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Postpartum Rage: My Story, Part 1

July 19, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

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: admissions, going public, meds, rage, telling the truth, we're not alone

A Fine Line

July 7, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

Start to cut down, she said.
Just once a day do half
And keep taking a full dose
At midday and in the afternoon.

Okay, sounds easy enough I figured.
I want to come off this
So I found the centre line
Of the little orange pill and

I cut. Small pill made smaller.

But as it turns out there’s
A fine line between a full
And half dose, especially without discussion
Of withdrawal symptoms for this med.

It’s been two days, only two
With the morning dose halved, but
That’s all it took to start
Feeling as though something was off.

If only I had been informed.

As it turns out there is
Also a fine line between off
And on. Between feeling good and
Feeling the good start slipping away.

I’m not feeling good right now
But I’m willing to see if
Things improve, even though the voice
On the line offered no reassurance.

Someone who is supposed to help,
But actually makes things much worse.
That’s it. I’ve made a decision.
It’s the end of the line.

I’m taking a stand now, finally,
The newest in a long line
Of people who have said “enough”.
Enough. I deserve to be heard.

I’ve put my life on hold
For long enough. I no longer
Want the line between feeling “better”
And “not” to be so fine.

[I love Six Word Fridays – this approach stretches my writing style and somehow it’s easier to write stuff like this in that format. Thanks to Melissa for doing this and for all the great prompts. This week’s was “line”.]

Filed Under: Postpartum depression · Tagged With: admissions, anxiety, depression, meds, rants

Hello Inspiration – Name The Fear

July 3, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

A very good friend of mine – one of my besties, for whom I cannot express enough love and gratitude – has started a blog. He’s just a few posts in, but it’s inspiring. I’m inspired. And I wanted to share it with you.

His blog is called I Am Not Afraid. Here’s an excerpt from his about page:

“I’m tired of being less than I was created to be. I’m no longer prepared to trade dreams for mediocrity. And I’m motivated more than ever to live from a place of abundance rather than scarcity and from a posture of trust rather than fear.

I AM NOT AFRAID is both a declaration of strength but also an admission of knowing what it is to be afraid and perhaps true freedom can only be understood having known limitations.”

He has a vision for this blog but in true authentic-leader style, he’s starting by sharing his own thoughts and, yes, fears.

Read his first post – it’s powerful, and it will give you a sense of where he’s coming from.

What do you think? And what’s holding you back from being less than what you’re meant to be?

Filed Under: Hello, Inspiration · Tagged With: admissions, living life, perspective

Today I Couldn’t Do It

June 30, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

You spring from bed in the morning, awake, bright-eyed and ready to go. My eyelids feel like sandpaper. A glance between half-open eyes reveals the clock: 6:12 a.m. I roll over and wonder how long I can put you off, but I know it’s coming.

“Let’s go downstairs!”

As I stand I feel the effects of the night. We never planned to co-sleep but you don’t sleep without one of us there, so I’ve slept in your bed – balancing on the edge, muscles tensed so I don’t fall off on one side and don’t elbow you in the head on the other. I cherish your sleeping form on these nights – your quiet, soft breathing and your smallness – but I wake with the ache of not enough sleep in a bed you like to hog.

You get downstairs and are overwhelmed with the abundance of choices – breakfast? TV? Toys? What to do first? My first instinct is to get the kettle going so I can have a cup of tea.

“Do you want to play with me?” Asked over and over, this question leaves scars in my heart. The honest answer is sometimes no. I wish I wanted to play with you, but I’m tired. My brain is not awake. I want to drink my tea and read my email and enjoy the morning while you play next to me, but you’re not at the stage where playing alone is what you want.

The backyard beckons. I see you heading toward the sliding door and my heart sinks. Outside, to you, is an extension of your ecstasy – the sandbox, diggers, weeds to poke at and caterpillars to search for. I’m in my pajamas and it’s chilly and I’m not prepared to deal with sand before 7 a.m.

I love you, hard, with the fierceness of a mother who has created life. I love you, softly, with my heart full of the child you are and the person you are becoming.

When I’m not tired – when I’m in my mama zone – I can do it. I rejoice in the experience, seeing the world from your perspective. From down low as you search for leaves or sticks or crabs or shells, and from up high in that place of wonder as you discover something new.

But lately I’ve been tired and that makes all those good things elusive.

I don’t love you any less. In fact, I might love you more because I can’t give you what you need. It’s just that today I couldn’t do it.

Filed Under: Letters to Connor, Motherhood · Tagged With: admissions, depression, telling the truth

Remedial Mom 101

June 25, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

When Connor was born I, like every other new mom, did Mom 101 – figuring out all the newborn stuff that no one can really teach you. You just have to do it and learn as you go.

When postpartum depression struck I had some sick days and missed some classes. The ones where you learn how to deal with the difficult stuff. I didn’t master diversions, deep breathing, taking time for yourself or how to play with your child and actually be engaged in it. Since I’m feeling a little better I’m doing Remedial Mom 101 and taking those classes now.

I’m doing pretty well. In fact, I’m top of my class (of one).

After almost two months of complete and utter misery I finally, in the last few weeks, feel like I know what being a mom is supposed to feel like.

My gold stars in the hard courses are racking up as I manage to cope with stuff that’s normally a huge trigger for me. Case in point: yesterday I planned activities for us while my husband was at a meeting. We’d visit the nature sanctuary followed by the library, then make a stop on the way home for groceries.

It didn’t go well.

He fell and skinned his knee right as we entered the path towards the lake, and it was apparently just the wrong thing for a kid who, for some reason, was tired and not coping very well. He put on a sad face and wanted to be carried, then turned on the toddler-terror button and ran stomping down a bridge covered in dragonflies as I was trying to take a picture.

Then he peed himself.

That doesn’t happen often – ever, really (knock wood) – but we just dealt with it. After getting clean clothes from the car I told him we were going to head to the library. Apparently this was the worst suggestion ever.

The kid who had just said he wanted to go to the library had decided he needed to go back down the trail. Except he’d peed in his boots, and we had no other shoes. So off we went – I stopped at home to get him some shoes and he cried about the unacceptable change in plans.

When we got to the library, he was fine. At first anyway. We chose some books to check out. And then he had a meltdown. In a quiet library. Over something that I don’t really understand. But I got an A+ for diversions by getting him to help me use the self-checkout, though our success was temporary. The meltdown continued when I tried to ask the librarian a question and it ended up in one of those situations where I was carrying a bag, a stack of books and a 40 pound toddler out the door as fast as I could.

And then – oh yes, I did it – I braved the grocery store. I knew he was tired. But we needed something for lunch and, frankly, I didn’t want to have to go out again.

It was mostly okay, if you discount the constant whining as we went through the store. His attempt at throwing a carton of blueberries was prevented by my lightning-fast reflexes and I managed to sigh instead of wanting to smack something.

Good thing our list was small.

We checked out, I got him in the car and, boom, he was asleep.

I knew it. Had called it. Had texted my husband: “This is going to be a nap day.” I got home and handed him off. It had been a rough morning but I considered it a success.

That doesn’t mean I’ve graduated – it’s still early in the semester – but this is a huge sign that I’m feeling better.

I never had to take remedial anything, but this is one class I’m not ashamed of taking and am determined to pass. I think a SuperMom t-shirt is in my future.