#PPDChat Topic: Redefining Success: What does it mean to you?
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Just Talking Tuesday: Did you have Postpartum Depression support from your Mom?
Monday night at #PPDChat, one of the chatters shared with us how her mother helped her get the help she needed to begin recovery from Postpartum Depression.
I’ve heard from women who have had excellent support from their Mothers. I’ve also heard the exact opposite. Nightmarish stories from women who’s own Mothers told them to suck it up and get over themselves. Motherhood is hard. Get over yourself. Those stories always hit me right in the stomach and make me want to reach through the computer to have a word or two with the mothers of these women.
Postpartum Depression is so much more than facing a tough day as a Mother. It’s debilitating. It’s wanting desperately to love and hug your child while so not wanting to love and hug your child. It’s wanting to not be angry with your husband as you yell at him for not putting the cap back on the toothpaste or something equally as inane. It’s wanting to keep up with the housework but instead all the physical and mental strength you have barely allows you to get out of bed and survive the day. It’s wanting to believe no one else knows the horrible thoughts racing through your head as you try to talk yourself down out of the figurative tree you’ve now climbed all the way up. It’s believing you really are the worst parent in the world but deep down trying so hard to talk yourself into believing you are a good parent despite all the negativity swirling about your head. It’s wishing desperately for the return of hope, sanity, happiness, patience, and strength and the imminent flight of disillusionment, insanity, intense sadness, impatience, and physical weakness.
I’m ever thankful when a woman’s mom calls me or seeks me out for support and education about her daughter’s experience with Postpartum Mood Disorders.
My own mother was very supportive when I was struggling. I never hesitated to call her (sometimes several times a day – thanks for listening!) when I needed to vent. Granted, I probably shared more than I should have and probably still do sometimes. (I’m working on that!) My mother always emphasized the importance of keeping the communication lines open. She kept them open when I needed them most.
I want to hear what your experience was with support from your Mom during your Postpartum Mood Disorder Experience. Did she accept your diagnosis? Help you out around the house? Listen? Help you make sense of life when it just didn’t seem to make a lick of sense? Or did she judge you? Tell you to get over yourself and grow up? Criticize your treatment decisions? Not respect your boundaries as you healed? Or perhaps your mother wasn’t there – for whatever reason – how do you think that affected your experience?
Let’s get to just talking!
Just Talkin’ Tuesday 06.08.10: How do you talk with your kids about Postpartum Depression?
First, apologies for this being late. Summer break, a new family schedule, a blah day yesterday and then Internet connectivity issues today have all come into play. Starting next month, I’m going to work on planning a whole month’s worth of posts focused on one topic. So if there are any specific questions you’d like to have answered, send them to ppdacceptance(@)gmail.com. Maybe YOUR question will be a Just Talkin’ Tuesday post soon!
Looking back, I have realized our older daughter experienced a lot of things at 23 months old no child should ever experience. My husband and I yelling and screaming at each other because we were not communicating, Mommy collapsing in the floor as she wailed because something minor set me off, snapping at her for nothing at all, trapped in the house because we could never leave it, feeling abandoned as we went to Atlanta to be with Charlotte (don’t worry y’all – we had family members caring for her – not like we tossed her some cookies in her bed and wished her the best of luck!), and just the overall instability a Postpartum Mood Disorder drags with it into the household.
When we discovered our third pregnancy we decided things had to have a different focus. Instead of preparing things for the baby, we would need to prepare ourselves for the baby. By this time I had been doing advocacy work for just a few months and running a support group for nearly 4 months. I read, researched, picked a local OB known for his attention to women after delivery, and poured my heart and soul into the development of a personalized Postpartum Mental Health Plan.
Our girls, then nearly 4 and 2, sat in the middle of this potential storm. How could we best prepare them for the firestorm?
We waited until 8 months or so into the pregnancy. At every meal we would bring up Postpartum Mood Disorders. Yes, they got sick of hearing about it. But what we did worked well for us.
The conversation went something like this:
“Mommy wants to talk to you about something.”
Daughter 1: “Yes, mama?”
Daughter 2: plays with her food
“You know how you’re getting a new baby brother?”
Daughter 1: “Ahuh. And he’s gonna be so much fun and…”
Daughter 2: shoves food to one side of her plate.
“Well, sometimes, after mommies have babies, they get really super duper sad. And it’s not anyone’s fault.”
Daughter 1: “Sad? Why sad?”
Daughter 2: working on moving food back to the OTHER side of her plate.
“Well, no one really knows why yet. They just do. And like I said, it’s not anyone’s fault. Not the Mama’s, not the daddy’s, not the children’s fault, and not the baby’s fault. Got it?”
Daughter 1: “Got it.”
Daughter 2: is now parting her food as if it were the Red Sea.
“So who’s fault is it if a Mommy gets sad after she has a baby?”
Daughter 1: “The Mommy’s.”
*sigh* “No… it’s not anybody’s fault! It just happens.”
Daughter 1: “Oh. Not anybody’s fault?”
Daughter 2: Contemplating a spoonful of food at eye level.
“That’s right! Not anybody’s fault!!!”
“So – if that happens to Mommy and she gets sad, let’s think of some ways you can help mommy cheer up.”
Daughter 1: “Okay. I can tickle you. That will make you smile!”
Daughter 2: Attempting to eat said food. Instead creating a river of oatmeal down her chin.
“I like that! So if you see mommy sad or upset you can come tickle me, okay pumpkin?”
Daughter 1: “Really? I can? Yay!!!” cue really big goofy toddler grin.
Daughter 2: now smearing river of oatmeal on table. I’ve given up.
“So who’s fault is it?”
Daughter 1: “NOBODY’S!”
“And what are you going to do to help mommy if she gets sad?”
Daughter 1: “TICKLE YOU!”
And off we giggled into the sunset as a river of oatmeal flooded the plains.
But seriously – see what we did? We had a completely age appropriate discussion about Postpartum Depression. It really sunk in because if I looked sad after our son was born, my daughter really DID tickle me. So totally adorable.
As for the flip side – telling your children about your own experience with Postpartum Depression you had with them is a completely different ball game. Sure, I have share with them some of it but again, it’s in an age appropriate manner. They know mommy spends so much time on the computer because she helps women who are sad after they have babies. They have seen me cry when I’ve been touched by a story or a tragedy. And my oldest knows enough to know that if she ever has Postpartum Depression, she needs to talk to mommy cuz mommy knows what she’s doing. I hope and pray neither one of them experience this hell but with my experience, their risk goes up. So I feel I owe it to them to educate myself as much as possible, be as open as possible, and let them know beyond a shadow of a doubt they are NOT alone.
SO let’s get to Just Talkin’ here. Did you have older kids when you experienced your Postpartum Mood Disorder? Were you able to prepare them? If not, how did they react to your Postpartum experience? How did you talk with them about what was going on with Mommy? And here’s a doozy – will you ever tell your child the full unfiltered and uncensored story about what happened? Or will you continue to tell them in general terms about Postpartum Mood Disorders? (I’m still on the fence about whether or not I’ll share full details with them – if I ever write a book I suppose there’s no turning back then, right?)
I can’t wait to discuss this with y’all!
Just Talkin’ Tuesday 05.11.10: Postpartum invoke guilt? You are not alone
I know some of you are sucking air past your teeth through pursed lips right now, nodding your heads in agreement, rolling your eyes and possibly even muttering.
Really? She’s dragging THAT ghost up?
Yup. I sure am.
But why?
Because it’s important to face every facet of Postpartum head on – even the ugly parts.
Why is it so important? So those who are currently struggling KNOW that they’re not alone. So they KNOW that the emotions they’re feeling – while alien to them – are actually quite common among those of us who have struggled before them. The more we talk about our experience, the less victorious the stigma, fear, and guilt will be!
And let’s face it, GUILT is one of the uglier parts of Postpartum. It makes decisions we’re faced with during our Postpartum Mood Disorder even harder. No decision we make is a guilt-free decision.
Breastfeeding and having to medicate? Guilty. What is this doing to my baby? Should I be medicating and breastfeeding?
I had a c-section. Maybe I shouldn’t have had that done. Maybe that’s why I have postpartum. There’s that guilt again, sliding in through the door.
I had a vaginal birth but my c/s friends think I’m holier than thou now (even if I’m not) and won’t talk to me. HELLLLOOOOOO guilt.
I’m bottlefeeding because I can’t breastfeed or breastfeeding grosses me out or I was told to stop by my doc. Oh guilt? Won’t you PLEASE come in? Please?
My daughter/husband/others are judging me for my lack of parenting skills. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. Fishbowl Guilt: The feeling of judgment from everyone!
I’m thinking about having another baby/I don’t want another baby. Guilty over lack/desire to become/not become a mom again. Especially when pressured by others to become a mom!
I struggled with Fishbowl guilt with my first daughter. I sucked as a mom. My husband told me all the time what a great mom I was and how amazing I was at taking care of our precious daughter. But I never believed him. Even my 7 day old daughter judged me. I had no idea how to relate to a newborn. I’d never done this and just like her, I was brand new at this relationship. I kept the blinds in our house closed all the time. I used the excuse of nursing but it was really to keep all the people outside from peering inside to witness my daily failures as a woman, a mother, and a wife. I had fallen and there was no way I was sharing THAT with the world.
With our second daughter, I pumped exclusively for 7 months so she could get breastmilk as she was born with a cleft palate. It finally came down to my mental health and my relationship with my first daughter and husband or breastmilk for my second daughter. I bought formula. Cried all the way there and all the way home. Managed to keep the tears down in the store but heaven help anyone who had decided to give me a speech about the superiority of breastmilk. I had a whole tirade planned. I even had to fight with WIC to provide Enfamil instead of Similac because they were under contract with Similac but my daughter couldn’t tolerate the stuff. I had to get a doctor’s prescription for plain old Enfamil in order to win that battle. And that meant I had to fight with my then idiot pediatrician because he couldn’t understand what the difference was between the two and almost refused to write the script. Thank goodness for a local IBCLC who gave me the free Enfamil sample she had in her office. She saved them just for me and that meant the world to me.
Our son was a champ nurser from the start. And then we had issues with a bad latch habit. Then there were the back to back to back cases of thrush. I even had to go on an anti-candida diet to finally kick it because our ped and the OB couldn’t get their treatment schedules lined up. I nursed my son for 6 months. During that time, I had some severe emotional trauma unrelated to PPD. It killed my supply. My son was diagnosed as Failure to Thrive at 6 months old. The NEW pediatrician wanted me to pump. HAH! I was so not going back down that road. After a very emotional day of contemplation, we opted for formula. Everyone in the family dove in and donated bottles, a warmer, and we were on our way. Cameron switched completely within the next day and we never looked back.
I did not have Postpartum with my son. Sure, I had issues crop up, but they were not related to the birth of my son. And I weathered them just fine.
I had finally learned to put my guilt up on a shelf and leave it there. I still get it down to dust it off occasionally but it’s never stayed down for very long.
The biggest lesson I learned from my Postpartum was to let go of my guilt. How did I do this? My angel of a therapist once said something to me in relation to a situation with which I was struggling. She told me that how others react to you is THEIR gig, not yours. Wow. HUGE. It really hit home with me and I practice it each and every day. I’m also a huge proponent of believing that as moms, we have to make the decision that’s the best for ourselves and our families. I respect that in others and in myself.
So let’s get to just talking.
Do you deal with guilt? What’s your biggest source of guilt as a mom who’s struggled with Postpartum? Have you put the guilt behind you? How’d you do that? Share your tips for guilt-free living as a mom. Are you still dealing with the guilt and think you shouldn’t be? Try giving yourself permission to be ok with your decision. It’s amazing how far permission will go if you give it a chance.
Her hobby is “helping othr mommys”
This afternoon, my daughter sat down and began seriously reading a Mother’s Day project she had been laboring over at school this past week. The first pass declared me to be 8ft tall (yup!), 10lbs (wow. Can we say excuse to indulge in ice cream all weekend?!), 70 years old (we need to have a talk, Olay!), sweet, and as beautiful as a rose (ok, Olay, clearly you’re doing something right!)
But then, then there was the sentence about my hobby.
My 6 year old daughter wrote proudly in her Mother’s day book the following:
“Her hobby is helping othr mommys.”
Yes, dear, it is indeed. It is indeed.
I need Kleenex.
