I cried all the way to Target today. For absolutely no reason at all, and yet for ALL the reasons. Not even the Target by my own house. I went to the furthest Target in the area on purpose to get that extra, much needed crying time.
I never thought it would happen to me. Postpartum depression
sounds like a label. It seems like such heavy words, a weight to carry if you
are labeled with it. Like you’re just a number. I never had it with my first
born so I incorrectly assumed “It couldn’t happen to me”. I used to think, can’t
people with postpartum depression just do something to make them happier? Like
a hobby of theirs, or go on a walk, or talk to someone? I am a nurse and I know
all the signs, the symptoms, I know what resources are out there to help people
with PPD—and yet, when it happened to me, suddenly I felt at the bottom of a dark
well and I left all my “resources and knowledge” about it up at the top. Suddenly
It was just me. I am aware of my own self enough to realize that it truly did
feel like a shift in my brain, like it wasn’t my normal self operating it. Like
a malware virus had been installed and was running the operating system. That’s
why I couldn’t just “go do one of my hobbies, take a walk, or do something fun”,
because it felt like I didn’t even like those things anymore. I was lying
dormant underneath this virus in my brain. And it didn’t make any sense. And it’s
going to be hard to explain.
Most of my blogs I try and come on here with humor and make
light of the craziness that is raising kids. But its not all light. And I want
to normalize these darker parts because none of us talk about it. Whether its
postpartum depression, or depression, seasonal affective disorder, or just
feeling down in the dumps thanks to COVID, we all do our best to put on our “I’m
fine” face and our friends and family sometimes are none the wiser. If
something happened right now where each and everyone of us suddenly felt depressed,
would we even know that it happened to all of us? Or would each one of us feel
isolated and alone because we aren’t reaching out to others to find out none of
us are alone?
Let me start by saying I have not officially been diagnosed
with anything. I am not on any specific treatment although I will talk below about
what has helped me. I don’t know if it is ‘postpartum depression’, or if it is “just”
the baby blues. Or lets mix in the fact that we are 10 months into a global
pandemic and have all been cooped up in our houses. As a new mom in COVID this really
puts a damper on the help that we are allowed to reach out to and accept, whether
resources being closed or changed, or the fact we are afraid to let friends in
and expose each other to COVID. Let’s ALSO mix in the fact that having a baby
in the middle of winter feels a LOT different than having my first born August
baby. In August we could go out walking to get out of the house, sit outside,
get fresh air, etc. That mixed with seasonal affective disorder is a recipe for
anyone to be feeling in the dumps right now. I am also getting very little
sleep which highly contributes to these feelings. And it is a lot different this
time caring for a toddler AND the newborn- as I can’t just sleep when the baby
sleeps because I need to be on 100% of the time to care for my toddler. And it wasn’t
like this from Day 1 either. In fact I was doing really well- it felt like I was
doing too well- I recovered much faster physically, I wanted to “do all the
things” around the house, I felt ready to jump back into learning new things
and skills… but literally it was one day- one day- I woke up and felt so different.
Like I stated above, it like I wasn’t myself. I could barely talk to my toddler
as I got her ready for the day. I could only mutter small one word answers to
her innocent questions. All day I felt like I was behind a foggy glass cage and
couldn’t see out. I tried watching my favorite tv shows but felt like I was
falling further. I literally spent $20 to get my favorite lunch delivered to my
house in hopes of cheering me up, and I only ate half of it. I just wanted to
cry profusely for no absolute reason at all. So regardless what I am actually suffering
from or feeling, it doesn’t negate the fact that these feelings are real and we
are not alone. I know I am not alone.
This will likely be my most vulnerable posts I will ever write.
I struggled with deciding whether or not to write this. By admitting it, it
felt like a weakness, like somehow I was admitting I was not a good mother. That
I don’t have it all together. By admitting defeat it felt like to me, was it a
mistake having two kids? If I can’t handle the heat why did I step in the fire?
Will my friends and family that read this suddenly think different of me? Will
they think I am weak? Will they treat me different? But even at the bottom of
the dark well, I know enough that those thoughts are the ones controlled by
this malware virus. It is an imbalance of hormones, it is not US. But If I can
help put down in words what its like to have this imbalance of hormones in the
brain, If I can help make even just ONE other mom out there feel less alone, to
see that someone else knows exactly what they’re going through, then it is all
worth it to me.
My brain makes sense of analogies. It always has. So that’s kind
of the way I think and how I can best explain how this feels. The first analogy
that seems to make sense of this to me is to picture a big, underground pool.
One of those where there are a nice set of steps, then a nice shallow end, and
about 6 feet in your feet can feel where it starts to slope downward and then
there is a portion where you can kind of stand but it’s a lot more effort. Then
there is the full deep-end that requires constant full swimming. Can you
picture it? Okay.
Let’s say for the purposes of this analogy, its not good to
be in the pool at all. The best place to be here is outside the pool, lounging
on a nice chair in the sun with a good book. But if you are in the pool, the
best place to be is the shallow end- where there is chaos, splashing, but you can
stand. You are grounded. You have all the right coping skills. The stairs are
right there for you in case you are tired of the water and want to lounge outside
the pool a bit. But you start to feel yourself inching towards that downward
slope. You think you’ll be fine. You can swim, after all, right? Its not a big deal.
I’m fine, we’re fine. Everything’s fine. You don’t want to sound the alarm just
yet. You fear that if you start asking for help now people will think, “but did
you even try to swim?” or, “If you can’t swim why did you get in the pool?” or “buckle
up buttercup, welcome to parenting”. So you want to test the limits, you want
to try and swim to see how strong you are without asking for help. You want to
show everyone your Olympic swimming skills and that you’ve got it all under
control. But once you’re in that in between area- that space where you can
barely touch your toes to the pool liner and you have to kind of uncomfortably
tread water to stay afloat- that isn’t fine. Its fine for awhile, maybe. But
when you feel like you’ve been in that space for awhile and don’t see any end
in sight, that my friend is the ticket to the deepest end of the pool. So you
start looking for the lifeguards for help. After birth the “lifeguards” were
all over you asking if you needed help and were screening you for “your ability
to swim”, but now- one month in the pool, the lifeguards all seem to be on
their lunch break. Sure, you could holler them over to come save you, but you aren’t
sure if that is necessary. I mean, you aren’t actually drowning, right? You’re
just struggling. You’re afraid of causing unnecessary concern, or causing a
scene in the pool. You are afraid the lifeguards will turn you away and say “you’re
fine, we’re busy saving people that are
actually drowning.” So, you keep swimming. And you see your friends and family
on lounge chairs outside the water also. Occasionally one throws you a pool noodle
for you to float on which feels good but you know its only temporary. What you
really want is to ask those friends and family to help get you out of the pool,
but with them too- you fear that they will either not be able to help or wont
want to. You envision excuses of why you shouldn’t ask them, like, “she’s too
busy with her new business to help”, or “she’s got a lot going on at work right
now”, or “I don’t want to burden her with my problems”, or “she’s never even
been in the pool, she won’t understand”, or “we only know each other online, it
would be weird to pour all my feelings out to her”, or “I don’t want her to feel
sorry for me”, or “am I close enough to this person to tell all this too?” or “she
had her kids many years ago, will she remember what this time was like?” or worst
of all, worrying if that friend/family will simply just throw you a life jacket
full of “positive” thoughts like “well at least your baby is healthy”, “at
least your toddler sleeps”, “but your baby is sooo cute”, or any other
combination of “at least this, at least that”. You know they mean well, but you’re
still in the damn pool, struggling to swim. And then there are the friends and
family that you wonder, can’t you see me struggling here? But then you realize
that they aren’t mind readers—and you haven’t asked them for help so how are
they to know that you’re struggling to swim? It is like we just expect people
to see us struggle and pull us out of the pool, but in reality that doesn’t happen
until we either ask for help, or its too late and you’re in the deep end. I won’t
even talk about the deep end because frankly I haven’t been there. I am still
in that in-between space, struggling to swim but occasionally can reach the
bottom of the pool, occasionally I get a pool float, and I see hope of
returning to the shallow end- hopefully sometime soon.
The other analogy that feels right to me is standing in a
pitch black room. You feel all alone but at the same time you KNOW there are
other people in the room, you just don’t know who they are. You know that by
simple law of probability, there’s gotta be some of your friends and family in
the room with you but you don’t know which ones. So eventually you fight, you
fight your way with every possible shred of hope and coping skill you have, and
you light a match. And with that match you light a torch. And with that torch
you carry you shine the light upon others and now you don’t feel as alone
anymore. And neither do they. And together you light more torches and find more
people. And now the room isn’t dark anymore and you all can see that none of
you have been alone this entire time, just in the dark. That’s how I feel- that
if 1 in 10 moms suffer like this, that we are all in the dark room and if we
just lit our torches and looked around, chances are we would find unexpected
friends and family there that are right there with us and we can help each
other, even if its just the simple fact of knowing we are in this together, even
if we don’t have the answers.
So what is this pool, exactly? I use it as an analogy, but
for what? Well, I think its different for all of us. Perhaps we are each in our
own little pools, in a vast sea of pools side by side, full of different water
droplets that make up each of our own pools. Maybe that’s why its so easy to feel
so alone and isolated because we are each in our own pool despite all being in
A pool. Does that make sense? I’m exhausted, so I don’t know lol.
But, if I can try and define some of my water droplets that
make up my pool, it’s:
-
Being so exhausted to a whole level that you didn’t
even know possible. Right now Ryland is up every 3 hours overnight to feed and that
means I get about 2 hour intervals of sleep. Then when I wake up I am up with
toddler all day so I maybe get a half hour nap all day (sometimes more if my
husband is able to help), until a bedtime of about 11-12 pm. Sometimes it takes
me literally more than 20 seconds to figure out what MONTH we are in. Or if I already
put sweetener in my coffee. I hate that feeling of pure exhaustion where you think
if given the chance, you could sleep standing up.
-
Being so exhausted BUT when given the chance to
nap, you cant sleep.
-
Being so exhausted but you have to carefully
time out when your caffeine intake is, and how much you can have, due to
breastfeeding.
-
The guilt that you probably did give your baby
too much caffeine through breast milk by accident.
-
The extreme mom guilt of letting your toddler
watch movie after movie or youtube video because its all you have the strength
to entertain her with.
-
The mom guilt of TRYING one activity a day with
your toddler but this ends in tears, for both of you.
-
When you are trying your absolute hardest but
someone else (often the people closest to us) make us feel less than and a terrible
parent.
-
It’s knowing your husband is in the pool with
you, but he’s also struggling and neither of you can help the other one out. The
only thing you can each do is keep throwing each other the pool noodle so one
can get relief at one time—but yet when its your turn to float on the pool
noodle you are over consumed by guilt that you’re letting your husband struggle
to swim while you float.
-
The uncontrollable snack eating, unclear to
yourself if its breastfeeding replenishment or eating my feelings, or both.
-
^Having to respell replenishment multiple times
because you’re too tired to know how to spell replenishment. Thank you Microsoft
Word.
-
When your toddler falls asleep but then the baby
is inconsolable.
-
When the baby falls asleep but then the toddler wakes
them up by accident.
-
When the baby falls asleep but then the dog
wakes them up by barking for the millionth time that day.
-
When the dog eats your lunch that you walked
away from for just a second.
-
When the dog eats the toddlers snack, and then eats
the toddlers bowl, rendering another bowl unusable.
-
When the toddler won’t eat the lunch you made
for her. Or breakfast. Or dinner.
W- The mom guilt of just giving your toddler the same old things each meal because you don’t have the strength to fight her on begging her to eat what you made.
-
The mom guilt of knowing that it could be so much
worse, in fact you know of other people that are in way worse situations than
you right now, and so why do I feel like this? Why am I not strong enough?
-
When you feel like you literally just fell
asleep and the baby is awake again.
WWhen you're trying your absolute hardest to keep it together, but your 2.5 year old says "What's the matter, mommy?" and it shatters your heart into a million little pieces.
-
The mom guilt of LOVING breastfeeding, truly,
but when your boob is “on tap” literally all the time, its hard not feel some
resentment.
-
The repetition of it all. Change baby diaper.
Get peed on. Again. Change outfit. Feed him. Feed toddler. Play with toddler.
Change toddlers diaper. Repeat everything over and over.
-
Toddler constantly asking you to play, even
though playing with legos (or whatever) is literally the LAST thing you want to
do right now, and that makes you feel so guilty.
-
Its endless scrolling through social media and
comparing yourself to all the other moms you know who seem to have it together
and wonder why aren’t you doing as well as them.
-
Toddler asking you for a snack all.the.time. but
doesn’t eat her meals (without a fight).
-
When your brain feels like mush, not just from
the exhaustion but from the lack of learning any new material or participating
in adult, intellectual conversations or activities instead of just rewatching
the same Disney movies.
-
Rewatching Frozen, Frozen 2 and Tangled for the
184,281,104th time.
-
Feeling so helpless that your baby has bad gas pains
and you feel like its your fault, and you don’t know how to help him.
There are a million other water droplets to make up the
pool, but I will leave it at that. The point is, is that none of these
individual things is what fills the pool. No, we can handle each one, if that
were it. Even if there were a few, its manageable. Its when literally all of
the above in that list happens in ONE day, and every day, is when it feels like
you’re in that space of not being able to feel the bottom of the pool anymore.
Everyone tells you these days will pass, and I know they will. I know that
before I know It he will be a toddler and I’ll be missing these days and I will
forget how hard it was. I know it will pass. I know its temporary. But when you’re
in that headspace, sometimes it feels so hopeless and it feels like these days
will go on and on and you will never get sleep again. I literally fantasize
about the potentially glorious sleep I will hopefully one day get when these
kids are both in college lol. Hopefully I get sleep before that…
So, what HAS helped me? Well, a lot. And that’s part of why
I wanted to share all of this with you and open up, not just to show other moms
that none of us are alone, but to try and share some resources that may help
other moms too.
1.
This happy light has helped a lot. It doesn’t have
to be this exact one, but there are multiple ones on the market. I used this
during my pregnancy at my work desk and it made a HUGE difference in how tired
I felt. But then postpartum, well I obviously wasn’t sitting at my work desk
anymore, thus not sitting by my light. I don’t know all the science behind it,
but it needs to be within 15 inches of your eyes, and it replenishes the façade
of sunlight, tricking your mind to be well, happy and less tired. Maybe its
just a placebo, but who cares if it is, if I DO in fact feel less tired on days
I can sit by it for at least an hour if not more. This is challenging when
caring for a baby and a toddler, but is possible if you can baby wear and put a
movie on for the toddler. Amazon.com:
Light Therapy Lamp, Miroco UV Free 10000 Lux Brightness, Timer Function, Touch
Control, Standing Bracket, for Home/Office Use: Health & Personal Care
2.
Music. Music is the one thing for me that no
matter how deep in the water I may feel, it’s the tiny thing that can come find
me underwater and pull me back up to the surface. Its my pool noodle. It’s the thing
that can make me cry, which is a good thing. We need to cry, its healthy to cry
to get it all out and release that pent up sadness and anger. I have dedicated
playlists on my music streaming service for my moods. I have one dedicated for
those times I want to cry and really sit in my feelings. I have another for
releasing some pent up anger and just want to scream. I have another that has
really good dance music. Another that has inspiring/uplifting music. I highly encourage
the use of music if that’s what works for you, and creating those playlists so
you have a better chance of listening to exactly what you need in the right
moment for you. And I highly suggest playing this music really, really loud in
the car (without your babes) and just sing at the top of your lungs.
3.
Friends! FRIENDS! Yes. So despite all my talk
above of feeling so alone, I have had many conversations with friends that feel
like those pool noodles- those momentary times when I feel like I’m not
struggling, or at least contently floating with a friend, because of a
connection with a friend. Now, with COVID, I can’t SEE any of my friends, but I’ve
noticed a different positive trend (maybe thanks to covid, maybe not) is that through
social media and posting how mom life truly is, the humor, the good, the bad-
its brought me together with friends- some that I haven’t even talked to since
middle school- and yet they’re going through the same thing! And you end up
talking for hours through social media! If you can find a friend that is going
through a similar situation as you, it helps SO MUCH. Not just “being in the
pool” but just a similar situation as yours. I have a friend that I went to all
of grade school with and high school- we lost touch throughout college and our
twenties but reconnected through social media because we both had a girl about
the same age (5 weeks apart). We started talking and bouncing strategies and
tips around with each other, helping each other through night time terrors, picky
eating, potty training, or just being there for each other online to vent to. Now
we both have baby boys , also close in age (about 10 weeks!) so we are going
through a very similar situation. But having her is so invaluable knowing that
she can emphasize with exactly what I’m going through and I can help her too. But
not just her- I am lucky that I have a lot of friends online that also have
young kids and have been able to receive and share sooo many tips with these other
moms and have great conversations.
4.
MOM GROUPS. On facebook, there are so many mom groups
its ridiculous. But they can be helpful. And harmful too, so just be wary. Try
them, see if they help you but don’t be afraid to leave the group if it brings
you any negativity, comparison, mom guilt or anything. But there are so many
helpful ones, unique to what ails you. Struggling with pumping? There’s a
group. Struggling with breastfeeding? There is a group for that. Struggling with
postpartum depression? Not only did I find a national resource group for that,
but also LOCAL Pennsylvania one so I can
potentially connect with moms struggling just like me, near me. I say that they
can be harmful too, because I read these other moms stories and the extreme
hardships they face (single parenting, lack of help, no money, hard jobs,
little to no maternity leave, many children, abusive households, etc) and it
makes me feel guilty again that I am struggling internally but feel like I shouldn’t
be in comparison to how hard these other women have it.
5.
Instagram. No really- it has been a total game
changer for me in some positive ways, despite the bad rep social media carries.
IF you use it for good, its very helpful. I follow specific accounts that have
helped me in so many ways. Here are some to share:
a.
@biglittlefeelings helps me navigate how I want
to raise my toddler and handle tantrums and her feelings.
b.
@thebirdspapaya focuses a lot on body image and
how we allllll have that mom pouch and she displays it proudly, and she’s still
gorgeous. It makes it feel easier to love my own self and body too, seeing her
bravery and authenticity. She also just had a newborn baby and I can connect
with a lot of her content.
c.
@jadelizroper – yes, she’s from bachelor nation,
and she’s an influencer so you gotta deal with some ads, but she also has 3
kids under 4 and I can therefore obviously connect with a lot of what she’s
going through. She’s opened up a lot about depression as well.
d.
@momsbehavingbadly – this account just makes me
laugh, that’s all. A lot.
e.
@karrie_locher GREAT resource for new moms. She
is a labor & delivery nurse and shares so much great content for new moms.
f.
@drbeckyathome – another great resource spanning
a lot of different topics for new moms, PPD, anxiety, raising kids, etc.
You gotta find accounts that work for you. Most
importantly with social media, if you are scrolling and ANYTHING, I mean ANYTHINNNGGGGGGG-that
makes you feel LESS THAN, or GUILTY, or ANYTHING negative, YOU HAVE THE POWER
to UNFOLLOW that person, regardless if they are your flesh and blood or a person
you don’t even know. Your social media, if you use it, should only be there to
show you helpful content or things that make you feel good.
6.
Journaling. Journaling is sooo helpful. I often
feel too tired to do so, but I do try and write about once a week. There are
some things far too private to share on this blog, but I still need to get them
off my chest, and journaling is the perfect way to do that. And it doesn’t have
to be a scary commitment. Sometimes all you have to do is promise yourself you’ll
try and write one paragraph about how your day was. Or write for ten minutes, that’s
it. You’ll often find that you’re then on a roll and write a lot more.
7.
My last helpful tidbit is this website: Postpartum Support International - PSI .
I found them actually through one of the accounts listed above in Instagram.
What I liked is that I immediately saw that you can text them. This I liked because
I have literally always hated talking on the phone. And remember my example
with the lifeguards and the pool? Talking on the phone seems like I was asking
a lifeguard for help even though I wasn’t drowning, and that just all felt too
heavy and real. Plus I knew if I talked it out, I would probably just start
bawling. But texting felt much more manageable. What happens is you reach out
to them via text, and they connect you within a reasonable time frame to a
volunteer in your area to just talk (text) things out with you. They offer suggestions
to help, or just listen as you send paragraphs of venting to a total stranger.
They also offered to set me up with a therapist in my area and also sent me
links to some mom groups on facebook I mentioned above.
Well, I know this has been a ridiculously long blog. And if
you’ve made it this far, wow. Kudos. I don’t even expect anyone to have read it
all, but I do feel a weight lifted off of me by sharing it all. Hopefully some
piece of it somewhere can help another mom or person, whether it be today,
tomorrow or in 10 years. Or even my own children one day reading this. Who knows.
What I really, really want to leave you with- is if you are
reading this, whether you are my family, or my friend, or even if you don’t
even know me, if any of this content connects with you and makes you feel like
you want to open up, I am here for you. I can be your pool noodle or life
jacket, or I can help light your torch. We all can help light each others torch
if we all just start talking and reaching out. And I know its so hard. But I am
here and I will always listen. And I wont try and offer you positive vibes of “at
least this, and at least that” but I will listen. I wont try and make it better
but I will listen.
Thank you all. Thank you.
With love,
The New Motherboard.
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