Tag Archives: grief

Whatever Wednesday: Questions from Twitter

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I decided to take questions from Twitter today. Only the first 5 responses though so as not to overwhelm myself. In no particular order, here are the questions and their answers.

1) @ksluiter asked: I want to know about succesfully weening to get pregnant or staying on meds while pregnant.

Staying on meds while pregnant was a decision I struggled with when I became pregnant with our son. The pregnancy was not planned so I skipped over the whole “weaning to get pregnant” concern and skipped straight into the “should I stay on my meds while pregnant” arena. This is most definitely a decision which should be made with the help of a medical professional. There were a few things which helped me make my decision a little easier:

a) Moms on meds when pregnant and then go off their meds during pregnancy face a higher relapse rate for mental health issues (specifically Postpartum) after delivering.

b) Baby has already been exposed to medication for 4-6 weeks by the time you realize you are still pregnant (unless you weaned beforehand) Going off meds cold turkey will affect baby as well as you.

c) High levels of stress/depression cross the placenta as well and can inhibit fetal growth and spur premature delivery. Given that my 2nd daughter had indeed been born nearly 5 weeks early, I was not interested in going that route again.

Bottom line here: This decision is an intensely personal decision. Talk with your doctor. Research. Know what you are comfortable with doing.

Couple of great resources for this are: Pregnant on Prozac by Shoshana Bennett and also Otis Pregnancy (also has a Twitter presence: @OtisPregnancy) Check them out.

2) @invisibledaddy asked: what’s the closest experience you’ve had to ppd besides ppd itself, to help us get a sense?

Wow. I had to really think for this question. I think the closest experience I have had to PPD happened my junior year of college. Within 19 days between February and March, I lost both of my grandfathers. This left me with no grandparents. The subsequent grieving process I went through was extremely similar emotionally to how I felt during Postpartum Depression. My grief was a very physical grief and that’s where it differed from my Postpartum. It also differed in that I wailed. A lot. Quite often I would wail and scream myself to sleep. I struggled with anxiety attacks as well, something I did not experience during Postpartum. I also thrashed and hit. It took me a very long time to recover.

The most important difference here is that people expect you to grieve when you lose a close family member or friend. When you have Postpartum, there is an element of guilt and shame accompany the disorder with which you struggle. Why? Because you have a baby. You SHOULD be happy. Even those who experience the grief of miscarriage or losing an infant within the first months of life experience this as many around them will tell them awful things such as “Well, it was never a REAL baby” (miscarriage) or “He/she wasn’t here very long so the pain will fade quickly because you didn’t have a lot of time to bond.” Acerbic comments such as this are extremely unhelpful and only serve to expose the ignorance of those offering them. (FYI, for a great website about miscarriage and infant loss, I highly recommend the folks over at Grieve Out Loud.)

Another thing I experienced with Postpartum that not many associate with it was intense anger and increased irritability. Many associate crying as one of the major symptoms. While it is a symptom, it is not one that every mom will experience. Many moms instead become very overwhelmed and as a result, develop what I term “explosive” personalities, blowing up over the smallest perceived injustice or high expectation.

3) @MamaRobinJ asked: How about blogging about PPD. How much detail do you think people should offer? What’s too personal?

I have a few personal rules I stick to when blogging about PPD. The primary goal is to keep from endorsing specific medications as I feel that is a discussion best left between physician and patient and to keep from triggering others.

Sharing details is good to an extent. That said, if you have a piece you are posting to your blog that a new mom may visit, always ALWAYS warn at the very beginning of the piece that if someone is in a fragile state, they should probably skip the post and come back when they’re feeling a bit healthier. I’ve taken to posting music videos via YouTube at the beginning of posts I think may trigger someone. Katherine Stone, author over at Postpartum Progress, has a symbol she posts at the beginning of potentially triggering posts. We all have our own methods but we all keep in mind the fact that the people reading our blog may not be in the same mindframe we are now.

Another thing aspect of sharing details is that in writing your own story, you may feel drained. It may drag up some of the same emotions you had when you experienced while in the depths of PPD. Be prepared to deal with this. Sharing is therapeutic. But it can also be exhausting. Share at a pace which is healthy for you. Your mental health is far more important than indulging the curiosity of your readers.

Too personal for me is:

  • Naming the Psych Hospital I spent time in
  • Naming any of my Physicians
  • Naming any of my medications

Even with HIPAA, for me this is a privacy issue and one that I will not disclose under most circumstances.

If I do disclose my medication, I am very careful to say that it is what worked (or didn’t work) for me. All treatments/therapies work differently for different people. It is important for us to respect the journey of others toward wellness.

4) The good folks over at @bandbacktogether asked: “why did you start to blog?”

The best answer to this question is back at my very first post in May 2007. But, for the sake of posterity and saving you a click and a ton of reading (and the horrificness of my first ever blog post), my husband and I found ourselves quite unexpectedly pregnant after a very nasty episode of Postpartum OCD (and probably PTSD due to my daughter’s NICU stay). Once the pregnancy test lines turned pink and I dug myself out of bed after reading Karen Kleiman’s “What Am I Thinking: Having a Baby After Postpartum Depression,” I decided to start a blog in order to “reframe” my pregnancy as Karen suggested. Little did I know something I started for just for me would still be around nearly four years later and evolved into what it has today – including #PPDChat at Twitter every Monday at 1p & 830p ET.

5) @TouchstoneAZ asked: “Have you seen any correlation between when period returns pp even while bfing and PPD?”

When I asked for further clarification, she stated she was asking about mood and period. If I’ve understood her question correctly, I think she’s asking about increased issues with mood during PMS after an episode of Postpartum. SO many mothers (including myself) struggle for a long time with increased mood issues during PMS after a Postpartum episode. I get increasingly irritable, cranky, and just all around grumpy. I was on medication for PMS prior to pregnancy for my PMS. In fact, I remember reading research stating that women with PMDD (or severe emotional issues during PMS) are at a slightly higher risk for developing PPD. I can’t find the link at the moment though as my kids are on day 3 home from school for snow and frankly, my brain is fried. I’m also defending my laptop from my three year old as I type this so .. when I find the link, I’ll update this answer with it, I promise.

 

This was fun! I may have to do this again next week! If you liked this feature and have a question about my experience or anything Postpartum related, please either @ me on Twitter (I’m @unxpctdblessing) or email it to me at mypostpartumvoice(@)gmail(dot)com with “Q&A submission” as the subject line. I look forward to hearing from you!

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Off the blog: Guest post over @AccustomedChaos

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This past weekend, I wrote a guest post for Devon over @AccustomedChaos. I was in the mood to write, she needed a topic, it just kind of unfolded.

The post I wrote was not one I expected to have tumble forth from the keyboard, though. In fact, it’s quite possibly one of the rawest posts I have written in awhile.

I have only recently started to write again about the deaths of my grandparents. You see, I have no living grandparents. I was in college when I lost my grandfathers. It took a very long time to heal.

Head over to Accustomed Chaos to read my post “A Tale of Imperfectly Perfect Grief.”

One reader’s reaction to Crystal’s Video

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A close friend of mine, Marcie Ramirez,  a Co-Coordinator with Postpartum Support International in Tennessee, sent me the following piece last night. She wrote it to process her feelings after watching Joseph’s very poignant video about his daughter, Crystal. Marcie used to live in San Diego and was newly recovered from her own journey through postpartum when Crystal’s tragedy occurred. I immediately asked if I could post it as it was beyond fabulous. Sheer power and emotion are captured so magnificently here – I couldn’t let it just sit in my inbox. With no further fuss, here is the piece I received:

Today I was watching a montage that my friend had posted on her blog.  I had read the article which had the basic nuts and bolts…a story of yet another mom who didn’t survive the first year of her child’s life.  A mom, who just like me felt like her family would be better off without her and for whatever reason didn’t feel like she could ask for help.

As I watched the video I not only read the words but I noticed familiarities in the pictures.  It was a landscape common to San Diego, my home until not quite two years ago, where I gave birth to both my children and where I went through the most terrifying experience of my life.  I watched and my suspicions of this woman being from my home town grew when I saw the name of the cemetery.  My heart sank.  I clicked on a link in the blog that took me to the man’s original story and it turned out that he owns a restaurant my husband and I have been to on many occasions.  It was also the restaurant my family and I would go to every Christmas when we would look at the lights on Candy Cane Lane and Christmas Circle.  La Bella’s was one of the few perfect memories of my childhood.

As suspicion turned into reality I realized that I went through my Postpartum hell at the same time she was pregnant and when I was really starting to see a light at the end of my tunnel she saw nothing but darkness.  What if our paths had crossed?  What if I had been able to say something to her that would have allowed her the freedom to ask for help?  I never asked for help.  To this day I am still confident that if I hadn’t have been screened that I would be dead.

San Diego is on the forefront of Postpartum Mood Disorders.  I say this because I know first hand how incredible my access to maternal mental health services was.  I was screened through my pregnancy, before leaving the hospital and again at my six week postpartum checkup.  When I didn’t pass my screening there was a therapist onsite who saw me before I went home.  I saw posters, I had access to a psychiatrist who specialized in maternal mental health.  I wanted to kill myself many times but somehow was able to hold on because I knew if I could just make it to my next appointment that I would have a soft place to fall.  I spent close to two months in a mental hospital when I just couldn’t handle it anymore…but I survived and am thriving.  I am not only a better mom but a better and more empathetic person than I ever thought possible.

Still, when I read the words of this courageous father I was left wondering why she didn’t get the same help?  Was it because she wasn’t screened?  Was it because she developed the PPD after her last screening?  I don’t know and will never know.  What I do know, though is that just as we call our medical professionals to screen new moms we have a responsibility to do our own screening.  We don’t necessarily have to whip out the Edinburgh every week but we can sincerely ask a new mom how she is REALLY doing.  We can learn the signs of PPD and ways that we can help minimize the stress on new moms.   We can offer to bring lunch over and then have a real heart to heart conversation.  We can talk about our own experiences so that the one in seven who are suffering realize that they are not alone.  We can offer to take them to their appointment or watch the baby so they can take an uninterrupted nap.  There are so many things we who have been there can do to make a difference.

Ironically maybe an hour after I read the articles and watched the heart wrenching video, I was at a restaurant with my two boys who are now seven and three.  For some reason my oldest son asked if we could sit at a particular table in a section we had never sat in before.  At the same time a family sat down at the next table.  Mom, dad and a beautiful little girl who was maybe a year old.  The little girl, however screamed over and over and over…and every time she screamed I saw the life draining from her mother’s face.  The mom would bury her head in her hands as if trying to escape.

I was instantly back into my first year postpartum.  I could see, smell, taste and hear the very things that were going on when I was in that place.  My heart sank and I just wanted to walk over, hug her and tell her that she would be able to get through this.  Normally when it’s just a mom and baby I can easily strike up a conversation and casually mention that I had PPD.  This was different, though because dad was there.  He seemed like a wonderful and supportive father from what I could tell from my few minutes watching the family.  He was trying to take over with the daughter so mom could eat in peace.  Eventually he got up to get a drink and I was able to speak briefly with the mom.  I gave her my card which had my contact info for the work I do with Postpartum Support International.

Hopefully this mom was just having a bad day.  But what if she wasn’t?  What if she felt completely hopeless and was ready to escape by any means necessary?  We don’t know.  That is why it is so important for each and every one of us to love new moms and be there for them.  Sometimes a kind word can be the beginning of changing someone’s forever.

Reclaiming the Anniversary: One Father’s Journey

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On April 9, 2009, I posted a moving story from Joseph Raso over at the Postpartum Dads Project. Susan Stone had originally posted this at Empowher.com and I reposted with her permission. The piece stayed with me.

On Wednesday night, I received an email from Joseph. It included a link to a video montage of his daughter, Crystal, set to the Rascal Flatts song, “Why.” Crystal tragically shot herself shortly after giving birth to her second child, Max. No one knew she had been struggling. They simply thought Crystal was being Crystal and worrying just as she always did. No one was let in to help her. Her world turned upside down, inside out, and the only way she saw out was to leave her family behind in the most tragic way possible. Joseph has worked courageously and tirelessly to share Crystal’s story with as many people as he can in order to raise awareness of Postpartum Mood Disorders. And for that, I commend him. It is difficult work to take such a dark event and turn it into something so showered with light nothing can touch it.

Today, February 27, 2010, marks the second anniversary of Crystal’s tragic passing. Please join me in respectfully remembering her life. Join me in praying for her family, her parents, her husband, her children – praying they will continue to find strength and that God will bless them each and every day. Join me in sharing her story to raise awareness of Postpartum Mood Disorders. Click on the candle picture to light a virtual candle which will burn for 48 hours in honor of Crystal and mothers everywhere who needlessly lose their lives to Postpartum Mood Disorders each day.

I charge you with a simple task today. If you know an expectant or new parent, male or female, make a point of asking how THEY are doing. Encourage honesty. Don’t judge. Listen with compassion. Educate yourself and expectant/new parents about Postpartum Mood Disorders. Feel up to more? Challenge your local L&D to educate new moms if they aren’t already doing so. Please don’t let any more mothers suffer so alone and so silently. It’s just not okay.

(Before you click on the video below, please know that it made me bawl like a total baby after having read Joseph’s piece. And I don’t cry or bawl. Often. If you are not emotionally stable right now, you may want to skip the video. There is nothing graphic in it at all. It’s just very very moving. Kudos to Joseph for putting together such an amazing montage.)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYIRZbyXnu0]

The following is what Joseph shared with me via email when he sent me the video:

“This Saturday (02/27/10) is the second anniversary of Crystal’s passing.  Mary, I, and the whole family miss her so.  Seeing her children, Hannah and Max, almost daily is double edged sword.  On one hand, being a huge part of their lives brings such joy, but on the other hand, every time we see them we are reminded WHY we are such a big part…  it is because Crystal is gone.  I thought you might want to keep this video in your library.  Someday you might want to forward it to someone who could be at risk of postpartum depression.  This song “Why,” by Rascal Flatts, not only tells the story of how our actions can affect others, it is also so beautiful, anybody could enjoy it.  When I first heard it, I was  reminded of what we went through after Crystal died.  God Bless You.”

If you, a loved one, or a friend are coping with the recent loss of a loved one to suicide, please read this from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

If you are contemplating suicide, there IS hope. There are people who love you. People who care and want to help you heal. Need someone to talk to right now? Click here for a comprehensive list of resources in the US.

If you are struggling with a Postpartum Mood Disorder, contact Postpartum Support International‘s warmline at 1.800.944.4PPD. (I may just be one of the people to return your call – I’m a volunteer for the warmline in addition to providing support in my home state of Georgia)

Bottom Line here? There is hope. There is help. And above all, you are absolutely NOT to blame. And above that? You WILL be well.

Please feel free to share any of the above information on your blogs or within your networks. In fact, I encourage you to do so. Below is a button for you to place on your blog in remembrance of Crystal. The only rule is that if you download it and post it, it must be linked to Joseph’s YouTube video.

Here is a list of blogs participating in today’s remembrance event. A big Thank You goes out to all of them for great posts! (If you posted and you’re not listed below, please let me know so I can add you to the list!)

The Power of the anniversary

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"A Floating Red Balloon" by jcarlosn @ flickr.com

Put the past behind you.

Move forward.

Be happy about how far you have come since (fill in the blank).

These are all common phrases people love to shoot off when they know someone is struggling to deal with something which happened in the past. While they are certainly lovely sentiments, the one thing people who give voice to these phrases do not know is that memory is very organic. Sure you can do your best to decide to deal with a tragic event in a positive way but then there are the memories which sneak up on us and scare us to death. The anniversary of the birth of my daughters and the anniversary of my time in a mental ward for Postpartum OCD are a few memories which did just that to me.

I am not alone in this experience.

Many women struggle when reaching their child’s first birthday, their hospitalization date, miscarriage date, or the date on which they lost a child. These are all events that leave more than a glancing blow. The fight to return to the “new normal” is an uphill battle. And once the “new normal” arrives and you’ve unpacked the last box, there’s a looming date trouncing your way ever so cheerfully. Sure you can bob and weave but even the best of us may find ourselves down for the count after a few sucker punches.

A fellow PPD warrior mom, Helen Crawford, shared with me that her 1yr anniversary was very traumatic. She could smell/hear the memories of the year before. “My fingers burned. I talked with my therapist. Surviving severe depression is like surviving extreme trauma. I took the finger burning as a reminder to ‘love myself more’ and say thank you to my body.”

Today my three year old daughter found pictures of herself as an infant. Awwwwww, you say. But these particular pictures included a feeding tube taped ever so gingerly to her less than 24 hour old cheek with cute teddy bear gauze tape. Classic symptoms consumed me – heart in throat, check, rapid shallow breathing, check, rapid pulse, check, dizzy, check. Oh.CRAP. She’s been flashing them here and there for the past week and I’ve been ever so nicely sidestepping the issue. But today, today she wanted to know WHAT that was on her cheek and why it was there. Oh boy. And I thought the hard question with kids was supposed to be “Mommy? Where do Babies come from?” (And for the record, I GOT that one today too from her 5 year old sister – what a day!)

Suddenly, there I was again. Curled up in the hospital bed, crying my heart out, aching, hurting, wanting to go back in time to BEFORE the birth, for someone to warn us about the rabbit hole into which we were about to trip. What.the.hell???

She knows about her cleft palate and knows doctors fixed it. She also knows which belly button came from mommy and which one belongs to the doctors. But we have never discussed the tubes. NEVER. As playfully as I could, I explained to her that because her mouth had a hole in it when she was born, she had to eat with a tube which went in through her mouth and went allllll the way down to her stomach. (I can still hear her laughing because I tickled her as I told her this.) Inside, I was dying. I smelled the NICU. I heard the sounds, the crying, saw the tense faces, the reserved mouths as they asked about worst case scenarios. I thought I was going to pass out when she said she wanted these pictures – the tube pictures – up on her bedroom wall. I softly replied that Mommy would have to think about it.

I thought about it all day. ALL day. Once she got home from her 2 hours of special needs pre-k for her speech, we talked. Honestly and age-appropriately. I told her that when she was born while I was very happy to meet her and get to know her, all of the medical stuff surrounding her birth like the tube feedings and surgeries were very difficult for Mommy to handle. And that it was very hard for Mommy to look at pictures of her with tubes and such attached to her. I promised her we would find some different baby pictures to put up on her wall. I also told her that it was ok she had to use a tube – and I was glad the nurses and doctors knew just what to do to help her grow strong so she could become the amazing silly little girl she is today. She was sad but seemed to take it in stride.

To top things off, 12 years ago today, my maternal grandfather passed away suddenly after experiencing congestive heart failure. Yay for anniversaries, right? (And in 19 days, I’ll be marking the anniversary of my paternal grandfather’s death which left me grandparentless. I was a real ball of joy 12 years ago, I tell you what!)

Grief is a tough thing to handle. 12 years ago I dealt with it in a very physical and raw manner. I remember crying, screaming, and punching my then boyfriend until I would literally black out. Healthy, right?

The thing is to give yourself PERMISSION to mourn/remember/accept whatever it is that your anniversary centers around. Celebrate how far you’ve come since said event. Honor the event but also do something to help propel yourself forward. One of the last things my maternal step grandmother said to me (in what I now know was her I know I’m dying soon so I better get this out while I can speech) was to always be the best that I could be no matter what stood in my way. Those words have stuck by me. And even in failure, I’ve always strived to do every single thing that I possibly could before giving up. It’s part of what got me through my PPD. I knew I was better than PPD. I KNEW I had to turn and fight. And every time I have an opportunity to help another mom through her struggles, I am celebrating my anniversary. I am celebrating no longer being alone. I am paying forward the help I received. I am choosing to walk the line between remembering the past yet striving for the future. I AM HERE to do that. And for that, I am grateful.

Remember to celebrate YOU on your child’s birthday too. It’s not just your child’s birthday – it’s YOUR own personal Mother’s Day. Don’t rush around for the kid without stopping to breathe for yourself too. Sure, Hallmark doesn’t make a card for this but that makes it all the more special, right? You’ve earned it. You’re worth it. And doggonnit, we like you. In addition, the more positives you make out of a negative, the less power it holds over you. Darkness cannot win when bathed in light. Choose to regain those reins as you approach your anniversary – whether it’s childbirth, miscarriage, hospitalization, recovery – it’s ok to cry. But it’s totally awesome to party too.