Postpartum depression - Farewell Stranger

Breaking Radio Silence

May 28, 2013 By Robin 12 Comments

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while (or have spent any time browsing the archives) you’ll be well aware that I used to bare my soul on here on a daily basis. Desperate times call for desperate measures, as they say, and my desperation used to lead me to sharing just how awful I was feeling with anyone who chose to read about it.

It used to be easier to do that.

I’ve had some rough days lately and part of me wanted to just stay silent and pretend that everything was hunky dory. Maybe that’s because I don’t want to admit that I can’t prevent bad days with baby #2 just by sheer force of will. (Okay, that’s a big part of it.) But it’s also partly because I don’t really want to get into it. I don’t want my mother worrying that she’s going to have to talk me off the ledge again. I don’t want to appear vulnerable.

Feeling vulnerable sucks.

But feeling like I’m not being true to myself sucks as well. I know – I don’t have to share anything here if I don’t want to. But this blog is part of my path through this whole experience so I’m okay with sharing things here.

The good news is that the last couple of days have been better. The extra good news is that I haven’t had any more conversations with the steam cleaner. (I would, however, like to point out that my husband mistook the steam cleaner for Connor the other night too. He didn’t actually talk to the steam cleaner, so he maintains he’s clearly more sane than I, but I’m not convinced. I think he’s just less inclined to talk to inanimate objects in the middle of the night.)

In any case, I hate feeling like I spilled my guts and then went radio silent. So here’s a picture of some old-fashioned toffee tins.

Pretty, don’t you think?

Deep Breaths and Thank Yous

April 8, 2013 By Robin 10 Comments

I do have a tendency to barf things out there, don’t I? Sometimes it just helps to put it out there instead of pretending things are okay and silently screaming.

So, thank you. Thank you for listening and commenting and sending me messages to let me know you’re out there. It helps. It really does.

One of the worst things about this is feeling alone. And none of us is, which is the lovely thing about writing here. I get reassured that some of you have been here and know what this feels like, and some of you reading this realize it’s not just you either.

We’re not alone.

The good news is that today was better. We’ve adopted a new strategy for dealing with nights because, while I don’t feel like I know what I’m doing with this whole getting-babies-to-sleep thing, I do know one thing: My very chunky baby does not need to be fed two or three times a night. So I’m currently living in that weird place where the air is mostly filled with hope but the scent of desperation still lingers, and I’m afraid that if I breathe too deeply I’ll inhale the fear lurking outside. It’s the fear that this won’t work, because if this doesn’t work I have no earthly idea what to do next. But for now fear shall not rule; I’m going to keep taking deep breaths.

Okay.

Let’s talk about something else for a minute. Speaking of thank yous, I so appreciate your support for the stuff I’m writing elsewhere. I’m in full swing with my new Yummy Mummy Club blog, starting with a post about second chances and a bit of a thank-goodness-it’s-not-me post about babysitting my brother’s twins. I’ve got another one coming up this week where I’m looking for advice on helping a four-year-old make friends and I’d love it if you’d look out for that one too.

And, since it’s one of the most common search terms that leads people here, I’ve shared a version of my postpartum rage story on Huffington Post. I just think we need to talk about that more.

Filed Under: Postpartum depression Tagged With: community, gratitude, hope, we're not alone

Grey Skies and Runaway Trains

April 7, 2013 By Robin 25 Comments

It rained yesterday.

We don’t get a lot of rain here. We get snow, which is mostly accompanied by brilliant sunshine, but grey skies are rare. It’s one of the reasons I love living here.

Last week spring made a valiant effort to overtake winter. The sun shone, the temperature rose, and the mounds of snow by the sides of the roads melted. I was living in the sunshine and loving it. But over the last few days the skies have turned grey.

Click for image source

Life is not always sunny, of course. But for me it has been sunny more often than not, and I’ve been able to pause in those catch-your-breath moments and really soak it in. But my ability to see the sun can disappear as quickly as the sun itself.

I don’t function when I don’t get enough sleep, and I’m not getting enough sleep. And I’m losing hope that I will suddenly, miraculously start getting enough. After a long week followed by a couple of rough nights, the rain entered my life yesterday – both literally and metaphorically.

I’ve been here before and I know exactly where this sleep deprivation road leads. And I have no desire to take that path again. I don’t want to feel that way and I don’t want to have to say, Actually, it happened again the second time too.

I want, with every fibre of my being, to be able to push the emergency button and make this runaway train stop. But I’m feeling the desperation an engineer must feel when he knows the train is going to hit something in the tracks. It’s there, it’s in front of me, and the momentum feels like too much right now. It’s bigger than me and I’m not in control of the outcome.

I was hoping today would be better, but instead I woke up to snow. It’s time to hit the brakes.

Wish me luck.

Filed Under: Postpartum depression Tagged With: admissions, call for back-up, meltdown, sleep

2:40 a.m.

April 2, 2013 By Robin 26 Comments

“Goodnight,” I say, kissing him. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Then a whispered plea. Please sleep.

The chances of him sleeping from this 2:40 a.m. tuck-in until morning are next to none. The chances of him sleeping until 5 a.m. are…okay. I give it even odds. But he’s not likely to get to even 6 a.m. before waking up.

Which means I’m going to be waking up. Again.

I haven’t had more than four hours of sleep in a row since the beginning of October. And that’s rare. Really rare. Sometimes I get three in a row (more often lately – fingers crossed) but too often it’s two hours between wake-ups, or two and a half if I’m lucky.

As we enter this sixth month with Ethan, I now know with much greater certainty that sleep deprivation was a huge contributor to my PPD with Connor. I look back and wish we had done something different, but I honestly don’t know what that would have been. We tried everything.

We tried a night of bottles so I could sleep when Connor was three months old, after which he refused to take a bottle for months as if punishing me for wanting to sleep. It was after that option was taken away—that one thing that would let me sleep sometimes instead of having to feed him—that I started to feel like I was going to die. From exhaustion. From desperation. From despair.

I don’t have that issue this time, thank goodness. I started to feel those same feelings of being desperate for sleep, thinking about it all the time, wondering how long it will last this time, and I asked for help. I can’t do it again, and luckily I have a husband who’s at home and can get up with the kids in the mornings so I can sleep just a little bit more.

So I’m not desperate. I’m not in despair.

I am feeling it, though. I stood in front of a shelf in the grocery store last week for at least 10 minutes before I was able to choose an item and put it in my cart. My brain just wasn’t processing.

I’m clumsy. I walk into things a lot and am always sporting a bruise or three. My synapses just aren’t connecting.

I stood in front of the toaster the other day waiting for it to pop and then realized I hadn’t put any bread in. The next day I managed to make toast for myself, but then without thinking I cut it into four squares the way Connor likes it. My neurons are firing, but perhaps not quite in the right order. (But that’s okay; toast in little squares is actually pretty good.)

I spend a lot of time looking at Ethan these days. I’m soaking him in. Breathing in his smell and imprinting the rolls of his thighs on my fingers. I want to remember what his baby laugh sounds like and appreciate the gift of watching a person learn to navigate the world. He will be our last baby and there are many things about that fact that leave me a bit teary.

But the lack of sleep isn’t one of them. When my brain rebels against wakefulness and my eyelids refuse to stay open I remember: It’s the last time. I won’t have to do this again.

I want it to be over, this quest for sleep over which I have no real control.

But at least I know this: It’s the last time.

Filed Under: Hard things, Postpartum depression Tagged With: call for back-up, sleep

Living in the Light

February 21, 2013 By Robin 22 Comments

Rich and I had a fight not long after Ethan was born. We had both been sick – him first and then me. I got really sick. And I got pink eye. Twice. And, as is the way with many breastfeeding moms, I was up at night while Rich slept. And, as is the way with many moms who are up in the night while their partners sleep, I was cranky about it because being up so much made it hard to get better. And that’s what caused the fight.

I won’t get into all the picky details, but it was about sleep – the too-little of it I was getting, and my perception that he wasn’t helping me out as much as he could have. And then he pointed out that when he was at home and I was working when Connor was little he never got a sick day either.

“You didn’t ask for help!” I countered.

“I did,” he replied, much more calmly than was probably warranted.

The thing is, I have no recollection of that. I don’t recall him being sick and me going off to work leaving him to fend for himself (and the energetic two-year-old).

I don’t recall a lot of things from that time.

This is one of the things about postpartum depression that — in my experience, anyway — is so hard to deal with. It’s like living in a fog, except that fog leaves those weeks or months completely socked in so that there’s never a clear picture of them, even afterwards. My particular fog was built from my anger — my rage — as if spewed forth from a fog machine I couldn’t turn off.

But it’s not like I don’t remember anything from that timeframe. Just certain things. Often big things. It’s come up in conversation a few times, where someone will be recalling something, and every single time I’ll think, “I have absolutely no recollection of that.” It just doesn’t exist as a page in my memory book. Whether torn out or never properly recorded I don’t know. It’s just not there.

I’m not really sure the point of telling you this, except to say that this time is different.

Now, I know when I’m being a bitch. I know when I’m picking a fight (and sometimes I do it anyway). I know when I’m not doing what I need to do for myself.

It doesn’t always make it easier to do what I need to do, but at least this time I’m living in the light.

***

Speaking of happy things, I’ve heard about three recently that are making the world a better place and I’d like to share them with you:

For the first time, there’s a product dedicated to helping fight postpartum depression. Jammies are the creation of Hélène Laure, a fashion designer whose clothing designs for women have been sold to such specialty stores as Henri Bendel, Bloomingdales, Bergdorf Goodman and Saks Fifth Avenue. Helene wanted to create a new business that gives back, so she designed Jammies with the intention of helping to benefit moms with postpartum depression. For each Jammies Jar sold, Helene’s company, Two Mice, A Bear and A Bunny LLC, will donate 10% of the profit to Postpartum Progress, the national nonprofit that raises awareness of postpartum depression and promotes better support and services for pregnant and new mothers with mental illness.

These onesies are so cute (perfect for gifts). Here’s the description:

“100% pure cotton onesies for boys and girls made from a soft and breezy light gauge cotton Jersey that are are uniquely packaged in a sweet little jam jar. The design is reminiscent of the all-American long john, with its henley tab closing and ribbed cuffs, and a flirty ruffle added to the girls’ style. Mr. Bear, Lily (the bunny) and Cinnamon & Ginger (the identical mouse twins) are the delightfully hand-drawn characters featured on Jammies onesies.”

You can see read more about them (and order them) on the Jammies page on Postpartum Progress.

——

PeaceLove is working to combat the stigma against mental illness. One of the biggest ways they’re helping is through their giveback program: for each PeaceLove tee purchased, they give away a free expressive arts class to a child affected by mental illness. They just launched a tee campaign with the hopes of giving away 100 free expressive art classes (and they’re really close!).

——

February 27 is Pink Shirt Day, an anti-bullying campaign supporting Boys and Girls Clubs/Big Brothers Big Sisters. If you’re in Calgary, you can get an official pink shirt at any London Drugs. (And if you’re not, wear a pink shirt anyway.)

Filed Under: Happy things, Postpartum depression Tagged With: admissions, gratitude, rage