When I was first treated for postpartum depression, I worked with a cognitive behavioral psychologist who helped me dismantle my anxiety. First we tackled the anxiety that was specific to being the mother of a newborn, like excessive worries about SIDS, germs, and kidnappers stealing Pippa in the middle of the night. Once I was back to feeling like my pre-PPD self, we decided to keep going.

I detailed this work in my memoir, but by the time I ended my therapy (about eleven months postpartum), I was convinced that I had conquered that beast called anxiety.

I believed this was true for several years.

Then, a couple of years ago, when I first tried to wean off Mirtazipane (an anti-anxiety medication I take at bedtime), I experienced some middle-of-the-night anxiety that interfered with my sleep. I wondered, Maybe.

Maybe I had not fully conquered my anxiety.

But I had written a memoir! About conquering my anxiety! That is the trouble with memoirs: they make you feel like you have done all the personal work you need to do when really, we are born with a lifetime of work that will require our attention until we draw our last breath.

I went back on Mirtazipane and the anxiety subsided, and so did my interest in the possibility that I still had some issues with anxiety that needed further work.

Then, I tried to wean off Mirtazipane for a second time (and a third time) (and a fourth time), and every time, I would be fine for a week or even a month. But every time, anxiety would interrupt my sleep. Then I would feel anxious about feeling anxious, and I would sleep even less. So I would jump back on Mirtazipane – and I am not judging myself for going back on Mirtazipane. Sleep is the foundation and cornerstone of my health. So long as I need Mirtazipane to sleep, I will take it.

But.

Every time I find my sleep interrupted by anxiety, I wonder if maybe my anxiety is like an iceberg. Over 90% of an iceberg’s volume is underwater. During my treatment for PPD, maybe I only conquered the 10% of my anxiety that was easy to see, above the surface of the ocean. Maybe there was still a massive icy mountain of anxiety lurking just beneath the ocean’s surface.

I wondered, again and again, if I needed to dive beneath the surface of my subconscious and confront that iceberg of anxiety. But instead, I did just enough work to manage my immediate issues with anxiety. Then, once I started sleeping through the night, I congratulated myself on solving, once and for all, my issues with anxiety, when all I had done was chip away the bits of ice that had reached above the surface of my subconscious. I never took a proper look at the entire iceberg.

I do not want to sound judgmental or critical of myself. I think I did my best to address the anxiety that I could see. How could I reckon with an invisible iceberg of anxiety that was hiding in dark and frigid ocean waters?

Enter the pandemic.

Postpartum depression was like a magnifying glass that revealed some personal issues that were making it difficult for me to enjoy my first months as a mother. My bat shit crazy hormones helped me see that I had some impossible ideas about motherhood that were making me anxious and depressed. But, I am seeing now that PPD was only a magnifying glass. It did not reveal all of the personal issues that I needed to address in order to become my best self.

Well. If postpartum depression was a magnifying glass for my issues, then the pandemic has been a Hubble telescope aimed directly at my subconscious.

Going back to the iceberg (I adore analogies): postpartum depression let me see that there was a big chunk of anxiety bobbing on top of the ocean, and my therapist at the time helped me hack that anxiety into little ice chips that melted away. (Sometimes I take analogies a little too far.) (But hey, it’s my blog!)

The pandemic has essentially evaporated the ocean that was hiding my iceberg of anxiety and wow, I cannot deny it any longer: There’s a freaking iceberg there! I still have some deep seated anxiety that needs to be addressed.

My anxiety is sneaky and vile. It waits until 3 a.m. to wake me and set my thoughts whirling. I have been having more and more sleep disturbances since we started sheltering-at-home. I have blamed these sleep disturbances on my menstrual cycle, a heat wave, and eating too much sugar. A few days ago, I finally relented and thought that maaaaaaybe I am a little stressed about the pandemic and all the uncertainty.

Two days ago, I finally talked to my psychiatrist on the phone. I usually take 7.5 mg of Mirtazipane but if I feel like it’s necessary, I take 15 mg. The 15 mg had felt necessary for several days – and still, I was up at night. So my psychiatrist said I could take 30 mg. I did that two nights ago, and I slept beautifully. I took 30 mg again last night.

And I was up at 4 a.m., my body alive with anxiety.

I cannot drag around this anxiety anymore.

I see it. And that is at least half the battle.

I have had a book — Loving What Is, by Byron Katie — on my book shelf for months. It kept popping up on my radar. Then, when I was reading Geneen Roth’s memoir This Messy Magnificent Life last week, Roth shared a story about Byron Katie that struck me to the core. Katie was visiting with a cancer patient at a hospital who complained about having a bloated leg that was bigger than her other leg, and Katie said, I see that you are suffering because you think your legs should be the same size.

I have not fully processed that story, but every time I think about it, I feel as if someone has struck a tuning fork in my soul.

I read a few pages of Loving What Is this morning and spoiler alert: I think I have found the approach that will help me conquer the anxiety that was lurking in my subconscious.

I’ll write more about that over the next few weeks. Insomnia is a bitch, but at least I can see the work I need to do.

And when I am doing the work I need to do, life feels outrageously sweet. Even if I am sheltering-at-home during a pandemic.