Hello, Inspiration: From My Heart

July 24, 2011 by ·

Inspiration, at times, is something simple but powerful.

This week I wrote a post in two parts. I used to think I would never share that story. I just couldn’t see how I could admit to that stuff.

As time went on, though, I knew I needed to write about it.

After conversations last week, I knew I needed to do write about it now so other people struggling with the same things could read it and know it’s okay. That it will be okay.

I wrote the whole thing and had a good cry. I went to bed, got up and revised and edited. I got my husband to read it to make sure he was okay with it and I asked him the question I’d been scared to ask for months.

I sat in front of my computer. I looked at my husband, who knew I could do it. So I held my breath and hit ‘publish’.

I held my breath for a long time.

I had no idea what kind of a response I’d get. I was sure some would be supportive (especially since I’d called on my #PPDChat army for back-up) but I was waiting for the haters.

They didn’t come.

I got nothing but amazing support. I got emails. I got DMs on Twitter. I got messages on Facebook.

I was totally overwhelmed. I can’t even begin to express how grateful I am for the support.

I also got messages from women who aren’t ready – who may never be ready – to admit publicly that this is an issue for them too but who wanted to reach out to someone who understands.

Knowing that sharing the hard parts of my story helps other people is inspiring. It’s why I write.

Odds are I will never be able to reach every mom who struggles with this and thinks she’s alone. But it doesn’t matter.

I’m inspired to try.

meant-to-do

Filed Under: Hello, Inspiration, Postpartum depression · Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Postpartum Rage: My Story, Part 2

July 20, 2011 by ·

Part 1 is here.

My sweet baby wasn’t the only one who experienced my rage.

When my son was almost 18 months old I came very close to losing my marriage because my husband, by that point, was bearing the brunt of my anger and he’d had enough. He also knew more about my anger towards my son than I was aware of.

Hidden away, in a folder I don’t look at, I have an email from my husband in which he told me if I couldn’t get things under control he would leave and seek sole custody.

He’d have had every right to. And I wouldn’t have fought it, because I couldn’t have had even partial custody of my son and I knew it.

I had tried everything else. I had asked my husband to help me and when he said he felt like he couldn’t I felt abandoned.

I had gone instead to a counsellor, but it didn’t help.

I had enquired, casually, on several occasions at my doctor’s office, about medication. But I was so afraid of it. I was so afraid that even with my husband’s ultimatum it took me two months to finally get a prescription for antidepressants.

Once I got on medication things got a bit better. It took the edge off at least. But I was on a low dose and it didn’t do enough and I didn’t know enough to know I wasn’t better.

A year later, almost to the day, my husband and I had a rager of a fight precipitated by a tough time getting our son to sleep. We stood in our garage and yelled at each other. We screamed. And my husband is not a screamer.

I felt like he didn’t understand (and he didn’t but neither did I, though that’s a whole other post). I didn’t realize – couldn’t see – what the past 2 1/2 years had been like for him.

I thought that was it – the end of our marriage, the end of my family, the end of my experience as a mother.

I cried more that night than ever before in my life.

I thought I was going to have to walk away, so I stepped up to leave the garage. I had only taken a single step when he said it.

“I was in an abusive relationship for a year.” His voice full of anger, hurt, and fear.

I paused in what was both a split second and a whole lifetime, during which I went from wondering how I didn’t know this about him to realizing he meant me.

He meant me.

I walked out of the garage. I came very, very close to leaving the house and not coming back because I couldn’t imagine staying with someone who thought that about me. I had no idea what he was talking about, because I hadn’t seen it. All I could see was my own struggle.

There are large parts of the year prior I don’t remember at all. I have no recollection of how I treated him, but I have no doubt it was badly.

(Does he still think I was abusive? This question has been plaguing me for months. No, he says. We both went through something really awful but he knows it wasn’t intentional or something I could control.)

I don’t remember what happened in the month that followed either, but I know I started to think about everything differently.

In December I started seeing a counsellor who specializes in postpartum depression.

In January I started this blog.

In doing so, I was able to work through a lot of what I was feeling and reflect on things that I had put behind walls because they were too hard to deal with. And my husband got a better understanding of what I was feeling, some of which was easier for me to write than say out loud.

In March I started seeing a psychiatrist who changed my medication, noting that the dose I’d been on for over a year wasn’t even a therapeutic dose. It wasn’t enough to help me properly.

Following that medication change I went through what have been the hardest three months of my life so far, much of which has been documented here. I’ve finally dealt with my anger in a way that makes me able to almost be the mother I thought I would be. It took a very large breakdown and a leave of absence from work to do it though, and I still have things to work on.

But as best as I can describe it, that’s my experience with postpartum rage. Those who haven’t experienced it won’t understand. They may judge me and throw hateful comments at me. But I had to tell this story because it’s part of me. It’s true and it’s real. And those who have experienced it will understand, and will feel less alone.

 

Note: I’ve had to close comments on older posts due to the amount of spam coming through. I so appreciate your comments and am always happy to hear from you by email.  

Filed Under: Postpartum depression · Tagged With: , , , , ,

Postpartum Rage: My Story, Part 1

July 19, 2011 by ·

This post has been sitting in draft for ages. If you count a blank page as a draft, that is.

It’s hard to know what to say. This is a very touchy topic and I’ll have to admit to some stuff that I’ve admitted to very few people. Plus it’s sort of buried because I’ve dealt with it – for the most part anyway – and I don’t want to dredge it back up again. And also because there are things I actually have no memory of.

I want to write about this, though. Postpartum rage is part of my experience. And it’s a term that ranks high in the list of search terms that bring people to my blog.

I wrote about it very briefly before but I didn’t really say much about it. Just that I experienced it and that it’s actually a common symptom of depression. A lot of moms experience it as part of PPD.

But the subject of rage and anger after having a baby is coming up more and more in conversations with people. So many moms I know are experiencing this. I can’t fix it for them, but I can let them know they’re not alone. So here goes.

Imagine a time you totally lost your temper. When you were so consumed by anger you felt it as a physical thing, adrenaline racing through your body and blocking out all rational thought. When your first instinct, as though it were primal, was to throw something so it would shatter into a thousand pieces and break whatever spell had overtaken you.

That’s what it felt like for me for much of my son’s first 2 1/2 years.

I was desperately sleep deprived. I had no patience. Anger was my constant companion.

It raised its ugly head when I had spent hours trying to get him to sleep only to have him immediately wake up screaming.

It brought me to tears when he woke up every half hour at night and I was so tired I wanted to die and had no idea how I was ever going to get through the night, never mind the next day.

It added to the exhaustion of trying to cope with and comfort a fussy baby.

It made me want to yell and scream. Sometimes I did.

It left me feeling without hope when he smiled and cooed and all I could think was that having a baby had been a mistake.

For months the inside of my head was screaming because I was so angry and I didn’t know what to do about it. I couldn’t throw the baby against the wall or out the window, though the physical urge to do so consumed me.

I spent many days worrying I would hit him and yet at the same time was sure I wouldn’t. Except (oh my god I’m going to admit it) one time I did. It was light – just a smack against his thigh on a really bad day when I had nothing left.

It made him cry.

I stood there in horror. And then I scooped him up and held him to me and cried with him.

Even then, I didn’t know what was wrong with me. And I didn’t ask for help because I was so scared to admit what was going on.

Having an infant is hard. I just kept waiting for it to get better, but – for me at least – that didn’t happen.

As my son got older and started to lack cooperation at the worst possible moment – writhing around in a poopy diaper, for instance – I found myself wanting to pin him to the table and force him, bodily, to lie still.

It simmered beneath the surface all the time, a bubbling pot of anger that threatened, every day, to spill over.

When I couldn’t take it I would summon my loudest inside-my-head voice and swear – at the universe, at his crying, at mine.

I swore at my inability to cope.

I swore at battling the same things, day after day after day.

I swore out loud some days, to myself, through my sobs, as my tears ran over my words and the guilt and misery and hopelessness that came with them.

I felt massively ripped off in my experience as a new mother. I still resent it. It still makes me cry.

When I went back to work when my son was 11 months old, I thought it would get better.

It didn’t.

To be continued...

 

Note: I’ve had to close comments on older posts due to the amount of spam coming through. I so appreciate your comments and am always happy to hear from you by email.

Filed Under: Postpartum depression · Tagged With: , , , , ,

Turn the Page

July 14, 2011 by ·

Yesterday I turned a page in the book that is my life.

It has felt, at times, as though this book was ripped from my hands and tossed carelessly aside, with no regard for its protective cover and certainly no respect for its contents.

I’ve watched, helpless, as the wind blasted through and whipped the pages, tearing some and removing others entirely.

I’ve set it aside, hoping by some miracle that it will be intact when I next peek at it.

I’ve tried to cover this book, to bind it, to patch its holes.

I’ve accepted it will not be the same book it once was.

I’ve given it to others, asking them to use their professional skills to mend it and make it stronger, better, beautiful again.

It’s bound now, but in pieces. Some parts of the spine were damaged in the process and will forever bear those scars. The pages are all there, though perhaps not in quite the right order. Some are tear-stained. Some reveal the evidence of having been torn out, crumpled, and then rescued and returned to their place in the tale as acceptance of what is.

This book that is my life is still my book and it still contains my story. A different story than what I set out to create, but it’s still mine – accepted and embraced – and I will no longer allow others to dictate the chapters to come.

I’ve turned the page.

***

Yesterday, after three years of struggling with postpartum depression and three months of being off work, I stopped waiting – hoping – for others to write the story for me. Because I wasn’t happy with how the plot was developing.

I want to rant about how medical professionals are supposed to listen to you, keep you informed and allow you to advocate for yourself. I want to rail against another’s perception of me that is entirely untrue, and made worse because it is uninformed. I want to counter each one of those untruths and say, See? This is what I’ve done to make myself better. This is who I am.

But I won’t. Because it’s risky and because it doesn’t matter and because I am in charge of my story again.

Yesterday I released the pause button. I saw my therapist and got validation from someone who has been with me on this path for nearly eight months. I decided, firmly this time, not to work with a doctor who is making things worse instead of better. I went instead to my family doctor, who listened and actually heard me. She saw me for who I am and what I need even though her absences from her practice have meant she hasn’t been as involved in my care.

I stated what I want to do, I listened to her advice and we – together – decided on next steps.

She made me feel it’s not just me.

She gave me options.

She gave me trust in myself and faith in the possibility of what might come next.

She looked at my son and said, “He’s perfect.”

She told us, her questioning of it subtle but clear, that someone – a person who has never met our son – suggested we get him assessed. We emphatically said no. We – his parents – are not concerned that he needs to be “assessed”. He’s high energy and spirited and challenging at times. He’s also three. But yesterday he spent the better part of an hour in a small room, while his mom and dad talked with a doctor about something we all desperately need help with, calmly and patiently playing with a Mr. Potato Head. He was amazing, and my mama heart was filled with pride and love for him.

I wanted to take that evidence and show this…person who my son is. He was amazing. He is amazing [and he just came into the room and brought me flowers ♥]. The fact that I find it hard to deal with him at times is my problem, not his. We are not going to make this about him.

In my book, yesterday’s story is about getting the right help. It’s about people who listen. It’s about finally getting someone to say, yes, you can go back to work and trusting that I know whether I am well enough. It’s about my husband who sat next to me, supporting me while I talked (almost) without crying, and then took us out for ice cream afterwards.

And it’s about a little boy, for whom I have so much love it makes even the hard parts of my story worth it and who makes me feel that maybe – just maybe – I’m ready to do it again.

As for tomorrow, the page is still blank. The rest is unwritten. But I hold the pen.

open to possibilities 2

Filed Under: Happy things, Postpartum depression · Tagged With: , , ,

Art Therapy

July 9, 2011 by ·

I’d been on the couch all morning, still battling the fine line between better and not, and not was winning. Only the clock ticking closer to 11:30 pushed me toward reality.

The logical part of my brain was urging me up. You have to get up, it said, before he gets home from dino camp. Just GET UP. Don’t succumb.

I knew it was right, but I ignored it. I played the usual game – you can’t, or you don’t want to?

Neither? Both?

I know. I need to get up and get dressed. There’s only so long you can sit on the couch wondering what the hell is wrong with you and trying desperately to hold back the tears.

I finally tweeted myself off the couch, had a shower, got dressed and came back downstairs.

The list of things I could do – should do – was long. But the couch won.

When Connor came home it was with a burst of energy, bringing life back into the living room. A bouncy ball, retrieved from his dinosaur egg pinata, flew around in a flash of orange. He was revved up, full of leftover excitement from his day camp activities and bursting with anticipation of backyard camping that night.

When he’s excited he’s physical and loud. I sat on the couch, paralyzed, sensory overload taking over all rational thought.

It’s too much.

As though physically pushing in the clutch, I forced my brain to switch gears. You need to eat something. You’re due for a med dose.

I stood up, focusing on making sandwiches. I can do that and then retreat upstairs, I thought.

But I was back in the company of those who understand, no longer alone where letting the tears fall leads to a flood I can’t control. The dam broke and the tears were set free.

I’m sick of the rug underneath me going very suddenly MIA. I’m sick of the tears. I don’t know if this is worse than the anger and irritability, but it feels worse. I never used to feel this way. I’m in it – this black hole of depression – and I don’t know how to get out.

After all this time, my husband understands. He gives good hugs and he’s willing to be the voice of reason.

“I know. But it will be okay. It will.”

When? When will it be okay?! It’s been THREE YEARS.

A small voice.

“What’s wrong, mama?”

I don’t even know how to answer this anymore.

“Mama is sad”? But mama is sad way too often and that’s not how I want him to think of me.

“Mama is sick”? But I don’t want him to worry.

In the end I was saved from having to find a response.

“Here’s a picture. I made this for you.”

He brought it home from camp. It’s a dinosaur, I assumed, but I asked anyway.

“It’s an airplane!”

Oh.

Not a dinosaur? Or are the dinosaurs in the airplane? Do you think dinosaurs even fit in airplanes?!

I can still play the silly mama.

He paused, deep in thought.

“Maybe little ones do.”

That he took the question so seriously, answered so earnestly, made me laugh. In so many ways three is such a perfect age.

And then he said it.

“It will be all right, mama. Put this picture I made you on the fridge and it will be all right.”

Then he was gone, having turned away to help make sandwiches, focusing very carefully on lining up the bread just so.

But I couldn’t see, because my eyes had filled up, the tears spilling over in gratitude and love for his wisdom, his sureness, his caring.

I put the picture on the fridge – I don’t even know which way it’s supposed to face, but I placed it high enough that he can’t steal it away – where it has stayed. And he was right.

At the end of the day, things are closer to being all right.

Filed Under: Postpartum depression · Tagged With: , , , ,
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