Post-Partum Depression Sucks.

If you've read the title of this blog post, you've probably guessed that I've been diagnosed with post-partum depression. It's actually one of the reasons that I started blogging again, because I thought it might help to write about it. Supposedly about 20% of women who have babies have some sort of post-partum depression afterward--all my doctors/therapists kept saying, "it's the most common complication of pregnancy." However, none of my friends or family will 'fess up! Am I the only one in five in the crowd? I would really like to meet some other real-live gal out there who has had post-partum depression, or to hear from another mom what it's like for her.

For me, most of the time I am sort of fine, and then I have a really, really, REALLY bad day. Not just a day where I mope around listening to my old Cure albums weeping quietly, but days where I scream at P, cry for hours and hide in a closet (literally). Why? It's usually something pretty minor that has gone awry. Then, for the next week or so after my fit, I beat myself up for screaming at P, wishing sometimes that I weren't a mom, ( ***Let's get this clear from the start now that I'm writing about PPD: This feeling has nothing to do with my feelings for M as a person, because she's nothing but wonderful. M has done nothing to cause this; she has not exacerbated it--she's not colicky, fussy, gassy, developmentally delayed, of poor health, a bad sleeper, etc. and she's as pretty as a pearl and very smiley; it's more my own baggage over the lifestyle and identity changes, which I obviously knew about before I got pregnant.***), and generally being a mess.

A symptom of PPD, and the final clue that let me know that I might have it and that my continued rage and sadness after five months were not just "hormones," is lack of concentration/distractability. Normally, I have great concentration (I'm an appellate lawyer, by trade), but in maternity leave I sometimes just found myself running from room to room while M was napping. Pulling up a sheet in the bedroom, washing a pan in the kitchen, loading the dryer, moving a magazine, back to pull up the blanket, starting the dryer, feeding the cats, remembering something I meant to put in the dryer, etc. I think of this because I just got distracted by my own parenthetical in the previous paragraph and it made me think that it's so tricky to find moms who will say they have/had PPD because they do not want anyone to think badly of their baby, or to think that they don't love their baby. As if anyone would. I know rationally that no one would think that as I write this, but I still feel terrible and worry that I'm damaging M by being so sad and crazy and I don't want anyone to think that she caused my PPD.

My shrink (here's the distraction again--the best part of PPD is getting to have someone I can call my shrink) says that my particular flavor of PPD has some OCD running through it. Not constant hand-washing OCD, but just a level of anxiety and demanding perfectionism that is untenable with a baby. She hypothesizes (and I agree) that I've probably had this my whole life and, up until now, have just learned to use it in mostly-adaptive ways. I'm not on any meds right now because I'm still breast-feeding, though many people have told me recently that I should knock that off and get on some. I'm not sure that's my answer though. I really enjoy breastfeeding and feel like it is the one absolute saving grace that I have as a mom so far. I may be sad and crazy and I may have a full-time job that necessitates daycare, but at least that girl is getting some good immunity and 100% natural nutrition from me. But, I do agree that I can't just persist in this sad state w/ crazy flare-ups forever and that that probably would ultimately be damaging for M, not to mention my relationship with P. So what to do? Yoga? Acupuncture? Wait it out? I'm in some Cognitive Behavioral Therapy now, but not sure that's doing much.

Anyway, there it is. Maybe google-search will bring me some other one-in-five PPD ladies. Are you out there???

Nelly-Belle

Hi! A gift!

Who knows how many miles?
The odometer hasn't worked in years.
But, you helped me move seven separate times. . .

Three different state license plates,
Speeding Tickets in at least four jurisdictions;
One wreck in Atlanta and
One screwdriver left as a bonus in the backseat when you were stolen, went to see the Jefferson Memorial, and then came back to me;
At least five national parks and twenty-three different states;
Fourteen years, from twenty to thirty-four.

A great car.
You traveled!

Back and forth to Athens, hauling my laundry and everything else;
Up to D.C., across the country, way out west. . .
Over the Rockies--radiator blew out-- but you survived, delivering us
To Seattle.

You climbed up and down Seattle's hills, faithfully, year after year;
Took us on adventures in Montana and Oregon, rode the ferries of Puget Sound.
We went camping and you
Accompanied me to mental hospitals, to jails and out on the town.

You rode in style back to Georgia,
But weren't too tired for another trip to Chicago and back;
You worked for the Obama campaign, then
Moved us into our first house and brought our baby home from the hospital.

My history is your history.

How can I leave you, then,
For just five-hundred dollars
In a dealer's lot?



Good-bye, dear friend! I hope you're off to new adventures!