Looking to connect with someone who had postpartum depression?

Hi JM and welcome!

I am sorry to hear of your struggles. :( I know how difficult this must be...

...however, I commend you for reaching out, and am glad you have joined us.:)

I will definitely direct anyone else dealing with PPD your way...

...and for now, please see our Resources at the top of the main forum page here for great self help material. There is also help, resources and support to be found in our depression forum too...so consider visiting there as well.

Know you've found a great place for understanding, so post anytime for anxiety support!

Talk soon,

Scaredy Cat

Hi JM -

I dealt w PPD after both my kids births (almost 4 & 6 year olds). When you say you want to talk with someone other than a mental health professional, do you mean instead of or in addition to?

For my PPD, I had such guilt over not feeling that "euphoric" feeling I thought I was "supposed" to feel. I felt terrified, like, what on earth did I DO?? And now I've ruined this babies life by giving birth to her! It was horrid.

The fear of going crazy is such a corner stone of us anxious types, a therapist once told me that a good predictor of whether you'll go crazy or not, is "thinking" about whether you're going to go crazy.

Sane people worry about going crazy. Crazy people don't because they think they're completely normal. So being scared of going crazy is a pretty good sign that it will never happen.

What types of things do you do to help yourself notice and modify your thinking process?
I read many posts here about health anxiety. I'm beginning to wonder if it's just another expression of anxiety. Like, it doesn't matter if you're anxious about dying, driving, health or relationships, when you clear all the layers of mental sludge, it's all "just" anxiety, which is "just" obsessive thinking.

Welcome.

My son's birth (2nd kid) was worse, but i'll spare you the gory details :D

I noticed it before I even left the hospital. Guttural crying, crushing anxiety, no sleep, inability to eat, inability to breastfeed, just sheer terror.

(which, as a first time mom, I didn't know was a common thing, I had thought that just because you "wanted" to breastfeed, you could, HA! I knew nothing:)

Yes! Dealing w anxiety is isolating. The "funny" thing is that when you start to open up about it to others, without shame, SO many people will say, "Oh yeah, me too!"

You're not even CLOSE to being alone in this. We're just fed this story that childbirth is this enlightening and beautiful experience, and for some it is. But for others? It's just not. And that doesn't make it wrong. It's just your experience.

Accept,

Thank you so much for your transparency. I could not breastfeed either, and wasn't aware it was tied to PPD? Please tell me more!

I too experienced what you're describing the second I pushed my son out, wow!

I've wondered if some of what I am experiencing is PPD. I was mostly fine before I had my daughter, and in the last 16 months since she was born I have been slowly getting more and more anxious and sometime depressed as well. No one has confirmed though. I am also dealing with possibly fibromyalgia from giving birth, or other medical problems so who knows what the root is.

about SSRI's, I have tried most of them when I was a teenager. All of them except for one (Effexor), either helped, help for a small amount of time, or didn't help at all with no unwanted side effects. Effexor did give me an unwanted side effect -- it made me extremely tired. Stopped taking it, problem solved.

Its been ten years, so I don't remember the exacts about it all, but I remember being on Zoloft and Cymbalta the longest. I think Zoloft worked for a little while, and then stopped working. Cymbalta was the last SSRI I tried, and I remember it working...don't remember why I stopped taking it. Probably because I moved out of my families home and started feeling better about life.

So glad to hear you have an effective plan in place, as this should ease your mind about encountering PPD! How did Zoloft impact your mood?

Justme224 said...
Accept,

Thank you so much for your transparency. I could not breastfeed either, and wasn't aware it was tied to PPD? Please tell me more!

I too experienced what you're describing the second I pushed my son out, wow!

I don't know if it's tied to PPD. I know that my PPD was exacerbated because I had expectations that I was "supposed" to be able to breastfeed, but physically couldn't.

That started the depressive spiral>>I can't breastfeed>>I "should" be able to breastfeed>>My baby is going to be delayed, obese, not "bonded" and sickly>>I've screwed everything up>>this baby deserved a better mom than me>>I've ruined his life>>I'm a terrible mother.

Instead of>>I can't breastfeed>>That sucks>>Where's the formula (or donated milk)>>yay baby!>>the end.

It wouldn't surprise me that my heightened anxiety inhibited my ability to breastfeed. Just like it doesn't surprise me that depression or anxiety can have a negative impact on fertility.

In Andrew Solomon's book The Noonday Demon, he theorizes that PPD is just a byproduct of modern society. Generations ago, a mother would be put under to give birth, the baby would be taken to the nursery and the mothers ONLY job was to rest recover.

In Japan, they have mom/baby hotel/hospitals where the mom & baby go for several weeks to recover. The baby is brought to the mother to feed and snuggle. Then taken back to the nursery so the mom can rest. In western culture, we're sent home the next day with no support and the expectation that we are just blissfully in love with our baby and know exactly how to take care of this floppy and furry new being.

On top of the trauma of removing a person from your body, the hormonal tsunami and the anxiety that comes with such a massive life change, why wouldn't it be expected that we're overwhelmed and scared? In Solomon's book, he says that it's our expectations of ourselves to feel a certain way that lead to the guilty and shameful feelings that are the cornerstones PPD.

Is it "true"? I have no idea, but it's a very interesting theory.