I'm not sure how quippy and clever this blog post will be. And I can guarantee there will be some adult language. Probably a lot of adult language.
The truth is, I was supposed to write my son's birth story. I've been trying to write my son's birth story. And I've been trying to write my son's birth story for the last six weeks.
So I'm just going to come right out and say it: postpartum depression is a bitch.
The one thing I have always wanted, throughout my entire life, has been to be a mom. I have always, always wanted kids. There hasn't always been a husband in my grand picture, but there have always been kids (although, thank GOD there is a husband in the real picture because parenthood is fucking hard).
In truth, I genuinely thought I would take to motherhood like a duck to water.
That has not been the case. I have been struggling with literally every aspect of being a mom since the day after he was born, and just this week, I finally decided that it needed to be addressed.
If you've been keeping up with my earlier Baby Blog posts, you may be familiar with Lucie's List. I signed up for their weekly newsletters, and it just so happened that the six week newsletter was about postpartum depression. I have been trying to convince myself that I don't have PPD, that everything is fine, that it's all normal, that I will even out in time. But reading through the newsletter, I started crying; it described everything I felt, and had been feeling since we brought our baby boy home...
You feel overwhelmed. Not like "hey, this new mom thing is hard." More like "I can't do this and I'm never going to be able to do this."
You feel like you just can't handle being a mother. In fact, you may be wondering whether you should have become a mother in the first place.
You feel guilty because you believe you should be handling new motherhood better than this. You feel like your baby deserves better.
You worry whether your baby can tell that you feel so bad, or that you are crying so much, or that you don't feel the happiness or connection that you thought you would.
You may wonder whether your baby would be better off without you.
You don't feel bonded to your baby. You're not having that mythical mommy bliss that you see on TV or read about in magazines.
You can't understand why this is happening.
You feel irritated or angry. You have no patience. Everything annoys you. You feel resentment toward your baby, or your partner, or your friends who don't have babies.
You feel nothing. Emptiness and numbness. You are just going through the motions.
You feel sadness to the depths of your soul. You can't stop crying, even when there's no real reason to be crying.
You feel hopeless, like this situation will never ever get better. You feel weak and defective. You feel like a failure.
You can't bring yourself to eat, or perhaps the only thing that makes you feel better is eating.
You can't concentrate. You can't focus. You can't think of the words you want to say. You can't remember what you were supposed to do. You can't make a decision. You feel like you're in a fog.
You feel disconnected. You feel strangely apart from everyone for some reason, like there's an invisible wall between you and the rest of the world.
You're thinking, "Why can't I just get over this?" You feel like you should be able to snap out of it, but you can't.
You might be having thoughts of running away and leaving your family behind.
You know something is wrong. You may not know you have a perinatal mood or anxiety disorder, but you know the way you are feeling is NOT right. You think you've "gone crazy."
You are afraid that this is your new reality and that you've lost the "old you" forever.
You are afraid that if you reach out for help people will judge you. Or that your baby will be taken away.
Today I had my six week check-up with my doctor. I talked to her and the nurse about these thoughts/feelings/symptoms, and we decided that it might be a good idea for me to try an anti-depressant for a while. I'll be going back to work in a couple weeks (only part time, but still - it will be quite the adjustment), and we have a shitload of packing to do as we are packing up our entire lives & moving to Florida in about four weeks.
I've never been good at asking for help; I put a lot of pressure on myself to do things perfectly and always be independent, in control, and self-sufficient. But when your life is suddenly taken over by a tiny dictator who melts your heart with his smiles & snuggles, & makes you want to rip your hair out while you hide in the other room & let him scream for a few minutes, the idea of being in control is pretty much shot to shit.
Now, I do want to make this very clear: I never once had even a passing thought of harming myself or my son. And, like my other posts, I'm not writing this as a cry for help or attention. I'm writing this because there might be another new mother out there feeling this way, and she needs to know that she's not broken. She's not a bad mom. She's not a failure. Even though she calls herself all these things & more (probably on a daily basis). These things happen, these feelings happen, and they need to be talked about.
