PPD

So I thought that Postpartum Depression was when Mom lost all will to live, cried 24 hours a day, and tried to do away with her children. Turns out that's quite extreme; it's possible to have a little bit of postpartum depression or a moderate amount of it. It's possible to suffer on the inside and appear normal in public!

Thank goodness a couple of my girlfriends were good enough to share their experiences with postpartum depression and the antidepressants they used to treat it.

Maria's birth was exhilarating. I remember being on cloud 9999 in the hospital, in spite of the pain, and still being on cloud 9999 my first few weeks at home. Then Maria started crying all of the time and the Percocet was gone. I descended from cloud 9999 to 9998 ... 9997 ... 9996 ... and so on, all the way down to 0 within a period of weeks.

I was ashamed of how I felt. I would look at Maria and not see this little person with whom I was so in love. I would see the only thing standing between me and a good night of sleep. That embarrassed me. I didn't like my other children, who were making too much noise and left their shoes all over the floor and needed things. I didn't like my wonderful husband who wanted to talk to me once in awhile and asked me questions when he got home from work. I was horrified at the thought of anyone knowing the thoughts that were going through my head. I was sure that other people knew what I was thinking and I was sure that they were judging me and even talking about me when I wasn't there.

Why would I feel this way? I had so much to be thankful for. I would be so down in the dumps and would be flogging myself at the same time for not being grateful for everything that I had been given. I felt so angry all the time. I was paranoid that all but the best of my friends didn't like me anymore. I was uptight. It hit me that I was at cloud 0 when I laid in bed at night wishing that I could die in my sleep so I wouldn't have to get up and do it all over again.

After several weeks, I started to wonder if this was normal, if it was just sleep deprivation and fatigue and hormones that were pulling me down. I would start crying at 8 in the morning when I rolled out of bed and break into tears off and on during the day, then the minute I laid Maria down at night, I would crawl into the bathtub to soak and cry for another couple of hours. One morning, Noah came up to me and instead of a Good Morning! and a hug, I offered a stinging comment that made his lower lip tremble. It hit me at that moment that what I was feeling, what I was thinking, and how I was acting were not normal at all. I talked to Jeremy about it and he agreed but had been too afraid to say anything to me, lest he set me off.

So I caught a friend after Mass one Sunday and asked her if this is what she had gone through. She took the time to talk to me and said that it was and told me what she had done about it. The whole time we stood talking, I was swallowing, trying not to cry. Then she said, "I'll pray for you," and the tears started flowing as I jogged away toward the parking lot.

That Monday morning I packed Maria up and headed to the doctor's office. Our office offers early morning hours--if we get there between 7 and 8:30, we can get in to see the doctor with no appointment. I knew that my doctor was almost always the one in on Monday morning (as opposed to one of the other 3 doctors in his practice) and he was indeed there.

It felt like I was sitting in confession, telling him how awful I felt and trying not to cry. It was hard to tell him what I was really thinking and feeling, since I tried so hard to appear chipper all of the time. This man is the man who cares for my husband and me and our babies and who delivered all of our babies (and those of most of my good friends). He thinks about us (his patients) as "extra" daughters and many of us consider him a foster father, of sorts. He could tell when I was trailing off and looked at me with his forehead knitted in worry. He said, "let's do something about this," and began to write a prescription for an antidepressant. I began taking the medicine that night.

Almost immediately after the appointment, I felt elated because he had confirmed what I suspected--that I wasn't a rotten, awful person, that what I was suffering was a chemical imbalance that could (most likely) be remedied with a mild medication. As I continued to take the medication, I found that it was easier to be happy and to stay happy. The anger melted away, as did the paranoia and the sadness. I felt in control of my emotions. I felt as if I was coming out of a fog.

This was three months ago. Now I have the chance to remake myself. I am different now than I was three months ago, nine months ago, and even two years ago. In hindsight, I know that I should have gone to my doctor probably after Noah's birth, nearly six years ago, if not earlier. Many things that I've been thinking, saying, and doing since then would have been different, had I felt more normal. This antidepressant is no happy pill--I still have a tough day here and there. But it's easy for me to dismiss the little things that go wrong and get on with the day and even be cheerful at the end of it.

I share this with you not to seek sympathy or pity, but so that you (whomever you are) know that it's possible to be past the baby blues and into postpartum depression without being suicidal. Yep ... normal people go through it and with medication, can be back to feeling normal in a relatively short period of time. It's going to take guts to push PUBLISH POST, but I think I might do it.