Wednesday, 23 July 2008
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I feel that this fog will lift. I have been depressed for a long while, but I didn't realize it because my depression did not take the form of sadness and crying. I'd felt angry, irritable, to the point that I was overreacting way too much to my children's mischief. I thought that I was somehow morally deficient as a person. That was on a good day. On a bad day, I felt like I should never have been a mother in the first place. I felt like an explosion waiting to happen. It took all of my self control to not spew hateful venom at my children. I felt ashamed. A couple of mothers on a message board that I am on talked about how when they are depressed, they feel a great deal of rage. Then something clicked. That was me. That was depression talking. It's not that I hate my children and their antics. That was the depression talking. I talked to my husband, he's a psychiatrist and an internist. He said that I just needed to try harder, my self esteem was low, he said, because I was not accomplishing much, but if I tried harder, I would feel better about myself. I felt worse, deficient as a person and lazy. To think that a few months ago I contemplated writing myself a prescription for some kind of antidepressant. Or asking one of his friends to do it for me. I felt the stigma of being depressed, of being angry. Even though my friends and I talked about everything and anything, the subject of postpartum depression and the various ways that depression can manifest never came up. Today I confessed to my husband that I am tired of feeling so irritable. He said that it's because I am with my children 24/7 and I just need some time away. I said to myself, fine, he does not understand, but as soon as our insurance kicks in I would see a doctor and get meds. I talked to my friends on line and took 600 mg. of St. John's Wort, followed by some liquid cal/mag.
I feel like I have some clarity for the first time in a long time. I'm not a terrible person. The depression was making me feel and react in a way that I would not have felt/reacted otherwise. I saw a difference this evening when my oldest tracked mud onto our carpet. It didn't have that effect on me. I didn't see red or curse. I just got a sponge and cleaned up the mud spots. I don't know how to explain it, but for the first time in a long time, I felt God's grace and understood it.
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Comments (7)
(((Hug))). No entiendo a tu esposo muchas veces. Anyway. I thought about it and I do think I mentioned depression to you, but that was a long time ago. I am glad to hear you will be getting help.
That's how I am too...just not all the time...this morning was a perfect example...my husband normally feeds our son before he goes to work so I can sleep a little bit longer. He didn't and needed me to so he could get to work early to get some things done there for the principal of the firm he works for. When he got there, he realized that there wasn't much he really needed to do, and could have fed him after all, while I struggled with a fussy baby who was up and down until 8:45 when he finally crashed for about 45 minutes. I laid back down too, and am feeling much better.
How often do you take the St. John's and how much of the liquid cal/mag do you take...it might be something to look into if things get worse for me.
I am glad that you are feeling better. I look back on my first months after D was born, and wonder if I didn't have a touch of depression myself. I think PPD is getting to be more recognized and the stigma may be going away, but it's a slow process.
@samiannie - I take the St. John's Wort 3x a day, about 300 mg per capsule. The cal/mag I take at night about 1 tbsp. before I go to sleep. It helps the quality of the sleep. I ordered cod liver oil tablets and a vitamin b complex today, so we'll see how I feel after adding that. When I think about it, probably I have been depressed at least 1 year,, possibly even as long as 2-3 years. I always said that it was because I was under a lot of stress, due to my husband's job, his exams, two active boys 1 year apart, etc. There was always some reason, I didn't imagine that my irritability could be due to depression. Until I took that St. John's Wort and felt a huge difference. I could think rationally, wasn't flying off the handle, and I could cope with my sons' fighting. When a few too many hours passed before I took another capsule of St. John's Wort, I felt irritable again, not so bad as before, but I knew then that this was not just circumstances. It's a chemical imbalance somewhere. My advice to you is to try taking something, if you want, start with something natural. Don't wait like I did. i regret how much of my sons' boyhood I was angry and irritable.
@CarmenDeBizet@xanga - Ni yo tampoco. Y hasta me siento enojada con el por decirme que si tan solo hiciera tal y tal cosa, me sentiria mejor. Ayer comenzaron a pelear mis hijos. Cuando estaba deprimida, hubiera gritado. Con el ayuda de esta hierba, pude hablarles, ensen~arles como usar sus palabras en vez de mordear o pegar. Llegue a la raiz de su conflicto y les ayude a portarse mejor.
@SwissMama - I think for my husband, it's a cultural thing. He is a psychiatrist so he should know better, but in his mind, depression looks like crying all the time, sadness, inability to do things or enjoy life, etc. But since I rarely cried and the house did not look like a pig sty and since I would spend time socializing with my friends, he thought, Nah, she's not depressed.
@caminante - I'm horrible at taking pills, but it would be worth it even if I were to take something once a day...and it's not like every day is really bad like yesterday...thankfully, but it's just really hard when there is such a lack of sleep and the need to get more without being able to get it. It's nuts. Thanks for that. I'll have to go see about the cost of things.
St. John's Wort was something like $4-$5 for 100 capsules at Walmart. The cal/mag was maybe $10-$15 for 16 oz. at Vitamin Shoppe. I bought vitamin b complex and cod liver oil from www.vitacost.com and the total was maybe $22. I'm terrible about taking vitamins, too, but I feel a huge difference if I don't take the St. John's Wort. I think the cal/mag helps to improve the quality of sleep, so even if you're getting very little sleep at night, the cal/mag helps to feel more refreshed.