Postpartum Depression Is...

Long time, no post. A pain flare and a postpartum depression flare have been kicking my butt... which prompted me to post the following. Postpartum depression is going to look a little different for every woman. This was (is) my experience.

Postpartum depression is…

Fatfatfatfatfat. Oh no. I thought I kicked the eating disorder a few years ago. I have to keep eating. I have to feed the baby.

Crying. Crying again. Me, not the baby. Why am I crying again? I'm fine.

Fatfatfatfatfat.

Lie awake until three in the morning while babe sleeps peacefully. Not even Nyquil does the trick. Give up. Get up. Clean the house because the house is disgusting I can't stand this the house is disgusting oh God the house is disgusting why did I never clean the baseboards? Clean the baseboards. Pass out at nine the next morning, courtesy of a melatonin-Gravol-exhaustion combination. Wash, rinse, repeat a few days later.

Crying. Crying again. The baby, this time. Me staring blankly while I hold him in my arms. I love the baby. Why is he crying? Oh God, make him stop crying. Please make him stop crying. Husband takes baby and changes diaper. Baby stops crying. Why couldn't I do that?

I want to run away and never come back. Except… I love the baby. How do I run away from everything yet take the baby with me? I'm not allowed to run away, anyway. And where would I go?

I'm lying on the bed wailing. It's been hours, I think. An hour at least. I don't know how long. I can't talk. I have no words. Words take energy. I have no words. My husband lying next to me, only holding back tears because his crying would make mine worse. Could mine be worse? He falls asleep—exhaustion. I make it three steps towards the door before I collapse on the floor and wail some more. Snot on the floor because I have no energy to lift a tissue. I hope that comes out of the carpet. Disgusting.

Wake the baby to change his diaper, because he needed to be changed an hour ago. Failure. No words, still.

Go away, God. God, where are you? Why won't you fix it? Go away, God.

"You need to eat."

"I'm not hungry."

"I made this for you."

"I can't."

Fatfatfatfatfat. More tears. Mine. His.

The baby is crying again. Please God, make him stop. I love the baby. I love the baby, so why can't I just get up and change his diaper? Husband takes the baby and changes his diaper. I love the baby… right?

At the doctor. "My mood is down, but I want to wait it out a little longer." I don't want to wait it out. Why did I just say that? I don't want to wait it out.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure." I'm sure I don't want to wait it out. Why did I just say that? I'm sure I'm an idiot.

Seething rage. My husband is making dinner. Why isn't he watching the baby? He offered to watch the baby so I could make dinner. Why can't we just skip dinner? Why isn't he watching the baby? How dare he not watch the baby and give me a break?

Through tears, to my husband. "I'm fine." I'm not fine."You don't seem fine."

"I'm fine! Leave me alone!" I'm not fine. Why do I keep saying I'm fine? Why can’t I just say I'm not fine? I'm not fine!

"You don't seem fine."

"I would be if I didn't just spend time cleaning disgusting bathrooms! I hate this! I hate everything!" I hate you? I'm almost yelling. I'm not fine.

I'm in tears, and "I'm sorry. That wasn't okay. I'm sorry." I love you. Please forgive me. Oh God, what if he doesn't forgive me? "I'm not fine. I'll go back to the doctor. I'll get a referral to the psychiatrist. I'll go to the psychologist. I'm sorry." Finally, I said it. Why was that so hard? He forgives me in the time it takes me to apologise.

On the floor again. The kitchen, this time. The bowl of soup still untouched at my place. I'm wailing. An animal sound. I don't recognise the sound of my own despair. My husband lying next to me. My son in his swing. I'm wailing. Get up. Go do it. Your child needs you to.

The baby is crying again. I stare at him, blankly. My husband rescues me. Rescues him.

I stand. I walk upstairs. I pick up the box of Gravol. Maybe it's enough. I hope it's enough. I don't have the energy. Do it. Your son is better off without you. You owe him this. My husband catches up to me.

"What are you doing?"
"Leave me alone." Don't leave me alone.

"I can't do that." He's almost in tears. Again. Or maybe he is. Mine blur my vision too much to tell.

"Please. Just for five minutes." Leave me alone. Do it. Please.

"Why? Will you be safe?"

"He's better off without me."

Medication in a locked box. My husband in a sleeping bag in front of the bedroom door.

"He's not better off without you."

Yesheis. Yesheis. Yesheis. I failed him. I always fail him.

"Yes he is. You both are."

Ripping open skin with a pair of nail scissors, because they're the only thing I can find. Husband's razors hidden away.  Must hurry, so he doesn't realise I'm not just peeing. Just one more jagged tear. Why did I ever bother fighting the urge? Long sleeves forever now.

Visit from a friend, arranged by a worried husband. She prays I get my Simon of Cyrene. Maybe I will. Maybe I have. When's the last time I showered, anyway?

Fighting over meals. Again. Failed promised submission. Might as well submit. I can just cut away the lost piece of myself.

I'm home alone for ten minutes because I promised not to kill myself before talking to a priest. I didn't promise not to hurt myself. The baby's not crying, but he will be soon. A mad dash through the house trying to find something better than the nail scissors. No success. The nail scissors will have to do. Another jagged slice.

The psychiatrist has a cancellation tomorrow. Can I make it? I can make it.

"This was a stupid idea. What if she commits me?"

"It'll be okay."

"I can't deal with this." I'm jumping-out-of-my-skin anxious. What if she commits me? I can't deal with this.

In to see the psychiatrist lickety split, comparatively. Two weeks wait time, give or take, plus fifteen minutes of eternity. Back on drugs. At least I wasn't committed.

Home visit from a priest. "Will you hear my confession?" Guess that means cutting is back off the table. I should probably eat, too. Anointing of the sick. I suppose I qualify.

The sun seems a little brighter. The snow is melting.

Keep seeing the psychologist—"Pills aren't skills." Get out for a walk. Get up when I want to curl up.

I think I remember how to smile. Maybe the baby is better off with me.

The baby cries. I love the baby. I love the baby!  I change his diaper.

On Gethsemane, Suffering, and Christian Witness

Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, "Sit here, while I go yonder and pray." And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled.

Kristus i Getsemane by Carl Heinrich Bloch via Wikimedia Commons

When I pray the Rosary, or when I otherwise reflect on the Lord's Passion, Gethsemane is usually what hits me the hardest. It isn't the Crucifixion, that moment of redemption; rather, it's Christ's utter loneliness in the garden. 

We talk about Christian witness a lot. You witness by talking about your faith. You witness by serving up soup. You witness by accepting children as they come. You witness by living out your faith even when it earns you persecution. But I think we often fail to talk about another sort of witness—the witness that Christ lacked in the garden, and the resulting loneliness that he felt deeply.

I've suffered from depression for a long time. I was diagnosed some 13 years ago. It seemed almost inevitable that I would be hit with postpartum depression. For the first month, I was on top of the world—I was madly in love with my newborn son; I was filled with energy and wonder and joy. And then reality hit.

Then he said to them, "My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me."

At just about the one-month mark, I began to have bouts of crying. I suddenly needed to clean obsessively, even cleaning for hours at night sometimes because I couldn't sleep anyway (twice I didn't fall asleep until 8 or 9 a.m. the next morning, all while my infant gave me stretches long enough to induce profuse gratitude in most parents). And the crying only got worse.

At my darkest, I would literally curl up on the floor and wail for hours at a time. Lifting a tissue to my nose often took more energy than I had. My husband would do exactly as I asked of him, and I would still be filled with bitter resentment that he wasn't doing something else instead. I was plagued with an obsessive desire to skip meals, and dinner became an all-out war.  I wanted to die, and I thought my child and my husband would be better off without me.

And where were my child and husband, while I wailed on the floor? 

At my side.

And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt."

I was convinced of two things: I could not go on, and there was nothing anyone could do to help me.

I knew on some level that both of these things were untrue, but just as I felt utterly compelled to claim that I was fine (even when it was painfully obvious to everyone, even me, that I was not), I likewise felt compelled to believe what the depression was telling me.

Eventually, after I bit my husband's head off for the hundredth time, I agreed to talk to my doctor. I agreed I wasn't okay. But I still had to wait for the appointments to roll in, and there was nothing anyone could do for me in the meantime.  Or so I thought.

And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping; and he said to Peter, "So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."

One night, I learned what my husband had been doing to help me all along. As I lay sobbing, wailing, he laid with me—but this time, out of the sheer exhaustion of working a full-time job , caring for a needy infant, and watching over a desperate wife, he fell asleep. When I realised I was alone, I felt a new level of despair creep in.

I don't begrudge him that sleep—he desperately needed it. But what it revealed to me—or started to reveal to me; I was too ill at the time to fully appreciate it—was the value of his witness. All the times that I'd told him there was nothing he could do for me, he'd already been doing more than I realised: he'd been witnessing my suffering.

I think this is the sort of witness that we forget all too easily. It takes courage to watch someone suffer. I know it hurt him to see me hurting, but he watched with me without complaint. He kept me company. 

Christ still had to go to the cross, but how much easier (it's never easy!) was it when God sent the angel to strengthen him? I still had to wait for my appointments to come, but how much easier was it with my husband (and child) by my side?

I hope I don't forget to be grateful for what my husband did for me. And I hope I retain what I learned from it. I want to be a better witness for Christ—not just by sharing my faith, or by living out my vocation, but also by seeing what's around me. I pray I have the courage not to turn away in the face of suffering. I pray I have the courage to be another sort of witness. 

It's hard to know what to do when it seems like there's nothing that can be done. So I urge you, if there is nothing else to do, witness. It means more than you realise and helps more than you know.

How have you witnessed? When has someone witnessed for you?