Depression and what it's really like

I have been dealing with postpartum depression or postpartum anxiety, something. There are no thoughts of hurting my baby or myself which seem to be on every postpartum depression list. I get out of bed in the morning, shower, dress, put on make-up [don't cry through my day at all] and take care of August daily. When I think of depression and what I have read of postpartum depression, doing those things should be difficult and a struggle if done at all. Throughout the day I am happy to be with August, happy to be a stay at home mom and being able to even catch a tooth appearing. I try and get housework done but don't always accomplish what I'd like until J. gets home. I did think I would have some amount of free time during the day to read or sew or make something for August but if I so much as move a few inches away from her while she sleeps, she immediately wakes up. So I have an opportunity to read or sleep but no art projects. Things will be fine and seemingly without issue. That is, until we leave the house. Doing any sort of shopping, being at a grocery store or mall can wreck my world. The whole hell is other people comes into play....Returning home from shopping leaves me feeling depressed but I can still function. I get over it within 24 hours. Seem to be becoming an agoraphobe.

Reading a blog the other day, the writer described her sister, a new mother, being completely exhausted and unhappy to the point of being dysfunctional. There was an intervention and friends and family took over everything so she could just sleep and eat for a week without worrying about anything. The writer then requested tips and advice. I recommended a nutrition book that is supposed to help wit\h postpartum depression, one that I just bought. It stresses fish oil and omegas and B vitamins. After my comment the writer wrote that she was sorry for ever giving the impression that her sister was suffering from postpartum depression and then went on to say she is fine, we speak daily. Just a small testament to the stigma attached to the condition. She went on to say her sister might have postpartum anxiety.

Seems it is hard to get a clear idea what postpartum depression is. It is based on hormones yet anti-depressants can help. However, many women say anti-depressants threw them way off. The book I am reading makes a good case for bad nutrition prolonging the condition, worsening it, explaining how easily it can happen after having a baby, losing so many nutrients and never really having the time to replenish, constantly falling behind.

On this site to find out what depression is really like.

Has it helped, *tera?

There's an awful lot to read here. Depression comes in a variety of flavours, but the common theme is that none of them taste good. Ask if you have questions.

Agoraphobia seems nail-on-head from your description. You say that when you return home you feel depressed, but do you feel depressed, miserable or exhausted, or some combination?

There is also a thread about anxiety, idk if you've seen it: Severe Anxiety

good luck, tera, facing depression's no easy task but it's possible to get through. i've finally peeled away my depression only to reveal ... post-traumatic stress disorder! apparently there's even a new type of ptsd/disorder in the works for situations like mine.

i always knew i'd be one of those guys sitting inside a glass cube in a lab with diodes attached to my head while three doctors in lab coats jot down notes on clip boards.

*tera, a healthy diet surely can't do any harm and may help, but I would look at addressing more directly what happens when you leave the house. it is very hard to fix a problem when you don't know exactly what the problem looks like.

For example, do you become anxious at the thought of leaving the house? Are you taking the babby with you on these shopping trips or are you alone? What sort of thoughts are dominant while you are out there? Are you seeing friends or family with any regularity? What fresh hell do these other people seem to present you with?

It sounds to me a bit like you have not just experienced a huge change with the arrival of your baby, but almost like there is no connection between the before and after. As wonderful and astonishing as a new baby is, you can't build an entire life around one. It's too tiny a space. Perhaps you need to (slowly) refamiliarize yourself with all that buzz and hubbub, so you don't lose the ability to cope with it.

^^ a lot of guesswork involved here, so I could be way off

Is there anyone who can accompany you when you have to do outings with the baby? Do you think it would help your anxiety? Do you think part of it is just being in with the baby all day & the outside world is a jarring contrast? It's good that you're noticing and taking action now. As someone who is just getting over agoraphobia enough to do simple things around town I would urge you to not let yourself get to shut-in point. Not that the world ends if you do, it's just really really hard.

Zora: still reading through but yes...

We were in Texas when I started down this road and still in Texas when I started feeling more like myself again. My energy levels rose, felt more like myself again, even called my midwife to tell her, hey, I am amazed but I am feeling so much better and just, well, great! Her response was negative, that was annoying to me. She had told me she was coping with her own PPD for several months. I was confused though, she was running a PPD group.

When I found out we were moving to Paris, TX I panicked. I had heard it was very racist. I have discovered there is a strange, hidden, deep rooted fear of that..NOW. Living in small town TX, I was well aware of it. Living in Austin, I rarely saw it, experienced it. If I did, I was "at home" in Austin,TX. I would say that whole Paris, TX thing triggered something back: fear, anxiety....I ended up spending three weeks in Austin with friends and one week in Paris,TX, only, before moving to OK. While in Austin I realized it's fun having a baby in Austin, friends and family there, lots to do and see...culture shock set in moving way from it.

I would say shit hit the fan and full blown episodes of just fear, loneliness and anxiety set in once we moved to OK. The first town was miserably small and depressing. The second town, where we are now, offered a bit more in spirit. Our duplex is next to a house where children come to play and I love their energy. They are older, too old for August but we watch them play. Their mothers are not too friendly. The one day one of them started a conversation with me, her friend gave us both the [school recess] cold shoulder and went inside but not before making her friend nervous and weird about speaking to me. I'm an interloper. After that I just say hello from afar. They don't let their kids come around me for too long.

Hear the "n" word frequently around the town, not mumbled or whispered, full on conviction and had a bad, personal confrontation at the bank a few weeks back. I've checked out the downtown, looked online for resources and things to do but no Mommy and Me and now...not sure I want to hang with anyone here.I have always done well alone when I had no baby. I would write, take photos, explore, create, workout, read...it was easy to keep myself busy or amused by my surrounding whatever they were. But this is different. Walks introduced me to chained pit bulls in yards or large, stray dogs of questionable demeanors. Pepper spray, I thought, but baby in a stroller, wind...hmmm not a great idea. So my walks were super short and August just fell asleep anyway so we just sit outside now.

I am invisible when we leave the duplex. People see J and the baby but not me. Women have blatantly flirted with J as if I don't exist and I am standing right there. Then I question if is that real or did I imagine it and think of 1950's movies with Tom Ewall and how funny it was when his character would recall a scene in their mind, their perception of it being wholly different...For me, there is this current of everything being in a fragile state. The other side of that is everything is a threat. How August is fragile in many ways, how a marriage and relationships can be and become fragile, how free range skankiness can bring that all to mind...how I am very fragile right now and rudeness, a racist remark, being treated unfairly can wreck me far more easily than ever. There are just all these weird layers of fears and anxiety about things that I never gave a thought about before. Leaving the house I am forced to face things I don't want to face or think about and the thoughts and observations, surge, gush and just cascade when I leave my comfort zone. No panic attacks, just a lot of turning words, thoughts, perceptions on myself, more if they are real and not left vague. Fears. Fear of losing August or J are right there. I use to live alone, I use to walk alone in the dark, I married three times, rock climbing, spelunking...what fears did I ever have? None. Fear like this is new to me.

I feel clingy, I don't want to return to Austin with friends and family there, I don't want to see my grandmother in Del Rio either, not right now, not feeling this way. There is a fear I would like it so much and feel better, I wouldn't want to experience culture shock and this again and not return to traveling as a family unit. Or, I would miss J too much and just not have a good time at all, not benefit like I should from it. I did make a call and found a therapist in the next town who seems great. I would like to see her, just need to either go with August (which I think could be fine but she isn't too thrilled about) or try and find a way she could see me when J can care for August.

Aimless, you are right, there is no connection.

emilys: It is jarring but not in a panic attack sort of way. Not yet. Just afraid of how my day will be wrecked and by who. This is stemming from experiences already had, real or perceived. The bank confrontation was real. Bugged me more than I thought.

Spectrum: PTSD has been suggested but unsure of how it fits in with depression right now but something to talk about hen I get to see this therapist.

Wow. You really have got it all to deal with right now. New baby, with all the stress and exhaustion that brings. A major relocation, which is also a traumatic life event. Your support network is not around you when you need it most, you are in an environment you experience as hostile (apparently with reason), and your normal coping strategies are no longer available to you.

Anxiety seems to me like a perfectly rational response to an incredibly tough situation. That said, I'm sure you are doing the right thing by seeking help urgently. Anxiety wears grooves in you over time.

I hope the therapist you've found can give you some of the support you need. Are there really no parents' clubs you could join? Other groups that might be more welcoming than the city at large? If the idea of making new connections feels impossible, could you have anyone from home come and stay with you for a while? That could give you some of the companionship you need, without disconnecting you from OK altogether.

^^ Zora otm. Between the adjustments to a new baby and to a new and unwelcoming environment, you are dealing with a situation that is hugely stressful, and doing it without your friends, family or normal coping mechanisms available to you. Feeling this as threatening is understandable. Even through the distance and opacity of the internet I can feel how draining this must be.

I would hope J is both aware of how fragile you are atm, and is doing everything possible to lend you support and courage. But that is a big burden for J to bear alone. Seeing that therapist would at least give you another ally locally.

As for the people elsewhere who love you, I can easily guess that you downplay how you are feeling when you speak to them. That would be 100% normal, too. With the baby and all, they want you to feel good and optimistic, so letting them know how wretched and fragile you feel just burdens you with a vague sense of guilt over making them worry about you. I've been there, too.

If you can, I'd encourage you to pick the strongest and most reliable of these people who love you and start calling them and talking about this. You need their voices in your life and the reassurance they can provide in addition to J. And there is always ILX, too., as a makeshift backstop.

Facing fear such as you are facing now is 100x harder alone than with help. Asking for help always feels FAR worse in anticipation than it does in reality. You'll be amazed how many people out there will be HAPPY if they can do something for you. And don't feel like you should be able to sort this on your own. Numbers count and the bastards are too many for you to vanquish all by yourself.

Good luck. Come back here whenever you like. Someone will always be hanging around, you know.

aimless gives good advice. Zora too.

I dunno how practical this is atm since August needs most of yr attention, but at some point in the future maybe seeking out a group or club relevant to one of your artistic interests might help alleviate some of the alien-strangeness of yr town? so that way you can at least hone in on ppl who share a similar passion, rather than just "ppl who have babbies"
there's usually a clatch of cool ppl somewhere in town who don't talk about n-words and who won't point and whisper at u. you just gotta find where they gather.

again, the practicality of that isn't exactly workable for you right now, but something to think about later on, or at least investigate to see if such a thing exists.

*tera
my wife had post-partum depression and it's no joke. medication helped immensely and very quickly and she was able to go off later on...i would talk to your doctor about it immediately.

Thank you, shakedown, it helps to know when it works.

also, obv everyone is different but i wouldn't spend too much time getting in your own head about "why am i feeling this way" etc etc or talking about diet or whatever, if you think it's post-partum it probably is and the reason is that your body and mind has been thrown in disarray and it's a medical condition. the sooner you see a doctor the better, i wish we wouldn't have waited as long as we did.

medication helped immensely and very quickly and she was able to go off later on...

If *tera gets a similar outcome, this would, of course, be excellent all the way around. And this having been the outcome with your wife, it is easy to see why you recommend going to a doctor asap.

However, the majority of doctors I have dealt with are mediocre at diagnosis, poorly trained in treating mental disorders, and spend far too little time asking questions. A decent therapist might be a better gatekeeper for determining what's up with *tera than, say, a family practise physician in a small OK town. If it were me consulting a doctor about it, I'd at least try to see a woman doctor if at all possible. A woman doctor might be inclined to take it more seriously.

i dunno, we had a woman doctor, she was great. i'm just saying for a lot of ppl post-partum isn't something just to "talk out" it's a pretty harsh chemical thing going on....

i guess by doctor i meant the obgyn that oversaw your birth, if possible.

anyway it was only our own experience but it was severe and happened quickly and far beyond normal stuff (which we have both seen therapists etc for more normal life type stuff & nothing against that)

Well, let's see: you're living in boring, ugly towns where people are being shitty to you, and you have as contrast the time in Austin with loving, supportive people to share your joy in August and your new life, with places and things that fed your mental and emotional needs even with a baby, where you could co-exist as both a person AND a mother. Now that that's all gone, you're STARVING. Starving for affection, for stimulation, for a sense of self? You used to disappear into your thoughts in order to get through times of dissatisfaction with your surroundings but now A is anchoring you in the real world and you can't make your inner life meet those needs in the same way plus you have so many new challenges and kinds of flux to roll with.

On first read it seemed jerky for your midwife to dismiss your feelings of improvement, but whether she was right or wrong to do that, maybe you don't have to quantify your feelings as PPD in order to do something about them? Depression is sometimes a perfectly reasonable response to a sick world. Racism is a sickness, loneliness is a sickness, unfounded insecurity is a sickness, blah blah. Depression: sometimes it's not you, it's them!

I know this sounds unkindly exasperated in tone, but truly, can't you see that you have plenty of reasons to feel bad and none of them have to be about anything being wrong with you? You've made really tough life choices: to live peripatetically, to be isolated in lots of ways, to only have J for support...those things might work out for you, or frankly they might not, but at least do yourself a solid and admit that they are really really HARD choices and it's not shameful or a betrayal of anything to acknowledge that it's a struggle. And maybe they won't all work out, all the time. Cut yourself some slack here. :(

As of today I'm (probably) part of a 3-month study at Drexel on treatment methods for social anxiety disorder. Which means free therapy targeted toward my actual problem and no drugs, for the first time in my life. To be honest, I'm not really sure what the best case scenario outcome is here (I don't really know what the point is of getting more comfortable in social situations now that every weekday consists of sitting in a featureless grey cube for 9 hours and I managed to completely fall off the rails during the most socially important years of life) but a) it can't hurt and b) it gives me a legitimate excuse to not be at work, because the day I snap and call one of our customers a moron or a shrill, entitled shit is fast approaching.

*tera - i had trouble responding your your webmail, so i just sent you a new one via ilx robot, let me know if you don't receive it.

best of luck, my heart goes out to you for real.

what do you guys think about the idea of depression being largely environmental? not that there isn't a physical component, but that they only manifest in these weird, modern life environments?

I managed to completely fall off the rails during the most socially important years of life

Last I checked there wasn't an age cut-off for having a healthy social life.

And yeah, *tera, PPD or no, that's enough stressors/shitty life circumstances to cause depression & anxiety anyway. Therapist is a good idea, and she will probably be able to gauge if it is partly a hormonal thing that can be helped with meds.

Read The Anatomy of Melancholy, Robert Burton, and get back to us, PN.

er... anything more breezy you can recommend? the reason i ask is that there's a tribe that apparently does not experience depression at all, and most of the posts here describe a fairly intolerable environment.

all i'll say is you guys are severely underestimating PPD & how hard it can hit (in addition to whatever else is there already)

but *tera hasn't been diagnosed with PPD. If she had a diagnosis, then the path forward would obv include the standard therapy for PPD.

I don't know anything about PPD. Tera has described several ways in which she does not think her symptoms match those of documented PPD sufferers, and from only what she has explicitly said here, there are enough unhappy circumstances in her life to at least investigate whether changing some of them would address her anxieties and fears and bring her back to a place that feels like a familiar self.

for example:

I have been dealing with postpartum depression or postpartum anxiety, something. There are no thoughts of hurting my baby or myself which seem to be on every postpartum depression list. I get out of bed in the morning, shower, dress, put on make-up [don't cry through my day at all] and take care of August daily. When I think of depression and what I have read of postpartum depression, doing those things should be difficult and a struggle if done at all.

^my wife had none of these symptoms def not the thoughts of harm. anyway i can only speak from our experience. i think there's a weird stigma attached to ppd and ppl tend to underestimate it still today. if you think you might have it, you should go get checked out by a professional about that possibility right away because if you do, making changes etc in your circumstances in your life is going to be impossible. and many of the stresses of new parenthood aren't able to be changed anyway.

if i seem strident it's only because i still feel guilt about how my wife struggled through weeks of feeling guilt and trying to talk out problems or see counselers or therapists or try to eat better and exercise etc while being just floored by some intense chemical/brain stuff

I think your vehemence for the cause is A++ and wonderful. A lot of stigma, such as it may be, about PPD kinda comes from how motherhood is a woman's "natural" state and not to be overjoyed and completely satisfied by it is unwomanly, or there's must be something wrong w you, or you know, whatever other rank nonsense that makes ppl feel bad about themselves. And guilt--SO MUCH GUILT. Getting help seems U+K.

& to boot unless you're like phenomenally lucky, you're not sleeping through the night for like uh 9 months to a year

Wouldn't you expect even olympic champions of brain chemistry to break down under the regime of infant rearing?

i'm not prone to depression but i had my moments. it wasn't the same thing though.

U+K?

Urgent and key (I think)

Don't think anyone's down-playing the possibility of PPD, but I honestly think a therapist would be better at sussing that out from the situational stressors than would a primary care physician. I could be wrong, but anyway none of us are *tera's doctor. I just think a lot of people are saying that she pretty well articulated how a lot of this stuff IS environmental. That's not to say medication wouldn't help.

Yeah, *tera, regardless of the etiology of your current mood issues, or the diagnosis an MD would give you, the takeaway from all of the good people above is: it sounds like you are having a rough time, and you are quite right to seek help from your intimates, mental health pros, and the depression thread.

Thanks for the advice, support, tips,ideas and dialogue. I will be heading to Texas to visit family for 2.5 weeks tomorrow. Something I have wanted to do. While there I will have the opportunity to see my physician. When I return I would like to see that therapist I found at least once, see what she can offer.

I guess I tend to think that even though your surroundings are shitty that you can still rise above it somehow, with a sense of humor or just for the memoirs sort of thing.... However, it is true, any escapist thoughts are short lived because of August. She is keeping me really present.

From what I have read on PPD, I think it is hard to pin down. Maybe all women get it? Some come out of it not knowing they were under it's thumb but find a five digit credit card balance and wonder what happened those 15 months. Others go in and out of therapy and change meds over the course of several years. Some just wake up one morning feeling great and realize they weren't feeling great for several months. I read a few blogs last night, personal accounts, found some websites of personal accounts. It just seems like it's not well defined but well felt and experienced.

When I would come around mothers, before I had a baby, I always felt ill at ease around them. I felt sort of stupid. They were catching things and seeing things and sniffing out danger and freak accidents way ahead of me. Saw dangers that never caught my eye but once pointed out I was like, huh, wow, yeah, that is truly legitimate and wonder why I wasn't sharp enough to see that. I thought I was pretty good at spotting freak accidents, I'm a really careful, think before action type. But now, I am that mom person. Whatever makes me that way is also making me feel weird. That is my theory. I think this is some fright or flight survival thing that never got turned off and now has a hard time functioning in a modern world. I read the paper Hagen did in 1999 but I think there is so much more to it.

For now, until I see a doctor, thinking my anxiety is fright or flight left over from cavemom times has helped quite a bit today. Today I didn't look for a reason for it other than it is there because I would have used it to hide my baby like the cats do or out run or fight off an enemy or predator, find creative ways to find food etc...

J has been great and supportive through all this. He has been working really hard at his job and hard at trying to understand and helps me when he gets home. One J was enough but I am starting to feel and wish I had 12 J's just round the clock helping me through this.

ok dudes, sorry for flooding this thing with my issues(TM), i know everyone has their turn, but my therapist is on vacation and i got nowhere to go right now. i'm slowly starting to piece together my life after suffering from some kind-of weird amnesia about my life. finally getting in touch with my emotions and the reality of what i went through growing up is like, absolute friggin hell. i feel like i'm being pushed to my limits here. it's strange, all of these unprocessed emotions become like illusions in your present day, which has made every day of my life just as hellish as growing up, but dealing with it is finally putting some stuff to rest.

i feel like i'm so weak for being in such pain. like being brutally neglected from the day i was born, drugged, almost murdered, and all my attempts at escape were met with even more sadistic shit by "friends" and strangers, every day of my life a terrifying loneliness interspersed with humiliation and violence... yet the American Story sez: suck it up u wuss! be productive and perfect! and i feel pathetic that this is so painful and difficult. my therapist says i have strength for even dealing with this honestly. i mean, the pain in my family led to a truly wonderful person killing himself, and plenty of fates of living death, so i don't know. i just feel like i'm making up how hard this is, and that i should be like everyone else and glide through life with light shoulders, even though i know most of my peers haven't had as hard shit to deal with, i mean even stastically speaking.

hurrrrghh!

Who glides through life with light shoulders? The only people I know who pull off this look without a) paddling like mad under the surface or b) covering it all up with drugs, are people who barely experience emotions at all. They are mercifully rare.

The American Story is bullshit, frankly. Feel what you feel. You'll know when (if) you're wallowing and you need to take a break from your feelings, but otherwise, yeah. Thread's here as an outlet...

Spectrum, allow me to tell you that the voice in your head saying "suck it up, wuss" is not just dead wrong, but is actually trying to entice you back into the numbness and amnesia you are now discarding, by telling you that it is a form of courage. It isn't. Facing all that pain, anger and sadness, so you can relearn its lessons correctly this time around, is what takes courage. Profound courage. Unfathomable courage.

I admire what you are doing, even though I cannot envy you your second plunge into hell. Eventually, once you are further through the process, people will begin telling you what an inspiration you are to them, and you'll feel really weird and probably want to cry.

Anyway, good luck with your therapist temporarily away. It's OK to just tread water for a bit. You've survived worse.

Yeah if it seems like other people are gliding compared to you it could be because A) everyone tries to hide their problems from others and B) we overestimate how much others see our own weaknesses. At least, that's what I've gathered. Whenever I open up to people about my issues, they're often surprised because they tell me I seem like I am doing great. It's comforting to know that to others, I can appear to be gliding through life. Likely, nobody is gliding.

life is hard

Thanks Aimless, I really appreciate that.

What I mean by "glide" is not life right now, but what people have to overcome to have even the most basic human life. I'm just jealous of people who have families, weren't robbed of the best years of their lives, didn't have to learn the most basic aspects of life through embarrasing and painful trial and error (like tying your own shoes, using a fork and knife, wiping your own ass, the list goes on!), didn't have to see the darkest sides of humanity at a young age and all attempts at escape just revealed even darker things, don't have to endure excruciating, hellish pain just to remain conscious in the everyday world. It's a real thrill ride, I tell ya! But I'll get over this. I'm not interested in hanging around that for too long. I want a good life, and I'm going to get it no matter how hard things are right now.

The vast majority of people were born into that "good life" I'm working for (having emotions, memories, not living with crippling pain, being able to have relationships, etc.). I don't think most people will understand this, unless you've gone through something like this yourself. I'll get over it, but it ain't fun.

I mean, I don't want to come off like a crank, it's just hitting home now that something seriously wrong happened and it's both freaky and angering. This is what progress looks like, I guess, but I never felt as much hope as I do now of getting better.

i don't want to pry but...almost murdered?

Hint: just neglecting a child can lead to its death and more active forms of abuse flirt ever closer to that boundary, so this is not an outlandish thought.

when i was about 5 or 6 years old my father pushed me down a flight of about 20 stairs. i survived, but i'm pretty sure that didn't have a great effect on me. it was only ever a vague, misty memory until my brother told me he witnessed it. my dad has almost no morals or empathy for other living things, and he openly resented me, so it wasn't a good scene. i'm still putting the pieces together, but that might explain why i was so obsessed over my own death as a kid and would have panic attacks on the regs. my extended family wrote me off as being some freaky, over-sensitive weirdo for acting like that, and so that became part of my wonderful identity growing up.

the neglect and isolation were the worst parts, honestly. feeling like you're dead alone in the world as young as 3 isn't that much fun, especially when ... you really were alone. i can't wait to finally get over all this shit.

*hugs* spectrum

do you have other people you can lean on right now? (besides wonderful ilx)