A mother in my support group killed herself two weeks ago.
If you’ve started to judge her, call her selfish, or think poorly of her, you can stop reading right now. I’d rather your ignorance not tarnish her memory. I’d rather your arrogance not take away from the tragedy her family will now forever endure.
My entire life I’ve lived with depression. I’ve battled to get out of bed, to go to work, to live a productive and joyous life. Most days I’ve succeeded, and on those that I haven’t, I’ve always been able to pick myself up and drag and pull myself to the finish line.
Postpartum depression was different.
The stranger that postpartum depression makes you has no ability to crawl to the finish line and, in all honesty, no desire to. The stranger that you become wants nothing more than to lie there, and even die there, or walk off into the dark forest of life. Who you were is seemingly gone forever. Who you become is a shadow of a person who abhors existence.
I loved my child from the moment she was an image in my imagination. I loved her when she was conceived and as she grew in my belly. I loved her even when I thought I didn’t. Postpartum depression doesn’t steal our ability to love; it’s just an incredibly formidable monster standing in the way, hiding it. It feels impossible to overcome and so we retreat.
I’m sure you’ve heard those incredible stories of when a baby is born: How mom and dad are suddenly overcome with this way of happiness and love, they can barely contain it. Everything in the world is reborn anew for the little family of three and suddenly, your heart becomes full.
I think that happened to my husband when he watched our daughter take her first breath. Me? I just wanted to be warm. I was shivering on the operating table, wishing it would all be over so I could get a few more blankets and go to sleep. I didn’t know who this little being was that they placed on my chest. I didn’t know what to do with her. I was so cold and so tired.
I wonder at times if she could see the indifference in my eyes. If she could feel how cold they must have been. I hope and pray that she could understand that I was tired and that the woman she was looking up at wasn’t yet her mother.
The first ten days of her life were hell. I got a spinal headache in the hospital, and a tension headache when we got home. I went fifty-some hours without sleep. I was beyond any level of exhaustion that I had ever known. All she wanted to do was nurse, and rightfully so since she wasn’t getting any sustenance out of me yet. It was painful. So painful that every time she latched and every time she nursed, I would scream – yes scream – out in pain with my eyes pouring down tears. All in between vomiting from the pain of the headache and the inability to sleep.
Then came a call, my husband would be going out to sea the following day unexpectedly. Two Sailors were unable to stand duty for reasons I won’t list here, so he needed to pack up his things and go. I would be left alone, in pain, exhausted, without my husband.
I lost it. My husband found me on the floor in the bathroom bawling. I couldn’t do it anymore. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want this life. I couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t get up. It was so bad that my husband cried. I could see the love in his eyes that he wanted to make the situation better, but that he didn’t know what to do. I hope and pray that he could not see the indifference in my eyes. The begging desperation for him to defy orders and stay home.
It was so awful that my husband called one of my best friends and asked her for help. She took time off work to stay with me during the day. He begged his mom for help and she got on a plane to arrive a couple days after he left. My friends who knew what was happening were there for me. I cried every time they left. I didn’t want to be alone. I didn’t sleep. I didn’t eat. I didn’t function.
I continued to crumble while my husband was gone. She was up all night, so I would sit with her attached to me for hours on end, watching Cosmos on the television. During the day, I would sit with her attached to me watching Say Yes to the Dress with my mother-in-law. I didn’t go out. I continued not to eat. I continued to think of ways to escape my life. I started to become enraged at the world, at the Navy, at my husband, at everyone and everything.
I had one brief moment with him when they gave him a couple hours to take our newborn photographs. If you look at the photos, you can see how tired I am, how absent I am. I did not want to be there. I did not know how to look lovingly at this little baby. I just wanted her to sleep and stop crying.
My husband returned days earlier than planned and it was a welcome reprieve. He had a few days off and we took care of things that we had to. I struggled everyday.
The night before my mother-in-law departed, Keith and I went out to dinner and a movie. The entire time all I could think was how much I despised who I had become, how much I missed who I was, and how my life was now this hollow core of what it used to be.
I begged my husband, sobbing and screaming, to not take us home. I begged him, pleaded with him to drive off into the sunset, away from this life that I didn’t want, that I couldn’t bear. He didn’t, of course. My one solace was that I had a twinge of missing her, but I still abhorred the idea of returning to this life.
I spent the nights awake thinking about how I could escape. Yes, I thought about suicide. I thought about hurting myself all the time. Every time I walked down the stairs, I imagined falling, throwing myself so I would break a leg or hurt my arm and they’d have to let Keith stay home. I wouldn’t go get the mail because I was afraid that I would just keep walking and never come back. My poor husband had to remind me that if I left her, I left him. Never before had I contemplated divorce. I spent hours – days making up plans to leave. I didn’t want this life. But more, I couldn’t survive this life. I knew, in my heart of hearts, that someday I would find myself doing whatever I needed to do to end the nothingness, to finally escape the pain.
I would hold my medicine in my hand and wonder if I could take the entire bottle and just go to sleep. Sometimes I fantasized about taking an entire bottle of Benadryl and sleeping – blaming my “”mommy brain” for doing it and finally feeling a tad bit better.
My husband made me promise to tell my doctor about all of these thoughts and I did. I held my daughter and explained how I felt. It was like she wasn’t mine. I believed in my soul that I was simply babysitting someone else’s child and I just wanted her parents to come home and take her back.
My doctor explained that she would be okay. That it was better to have a mother suffer and recover from postpartum than to not have a mother at all. That she would someday understand, and that as long as I “”faked it until I made it,” she would be just fine.
I knew. Yes, I knew this was temporary. But I knew deeper that it was forever. That I was gone. That the person I was had disappeared. I stopped looking in the mirror because I didn’t know who it was staring back at me. There was no point.
My husband held it all together. He organized his family coming out to take care of me. He asked my mother and my friends for help. And despite the loneliness and deep, deep pain of postpartum depression, I suddenly realized how surrounded by love we were. Never before had I loved my husband this deeply, or appreciated so much my in-laws. Never before had I really known true friendship until Emilee and Jackie dropped everything to be here for me. Until Eilleen volunteered to stay the night. Until Brittany took time off of work and constantly checked in on me. Until Kandace opened her heart to hear my pain. Until Jonelle took over duties back at the house so I could see my husband. Never before had I known such kindness. I wish I could thank everyone right now, but my brain is too overloaded and I’d inevitably forget someone.
I remained in pain and suicidal for a long time. My husband was deployed unexpectedly for four months. It was my worst nightmare. I cried, constantly. I cried every single day, for hours. Every night I would plan my escape. I packed a bag a few times (not even my husband knows this) and counted out the number of hours I would need to be unconscious before they couldn’t resuscitate me. I wanted desperately to go to the beach, but I wouldn’t let myself. I had dreams of walking off into the surf, swimming out to a point that I couldn’t swim any further and letting God do the rest.
You see, when you think about escape from postpartum depression it’s not really about an ending. It’s about a surrender. Every minute is an exhausting battle inside your soul. You can’t see what you’re fighting for, or at least don’t believe that it really exists. You just want to wave the white flag and surrender into the pain. Take me, hell, take me down to where it’s warm and let me burn. That would be a better fate than the life I had stupidly chosen.
My daughter was incredibly difficult. I setup camp down in the living room and basically lived on the couch. She slept nearby in the rock n play. Thankfully, she would sleep one four-hour stretch a night for a while. But my anxiety was overwhelming. I had to do things a certain way. I had to have everything set and done the night before for the day following. I had to immediately take care to get things done and do it nine hundred miles an hour. I would never have a break. I had to grin and bear it through the worst days of my life.
I couldn’t face the world. In retrospect, I know that I should have gone to the hospital. There were days that I got way too close to one kind of ending or another. Sometimes I would wait to hear my husband’s Jeep coming up the street and consider escaping out the back door. That way she would be okay, but I would be free. The only reason I didn’t run was because I couldn’t bear the thought of my husband hating me. I thought suicide was a better fate. Then he could move on. Or perhaps swerving the car just the right way so it looked like an accident. He would hurt, but he would heal. Yes, I should have gone into the hospital.
I went on medication and looked to therapy. My doctor, my therapist, every professional that I was seeing insisted that I not be alone with my daughter for any length of time. I needed constant supervision and support. My doctor went as far as to locate the phone numbers for the Navy. She wanted to explain that if something happened to me, it would be on their heads since they couldn’t do anything to provide me with the support that I needed. She didn’t understand that it wasn’t their fault, this is how it is. We knew it would be this way. And the only people who could do anything were actually powerless, stuck in a schedule not of their own making, trying to keep the morale floating well enough to last the night.
I couldn’t go into the hospital. I couldn’t end my husband’s career. I couldn’t face the world knowing what I was feeling or thinking. I couldn’t bear the judgment. So I hid. And I tried to make it through. My love for my husband was the only thing that kept me going most nights. And the ability to get a break thanks to the incredible friends and family who came to support me.
Mothers like me aren’t the devil. I watch the news and see these tragedies that mothers commit and I weep for them. I can only shake my head at the ignorance of those who post what monsters these women are. Granted, some are, but others? Others are just facing the worst demon you can imagine. The pain is so deep, the nothingness so overwhelming. The strength that it takes to survive every minute is exhausting. And no one has enough of it, which is why having a support network matters.
We dug deep into our finances to afford babysitters and pay for help. It did make a difference and at least I got a little sleep as I began to have a small supply of pumped breastmilk in the freezer. Unfortunately, pumping put even a greater burden on me. I liked it better than breastfeeding, but it wasn’t realistic to keep up with and every day a bag of breastmilk was used, I would feel terrible anxiety that I needed to pump more or I couldn’t get a break.
Sometimes I would go to the bathroom just to escape. I would cry and cry and cry and wish my way out of it. Then I would return to this world that I didn’t want to live in. Every day that I went out on my own, I would consider driving to the airport instead of the house. I had to fight myself to come home.
My husband one night broke down and told me how awfully he felt. He said that he felt like he had so much pressure to be such an amazing parent – to love her so much because I didn’t love her at all. I had hardly any reaction to this statement. I remember thinking, “”You should probably cry. He’s expecting you to cry or say something to comfort him.” I tried, but however I responded, I simply did not care. I wanted to say, “”Yes, you need to love her twice as much because I never will.” I believed that with every inch of my body.
We had a colicky baby, or so we thought. She cried. ALL. THE. TIME. NONSTOP. The crying was exhausting. She needed to be entertained constantly. That meant that even as I was going to the bathroom, I had to be singing and dancing and making her smile – or else I had to endure blood-curdling screams. If this were parenthood, why would anyone have another baby?
As it turns out, the nightmare that my little one was ended up being a result of my anti-depressant medication “”activating” her little body and brain. She wouldn’t sleep for more than 7 hours total in a day, and no more than 5-15 minutes at a time. It was horrible. It was exhausting. I cried, constantly.
When I stopped breastfeeding, everything started to get better. I was less stressed and I was able to get some sleep. I enjoyed bottle-feeding so much more than breastfeeding and found myself finally starting to bond with her. It would be months before I would become a real loving mother, but I was at least taking small steps.
The medication, the support group, and the therapist – all of it helped me heal. My friends and family made it possible, and my husband. My god, my husband should have a star in his name. He saved my life. They all did. And I mean that quite literally.
Now, six months later, I finally look forward to the day with my little girl. I can’t wait for her to keep growing and becoming the person she will be. I love how much more interactive she is and how happy she seems. I finally fell in love with her.
After I found out that my fellow PPD mom had lost her battle, I finally decided that it was time to tell my story, even if just in part. I remember posts that she had about how her husband didn’t want her on social media because her mental health issues were between them, and not to be hung on the clothesline with the happy, smiling photos you manage to take despite being dead inside.
I remember discussions we had as a group about the importance of being honest. The importance of being open with our doctors, our spouses, our families, our friends – and most importantly, ourselves. That means not hiding behind the guise that this is a personal matter. It may be an extremely personal struggle, but if my story can help one mom make it through the moment, then I’ve done what I’ve set out to do. I’ve ended the stigma in one person’s mind.
I am still struggling with PPD and especially anxiety. Everyday is a little bit better. I have to work at it, but I’m getting there. I was lucky enough to read Brooke Shield’s book and find myself inside the pages. That helped enormously and I credit her too with saving my life and giving my daughter a healthy mom to grow up with.
The title of Brooke Shield’s book is, “”Down Came the Rain.” Honestly, I don’t know where that title came from and I can’t remember the reference to it in the book. But, when I sing my little one to sleep at night, I sing “”The Itsy Bitsy Spider” because it is entirely representative of my story. I climbed that spout to become a mother, but got brought down by the rain, and am finally find myself hit by a few rays of sunshine…
The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout.
Down came the rain and washed the spider out.
Out came the sun and dried up all the rain and
The itsy bitsy spider went up the spout again.
To all the families and friends of those struggling with postpartum depression, please be patient. Please be empathetic and kind.
And, to all the mommas who find themselves in this post, have hope. Hold onto that hope with all the strength you can muster. It will get better. You will come home. You will find yourself again. And you will be happy.
`O ka hali`a aloha i hiki mai 