So many new mothers joyfully welcome their long awaited additions to the family, and until the last few months of pregnancy, I never had reason to believe I wouldn’t be one of them. That is, until overwhelming, nameless sadness took hold and made me question everything.
Peripartum depression, they call it. (I have also heard it called perinatal depression.)
Although neither peripartum or perinatal exactly fits duration-wise in my particular case, the definitions seem to vary only slightly.
Regardless, any form of depression during pregnancy was not only unexpected, for me it was unheard of. Very few people I’ve talked to even knew of anything other than postpartum depression, and until it infiltrated my life, I remained clueless about its existence.
Peripartum Depression
It started so innocently.
In fact, it was so sneaky in onset that I initially blamed the symptoms on medication withdrawal from a mood stabilizer that my psychiatrist was slowly weaning me off of.
When the withdrawal period ended, though, the symptoms remained.
Not only remained, but grew worse, and worse, and worse.
Irritability became sobbing over the smallest things, while physical inability to contribute as I normally would became the reason for my worthlessness.
As someone who has suffered from depression before, I should have known… but peripartum depression wasn’t in my vocabulary. Pregnancy was, in my mind, a happy time – a time of excitement, and preparation, and anticipation.
Anything outside of that realm – in my head – made me unfit to be a mother.
My soon-to-be-born son would be better off without me, according to the vicious invasive thoughts that mangled my perception.
Seeking Help
Due to it not being my first merry-go-round with baker acts, I was terrified of seeking help. My son would NOT be born under a baker act, I insisted, especially since I had a birthing center birth not only planned, but fully paid for.
I put off getting help for months.
It wasn’t until I knew I couldn’t handle it by myself anymore that I finally admitted to my psychiatrist what had been – and was – happening.
The sadness. The inability to function. The vicious, destructive thoughts. Even the fear that when my son was born, he would be no different to me than any other baby.
Fortunately, my psychiatrist took me seriously and put me on a medication considered fairly pregnancy safe (there are no guarantees with medication during pregnancy). The symptoms haven’t gone away yet. It hasn’t even been long enough to say they are getting better. But just knowing that together with my psychiatrist and my support system, we are doing everything we can to protect this soon-to-be-born baby in my womb, gives me hope.
The first hope I’ve had in months.
The proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.
Struggling with the idea of medication? Read How Medication Changed My Life and discover the impact proper medication (with proper usage) can have. Please keep in mind however, that I am NOT a doctor. These are simply my personal experiences as someone whose life was saved by proper medication and usage.
Why?
All of this has been happening, and my son is due any day now.
It might even be easier to pretend that all of the issues in my pregnancy were physical, and that nothing was wrong.
But that wouldn’t be fair.
It wouldn’t be fair to the mother or soon-to-be mother struggling with something she can’t even put a name to, or to her child-to-be.
It wouldn’t be fair to me, either, or to the son I will soon deliver.
It may be easier to stay silent, but it only hurts those who come after us.
The ones who see our picture-perfect display and question what is wrong with them, that they don’t have something like that themselves.
All Behind A Smile is about standing up and admitting there is more happening than a smile will ever show. It’s about helping each other through, and helping the whole person instead of just the part that is supposedly “broken”.
Before this writing, I could count on one hand the number of people who knew I was struggling with peripartum depression. After… who knows. But that’s not the important part. The important part is making sure no one ever has to suffer in silence, misunderstood, or alone.
Are you suffering with peripartum depression, or have you in the past? How are/did you manage it? Let me know in the comments below.
Christian, wife, “hybrid” mama, I run the site All Behind A Smile to help others like me.
[…] with the peripartum depression, lack of energy, and soon-to-be-born baby to welcome into the world, I am creating a plan to […]