Chernobyl

I debated long and hard about doing this blog.  But I've decided that omitting a huge part of my life would totally negate the purpose of even having a blog.  So in the interest of transparency: I had/have Post-Partum Depression (PPD).

Actually it was technically post-partum ANXIETY, but the two terms are pretty much interchangeable and there are only a few differences.  I began experiencing the super-fun odyssey that is PPD almost immediately after I was released from the hospital.  I had been in the hospital for a week with child-bed fever (or puerperal fever for you biology geeks).  So by the time I got home, I had had just enough time for all the pregnancy hormones to leave my system.

Now at this point, the vast majority of women will experience "The Baby Blues", which basically involves a lot of crying and having swooping bouts of feeling like your dog just died.  Make no mistake, it's crappy, but it passes.  Mine didn't pass.  And mine came with paralyzing anxiety attacks.  And the inability to eat without getting sick.  Oh, and feeling like I was totally losing my mind.

The overarching theme was that I was definitely NOT NORMAL.  Unfortunately, I was the only person who knew that.  My ob/gyn took one 20 second look at me and announced that I was just having trouble adjusting to motherhood and -I'm not even making this up- told me to "put your big girl panties on and deal with it".

After that, things got worse. 

I'll spare you the details of my near-brush with complete insanity, but if you're interested in knowing more, I HIGHLY recommend Brooke Shield's book, Down Came The Rain.  I used to think of Brooke Shields the same way I think of all celebrities: as overrated and overpaid models of hubris, but after reading her book on the subject of PPD, I now think of her as a cross between my best friend and Mother Theresa.

Now, given that I'm typing all this and not scratching it into my padded-cell walls, I'm sure you can all surmise that I DID get help.  I finally got to the point where I knew that if I didn't get help, I was going to go completely over the edge.  For all I knew, I was losing my mind, but dammit, I wasn't going down without a fight.

I called my parents and told them I needed them.  To their credit, they dropped everything, and my dad came to stay with me for a week.  I told David that my ob/gyn was wrong, and something was definitely going on with me, and he supported me.  We sought the help of a REAL doctor, who immediately diagnosed me with PPD and put me on the pharmaceutical equivalent of elephant tranquilizers.  It only took two days for the medicine to kick in, and the cloud lifted. 

The medicine took care of the chemical aspect of PPD, but I couldn't have initiated the recovery process without immense support from David, my family, and my friends.  I joined a support group for women suffering from PPD, and from it I learned a valuable lesson: that I'm not alone.  Millions of women suffer from PPD, and it's not something to be ashamed of or to hide.  It doesn't make you crazy, it doesn't mean you're a bad mom, and it doesn't define who you are as a person.

One big bummer for me though, was the fact that I had to stop breast-feeding because of the medication.  I'd had this idea in my head that I'd be Super Mom, turning up my nose at formula, and raising a brilliant, breast-fed child.  But honestly, giving up nursing was a small price to pay in exchange for my mental health.  (And seeing as how my son is the infant version of The Incredible Hulk, I'd say he's doing just fine with the bottle.)

As much as I'd like to end the story there with an "and they all lived happily ever after", recovering from PPD is a long and arduous process.  I still struggle with it today, 10 months out.  I've had many set-backs over the past few months, but I'm gradually getting better. 

 The reason all this is on the forefront of my mind is that I met with my doctor yesterday, and he pulled me off all my medicine, cold-turkey.  While the prospect of being completely un-medicated is absolutely terrifying, I'm kind of excited at the prospect of no longer being a walking chem lab.  Today is my first day without medication. 

Whether I'll thrive without drugs remains to be seen, but I'm hopeful that this is the beginning of the end of PPD for me.