I’m so glad to be a part of the We Are the Face of Motherhood series this month with Mommy in Flats, highlighting the huge issue of postpartum anxiety and depression.  Check out her blog for the rest of the contributors stories.

When I was pregnant with my first son 5 years ago, I had everything planned out perfectly. I was going to stay at home with him, finish my degree, and then homeschool him while making sure he was adequately socialized with regular play dates and field trips.  My dream of becoming a mother was coming true, and I was going to cherish this time in my life!  Of course, my OB/GYN told me about the baby blues, and how sometimes it can morph into postpartum depression, but I wasn’t worried.  I had nothing to be sad about.  And I was lucky there… the depression never affected me.  My fight was with its ugly cousin, postpartum anxiety.

It started out innocently enough to me.  I didn’t want anyone else to hold my baby. But wasn’t that normal?  I had just given birth to him, I wanted all of the snuggles.  I wanted the naps.  I was all he had known so far in his life… I wanted him to know how much I loved him.  How would he know that if someone else was holding him?

If someone came over to watch the baby so I could sleep, it didn’t help.  I couldn’t sleep, terrified that they would drop him or something would happen to him while I was sleeping.  And then it’d be my fault because I let them watch him.  I put every possible terrible situation on my shoulders, and carried the weight around.  And it was heavy.

From there, it only got worse.  I became terrified of strangers in the grocery store, fearing that if I turned my back they’d snatch my baby.  I got too scared to drive in the car, flinching every time we drove over a hill in fear of someone being across the divider and ready to hit me (and there were so many hills on the back country roads).  

I stopped being able to read the news.  Every article seemed to be about something horrifying happening, and I couldn’t stop mentally putting my family in that situation.  What if that had been my husband?  What if that were my baby?  What if that were me?  I drew seemingly significant parallels between the people in the stories and my own family.  I thought if they were the same age, had the same name, or grew up in the same area, that it was a sign that we were next.  The endless ‘what ifs’ were infecting me, and making my anxiety create more anxiety.

I lived in complete and total terror of the other shoe dropping.  I mean, I should have been blissfully happy… but then again, who is blissfully happy?  Sure, people have good times, but then they have bad times again.  And I just waited and waited for the bad thing to come, because I knew it would eventually.  It didn’t even occur to me that I was living in the bad times.

I hated it when my husband had to make the 4-mile journey to work.  I broke down in a panic and called him repeatedly, sobbing, if he forgot to text me to let me know he made it ok.  I started getting anxious about my health and racking up doctors visits for things that I thought were detrimental, and turned out to be caused by my anxiety.  

And yes, anxiety can manifest itself with physical symptoms.  For me, I get weak and shaky, nauseated, and heart palpitations.

I went to my doctor and told her that I had anxiety.  She brushed me off, saying “well you’re a new mother.  It’s normal to worry.”  But it wasn’t normal.  She should have known about postpartum anxiety.  I asked friends and family what they thought, and I was told things like “you just need to stop worrying”, and “you’re just not trusting God enough”.  I know they were doing their hardest to try to help me, but comments like that made me feel like it was all my fault, which made me even more anxious.  

All we need is a friend to listen.  To be sympathetic.  We need to let it out, because sometimes just hearing the fears out loud is enough to de-mystify them, rendering them not so scary anymore.  

I wasn’t diagnosed until my son was 8 months old, and I had to tell my doctor that I had postpartum anxiety and needed medication.  I lived like that for 8 months, each day worse than the last.  It should have been caught much earlier, and our doctors need to know the signs, and how to help us when we can’t help ourselves.  My anxiety is now a permanent issue, and I’m fairly certain that it’s because it went so long untreated after my first son was born. 

If you met me, you probably wouldn’t even know I had anxiety.  It’s not that hard to hide.  And even if I’m really feeling it, it just comes across as me being distracted or being introverted.  I’m not super chatty to begin with, so it’s hardly noticeable when I shut down just a little more.  But I don’t want to shut down.  

I want to tell my story, because I know so many of us suffer silently from anxiety out of fear that people are going to judge us.  That you will think less of us.  That you will think we don’t love our kids enough.  That our faith isn’t deep enough to carry us through.  It’s not enough that I live in a state of constant overwhelm, where one additional issue, thought, or tantrum can send me into survival mode, but I’m constantly worried about what others are going to think about my worrying.  And I can’t help it.

It’s not a rest issue.  It’s not a faith issue.  It’s not a control issue.  It’s an illness, and it needs treatment.   Not judgment, distraction, or reasoning.  Counseling, medication, elimination diets, and exercise are all great ways to help with anxiety.

We know that our anxieties are unreasonable.  We know they are unlikely.  But hearing that from you doesn’t make us feel supported, it just makes us feel worse about not being able to control  it.

We didn’t cause our anxiety, but we can seek help to make it more bearable.  And there is NOTHING wrong with that.  It’s ok to admit that you’re not ok.

Did you suffer from postpartum depression or postpartum anxiety?

I’m so glad to be a part of the We Are the Face of Motherhood series this month with Mommy in Flats, highlighting the huge issue of postpartum anxiety and depression.  Check out her blog for the rest of the contributors stories.