurel would love to learn how to churn butter at this Homestead Hayfest.

Image credit: Vlado / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

When it comes to baby and kids stuff, I'm all for recycling. Subsequently, I'm thrilled to serve as a guest curator for Swap.com's Family Swap Day next Saturday, October 8, in Somerville. Whether you want to outfit your kid for Halloween or score books, toys, clothing, and other family-friendly items, simply bring a bag of items to swap, enjoy the family activity room while we get the goods sorted, then come load your bag full of new finds! I'll be roaming the event, and also wielding my face painting skills, so please come say hi! Now, for two cool deals:

+ + + + +
THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED
Congrats to winners Darlene, Kate, and Joanna!
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1. Want to be one of three winners to receive a pair of tickets to Family Swap Day? Simply e-mail contests@bostonmamas.com (with "Family Swap Day") in the subject line by Monday, October 3 to enter win.

2. If you'd rather lock in your tickets now, use code BOSTONMAMAS to receive 50% off your ticket.