Tag Archives: Postpartum Voice of the Week

Postpartum Voice of the Week: Postpartum Thoughts – The Postpartum Trifecta

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One of the least discussed aspects of the Postpartum Mood & Anxiety Disorder experience involves intrusive thoughts. Those of us who struggle with these nasty beasts are afraid to admit to them because we fear it will result in our children torn away from us. Some of us fear these thoughts mean we’re stricken with Psychosis. So we suffer silently until they have faded into the distant past.

Intrusive thoughts are not Psychosis. Instead, they are more closely related to Postpartum Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Women who struggle with Intrusive thoughts are immediately horrified by their thoughts which involve harming themselves, their infants, or harm coming to either of them. They are violent flashes which jet through our brains. We are unable to control them. They leave as quickly as they arrive. Psychosis on the other hand, involves thoughts which make logical sense to the person having them regardless of the lack of logic. There may be auditory hallucinations, visual hallucinations, and a belief that if these actions are not followed through, a worse harm will swoop down upon the affected parties. Psychosis is a medical emergency. No mother suffering with auditory or visual hallucinations should ever be left alone with her infant and should be placed in medical care immediately. ER, people. Immediately.

In today’s Postpartum Voice of the Week Post, the author explores her experience with intrusive thoughts. She describes how severe intrusive thoughts can lead to OCD (which they did in my case as well) and mentions Emma Pillsbury from Glee but digresses to point out: “But let me tell you that in real life, coping with intrusive thoughts is not cute and fun like an episode of Glee.”

Coping with intrusive thoughts can be exhausting. It wears you down. Leaves little energy for the end of the day when you finally get baby down to sleep for the night. All day, you’ve waged a battle in your mind with an army of flashing horrific pictures and thoughts. So you sit on the couch like a zombie, exhausted, yet unable to sleep. Many moms I know use mental imagery to stop the thoughts – picturing a stop sign for example – or going to a happy place. Others distract. I know for anxiety I force myself to count backward from 100. In Spanish. I speak enough Spanish to be able to do this but it really forces me to think and distracts me from the issue at hand. I also use music.

At the end of her post, the author asks, “Have you ever battled any of the postpartum trifecta: depression, anxiety, or intrusive thoughts? What helped you to cope?”

Pop on over and let her know, won’t you?

Postpartum Voice of the Week: @MammyWoo’s “Radio Silence”

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Earlier this week, @MammyWoo messaged me to let me know she submitted a blog post for consideration this week. I could not wait to read it! Then life happened and I did not read her post until this morning but my sense of anticipation was dead on because the post is amazing.

In it, Lexy is amazingly honest about her experience with Postnatal Depression. She describes waking up to discover that indeed, morning has arrived and is not two weeks away as she wishes. Her 1 year old pokes and prods her to play, but she is unable to respond.

Once again, she’s stuck in Radio Silence, unable to talk, communicate, play, reach out. She’s trapped. “All the little men that live inside my body making things work (I was never very good at biology) have gone on strike and normal service delivery is brought to a complete halt.”

I especially love her reference to being a Postnatal Zombie. It’s so true that when you are in the depths of a Postpartum Mood Disorder one feels like a Zombie. Mindless, numb, drifting dangerously toward nothingness. For some, that numbness is solace. For others, it is a tailspin toward panic. If you feel you are trapped in Postpartum Zombieville, there are some tips for you here.

I remember that numbness. It did not hit me after the birth of our first daughter but it slammed into me during my second pregnancy. There were so many days when I would lock my daughter and I into her room, get her toys out, and then lay on the couch against the wall, staring up at the ceiling. Our 18 month old daughter excelled at independent play not because she was independent but because I was incapable of playing with her. I lacked the motivation to drag myself out of bed and certainly lacked the capacity to be imaginative enough to get down in the floor and pretend a bunch of blocks were involved in a tea party with Princesses. So many days spent on that couch without energy to do anything. Scared that if I did get up and do something it would end tragically. So I stayed. On the damned couch.

All I wanted to do, all I could do, was lay there. Listlessly. Mindlessly. Hopelessly. I did just enough to get by but not enough to thrive. She seemed happy enough. I justified my actions with her increased independence. It’s good for a kid to learn independence at such a young age, right?

Once I had our son though, and managed to have a pregnancy and postpartum without mental health issues, I became angry. I realized that all my “Radio Silence” had done was distance me from my daughters. To this day, I have a closer bond with my son than with his sisters. It is certainly not because I love them any less. It has nothing to do with their abilities as daughters but rather, everything to do with my illness after giving birth and during my pregnancy with our second daughter. I failed them. I failed myself. I failed my husband. I failed. (Hello, Postpartum Guilt. How you doin?)

Turns out these days that I did not really fail them. Both our daughters are brilliantly independent, wickedly smart, and hilarious little girls. They are full of sass, spunk, and determination. I don’t know that my issues with mental health affected the development of those skills or not. I like to think they would be the same way even if I had been a happy healthy mom when they were brand new to the world. Bottom line though, eventually I got help and got well. I may not have bonded with them when I should have but we are bonded now. I cannot change the past but with every new moment and opportunity I can change my future. I can change their future. It is a fine line to walk though because it is very easy to want to over-do it and make up for my past failures which is a dangerous slope down which to slide.

Enough about me though.

Lexy, oh sweet Lexy. I know you feel alone there in your Radio Silence. So many of us have been where you are now. We know how unquietly quiet it is there. We’re there with you, ready to listen. You’re not worthless. All you have to do is let us know you need us and we’ll be right there. Ready to listen, encourage, support, whatever you need from us, we’ll be there. You are not alone.

Go leave her some love and support.

Postpartum Voice of the Week: @jamesandjax Reflecting on PPD

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There comes a time in the postpartum experience when you are well enough to look back. It’s challenging to look back. To see the scary so intimately intertwined with the happy. To see a piece of tiny snuggly clothing and then be triggered with anxiety, scary thoughts, flashes of depression – is a frightening thing. Yet, all who have struggled with postpartum struggle with this very issue at one time or another. It’s what drives us to think about whether or not we should have another baby. It’s what casts shadows over our children’s first birthday, second birthday, etc. This.IS.HARD.

This week’s Postpartum Voice of the Week takes this precise issue and writes about it beautifully. The post is short, simple, and to the point. She takes you from happily nursing her child and drinking in his scent to screaming on the phone with her mother about how hard motherhood is – I can’t do this! Yet, through all of that, she still loved her son. During PPD and even more today.

Without further ado, I encourage you to read her story in her words. You’ll be glad you did.

 

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Postpartum Voice of the Week: @ksluiter’s Secret Mommyhood Depression Confession

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background stock from http://www.sxc.hu/photo/510010

One of the hardest questions a mom with Postpartum Depression harbors somewhere deep within her is “When will this be over?”

A couple of months? A few? More? A year? When? How will I know I am better?

When?

When a doctor prescribes antibiotics, we take them, usually for 5-10 days. And then we’re supposed to be better.

Depression does not work that way. Mental illness does not work that way.

For some of us, just as with any illness, we may heal faster.

For others, it may take some time for our minds to bounce back from the issues we are facing. If we’re on the longer end of the expected time frame, it does not mean there is something wrong with us. It doesn’t mean that we have done something to deserve to continue to suffer. Our road is just longer. We may have more baggage, more to work through, continued external drama, less support, struggling to find the right meds, therapists aren’t working well, etc. There are a whole host of reasons for our road to be longer. Reasons we may not understand in the here and now as we scream for a shorter road. Scream to be able to sit down and rest, to stop fighting with this beast of depression.

We just want it all to go away.

But when on a long road toward recovery, it may not seem as if it will ever go away.

That’s when it gets tough all over again.

Katie Sluiter of Sluiter nation is there. She’s there and struggling with thoughts that her depression may never go away.

This past Friday, as part of Secret Mommyhood Confession, she wrote about her continued battle against Depression. She shared that it may well have gone from Postpartum to full blown depression. This post is worth reading for a few reasons.

One – sometimes Postpartum continues into a full blown depression or other mental illness. Sometimes it doesn’t go away as quickly as we would like it to and sometimes it morphs into a tenacious little monster we are unable to get off our backs. And it sucks.

Two – Katie, once again, approaches this issue with a raw honesty that is absolutely the essence of the Postpartum Voice. Honesty, above all else, is an important element toward recovery. It garners positive support from your doctor, important support from your peers, and it allows you to work through some pretty hard stuff in a very clear cut manner. Once you are honest with yourself, it is hard to be dishonest with others.

With no further ado, I give you Katie Sluiter of Sluiter Nation and her Secret Mommyhood Depression Confession.

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Postpartum Voices of the Week: Janice of @5minutesforMom & @Racheous

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This week, I had both a submission of a blog post and another blog post I stumbled across which I could not ignore. Both posts are about looking back at the lived experience of a Postpartum Mood Disorder.

The first post I read was written by @Racheous from Twitter. On her blog, she looks back at her experience as “Cam’s Mum” over the past year.

My favorite quote from her post:

As much as I hate to remember the depths of the negative emotions I felt at first; I know that they play a huge part in how amazingly beautiful motherhood is now and has been for most of my journey as Cam’s Mummy.

The post I stumbled across happened to be authored by none other than Janice over at 5 Minutes for Mom. Entitled “Nine years later — and I am OK,” Janice starts with the baking of a cake for her son. Then she takes us on a journey through her Postpartum Depression and Anxiety. She describes how she went to find a nurse and ended up in tears as she talked with her about the overwhelming anxiety slamming into her even at the hospital. And then Janice does something for which I absolutely love her even more than ever. She writes this:

“Every year, on the eve of my son’s birthday, I remember — like a day of observance. I look at where I was, how far I have come, and how grateful I am.

And I think of how I want to tell every woman who is in that desperate, lonely place that there is hope. I survived. And they will too.”

Not only do both of these posts exemplify the courage it takes to look back and share the story of a woman’s journey through a Postpartum Mood Disorder, they both provide hope at the end. Hope for a light at the end of the tunnel. Both posts also refer to sources of help – @Racheous refers to the Australian Post and Antenatal Depression Association (PANDA) while Janice refers to Katherine Stone’s Postpartum Progress, a website which has helped thousands (if not millions) of women around the globe.

Thank you both for raising your voices and sharing hope. Congratulations on being this week’s Postpartum Voices of the Week. Feel free to grab the above badge and slap it on your blog. You’ve earned it.

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