Living with Postpartum Depression (PPD)
Trigger warning: this post talks about suicidal ideation.
Having my first and only kiddo was a dream come true for me. The pregnancy was easy (compared to what I saw some other friends go through), and I thought I was fully prepared to the delivery...boy was I wrong. More on that in a later post.
After my kiddo came into the world, my world stopped and centered around her. I was absolutely not prepared for the post-birth experience. My body hurt everywhere, and normal activities frightened me. I was scared of going outside. I was scared of SIDS so I wasn’t sleeping well. I also had this really strange body/brain incongruity where my brain kept thinking I was back to my post-college weight, when I’m 30 pounds heavier now than I was then. I was lucky to have help at the hospital and for the first few days after, but then was left in nearly solitary confinement during my three-month paid maternity leave, after my husband’s two weeks of non-paid leave was up.
Everything felt like a waking dream. I was physically moving slower than I ever have in my life. My husband would even ask if I was alright, because it looked like I was doing basic tasks in slow motion. I stopped going outside, and rarely remembered to open the blinds. I will never forget what it was like stepping back into the sun after at least a month of remaining cloistered with my baby. And I will never forget the feeling of accomplishment of walking the three flights down the stairs in my condo building to walk my dog and the baby in the stroller.
I had no idea I was struggling with postpartum depression. Even when I thought about driving my car into a wall, or oncoming traffic, it still didn’t dawn on me that what I was feeling wasn’t really normal. It became my new normal. I had really dark fantasies of suicide and what it would be like to “set my kiddo up for success” because then she’d have a tragic backstory that would make for beautiful art.
And once I returned to work, it progressively got worse. All of the work I was managing before I went on leave was taken from me and distributed to others, even the new business accounts I had brought in. I was left to fill in 8-hour timesheets with nothing to show for it. I had no purpose. The only thing that made it better was that my boss had also gotten dumped onto the business after coming back from maternity leave, and was in the same boat. They finally assigned me a new client a month later, and it was hair on fire every single day. Talk about stress overload. Pumping for nearly 2-3 hours a day out of the 8-hour work day (ok - really 10-12 hour work day) meant EVERYONE on conference calls could hear the “whaaa-whaaa-whaaa” of my Medela pump. It was embarrassing to have to explain what that noise was. But you know, the show has to go on.
The company I worked for did have a private room for pumping, but it was designed by a man (this isn’t a dig - it was thoughtfully done but without consulting pumping moms). They had a big comfy chair that had a pull-up table on it (something like this) which, in theory, was the right solution. But unfortunately, anyone who has ever pumped knows that you need significant room (maybe 8”) from your chest to accommodate the whole setup. And this setup had the table pull up to your belly for a tight fit. To say it was uncomfortable while working was an understatement.
Then COVID hit and the world shut down. So back into isolation I went.
The work I was on was disintegrating and they asked me to jump into a role that would have changed the trajectory of my career, so I frantically looked for another role. (Reason for the urgency: we were all on my health insurance.)
I jumped at the change to work for one of the leaders in the industry, and found out quickly I had been sold a bill of goods. I went from 50-hour work weeks to at the worst, 100-hour work weeks. My boss was a career-only woman who was unsympathetic at best, and at worst was berating me for not being able to “keep up.” It was untenable with a baby at home, and I finally broke.
My suicidal ideation reached its peak and I prayed every night that I would just die so the pain would be over. I cried every day. I couldn’t get anything accomplished. I felt like a failure at work, and a failure at motherhood. I spent one night during the winter break balled up underneath a bed hiding and ugly crying, while the rest of my family was playing charades. My husband finally walked in after wondering where I had gone off to and held me while I unloaded my grief. “We will get you help” he said. At that point, it had been nearly two-years of PPD that had gone untreated.
I started seeing both a psychologist and a psychiatrist to tackle the state of my mental health with a two-pronged approach. And I am happy to say that it worked for me! The feeling of being free from that inner suicidal demon was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. It just kind of faded back, and then disappeared altogether. Like it had never been there before.
To this day, I am still on a medication. The one time I did try to get off of it because I was finally feeling myself, I was right back to a dark descent. And as my psychiatrist has reframed for me, why stop what’s working?
This is a really long post to share my PPD story, but I think it is important because it is nearly impossible to identify when you’re going through it. And it is so hard to get out of because it is easy-ish to hide, and carries so much stigma. I survived it with the help of my husband and some key friends (and my psychologist) who encouraged me to get over the fear of taking medication. And taking alcohol out of the equation has also helped tremendously.
If you’ve gone through PPD, how was your experience different? Any other tips on how to survive it that you don’t mind sharing with our community? Drop me a note at hello at survivalist gal dot com. Remember, together we can survive.
This is not intended to be medical advice, but it intended to share my own personal experience. If you or a loved one is experiencing suicidal ideation, please reach out to a professional for help. Or you can always call the suicide and crisis line at 9-8-8.
