It's hard to realize the struggle when you're in the trenches

I seriously love Facebook's "On This Day" feature.  I get to see cute pictures of my kids from years past and see the funny (to me) things I said.  Today I was reminded of a piece I wrote about maternal mental health for the now defunct website Stigmama.com.  Having had postpartum depression after the births of my first two children, I'm all too familiar with the feelings of despair and loneliness and terror that PPD brings.  I was fortunate enough to not go through that my third time around, I feel in part because of the plan I devised before I ever got pregnant.  When we started thinking about having a third child, I promised myself that I would: ask for help if I need it, tell people exactly what I need, take medication at the first sign of not feeling right, seek counseling, and talk to my husband about how I felt.  Unfortunately, he was left completely out of the loop when I went through it before, because I was so afraid to confide in anyone, even him, my best friend.

So I want to share this piece again, in hope that it reaches just one woman who needs to read it right now.

I didn’t know that I’d lost it.  I had reached a point where crazy was the new normal and I felt like there was no turning back.  While I knew that something wasn’t “right”, I thought I had just lost my mind and I was never going to be happy or rational ever again. I became complacent with the idea that I had gone off the deep end and would stay that way for the rest of my life.  I forgot how to have fun.  I forgot how to enjoy my children.  Most days I forgot to get dressed.  Any time conflict arose I forgot how to act in a rational manner.  I cried.  Oh, how I cried and screamed almost every single day.


For the most part, I was afraid to leave my house.  If I left my house someone would merge into the side of my car at 70 mph.  My children would be kidnapped.  I would drive my car over a bridge. Someone would approach me from behind and shoot me, right in front of my children.  


I remember the night that we ordered in from a sushi restaurant.  My pieces of fried tofu were cut too large and thus too mushy for me to eat.  I slammed my fist into the burning bean curd and left the table, sobbing.  There was the night at dinner when my son was chewing too loud.  All I could hear was the spit being swooshed around in his mouth as he chewed the eggplant “bacon” BLTs I had spent a long time preparing.  I could feel the rage building up in me.  Because my poor, 7 year old child was chewing his food and eating his dinner.  I screamed, “I AM LEAVING AND I AM NEVER COMING BACK.  YOU’LL BE LUCKY IF YOU EVER SEE ME AGAIN.”  My son sobbed.  I’ve never seen anyone cry the way he cried, genuine fear that his mother was leaving and never coming back.  My heart broke.  


I confided in a friend.  She’d been there.  She saw me struggling.  She called to check up on me often and shared her story.  She told me there was nothing wrong with taking medicine and getting help.  She told me that she took medicine and got help.  I promised to call a doctor.  I was scared.  What if I tried and I was still crazy?  What if the medicine made me gain weight or caused more anxiety?  Would my daughter be okay if I continued to breastfeed?  Why was I such a failure that I needed medication to feel like a normal person?


The day of my doctor visit came.  What would he know?  He’d never experienced the hormonal changes I was experiencing and he never would.  Maybe he would make things worse. Maybe I just shouldn’t go. Maybe I can just deal with feeling this way for the rest of my life.  Like I’m going to die every day.  Like something awful is going to happen to my children.  Like it’s okay to scream and cry when my child touches me. Like it’s normal to be terrified of having sex with my husband. Like I was legitimately crazy and trying to navigate my way through the world when everything was so foggy and I could not even think.


I saw the doctor.  I took the medicine.  I didn’t feel good a week later.  I didn’t feel good two weeks later, but I felt better.  A month later I started feeling again.  Not just the pain.  Not just the overwhelming act of living and breathing.  I felt better.  I laughed.  I made myself go places and made myself see people and made myself get dressed (most days). I started talking about how bad I’d felt.  I was so afraid to talk about it when I felt so bad.  I was so afraid someone would recognize that I’d gone crazy and take my children.  I was so afraid that my husband would consider me a burden and not want to live with me.  But now I could talk.  


It’s always easier when you’re not in that moment.  It’s easier when someone is there to share their story with you.  It gets easier.  Every day, it gets easier.  Not just the talking, but the living.  You reach a point where you can finally recognize that you had a problem.  That it’s not normal to want to die every day.  It’s not normal to fear leaving the house and interacting with other people. It’s certainly not normal to rage out when your tofu’s cut too large.  Talk to a friend.  See a doctor.  Get some counseling. Read books.  Get some rest.  Tell your story.  Reach out when you see someone in need.  Tell her when things aren’t normal.  Tell her that with help, it gets easier.