Remember when Tom Cruise blasted psychiatry and Brooke Shields’s treatment for postpartum depression?
I guess his views aren’t that shocking. What do you expect from someone who allegedly insists on having films that he works on run through some wacko Scientology machine to rid them of whatever invisible gobbledygook they may contain?
I’m here to tell you that, without a doubt, postpartum depression requires more treatment than vitamins and exercise.
A few weeks after I had my adorable bundle of joy, I felt horrible. I mean top three times in my life awful. In case you’re curious, the list goes like this:
1. Death of my brother in 1994
2. Splitting up with my first husband in 2005
3. Postpartum depression/anxiety in 2010
I’ve suffered from anxiety my whole life, starting with stress headaches in first grade. But what I’d experienced before was nothing compared to how I felt postpartum. I was completely overwhelmed. I couldn’t relax at all. I was worried about taking care of Nathaniel – Am I doing this right? Is he okay? I was worried about taking him out in public – What if he gets upset and I don’t know what to do? I was worried about being alone with him – What if he chokes or gets sick and I don’t know what to do?
Then the depression part, which I’ve never had any personal experience with, started. There were times that I didn’t want to leave our apartment because there were too many steps involved. I felt like going out was too much work. And then there was the guilt. I felt guilty all of the time – I’m not a good mother. Nathaniel deserves better than me. – then, on top of that, I felt guilty for feeling so bad. I would attempt to do things (for example, suction out his nose when he had a cold) and if I didn’t get it exactly right on the first try, I would collapse in tears and go straight to the I’m a terrible mother scenario.
I’d never experienced anything like this before. I didn’t feel like myself at all. Sometimes I didn’t even feel like a person. I knew that something was wrong, but I wasn’t completely convinced that it was postpartum depression. I thought that all women who experienced that had trouble bonding with their babies, and I didn’t feel that way about Nathaniel. So, at first, I thought it was just the huge decrease in estrogen that was making me crazy and I’d just have to wait it out.
Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I had an adorable new baby that I loved very much. My wonderful husband was a fantastic, extremely involved dad. There was no reason why I shouldn’t have been happy. Even though I have a Masters in psychology and I know that there are medications that can help people, I’ve always avoided that path for myself. You know, anxious people can feel anxious about taking medication. But I had had enough. I was ready to do whatever it took to not feel the way I was feeling anymore.
I started seeing a psychiatrist at the beginning of November, and now I feel better than I ever have. I’m more relaxed than I’ve been in a long time. I feel lucky that I realized there was a problem and addressed this issue relatively early on. Some women suffer from postpartum depression and don’t realize what’s going on. Many obstetricians don’t spend enough time talking to women about how they’re feeling emotionally when they go in for their postnatal follow up appointments. Some women may feel embarrassed to seek help or feel like they should be able to handle everything on their own. Some women are so far down that they can’t motivate themselves to find the help that they need.
Maybe if more women would speak out about this, more women would seek help. Maybe they would realize that there’s nothing to be ashamed of or feel guilty about. That it’s okay to ask for help. That it’s not their fault, it’s just a biological response. That’s my hope in writing this post. I hope that it helps someone else.