How My Life Got All Shitty

I am not the first person (nor will I be the last) but I am one voice (among many) who is today deciding that is okay to tell people that I have postpartum depression. I do not know whether I have had postpartum depression since Levi was born (5 weeks ago) but what I can say is that about 2 weeks ago I found myself, without really knowing it, in misery.

I tried to tell my husband how I was feeling; lying awake staring at the ceiling and the clock while the baby was sleeping; praying, praying, praying that I could just go to sleep and everything would be okay again; hating myself and what was going on inside of me because it felt abnormal, unmotherly, inhumane, everything that I would never ever wish for myself or on anyone else; wishing that somehow my baby would just go away.

I confided in Levi’s doctor. Actually, we met with a nurse practitioner in the family practice; there I started to open up about the misery, the pain, the repugnance I felt with myself; we were there to talk about Levi’s colic . . . yes, I’d altered my diet (and I now see that I was too quick to draw conclusions by saying that it was my diet causing his condition) and thought for one evening (which I posted here) that it was over . . . I’d fixed Levi’s colic. Of course, I was wrong about that; it wasn’t and isn’t my fault that Levi has colic nor is it my fault that I’ve ended up where I am now . . .

I told the nurse practitioner that I felt like I wanted to go away. I told her I just wanted to get away from everything.

She prescribed zoloft. When I came home that night I told my husband more about my thoughts and we decided he’d take over night duty with Annabelle (who still wakes up at night from time to time) and that I would focus on the baby; this ended up being the worst night of my life. I would nurse Levi and watch him fall asleep but I could not console myself; my body trembled; my mind ached; my eyes hurt from being open for so long; I prayed and prayed to Jesus to take away my ugly thoughts; the next morning my husband stayed home and while he walked our daughter to preschool and brought Levi for a walk, I got in my car and drove myself to the ER; I stood before an old man working in triage and told him I thought I had postpartum depression and that I’d driven myself to the ER because I needed help; a nurse put her arm around me at that moment and I just bawled; sadly I did not receive medical care at this hospital; the nurses assured me that I’d be given medication for my nerves and that I’d need to pursue care elsewhere since there was no psychiatric care at this particular hospital; the doctor I saw told me to continue taking zoloft and to just “push on through” the days until it would “kick in”; what a bastard.

I believe God, serendipity, Jesus, Mary, Mother Earth, and Father Sky (and their human helpers here on planet earth) are what saved my ass. My husband decided to check me into a hotel after the first hospital let me go (I called him from the ER with the nurses’ encouragement to tell him where I’d gone; neighbors stepped in to help with our children while he came to the hospital; at this point he still thought that I was suffering from sleep deprivation). While waiting for him to get the hotel key, a postpartum doula called me to ask for my support for one of her clients (I am a leader for a local parenting support group); when the doula asked me how I was doing, I thought she’d been put in contact with me by a nurse from the hospital, so I told her how I felt depressed, hopeless, etc. She listened. She gave me a few contacts and information about postpartum depression which eventually, thank God, put me in a place where I could get the medical care that I needed.

I am home now. But. Here’s the thing. My husband has a great analogy for depression: he says it is as though I just fell off the top of a 5 story building (what a lovely way of putting things) and am now trying to climb my way up a long staircase. I asked him, “So you think it’s like I have broken bones and am climbing with injuries, huh?” and later added, “It mostly feels like I received a pretty bad head injury.” I am trying to have a sense of humor about this. Pospartum depression. Laugh, laugh. Going bonkers. Laugh, laugh. Crazy. More laughs. I am now the neighborhood fruit loop.

Meanwhile, do not despair. My baby is in good hands. My family came to take care of me (us); my baby is now taking formula (my family needed to give him a bottle) but I am doing my best to keep breastfeeding (my psychiatrist has basically told me that it may be something that I may want to let go of this time around . . . a huge loss for me since as many of your know, we practice gentle parenting and extended breastfeeding; I have nursed Annabelle since December 2006).

And for my head injuries? I am taking medications. I am going to attend postpartum support groups and I’m also doing things like trying to eat (my appetite went away), exercise, and be honest about my feelings (I suck at that . . . I’ve always been a perfectionist who hates to feel sad . . . truth be told, I’ve been feeling sad and angry for probably longer than I’d like to admit).

That’s it. I plan to share what I am going through here, one day at a time. I feel sorry that my blog, me, my life may turn some of you away; as you know, this is my place where I like to share good stuff; but right now I need to share the shitty stuff. I hope that is okay . . .

Lots of love inside of me despite all the ugliness,

Jessica