After I had my second child, I was a mess. I’ve always battled depression, and was on medication throughout my pregnancy. That’s why I was shocked when roughly three weeks after my son was born I was an absolute mess. How can a woman who is medicated suffer from PPD?
I wasn’t sleeping, I’m sure that’s one reason. My first son spoiled us rotten. Slept eight hours from the get-go. I nursed him a full year yet by ten weeks he was sleeping thirteen hours a night. This one, forget it. He’s almost six months old and has yet to grant more than three hours at a time.
So back when Josh was around three weeks, I was miserable. I felt helpless, hopeless, and was disgusted with myself. I was way too fat for my taste, since I gained a whopping sixty pounds with him. Pack that on top of the baby weight I hadn’t lost from the first one. Too tired to exercise, and too depressed to not eat chocolate, I just dressed in the dark and avoided cameras and mirrors.
I’m not sure about you, but with my depression I have a tendency to lash out at the ones I love most. Namely, my husband. Knowing he didn’t deserve it, I just tried to ignore him. One evening while getting ready for “bed,” a term I now use loosely since I’m hardly in it anymore, he said something to me. I don’t even know what. I just knew I didn’t like him. He didn’t do anything wrong. I knew that, I just didn’t like him. Or anyone else for that matter.
I sat in the corner in the chair feeding Joshua and I believe we made some snarky comments at each other. I’m not lying when I say we don’t fight. We’ll make some snark, as we call it, but we just don’t fight. Out of what was probably concern but I took for God knows what, he comes to me and asks what’s wrong. I say nothing. He keeps asking.
Anyone who has read anything in this site has probably figured out that I’m a communicator. My whole life all I’m told is that I talk too much. People with manners don’t say too much, they say “a lot.” That evening, I just didn’t want to talk. Maybe that’s what gave it away.
So blah, blah, blah. Ryan just keeps questioning me. I’m pretty sure I got rude, because he got upset. That made me upset. The next thing I know, I am hysterical. I don’t know what was said or how it was triggered; I just know I was releasing a river of tears.
Within moments, I’m devastated to see my mother coming into my room. She was in town helping with the baby’s arrival, but had gone to bed upstairs and my room was on the main floor. She said that she didn’t hear anything, she just felt compelled to come to me. She walked up to me and held my face in her hands, asking me what was wrong.
