Scared to admit I might have postpartum depression

CMTK

One month ago I gave birth to our first child. Instantly I fell in love with her and despite a challenging post birth recovery my first week wasn’t too bad. However, as the weeks have gone on it’s gotten harder. Being a first time mum the sleep deprivation, breastfeeding challenges and navigating being a parent has been difficult to say the least. I constantly feel like an imposter and the anxiety is exhausting.
My biggest issue is not wanting to admit I might have postpartum depression. My wife expressed her concern about me getting it during pregnancy. And sure enough I think she was right, but I don’t want to admit it. I’m crying secretly to myself all day, I feel constant anxiety and I’m starting to feel disconnected from our baby. Her concern came from my history of anxiety and depression. First time mums constantly talk about not feeling themselves but for me it’s worse. It’s that all too familiar feeling of anxiety and depression that scares me into feeling like this is what it’s always going to be like for me. And that I won’t get what I hoped for in this new journey with our child.

indigo22

Hello,

Welcome and thank you for reaching out to us.

I can understand your concerns, but what I think you may not be aware of is that PPD can be treated, it is not a life sentence, it is hormonal and is therefore manageable. I have never had children myself, however, I have seen women I know go through PPD and come out the other side and have great bonds with their babies.

I understand being a first time mum would be exhausting, demanding, stressful and at times confusing. The only thing I am surprised about is why all women don't suffer from PPD after their first baby, it is a massive change to the bodies normal way of functioning. Please don't let your days be miserable for no reason and please don't let your baby feel a disconnection from you when all you need to do is ask your GP for help. We have been so conditioned to believe we must cope with everything ourselves when the truth of the matter is that asking for help is the most intelligent and caring thing we can do for ourselves and everyone concerned.

Please think about it, you made the first step by reaching out here, all you need do now is take the next step.

Please feel free to continue this conversation if you wish and take good care of yourself and your new baby.

indigo 🌹

therising

Hi CMTK

I wish I was there to give you the warmest and biggest hug and to reassure you that you're not alone in how you feel. Being a first time mum can be depressing and anxiety inducing for a whole number of reasons, something we don't often hear about. This can leave us thinking along the lines of 'What's wrong with me?'.

I'm going back a bit in time here in referencing my babies (22yo girl and 19yo boy). While I gave birth to both my babies while in long term depression, the experience of being a mother to babies ramped the depression way up to unbearable levels. Two key factors were breast feeding issues and sleep deprivation. Both of these factors messed with me horribly. The inner dialogue didn't help matters. My inner critic became an absolute depressing mongrel, with stuff like 'You should be able to breastfeed. Every other mother can do it. What's wrong with you?!', 'You're a failure as a mother. Your baby would be so much better off without you. Anyone else would be able to raise him/her better than this' and stuff like that. It was brutal. It pays to be conscious of external dialogue too. Well meaning people whose advice is along the lines of 'You just need to try harder (with breastfeeding)' and 'Breast is best' just add to the recipe for depression. Breast is not best. What's best is the baby is fed with breast milk or a really good formula and the mother's mental health is considered. Formula is what became best for both my babies and my own mental health. When you're trying to feed your baby, they're crying with some degree of starvation while you're spending more time trying to get them to sleep and then your spending even more time sitting in a chair trying to stimulate production with a breast pump, there's virtually no time for sleep. Sleep deprivation is still used as a form of torture in certain parts of the world because it tortures both the mind and the body in various ways. In other words, sleep deprivation is used to break people.

To sit within post natal depression group therapy sessions and feel 'normal', there's no feeling like it. To feel encouraged to speak freely about how depressing motherhood feels, how you resent your own child, how you resent just about everyone around you (especially your partner, who you wish would 'save' you from the suffering) and a whole host of other things outsiders would frown upon is liberating. To speak of the sadness, stress, anger, sense of hopelessness etc that can come with motherhood is a relief. For me, group therapy facilitated what I regard as being somewhat of a miracle; it took me out of 15 or so years of long term depression. In a nutshell, the whole experience led me to question 'Who am I without depression and all its traits?'. The answer: 'I have absolutely no idea who I naturally am'. It was a revelation and a truth that changed everything.

The truth is...who you are is a great mum who's suffering through a number of depressing factors. Who you are is a determined mum, who's trying to find the best way forward. Who you are is someone in the process of developing a greater sense of self understanding while longing to evolve, for yourself and your baby. Few work harder than a mother who's facing depression. So much more work involved than there is for a mother who cruises through raising herself and her child. Until you are able to become proud of yourself for all the hard work you're putting in, I'll be proud of you for you. ❤️

CMTK

Thank you for your post. Hearing your experience resonates with me very much. Particularly the dialogue we tell ourselves and the question of what we are beyond our mental health. Your kind words have really hit me today. I think I’d like a group session with similar women going through this. I often find most stories of PPD I’ve come across not exactly resonating with my own because each experience is quite different but perhaps also because those who have been challenged with their mental health for a long time before becoming a mother find it difficult to admit to those around them because of the anxiety of what the consequence may be.

therising

Hi CMTK

I think the thing I found most surprising about the group involved everyone in it having had a long history of depression, before motherhood became a factor. I had no idea what to expect but one thing I did know for sure was how incredibly anxious I was before attending the therapy sessions. I thought 'What are these women going to think of me? Are they going to judge me as being not worthy of being there? Are they going to think I'm weak?' and all that sort of stuff. In fact, it was the complete opposite of all of that. With a brilliant facilitator conducting the sessions, she led us to connect incredibly well. We ended up sharing our strengths, such as the amount of strength it takes to get up the next morning and face some really soul destroying challenges. Instead of feeling judged by each other, we were led to laugh at times over how much we felt judged by our partner as being somewhat 'insane' at times. And we discussed how glad we all were that each other was there to share the circle we were in, a circle where we felt completely free to express ourselves and not feel bad about it.

Comprised of a group of 6 or 7 women (can't recall exactly), one of the most interesting challenges involved a whiteboard. We were all asked to volunteer how we saw ourselves at times. The list went something like

Angry
Sad
Controlling on occasion
Anxious
Hopeless
Resentful
Worthless
Unlovable/unloved
Utterly and completely lost

and the list went on. We all could relate to these things and were even amused by just how much we could relate. It was quite surprising. And then it hit me like a bolt of lightening, 'These are not my traits, these are the traits of depression. That's why we're all experiencing them'. And that's when I thought 'Who am I without depression, this thing that we're experiencing?'.

To say 'I am not angry, this is not me. I'm not hopeless, this is just not me. I'm not naturally sad, controlling, resentful etc. This is not who I naturally am. This is depression' can come as some relief. Like a nasty little creature hanging on around our neck, whispering unsweet nothings into our ear', depression says 'You are hopeless. You are weak. You are never going to be well' and so many more cruel lies that should never be believed. One of the worst things about depression is how incredibly convincing it can be at times.