You can hide behind a smile for only so long.
Look at that face. How can you not be head over heels for this sweet boy?
I asked myself that yesterday, while I was getting frustrated with my super fussy, not sleeping, very gassy boy for the umpteenth time. I was struck by my response. I wasn’t head over heels. Yes, I love him. But my heart is not overflowing with deep adoration as it should. My heart, in fact, just kind of felt dead.
And that’s when it hit me… this is not normal. These feelings of sadness, of exhaustion, of worry and anxiety, of anger, of emptiness should have past by now. Here I am, six weeks postpartum. Those feelings are common after the birth of a child, but not this far past. They should have calmed down after two weeks. These feelings are common to me, I have fought them before, but this time I hadn’t opened my eyes to it. This time, it came on slowly and snowballed until I finally saw it for what it really was: depression.
Postpartum depression.
I have battled the ominous D before, about seven years ago. I went to therapy, I went on medicine, it was a tough battle, but I plowed through it and got better. And, occasionally, the depression will rear it’s ugly head every once in a while, but it wasn’t overtaking me.
Until now.
It started with feeling overwhelmed. Overwhelmed with trying to meet the needs of this tiny being while also trying to raise a toddler who was trying to adjust to someone else getting attention. Then I started feeling extremely weepy. I found myself breaking down over absolutely nothing. I would be playing with Jack and then all of a sudden just bursting into tears. The poor kid didn’t know how to react. Then I would get downright angry over little things – if Jack would act out, or if Miles wouldn’t settle down and sleep. I would yell and get frustrated and feel hatred in my heart towards them. Then I started to feel anxiety and would wake up in the night in a panic because I thought I had, for some reason, brought Miles to bed with me after a feeding and had rolled on top of him in my sleep and smothered him. I started not sleeping well when I could sleep. My mind would be running a million miles a minute worrying about anything and everything.
I also found that I haven’t been interested in much. I would look around our apartment and see how dirty it was getting and instead of cleaning things I would just feel so overwhelmed that I just couldn’t muster the energy to do anything about it. I no longer wanted to do anything other than sleep or just sit. I also haven’t had an appetite. Everything tastes kind of like cardboard. I have lost quite a bit of my baby weight already, which you would think was a great thing, but it’s more just because I eat simply out of necessity.
And the thing that frustrates me the most is that I was feeling all of this, but I wasn’t telling my husband. I thought that this was just something that was going to pass with time. And it wasn’t like I felt like this all of the time – I have had good days. Great days, in fact. But not all of my days are those great days. A lot of days just aren’t. I also felt like I needed to buck up and be strong. It’s my job to take care of these boys, I should be able to do a simple thing like that, right? I didn’t want Nick to be burdened by this. He has a full time job, and is taking two classes. He barely has time to breathe when he gets home at night, he shouldn’t have to shoulder this as well. I needed to not be broken for him. At least that’s what I was trying to convince myself of.
But, like I said before, you can only hide behind a smile for so long. No one could tell I was falling apart – not even my husband, not even me. But there comes a point where the cracks begin to show. I had to face this beast head on.
I talked with my doctor today at my six-week postpartum check. Immediately she knew that I wasn’t just feeling the typical “baby blues”. She said that even though I felt good part of the time, since I had bad days about 50% of the time, that I was dealing with more, with PPD. Hearing that, what I already in my heart knew, was still incredibly hard even though I have battled depression before. I think, “I’m broken, it’s my fault, I should be able to deal with this” even though I know full well that this is a disease just like any other. I still just can’t wrap my head around it and realize that it’s not my fault.
It’s not my fault.
So, we are going to battle this. Medication is being started, and a plan to help me get more down time and sleep is being put in place by my amazing husband. I can’t tell you how much it means to me to have a partner here to help me instead of trying to tackle it all myself. It reminds me of one of my favorite songs by folk singer Sandra McCracken:
Trade My Love
As dust on the scales
As grass of the field
So are our days
with the serpent on our heels
The reed is bruised
The sky is cracked
You wear your pain as a veil of black
Proverbs of ashes
Smear you with lies
The one who changed your name has touched your side.
Fortune and favor
You have not known
What is the vine, you have not grown?
I will not sing songs when you’re heavy
I will not speak words to make it clear
I will stay with you and all that you carry
I would trade my love,
for all your fears.
If I speak or refrain
You may not be changed
For your deliverance
your days are arranged
To the roots of the mountains
You sink down
Hurled into the deep,
spit onto the ground
Severe mercy is your one great hope
It is well, it will be well
with your soul
I will not sing songs
I will not speak words
I will stay with you
and all that you carry,
I will trade my love…
For all your fears
I am so glad that I have someone who is so willing to trade his love for my fears. I would not be able to heal without his love and help. It kills me that I haven’t shared a lot of this with him – he deserves to be there to help me, but I haven’t allowed him, thinking I needed to shoulder this all by myself. But no more. I need to lean on his weight and let him carry me for a while. I’m lucky that he wants to do that. I’m a very lucky woman.
One day my heart will be overflowing with adoration for my baby. One day I will look back on these days and see the progress I have made and look at our family with joy in my heart. One day I will beat this.