Free Being Kendra by Kendra Wilkinson

anymore. When he got home from practice, he found me, and the apartment, in shambles. When Hank saw the state I was in (and the state of the apartment), he made the mistake of picking a fight instead of trying to console me. He looked right at me and asked, “Why did you trash the apartment? What’s wrong with you?” Little did he know . . .
    Hank made a huge mistake; you don’t fight with a depressed person. Because we’d spent so much time apart, he wasn’t in tune with what was going on with me, and maybe it was my fault for not cluing him in. His lack of compassion got us into the biggest fight. He was yelling at me instead of trying to understand what I was going through. His screaming at me only enraged me even more—did he not know the hell I had been through the last couple of months? Not only from the roller coaster that is childbirth but the constant moving and being alone. Man alert: He was clueless. He should have picked up on the fact that I was nearing my breaking point, but he didn’t.
    Our fighting escalated and Hank’s blood was boiling so much he lost consciousness and literally fainted, falling to the floor on top of the baby’s toys. He had a panic attack of his own from the stress and passed out. Ever seen a six-foot-four man fall over and thump to the ground? That scared the hell out of me! I knew I was in no shape to care for anyone, and if Hank (whom I had always thought was physically indestructible) was now down and out, we were all in big trouble. I looked at Hank for a second (he was unconscious for at least ten seconds; it was very frightening) and realized my fit was over and now we both needed to get our act together. I kicked him and yelled, “Get up, you can’t pass out now!” I think that was a wake-up call for the both of us that we just needed to breathe, chill out, go back home to California, and get a damn house. We couldn’t do this anymore. He spent the next hour cleaning up my mess. Two days later Hank booked me a one-way flight home. He understood why I had to leave and he said he would leave too if he was in my position.
    Hank’s not the type to sit down and talk about this stuff all the time. So it had been building and he and I hadn’t dealt with it. He’s not a therapist. I had to realize that. He understood, he listened, and he digested it all after the fact, but he’s not going to ask me what I need to talk about every day. After that he never yelled at me.
    Because of that night Hank decided he was going to quit playing football that season. He had the phone in his hand and was about to tell his coach. He was going to quit because he was so worried about me and my health, and I have to say even though I was angry as hell with him, the fact that he offered to do that showed me his true colors. I would never want him to give up his career though.
    I realize now that a lot of my inner turmoil was guilt because of what I was doing with the baby—forcing Hank Jr. to stay in this tiny apartment because of the snow and my own issues of being scared to go out. Minnesota has one of the largest shopping malls in the world, but going to the Mall of America isn’t the smartest thing to do when you are famous. So I couldn’t just take the baby for an indoor stroll. I was forcing my child to have no life because of issues I was responsible for. I went crazy and I snapped. I had no friends and no life and that was rubbing off on the baby. What I wish is that someone had told me, “It’s okay. Don’t worry about the baby like that. Feed him, love him, keep him safe, and he’ll be just fine.” But by isolating myself, I didn’t even have that.
    Since getting pregnant and then actually having a baby, my isolation had grown worse. I started to lose a lot of the friends I thought I had made over the last decade. Some stayed, but most just grew distant. So it wasn’t like I had this great support system to vent to. Of course I’d had relationships with people like Holly