On Postpartum Depression

Life kept dropping breadcrumbs at my feet:

1. At a professional workshop exploring Executive Functions, the presenter articulated that lack of sleep drastically impacts attention – and attention encompasses mental energy, processing, and production.

2.  A TedEd video entitled \”How Chronic Stress Affects the Brain\” began with the following: Are you sleeping restlessly, feeling irritable or moody, forgetting little things, and feeling overwhelmed?

3. From \”The 7 Most Infuriating Pieces of Viral Inspiration,\” the thought that continues to linger with me is: Stay positive? No.  Stay honest.  Somewhere along the way, staying positive became a crucial aspect of my definition of self.  Thus, every time feelings of negativity crept into my thinking or my conversations, I disappointed myself.  Such a huge weight is lifted by the realization that honesty may be the better choice.

4.  A while ago, a friend kindly shared that I reminded her of Sara Bareilles.  My ears perk up when \”Brave\” comes on the radio, as it did a few days ago.  Say what you wanna say/And let the words fall out/Honestly I wanna see you be brave.

Those breadcrumbs led me down a trail to this post…

I didn\’t know what to expect.

I was the first parent to arrive, hurrying into the tall office block from the biting winter air and navigating through the twists and turns of quiet, business-like hallways to find the Community Education suite.

An unobtrusive sign announced \”Parent Group,\” an innocuous euphemism for the true nature of the support group.  I tentatively walked in, unsure if I was in the right place.  The group\’s facilitators met me with easy smiles, water, and paczkis.  It was February 17, 2015.  Regardless of Polish heritage, Michiganders everywhere were celebrating Fat Tuesday with oozing gelatinous doughnuts.  I was a Michigander once again, having moved back less than a month before.  I was also the antithesis to these jolly pastries.  I felt stretched too thinly, hollow, overwhelmed, and isolated.  With it all came feelings of guilt.

Postpartum depression is awful.  As with other conditions that gather together under the mental health umbrella, it\’s received more notice and acceptance in recent years, yet nowhere near enough.

So let\’s talk about it.

I\’m certain I experienced PPD after Keats\’ birth, but I only fully acknowledged that with the clarity of hindsight somewhere after his first birthday.  In the throes of PPD, I trivialized the cloud that hung over me.  I loved my baby, but I worried that I hadn\’t fallen in love with motherhood the way I was supposed to…the way it appeared everyone else did…the way I\’d envisioned embracing such a meaningful new aspect of my identity.  I had an amazing little person with me at all times throughout the five months of my maternity leave, and yet I felt so alone.

Depression has ebbed and flowed in me throughout adulthood.  Despite each previous experience, I never recognize how not-right I feel until I can contrast it with feeling okay once again.  Whether experiencing dysthymia or postpartum depression, I convince myself that the way I feel is the essence of who I am and that the sadness, irritability, and low energy are the reality of me.  Only when I emerge into the metaphorical sunlight once again do I look back with empathy and want to wrap my arms tightly around the part of me that lived in the shadows.

Anticipating Wren\’s birth two years later, I was prepared to recognize the signs.  Addressing them, however, was another thing entirely.

The social worker who ran the Parent Group listened as I talked through my experience, as I verbally mulled over the explanations I\’d created: Maybe I wasn\’t depressed, maybe I was just stressed from our recent move.  Maybe I was irritable because I was so incredibly sleep deprived.  Her response struck a chord: \”It doesn\’t matter if you\’re depressed or not.  What matters is that you don\’t feel the way you want to.  You don\’t feel like yourself.\”  She wasn\’t trivializing my feelings; she was validating them.

Two months after visiting the \”Parent Group,\” our health insurance kicked in and I finally found the courage to speak with a physician, a woman with whom I had no relationship whatsoever.  I nervously stammered through my concern, feeling like an imposter in the land of PPD.  \”It\’s so hard to know if what I\’m experiencing is postpartum depression,\” I explained to her.  \”I mean, there\’s no way to know for sure.\”

\”Sure there is!\” she exclaimed in a tone that had already struck me as too loud, too brash, and too dismissive, subsequently handing me a questionnaire to complete.  Minutes later, she bounced back into the room and glanced over my answers.  She seemed gleeful as she declared, \”Yup, you\’re depressed!\” and proceeded to prescribe me anti-depressants after consulting a medical pocketbook and scanning it for options – anti-depressants which, I later read on the warning label, shouldn\’t be taken by breastfeeding women.  She only offered me the name of a psychiatry group when I asked if I should seek therapy in conjunction with the medication.  I didn\’t trust her suggestion, and so I researched therapists specializing in PPD.  A friend gave me a few names, all of whom sounded like wonderful, compassionate women – none of whom accepted my insurance.  I found a practice that accepted my insurance, calling only to find out that the postpartum specialist within the practice didn\’t accept it.  I submitted an inquiry form to another practice – and got no response.

I kept intending to call others.  It took so much to gather the nerve to do so, however, that I didn\’t until more than a year had passed.  Instead, I ran.  I ran and ran and ran, sometimes not wanting the run to end, not wanting to go back to being a mum, to being so needed, yet loving my family and feeling guilty for the thoughts that pecked at me.  I went to yoga more.  I went back to work and occupied my brain with other thoughts, not wanting to go back to work, and yet somewhat more balanced for having done so.  Wren started to sleep a little better.  Gradually, the cloud lifted, then floated back again, and then lifted again.

It still comes and goes, shadow and light jostling with each other as parenting takes me on more of an emotional rollercoaster than I had ever imagined in my pre-parenthood years.  I\’m still learning to accept the stumbles and to silence my inner critic.  I\’m trying to be more of a realist and less of an idealist, but that\’s hard after a lifetime of the latter.

As an educator, I embrace being a lifelong learner, confident in my practice, yet open to new ideas and experiences.  Parenting is no different.  I\’ve come to understand that as my children grow, so do I.  And that\’s okay.  We\’re in this together.  They don\’t need my perfection; they need my love, my presence, and my willingness to try, try again.