I want to start this post by encouraging you to seek professional help if you feel you’re experiencing postpartum depression. I know that step is incredibly hard, but trust me - it’s harder to live life depressed than it is to ask for help. And you ARE strong enough to do it.
About 2 ½ weeks ago, I was diagnosed with postpartum depression. In addition to increasingly crippling anxiety, I knew that over the past several months, something was wrong. I can’t quite pinpoint when I started feeling “off,” but I want to say somewhere around 3 months postpartum (September 2020). What started out as feeling anxious, overwhelmed, exhausted, and unmotivated, quickly turned into feeling absolutely empty and detached from my life. At some point, I realized that I wasn’t actually living my life; I was simply existing.
I’ve struggled with anxiety for many years, and I’ve expressed before how it’s become significantly worse since becoming a mom 3 ½ years ago. I was on medication for a year and a half, then I got pregnant again and stopped taking it. Then I had a very stressful pregnancy, lost my job, moved, and gave birth all in the middle of a global pandemic. If you’ve had a baby during COVID, I feel for you. Anyway, I feel like I was not in a good headspace when I had Andrew last year, but I was hopeful that having a new baby would bring back some joy within me. As much as I love my boy and am beyond grateful to have him, things went downhill for me mentally.
I’m pretty damn good at living with my anxiety; I’ve been doing it for years. So when I started feeling depressed, I figured I could just “live with it” too. That sounds so stupid now looking back, but it’s truly how I felt. I’m coming to realize that a lot of my anxiety/depression comes from internal pressure that I put on myself to do it all. As moms, we naturally feel like we have to do it all. I feel that in every aspect of my life, especially motherhood. So my mindset has always been to act like everything’s fine, and it will be. I could kick myself in the ass now for thinking this way. But I did. I can tell you with confidence that my husband, friends, family, acquaintances, etc. didn’t know that I was struggling with depression. I still laughed, smiled, had normal conversations, got dressed (sometimes), posted on social media, etc. I think there’s a huge misconception that depression means laying in bed unable to function all the time. And while it absolutely can look like that, for so many people (moms especially), it doesn’t present that way. Because we hide it. We are in denial of our true feelings. We put a band-aid on and get on with life. This is why so many people say that they had NO IDEA their loved one was depressed. We have a hard time admitting that we’re struggling. I know I do.
I got to my breaking point around November/December of 2020. Once I began having suicidal thoughts. That has been EXTREMELY hard for me to admit, and up until now I’ve only told 3 people – my therapist, my psychiatrist, and my husband. Once I started having thoughts like this, I knew I couldn’t let things go on any further. While I didn’t feel like I wanted to hurt or kill myself, I thought about it. And that was scary enough for me to panic about whether I’d ever actually do it. The first meeting with my therapist, she asked me what’s kept me from acting on those thoughts, and I told her my kids. I could never ever cause my kids the emotional trauma that they would experience from losing their mother. I know that they need me. Even when I felt completely worthless, my heart always knew that they needed me.
In addition to the suicidal thoughts, I had most every other postpartum depression symptom. I was completely exhausted (more than a normal level), I was very irritable and “moody.” I cried at least 4 days out of the week – randomly and intensely. I felt extreme guilt, worthlessness, and hopelessness. Like I was a useless person who was failing at the one thing I’m doing with my life – being a mom. I didn’t find pleasure in, really, anything. I didn’t want to do anything, even things I used to love. I wanted to sleep all day. I never reached out to family or friends. And I didn’t feel connected to my baby. That’s been the hardest thing for me accept. I look back on the first 7 months of Andrew’s life, and I feel like I have no memory of it. Breastfeeding has been a job, not a bonding experience. I’ve spent the majority of his life just getting by. Just keeping him alive and healthy. Just going through the motions. I’ve been on autopilot, not present, and detached. It literally hurts my heart to know that. But I know that he has always felt my love, he thinks I am perfect, and he feels connected to me. And that gets me through.
In January, I finally told my husband I felt like I needed to start going to therapy. I didn’t give him details, but just that I really thought I needed it. He is more than supportive, and I started going 3 weeks ago. Week one, I was prescribed Zoloft, and I’ve been taking it since. I am still fresh in this experience. I don’t feel back to normal, I still feel sadness, I still have major anxiety. But I’m on the right track to getting myself back, and I’m SUPER proud of that.
Moms hate asking for help. We feel the need to do it all, by ourselves, put on a happy face for the world, and cry alone at night. I’m working on that. Because no one needs to do it all. And it’s ok to not feel ok. I hid my feelings so well in hopes that it would just “go away.” But I’m learning that feelings exist for a reason. To tell us that something is off. To tell us to take better care of ourselves. I don’t have any quote-worthy advice (not yet, anyway), but I want to share my story because postpartum depression, and motherhood in general, is so very lonely. If you’re going through it, and even if you’re not and you’re just tired, overwhelmed, and a lonely mama, I’m here for you. Don’t hide your feelings. They are valid. You are worthy of complete happiness in this life. You deserve all the good and you deserve to feel like the best version of yourself. And it’s ok if you need help finding her. We aren’t supposed to go through this alone, and we don’t have to.
