My guest poster today is someone many of us know and love. I don’t know when I first met The Empress – she was always just there. And that’s my experience of her now – she’s there, popping into posts when you need some love, offering to help someone, and keeping her PPD radar going so no suffering mother has to do it alone. She’s just always there.
I met Alexandra in San Diego while at BlogHer ’11 and she was every bit as lovely as I had expected. I invited her to guest post here because I knew she’d have something authentic and beautiful to say, and she didn’t disappoint.
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I have been excited about guest posting at Robin’s site, and I’m so grateful she’s invited me. Thank you, Robin.
I am a PPD survivor. I have, and will always have, the PPD Survivor button up on my site.
My PPD story is a very big part of who I am, but it’s not entirely who I am, as it once was.
My life, when it was in the throes of PPD, was one I never imagined I’d find my way out of. I hoped, I prayed, but never believed I’d be lucky enough to climb out of the dark tunnel that had become my days.
Therapy worked, for the lucky ones. Medication worked, for the lucky ones. But for someone for whom PPD had come to consume every second of every day and every night — like it had for me – I knew I would not be a survivor.
I was barely hanging on by my fingernails.
Even to talk about what my life was like then makes my eyes brim with tears.
If I had to describe what living with PPD feels like to someone who has no experience in this kind of surreal environment, I’d tell them this: picture a churning, dark ocean with ten foot high crashing waves, battering with tremendous force at whatever they slapped. Then see yourself bobbing, right in the center of this storm, alone, arms flailing, growing weaker and losing hope of survival by the minute, with your head barely above the water, despite your struggle to stay afloat.
You just want to stop fighting, and let yourself sink down. To the sweet, quiet bottom. To surrender. You think how peaceful it would feel to just slowly stop trying to keep your head above the water.
But you can’t give in to this thought. You have the responsibility of your baby, who only wants you.
I have pictures of my newborn from this time, but none of me. The haunted face I saw on myself, of this first time mother, was something I couldn’t look at, so I threw out the pictures. Others didn’t see what I saw in those photos: fear, panic, anxiety, depression. Defeat. Disappointment.
I couldn’t sleep. I’d lay awake, thinking about how I needed to sleep.
I couldn’t eat. I’d sit at the table, pushing my food from one corner of the plate to the other — my anxiety not allowing me to swallow.
I couldn’t speak. My unhappiness had such a grip on me that I couldn’t put three words together. How was I supposed to conduct chit chat at the moms’ groups?
I couldn’t smile.
Of all the things PPD did to me, this one, THIS ONE, makes me want to kick its ass.
PPD wouldn’t let me smile for my baby.
I knew I had to see my doctor, who, after our appointment, agreed that something was wrong and started me on a prescription. She also referred me for talk therapy.
These things may have taken the edge off, reduced the crisis.
But I know the real reason for my survival: the kindness of a stranger.
I decided to call the hospital where I delivered to ask if they had any PPD support groups.
I wanted to jump through the phone and kiss the nurse when she answered “yes.” “Yes,” she said, and then continued with the beautiful words, “they meet right here, every Wednesday morning at 9 a.m.”
I would be with people I wouldn’t have to pretend with. I would be with people who understood. All I had to do was hang on until Wednesday, but Wednesday was too far away. I needed something now. I confided to the nurse that my days were made up of minute-to-minute survival. She gave me the phone number of the nurse who facilitated the PPD group.
Her name was Marty, short for Martha, and I called her. I remember her giggly laughter on the phone. I had said something that made her laugh. I surprised myself by smiling. I told her I couldn’t make it until Wednesday.
She said she’d be over in 40 minutes.
She made the drive to my home, sat on the sofa with me and listened, even though there were no words to listen to, only sobs.
She listened until my husband came home from work, with her arm around me, and then she talked with him, about me.
Marty promised me she’d come over every day until my first PPD meeting in two days.
And she was true to her word.
Marty saved my life. She gave me hope, she gave me time, she gave me herself.
Marty is why I will never take the PPD Survivor button on my site down, even though my story is 17 years old.
Because there may be someone, someday, who clicks over, desperately looking for hope.
And I want them to see that we can kick PPD in the ass.
With the help I needed and the kindness of a woman, I survived. I survived something so mentally brutal that I at one time thought it would never end.
It can end. Never give up trying to find a way for it to end.
And if you are a PPD survivor? Please extend your hand to those still trying to climb their way out of the dark tunnel.
I related so much to her description of PPD, and know exactly how it would be that one person coming and sitting with you might make all the difference. Just so you’re not alone.
Because, of course, none of us ever is. Right, Alexandra? Thank you so very much for being here today.
