PostPartum Depression

This is my experience with Postpartum Depression.

Growing up I had two completely different influences in my life, my mom and my dad. My dad was all about what he interpreted from the bible and nothing else. My mom was also a believer but interpreted the bible different and felt that she was supposed to change with the world. When it came to things like depression, they were polar opposites which I feel made this experience even worse for me. My dad was completely anti depression, he felt there was no such thing. My mom is very open with her own battle with it. With the combination of both of these views made it extremely confusing for myself.

Let me start off with the pregnancy, the horribly stressful pregnancy. My husband was gone most of the pregnancy due to work and like a lot of women I was sick as a dog, nonstop. We moved out-of-state when I was eight months pregnant. Unfortunately, my husband was also gone during this time which did not make the packing, traveling, and closing on a house with a toddler very easy. Moving was rough and I was too exhausted from my pregnancy to really open myself to the community.

Before having my daughter, I was borderline depressed and after having her it just got bad. I was so happy but then out of nowhere I would have horrific thoughts. I never wanted to get out of bed. I felt weak constantly and picked fight with my husband. I did not know what to do. I was in fear of being judged if I told someone or called a liar. At every appointment I lied about “how I was feeling.” I would tell people how wonderful everything was and that the only thing negative in my life was loss of sleep. I never could think straight, I even began stuttering at times. It was when my son grabbed my hand after a meltdown and said, “Mom, please don’t yell at me. I am sorry,” is when I decided I could not feel like this anymore. I tried to talk to my mom about it but she was so deep in her own problems she could not open up and help me at that time. When I told my husband, it scared him and he reacted very poorly to the issue. This almost killed me, literally. I did not know what to do. I knew I should have talked to my best friend but I was just too afraid to burden anyone. I truly should have just gone to see a doctor but I did not want that on my medical records. I found every excuse on why not to seek help but to battle this by myself.

I could not do it anymore, I refused to feel that way one morning. I did not care how long it took, I was going to get better. It took me six months to work out my problems. I found patience with my kids, I made myself go find people to talk to, and any doubt I had in my husband I would ignore. Practicing this everyday for months helped me overcome Postpartum depression.

I know there are people out there that have it a million times worse but no amount of sadness or depression is easy to overcome. Depression is too common to not be able to talk about and I see that now being able to look in from the outside.