my (first) experience with PPD
Apr. 8th, 2008 11:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
falcongrrlA while back, I posted this with the intention of writing down my experience later that day. And I didn't. And the most compelling reason I have is that that no one wants to write about this shit, and no one wants to read about it. Which isn't strictly true, of course - just look at Brooke Shields.
I admire the hell out of her for having the courage to write - and publish - Down Came the Rain, and I have my own copy...but I can't bring myself to actually read it. It sounds melodramatic, maybe, but reliving the shit is hard. While reading Shields's book would be interesting in an academic, analytical sort of way, I just can't bring myself to do it. Of course, I can't bring myself to get rid of the book either.
I think I've always been somewhat depressed, my earliest happy moments fleeting and often bittersweet. I think the first time I really knew what it was to feel happy was when I went on antidepressant medication. Not high-happy - that I could and did get from alcohol as an adolescent - but clear-happy, or maybe just confident, or content. Not-uncomfortable. Comfortable. Able. Not all the time, but sometimes.
Anyway, after Daniel was born I had my first diagnosed "major depressive episode," so that's what I'm going to try to describe here.
I did not feel like myself. That person was gone, and the new person did not know what the fuck she was doing; she was trapped; she was at the bottom of a deep well and there was no one to pull her out. It's worse - and why I keep going to third-person, I think - because it was triggered by someone I love so dearly now. I did not love him then. I think a part of me hated him, because after I gave birth I went from impostor syndrome (everyone's going to find out I'm not nearly as good as I want them to think I am) to full-fledged incompetence and self-loathing. I did not know how to do this mother thing - could not do it - and now I was stuck with it. Forever. There was no way out. And I did think that Daniel probably deserved better...but I was it.
Concrete details. Nursing was hell. He wanted to all the time. I was sore. Nothing helped. Every time he would latch on, it felt like nails were driving into my breast. I wanted to scream. I did cry. The books all said that much pain meant I was doing it wrong, which didn't surprise me, but i couldn't figure out how to fix it. The lactation helpline said to nurse him more. I was already doing it every hour and a half, with each session lasting at least 45 minutes...less than an hour between times at my breast. My pediatrician didn't have a lactation consultant, and I didn't know how to go about finding one. They kept sending me samples of formula I'd been told in the nursing class not to ever use. Daniel was jaundiced too, which meant more pressure to use the dreaded formula (though I didn't cave, not then), and lights to put him under that he hated, and a nurse out every morning to stick needles into his heel and check to see that we were documenting everything (intake/output) correctly.
I knew a TV show that I was willing to watch literally every single hour in a 24-hour period, while I nursed. I had a show at 2:30am, a show at 4am. I didn't, couldn't, sleep. Daniel slept, usually, from about 8am-noon. That was it for a long stretch. (He'd nap quite a bit, too, but his napping schedule was more erratic.) By then, the sun was up; I'd survived the night; I was anxious, strung out. I was not physically able to sleep when he slept.
I knew Dave and I would never be like we were before. I still thought I loved Dave, but I didn't see how he could love me. There was nothing good left to love, just all this sadness and pain and sometimes rage. I never blamed Dave, that I can remember; I blamed myself for not being like other mothers, loving and sweet and light. And I blamed Daniel, not externally but in the secret places of my heart, because he was never satisfied, always hungry, always fussing, always needing. I can remember him crying, being woken out of a rare, precious few hours of sleep, and just screaming at him in my loudest voice while he lay in the pack-n-play.
"Shut up!! Shut up!! Just shut the hell up!!!!"
He was, umm, maybe a month old. Maybe a few weeks old. He didn't know any better. And I'm sure, at that moment, he screamed even louder while I burst into tears.
I never hurt him physically, though I don't know (and still wonder) what the cost might have been for him - for either of the kids, since I had issues when El was born too - living with the emotional abuse I was capable of inflicting then. I don't know - don't want to know - how much of that stuff babies can absorb. I know when Dave was home he'd try to calm me, but that rage had to go someplace. To my credit, normally I threw it all at myself to spare Dave and Daniel as much as I could. I had given birth, but I wasn't a mother...I was some kind of monster. I loathed myself. I tried to act so that Daniel would be fooled, my parents, my grandparents. I didn't want anyone else to know how loathsome, how worthless, and how fucking terrified I was. But I knew.
I had fantasies of leaving. I used to take walks around the block, sometimes with Daniel in a snuggli, sometimes by myself if Dave was home to watch Daniel, and there was this motorcycle in one of the driveways. I would fantasize about being able to just hop on it and drive away, never to return. "They'll be better off without me," I told myself.
Words can't really express the extent of the craziness. I had no energy at all. Reaching out for help, the times I tried, took every ounce of willpower I had...and then they'd fall through, and I wouldn't feel like I had it in me to do more. Nursing, changing diapers all day, felt overwhelming...it was all I could do to get out of bed, much less shower. But sometimes, the clock would seem agonizingly slow - I couldn't believe only fifteen minutes had passed, and I had a whole day left to get through. Around 1pm or 2pm I would start to cry, and then I would just cry for hours (still nursing and changing diapers, though, always). I would try to stop crying before Dave got home from work. I didn't really want him to see that side more than he had to. Though, of course he saw it a lot.
The first time I called ask-a-nurse and the woman on the line did help some. She encouraged me to call my OB-GYN and talk with them about antidepressants compatible with nursing. So I made an appointment. At my appointment, the OB talked a lot about "baby blues" and said it was normal. (Of course, I did lie about the suicidal thoughts...or wasn't as forthcoming about that as I could have been. I didn't want anyone to know I was that crazy.) Anyway, the OB said it was normal and that he didn't know which antidepressants could possibly be okay for nursing (internally, I heard the sound of a door slamming). He said we didn't want to go that route if we didn't have to, rah rah. We didn't have to, he thought; I would be just fine. My stepmom was there, too, smiling, happy that I would be okay. I didn't want to let her down. I didn't have the balls to stand up and say, no, you just don't get it, I'm really fucked up right now, this isn't normal, nothing's normal. I felt like he wouldn't believe me if I did, just pat me on the head and say, hormones, baby blues.*
The worst part was the idea that he was right. Maybe this was normal. The new normal.
So I kept on, and everything sucked, and I tried to convince myself things would get better, I just had to wait it out. And it didn't get better. And I thought, I just wish I could die; they'd be better off; I just wish I could die.
I finally called the EAP - Employee Assistance Program - through my job, and saw a counselor. He wasn't the greatest counselor for me, but he sent me to the psychiatrist. The psychiatrist agreed I needed medication. (The fact that I bawled through the entire intake interview may have been a factor.) She wanted to give me Celexa because it was working well at the time for my mom. But Celexa's one of the worst SSRIs for nursing - a lot of it gets excreted into breastmilk. I would have to wean. I balked. At this point, nursing was going a lot better, and I pretty much thought milk was the one thing I had to offer Daniel as a mother. Basically, the psychiatrist said, "Do you want to keep breastfeeding or do you want to get better?" while I sat in her office and sobbed.
I wanted to get better. So I started to wean Daniel. He took to soy formula just fine, and losing feedings did give me more sleep. I felt guilty, but getting more sleep did help. I started showering. Things would look better, then worse again.
I didn't want to take a pink pill and alter my brain chemistry. I knew I was messed up, but somehow this was a confirmation that went too far. What if other people knew? What did Dave think? "Take the pill," he said, likely longing for some sense of normalcy in the middle of chaos. What did my mom think? "Take the pill," she said. "I do. I feel the same, only now I feel more on top of my problems instead of buried by them." That sounded good. And I didn't want to have weaned Daniel for no reason, anyway. I took the pill.
I wish I could say that fixed everything (no pill does, not really), but Celexa wasn't really the best option for me. I still had bouts with craziness, still doubted my competence, still wanted to run away. And after a year, it seemed to stop working at all, and I had to go back to square one.
But Celexa made me functional at a time when I desperately needed to be - a functional mother at a time when I really hadn't been before. It gave me glimpses of enjoying both motherhood and my life as a whole. I could smile, really smile, really giggle. I started enjoying being with this little person I'd given birth to. The haunted look in my eyes was nearly gone. I left the house, went to the park, went back to the UU church, made a friend. Later, I was able to find the counselor I have now (though a set of coincidences that seem divinely inspired) and get on medication that really was a good fit for me (Effexor, then Zoloft, and now Effexor XR).
This is only part one of my PPD stories - and I had it with Ellie too - but I'm done writing about it for now.
----
*You might be thinking - as I did for years - what a condescending, patriarchal twit. If he'd listened more, and talked less, I could have gotten help sooner.
But, truly, people are complex. According to all accounts, he was a terrific person. And he was young - I'm older now than he was when he died. I felt awful, years later, when I saw this on the news. I'm sure he didn't want me to go on medication for no reason, and thought it would pass.
I admire the hell out of her for having the courage to write - and publish - Down Came the Rain, and I have my own copy...but I can't bring myself to actually read it. It sounds melodramatic, maybe, but reliving the shit is hard. While reading Shields's book would be interesting in an academic, analytical sort of way, I just can't bring myself to do it. Of course, I can't bring myself to get rid of the book either.
I think I've always been somewhat depressed, my earliest happy moments fleeting and often bittersweet. I think the first time I really knew what it was to feel happy was when I went on antidepressant medication. Not high-happy - that I could and did get from alcohol as an adolescent - but clear-happy, or maybe just confident, or content. Not-uncomfortable. Comfortable. Able. Not all the time, but sometimes.
Anyway, after Daniel was born I had my first diagnosed "major depressive episode," so that's what I'm going to try to describe here.
I did not feel like myself. That person was gone, and the new person did not know what the fuck she was doing; she was trapped; she was at the bottom of a deep well and there was no one to pull her out. It's worse - and why I keep going to third-person, I think - because it was triggered by someone I love so dearly now. I did not love him then. I think a part of me hated him, because after I gave birth I went from impostor syndrome (everyone's going to find out I'm not nearly as good as I want them to think I am) to full-fledged incompetence and self-loathing. I did not know how to do this mother thing - could not do it - and now I was stuck with it. Forever. There was no way out. And I did think that Daniel probably deserved better...but I was it.
Concrete details. Nursing was hell. He wanted to all the time. I was sore. Nothing helped. Every time he would latch on, it felt like nails were driving into my breast. I wanted to scream. I did cry. The books all said that much pain meant I was doing it wrong, which didn't surprise me, but i couldn't figure out how to fix it. The lactation helpline said to nurse him more. I was already doing it every hour and a half, with each session lasting at least 45 minutes...less than an hour between times at my breast. My pediatrician didn't have a lactation consultant, and I didn't know how to go about finding one. They kept sending me samples of formula I'd been told in the nursing class not to ever use. Daniel was jaundiced too, which meant more pressure to use the dreaded formula (though I didn't cave, not then), and lights to put him under that he hated, and a nurse out every morning to stick needles into his heel and check to see that we were documenting everything (intake/output) correctly.
I knew a TV show that I was willing to watch literally every single hour in a 24-hour period, while I nursed. I had a show at 2:30am, a show at 4am. I didn't, couldn't, sleep. Daniel slept, usually, from about 8am-noon. That was it for a long stretch. (He'd nap quite a bit, too, but his napping schedule was more erratic.) By then, the sun was up; I'd survived the night; I was anxious, strung out. I was not physically able to sleep when he slept.
I knew Dave and I would never be like we were before. I still thought I loved Dave, but I didn't see how he could love me. There was nothing good left to love, just all this sadness and pain and sometimes rage. I never blamed Dave, that I can remember; I blamed myself for not being like other mothers, loving and sweet and light. And I blamed Daniel, not externally but in the secret places of my heart, because he was never satisfied, always hungry, always fussing, always needing. I can remember him crying, being woken out of a rare, precious few hours of sleep, and just screaming at him in my loudest voice while he lay in the pack-n-play.
"Shut up!! Shut up!! Just shut the hell up!!!!"
He was, umm, maybe a month old. Maybe a few weeks old. He didn't know any better. And I'm sure, at that moment, he screamed even louder while I burst into tears.
I never hurt him physically, though I don't know (and still wonder) what the cost might have been for him - for either of the kids, since I had issues when El was born too - living with the emotional abuse I was capable of inflicting then. I don't know - don't want to know - how much of that stuff babies can absorb. I know when Dave was home he'd try to calm me, but that rage had to go someplace. To my credit, normally I threw it all at myself to spare Dave and Daniel as much as I could. I had given birth, but I wasn't a mother...I was some kind of monster. I loathed myself. I tried to act so that Daniel would be fooled, my parents, my grandparents. I didn't want anyone else to know how loathsome, how worthless, and how fucking terrified I was. But I knew.
I had fantasies of leaving. I used to take walks around the block, sometimes with Daniel in a snuggli, sometimes by myself if Dave was home to watch Daniel, and there was this motorcycle in one of the driveways. I would fantasize about being able to just hop on it and drive away, never to return. "They'll be better off without me," I told myself.
Words can't really express the extent of the craziness. I had no energy at all. Reaching out for help, the times I tried, took every ounce of willpower I had...and then they'd fall through, and I wouldn't feel like I had it in me to do more. Nursing, changing diapers all day, felt overwhelming...it was all I could do to get out of bed, much less shower. But sometimes, the clock would seem agonizingly slow - I couldn't believe only fifteen minutes had passed, and I had a whole day left to get through. Around 1pm or 2pm I would start to cry, and then I would just cry for hours (still nursing and changing diapers, though, always). I would try to stop crying before Dave got home from work. I didn't really want him to see that side more than he had to. Though, of course he saw it a lot.
The first time I called ask-a-nurse and the woman on the line did help some. She encouraged me to call my OB-GYN and talk with them about antidepressants compatible with nursing. So I made an appointment. At my appointment, the OB talked a lot about "baby blues" and said it was normal. (Of course, I did lie about the suicidal thoughts...or wasn't as forthcoming about that as I could have been. I didn't want anyone to know I was that crazy.) Anyway, the OB said it was normal and that he didn't know which antidepressants could possibly be okay for nursing (internally, I heard the sound of a door slamming). He said we didn't want to go that route if we didn't have to, rah rah. We didn't have to, he thought; I would be just fine. My stepmom was there, too, smiling, happy that I would be okay. I didn't want to let her down. I didn't have the balls to stand up and say, no, you just don't get it, I'm really fucked up right now, this isn't normal, nothing's normal. I felt like he wouldn't believe me if I did, just pat me on the head and say, hormones, baby blues.*
The worst part was the idea that he was right. Maybe this was normal. The new normal.
So I kept on, and everything sucked, and I tried to convince myself things would get better, I just had to wait it out. And it didn't get better. And I thought, I just wish I could die; they'd be better off; I just wish I could die.
I finally called the EAP - Employee Assistance Program - through my job, and saw a counselor. He wasn't the greatest counselor for me, but he sent me to the psychiatrist. The psychiatrist agreed I needed medication. (The fact that I bawled through the entire intake interview may have been a factor.) She wanted to give me Celexa because it was working well at the time for my mom. But Celexa's one of the worst SSRIs for nursing - a lot of it gets excreted into breastmilk. I would have to wean. I balked. At this point, nursing was going a lot better, and I pretty much thought milk was the one thing I had to offer Daniel as a mother. Basically, the psychiatrist said, "Do you want to keep breastfeeding or do you want to get better?" while I sat in her office and sobbed.
I wanted to get better. So I started to wean Daniel. He took to soy formula just fine, and losing feedings did give me more sleep. I felt guilty, but getting more sleep did help. I started showering. Things would look better, then worse again.
I didn't want to take a pink pill and alter my brain chemistry. I knew I was messed up, but somehow this was a confirmation that went too far. What if other people knew? What did Dave think? "Take the pill," he said, likely longing for some sense of normalcy in the middle of chaos. What did my mom think? "Take the pill," she said. "I do. I feel the same, only now I feel more on top of my problems instead of buried by them." That sounded good. And I didn't want to have weaned Daniel for no reason, anyway. I took the pill.
I wish I could say that fixed everything (no pill does, not really), but Celexa wasn't really the best option for me. I still had bouts with craziness, still doubted my competence, still wanted to run away. And after a year, it seemed to stop working at all, and I had to go back to square one.
But Celexa made me functional at a time when I desperately needed to be - a functional mother at a time when I really hadn't been before. It gave me glimpses of enjoying both motherhood and my life as a whole. I could smile, really smile, really giggle. I started enjoying being with this little person I'd given birth to. The haunted look in my eyes was nearly gone. I left the house, went to the park, went back to the UU church, made a friend. Later, I was able to find the counselor I have now (though a set of coincidences that seem divinely inspired) and get on medication that really was a good fit for me (Effexor, then Zoloft, and now Effexor XR).
This is only part one of my PPD stories - and I had it with Ellie too - but I'm done writing about it for now.
----
*You might be thinking - as I did for years - what a condescending, patriarchal twit. If he'd listened more, and talked less, I could have gotten help sooner.
But, truly, people are complex. According to all accounts, he was a terrific person. And he was young - I'm older now than he was when he died. I felt awful, years later, when I saw this on the news. I'm sure he didn't want me to go on medication for no reason, and thought it would pass.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-08 04:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-08 04:35 pm (UTC)The reason I'm writing it - other than having said I would - is that I have a friend who's possibly depressed that I'm concerned about. And I'm leaving it public, just in case it helps someone else who's going through either depression or postpartum depression.
So painful, so embarrassing...and yet, if I can pay it forward somehow, be some sort of confirmation for someone that it can and does get better...then maybe that justifies it somehow? Or is that the worst sort of ego-trip? I don't know; I can only offer the why of it, which is that as much as I don't like writing about it, maybe, just possibly, writing about it can do some good.
Anyway, thanks for the hugs. *hugs back* I hope I haven't dampened your morning. :-/
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-08 05:04 pm (UTC)I've never had PPD, surprise surprise. ;D But I've had depression*... there are some parallels in my experience to what you've shared. Not wanting to go onto medication. The urge to run away. The screaming. Hating myself and others, the blame, the guilt. I feel that sharing our experiences of those painful, aching feelings helps us find ways to seek ways out, which are often as personal and unique as how we got there in the first place. Even if nobody can ever really know exactly what somebody else is going through, there are these common threads, some similar structures in the pain - knowing that the broken thoughts are not unique to you, suggests deep down that there may also be a way back out. Call it hope, I guess.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-08 05:08 pm (UTC)I'm right with you on all of these points. And so, so glad to know you, too. *warm hugs*
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-08 05:42 pm (UTC)I think I'll just hit 'Select all'.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-09 03:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-11 12:54 am (UTC)*hug*
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-08 04:56 pm (UTC)*Plenty* of people want to read this. It helps... so much.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-08 05:09 pm (UTC)But since I wrote it to be helpful, and since your writings have helped me so much...instead I'll just say, thank you, and I wish I could do more. Please let me know if I can.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-08 05:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-08 05:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-08 07:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-08 06:02 pm (UTC)Yeah.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-08 09:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-08 07:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-08 09:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-08 08:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-08 08:26 pm (UTC)And I just read yesterday's thread. You handled things much better than I would have, truly.
I also think that - like me - you tend to tell the whole truth regarding parenting, and it's easier for readers to latch onto the difficult pieces and forget about the adorable ones, for whatever reason.
Your kids, while difficult, are good. Have faith in that. I do.
*hugs* ♥
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-08 08:34 pm (UTC)I wish PPD were more known, too, because in this case maybe mothers wouldn't have such a hard time actually showing they need help. From the pediatrician point of view, the child's well being depends a lot about the mother's well-being. But not entirely, fortunately. If the thing is treated, if the mother gets better, the lack of communication with the baby is easily forgotten. If it lasts more than a year though, there are chances the baby will grow insecure.
I'm glad you were able to find the help you needed, though a little sad that it took you so much pain.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-08 09:08 pm (UTC)But I do think everyone was doing the best they could. And I hope that sharing this makes it easier for someone else to get help; that's the goal, anyway.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-09 04:33 pm (UTC)That sounds very close to home. Not exactly our story, but I've had or lived with tastes of a great many of those elements. Thanks for writing.
*hug*
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-10 12:37 am (UTC)I'm glad you wrote about it and I'm glad that you read it. I think it's really important to witness this stuff - the hard to say, hard to read stuff is the most likely to be absent from the record, and how then can we really call it a record. In the true record is where that which makes us great is concealed.
And from what I read here, you are great in every way for having endured and come through such a thing.
ris