A Personal Story of Postpartum Depression Part One

It has certainly been a long couple of weeks for me, as you can see evidenced in the relative lack of blog posts.

So, in an effort to make good come out of this time, I'm going to talk about a very personal struggle.

I was diagnosed with depression in May 2010, nearly ten months after my son was born. For that ten months, I suffered in silence. I want to share the story of my struggles so other women won't have to do the same.

Going into the postpartum period, I knew I was at high risk for postpartum depression.

• I had been diagnosed with depression before, when I was in college.
• My previous depression was linked to a drop in progesterone - it would now probably be called premenstrual dysphoric syndrome because it centered around my periods.
• I was under a lot of stress at the end of my pregnancy - I was quitting my job to stay at home, our income would be less than half of what it was previously, we were moving, our house wasn't finished, and we were having marital problems.
• I didn't have the birth I wanted. I had prepared for a natural, normal birth and got a c-section for a stubbornly breech baby (he's still stubborn, I love him). I wasn't in the emotional state (see above) where I could devote energy into changing providers and having a vaginal breech birth
• Our breastfeeding was terribly unsuccessful. I tried and tried, but we didn't have the help we needed.

I felt guilty about what I perceived to just be "bad days." I would sit around the house, letting dishes and laundry sit, starting at but not even watching the TV. He was such an easy-going baby, and I didn't understand why I was having such a hard time.

Some days I had no appetite. I had to remind myself to eat, though I usually didn't realize it until my husband got home and was ready for dinner. Other days I felt like I couldn't stop eating. I was starving and constantly had something in my hand.

When it got worse, I found my sleeping was affected. I couldn't fall asleep, couldn't stay asleep. I had always been a morning person, but soon found myself unable to get out of bed in the morning. I would lie awake for hours at night, my mind running wild with all the things I needed to the next day. Few of them got done.

The biggest clue was my personality. I'm certainly prone to frustrations, but have never been one to lose my temper. Now I found myself yelling for little reason, crying often and being unable to stop, and feeling the great need to throw and break things.

In my previous depression, I had struggled with thoughts of suicide. Unfortunately, those returned. One day I had to leave the kitchen because I found myself staring at a knife, just thinking about it. 

During this time however, I kept telling myself that it couldn't be postpartum depression because I had a lot of good days. I had days where everything was fine. I still liked to be with friends, to go out, to have fun. I hadn't lost interest in my favorite things, at least not all the time.

To be continued...