I love having HM Jones here. She is eloquent, passionate and graceful. This week she’s talking about something I can only imagine the terror of: post-partum depression, or PPD.
It’s that time of year again: when the sun graces us with its brilliance for a significantly longer amount of time. And on the day where the sun’s rays stay will us for through much of the night, we will climb out of the darkness.
I participated in the Climb Out of the Darkness walk two years ago, and prepared an awareness blog in which I talked to the local organizer, Caroline Moore. We discussed her experience with postpartum depression and with organizations like Postpartum Progress. Caroline contacted me, this year, to let me know that the time was approaching again, and asked if I’d reach out to my friends, family and readers to raise awareness. And since I know a lot of new mommas, I jumped at the chance.
Last time, I blogged about a handful of women’s PPD stories. I thought and thought about what I should write this time, and kept coming up with the only thing I know: my own experience. The last time I had a baby was in 2012. So why should I still be concerned about PPD? Am I pregnant or hoping to be pregnant? No. And that is in large part due to how severe my PPD was after my children were born.
I’m still concerned about PPD because almost four years past my PPD experience, and six years past the worst of it, the idea that I might get it again still frightens me. If you’re a spouse, a partner, a pregnant woman or a post-pregnancy woman, this blog, this walk is for you. Its contents are neither easy to digest nor easy to say.
In 2010, I seriously considered walking in front of the bus that sped by our house every day. I stared numbly out the window and thought about ending my life while my new baby, my first, screamed from her play mat on the floor. And I could not pick her up again. Because I seriously thought I might harm her.
They make you watch a video, before you leave a hospital postpartum, about Shaken Baby Syndrome. The video is an emotional trauma they add to the postpartum trauma women already experience. And you have to watch it, sign off that you watched the heartbreaking portrayal of a young twin girl who was severely brain damaged by being shaken. Then they send you off with your new emotional scars and birthing scars. They check your baby seat and they say, “Enjoy your new baby.”
But I didn’t enjoy my new baby. She cried all the time, and I never slept. I couldn’t emotionally connect with her, and she hated nursing because I could not produce enough milk. And I never slept. I think that’s the kicker. I kind of wonder if I caught some rest whether I’d have had a less severe form of PPD. But that’s not what happened. I was dizzy, grumpy and confused from lack of sleep, and my baby seemed to hate me and I wasn’t too fond of her either.
And then I’d cry and dream about killing myself because I didn’t love my baby. I didn’t realize just how much I actually loved my baby, of course, because I was deeply into the mindset of OCD PPD. With OCD PPD, the depression can be so bad that you imagine harming your baby.
That was my life with PPD. I pictured myself quieting my baby with a pillow or squeezing her too hard. I terrified myself so badly that I wouldn’t touch her for an hour. I told her I was sorry when I finally could pick her up, but she couldn’t know why. She couldn’t know that when I imagined hurting her, I went to my room and hit myself until my nose bled so that I could feel how it would hurt, physically, if I hurt her. Because I wasn’t right mentally or emotionally, and I couldn’t depend on that side of me. So I hurt myself to remind me why I could not hurt my baby. I’ve never told anyone that before because it makes me look crazy. And I was mentally unwell, so I guess that’s valid.
I hurt myself many times when my daughter was a baby, to remind myself what pain felt like. To remind myself what dying would feel like. To keep myself from hurting my baby and from taking my life. And that is not an okay place to be, ladies. I didn’t even talk to a doctor about it until the symptoms passed, 8 months into her life.
Moms, if you feel numb, unconnected, or even psychotic postpartum, please do not wait 8 months for it to pass. Talk to other moms, talk to your doctor, to your child’s doctor. I know what you’re thinking: They’ll take my baby if I do that! I can’t tell people what you just said, or they’ll lock me up. That’s the same thing that stopped me, and it’s just not true. PPD is still taboo in our society. People underplay the emotional and physical toll pregnancy and post-pregnancy takes on women. Women battle with one another about who had it worse, and it makes us feel like our experience doesn’t matter. Like people don’t care and can’t help. But there is help for women with PPD, and it starts by opening up to the right people.
There are online communities, motherhood communities and doctors who want to hear from you (there is a short list below). I want to hear from you. I wrote a book not long after my son was born and I could feel PPD drown me again. That book saved my sanity. That act of opening up saved my life. I told a mom’s group about my experience, I blogged about it and I wrote a novel where a woman with PPD comes out of the darkness, where she wins. Because I needed to win. We all need a win, mommas. And if you’re local, I ask you to come to Kitsap Hope Circle’s Climb Out of the Darkness event on June 18th, 2016 at Nelson Park in Poulsbo, WA.
If you’re not local, look up your local Climb Out of the Darkness event. Take care of your mental health, mommas. For you, for your babies. You are an amazing being. You brought life to this world. You did something mind blowing and body wrecking and you survived. Be proud and be good to you.
Postpartum Help:
- Postpartum Progress
- Climb out of the Darkness
- Kitsap Hope Circle
- PPD Moms
- Postpartum Support International
H.M. Jones is the author of the soon to be re-released dark fantasy, Monochrome, about the lengths a mom will go for her new baby and for her sanity. She is a blogger for various mental illness and womanhood sites, including Stigma Fighters and Feminine Collective.
Jones is the mother of two children, three chickens and a very naughty dog. She is married to a handsome lawyer who likes to bookstore hop. Learn more about H.M. by visiting her site: www.hmjones.net and by signing up for her newsletter, General Geekery.
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