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Have you ever not been in control of your own mind?

Let me tell you this.

It is terrifying.

I have had some horrible, awful things happen to me, this is true. The difference between postpartum depression, though and everything else that has happened, is that during every other crisis, tragedy or event in my life, my brain was on my side.

It wasn't then. 

It was my deepest, darkest enemy. 

It stole my happiness, my sanity and it took my memories.

It reached up from out of nowhere. I had no idea it was coming. It wrapped its cold evil hands around my neck and strangled the life out of me.

It almost ruined my life entirely.

The pregnancy itself had been a difficult one from the beginning. Ironic, considering that it resulted in the only child we were actively trying to become pregnant with. I suffered from hyperemesis through much of it, long beyond the first trimester. At about 32 weeks, I started having regular contractions, 24 hours a day. When they started, I went to the hospital and was given medication in an attempt to stop the contractions. The contractions never stopped or progressed, I just learned to live with them. A few weeks later, I stumbled chasing a toddler and pulled all the muscles, tendons and ligaments between my chest and knees. I was in absolute agony.

Consequently, when the day came that the baby finally arrived, I was exhausted and happy....so happy that the pregnancy was finally over. 

She was beautiful and perfect. She was breathtakingly gorgeous. She was an easy baby. She never fussed, hardly cried. She was a pro at nursing almost immediately and slept through the night within mere weeks of her birth.

She was perfect.

And in my head, all I ever saw was a recurring vision of me taking her and throwing her down the stairs.

Something in me snapped.

I can't tell you how or when it began, but it did. The intrusive thoughts weaseled their way into my head and took up residence. It wasn't long before I was taking every sensory input and twisting it into some horrifically violent way to hurt the baby.

I saw things on television or in movies, and my brain replaced the victim with her, made me the perpetrator.

I heard things in the news, and immediately, my mind would take it and shape it somehow, then spit it back out in the form of visions.

I would be out driving and suddenly realize I was on a mountain road with no idea how I even got there, my mind picturing the car sailing off a cliff.

I read books and they became real. The words jumped off the page and invaded my mind and soul.

Each and every time, she was the one I was hurting. It was always her.

And I didn't know why.

I never acted on the visions, of course. They resided only in my mind, the mind that grew more and more warped as time passed.

I knew that something was wrong, I even knew what was wrong, and I was too ashamed, too afraid to say anything to anyone. I was afraid they would think I was homicidal. I was afraid they would call me crazy. I was afraid they would take my children. 

I knew that I would never hurt her, no matter how many times my mind played these film reels over and over inside my being.

I stuffed it down, I pushed it away, I willed myself to ignore it.

And it only got worse. And worse. And worse.

No one knew. No one had any idea. To the outside world, I was a mother of three kids who were clean, fed, dressed and to school on time. I was together and organized. There was food on the table, the house was kept. No one knew that when I was home alone with them that I would sit on the couch for hours and clutch her to my chest, terrified to walk to her room and change her diaper because it meant that I had to walk past the stairs that I always envisioned myself dropping her down.

I was completely functional to everyone around me, even those closest to me, but I was falling apart inside.

No one knew.

Until one night, over a year later, when the kids had gone to bed and I was up late reading. The writer of that story took a family to the zoo, and my mind instantly created a vision of me tossing her over the railing to the crocodiles.

I gasped. I slammed the book down. I started crying uncontrollably.

My husband, in utter shock, didn't know what to do.

So I told him. I told him everything. I opened up a piece of my soul that night. I told him that this had been happening since she was born. I told him that no one knew. I told him that I couldn't take it anymore. I told him that I was sorry. 

I was ashamed.

I was so ashamed.

He was scared.

His most immediate concern was for my safety and the safety of the children. I promised him that I had never hurt any of them, and it was the truth. The next day, I was in a psychiatrist's office spilling my guts about it all.

She asked if I knew what was wrong. 

I told her I did.

I am a doula. 

I knew better. I had specific training for just this.

I knew the signs. I knew the symptoms. I knew there was something very wrong with me for a very long time, and I had done nothing.

Out of fear. Out of shame. 

I was supposed to know better. I was too smart for this, too strong for this. I could will it away if only I tried hard enough.

I didn't want people to think less of me as a mother, as a woman. I didn't want them to think that I wanted my child dead. I didn't want them to label me and look at me strange. I didn't want my friends to stop talking to me, to stop trusting me with their children. I didn't want someone to take my kids away. I just wanted it to go away.

The psychiatrist told me what I already knew. That it was postpartum depression manifesting primarily as intrusive thoughts. It was, at times, border lining on psychosis. It was connected to OCD and anxiety. She told me that I may have to go on medication. I said I knew.

I knew it all, but I thought I could fight the demons in my head alone. 

I couldn't.

What happened next, for me, was an epiphany, the strangest most beautiful moment of clarity. In my case, the active suppression of the disorder was a self-perpetuating mechanism. The more I tried to hide it, the worse it got. Once I told someone, anyone, it was as though a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders and the fog around me dissipated immediately. Once I stopped hiding it, I was free. The visions transformed into hazy memories, then disappeared entirely.

If I would have needed medication, I would have taken it in a heartbeat. 

It took months after that for me to admit it to those the closest to me. For a long time, only my husband knew. It was enough to keep me safe, to push it away, but I wasn't being completely honest with anyone. 

I clearly remember standing in the street with a friend sobbing as I told her. She had been my doula, she was my best friend, and I hadn't even told her. A day later, I sat in the backyard with two of my other best friends, and I opened up and let them in. We all confided things in each other that day that we hadn't admitted before. 

And I learned.

We have to trust ourselves and the women around us to keep us safe. We have to be brave enough to share our pasts, our presents, our dreams for the future. We will all be better for it. 

It took me a while longer to tell anyone beyond my closest circle, and it took me years to write about my experience here. It has been over seven years since it ended now, and there are times that it seems like yesterday. 

I don't have a single memory of my daughter's first year of life. Not one. What I hang on to are replaced memories that exist only through pictures or hearing someone else tell a story. I look at the pictures and try to remember what she must have been like, but there is nothing. This disease stole that time from me, wholly and entirely. 

I was terrified that it would come back when I was pregnant the next time, but fortunately it did not. I made those close to me swear to be vigilant, to pry, to ask uncomfortable questions, to invade my privacy, to make sure that I was really okay and that I wasn't just saying I was.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

Postpartum depression is a very serious condition. There are different types of postpartum depression, all of which fall under the larger umbrella of postpartum mood and anxiety disorders. Postpartum blues are the less severe on one end, psychosis the most on the other end. It affects far more women than we know, because far too many of them keep this secret. With help, with therapy, with the shoulders of those who understand, with medication and with time, it can get better.


Don't let it take a year of your life with your children.

If you develop symptoms, get help. Watch for the warning signs in those you love. Symptoms can include any of the following:

The older I get, the more I realize how messed up we all are.

Our friends. Our families. The parents of the kids your kids are friends with. The neighbors. Even the people who totally look like they have it all together. Yep, them too.

We've all got issues.

I remember being young and naive, not having any awareness at all that someday I wouldn't be young or naive anymore. I remember thinking that mid life crises were just things that people wrote about or talked about in abstract, or that they were the things that happened to the people in my parent's generation and that we wouldn't do things like that because we would know better when we were that old.

Not that we ever would be that old, because we wouldn't.

We would stay young and happy and optimistic and flexible. Things would work themselves out. It would all be okay, whatever it was, because we willed it to be.

Then suddenly we ended up here. In whatever version of mid-life we're in.

I think that most of us at this age are just getting along, just getting through. No one is really happy, no one is doing what they want, no one feels in control of everything in their lives. We all question what we're doing, and yet we all want everyone else to believe that we're fine.

Because we want to believe that we're fine.

When you first get married, we are fine. Usually. What no one ever tells you is that it doesn't stay that way. No one tells you that someday life will be complicated and hard and ugly. Or that someday being married won't have anything to do with being in love anymore. Or that marriage will be hard, awful work. Or that your partner might not be willing to do that work and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

Or we assume everything will come easily, but then you can't get pregnant. Or you do, but then you lose the baby. Or you do, but there are serious complications and it's not fun at all. Or you do, but then you get postpartum depression. Or you get past all that, then have to deal with chronic health problems or sudden illnesses or kids who rage at you. You question if you're cut out for this at all.

Or things are all great for a while. You get married and you have the kids easily and everything goes according to plan until you find yourself sitting in an empty house while the kids are off at school wondering who the hell you are anymore. Your entire identity is wrapped up in someone else. More than one someone, and you don't even remember what you want or who you were. Except you're not that person anymore, you're this one. So now what?

Or you made decisions in the past, and at the time you made them for reasons. Good reasons. Important reasons. Then time passes and you're at the mercy of those decisions wondering what the hell you did. Wondering how much you sacrificed. Wondering how different things would be. Wishing you had it back, knowing that you never will.

Or you are working in a job in a field you never thought you would be. Out of necessity. Out of convenience.  Out of laziness. You aren't doing what you wanted. You're never doing what you wanted. You're doing what you have to just to make it to the next paycheck. Then doing it again for the next two weeks. You aren't fulfilled, but that doesn't matter anymore because it hasn't mattered in so long that you don't even remember what it looks like.

Or you start to feel the imposing weight of time. You start to sense you are running out of it. You try to cling to your youth desperately.


Or you find yourself staying up late or getting up early just to be alone, just to have three seconds when someone else doesn't need you. Or you find yourself trying to fill voids, try to figure out how to be happy again. You buy things you don't need, then you feel guilty about it. You still aren't happy.

Or you start acting selfishly. You decide you aren't happy anymore and decide that's all that matters. You cling to whatever you think will make you happy, even if it's just temporary. Even if it's destructive. Even if it hurts other people. Even if it chips away at your soul.

Or you find yourself torn between generations. Trying to care for the people you're supposed to, the ones you signed up for, then trying to care for your parents. And you can't do both right. And you're always letting someone down. And it's never enough. Maybe they're in the same town, maybe they're on the other side of the country or the world, and it's never enough.

Or someday you find yourself wandering life without those parents. You second guess the things you said and did. You contemplate your own mortality. You miss them. You know that you're floating around in this world without a safety net anymore. You realize all that in one second. You aren't anyone's child anymore. You alone have to be responsible. You wish for second chances. You wish for one more moment.

Or you're in one of those places and refuse to see it. You try to tell yourself that everything is fine. You convince yourself that you are happy. That this, whatever this is, is enough. You want to be fine. You want other people to believe that everything is fine.

But it's not.

We all have issues. We all collect them like souvenirs as we age. Some of us have steamer trunks full of them. We reevaluate. We question. We wonder.

Is this it? Is this the best it gets?

You hear all the time about how adolescence is the hardest time in life, with the most changes. I don't think that's accurate at all. I think middle age is harder because the stakes are higher. The further I get into it, the more I see it. The more personal tragedies I experience, the more I know it. In some ways I envy the people who aren't there yet.

I'd love to go back to being young and naive.

Middle age sucks.

Kids are testing us, pushing our buttons, straining our resources.
We are getting older. We develop health problems. We get gray hair and wrinkles.
Parents are aging, sick, dying.
Careers are stagnating, not what we thought they would be.
Marriages around us are falling apart, maybe even ours is.

Most of us can weather it and come out on the other side. We can walk right up to the ledge of crazy but step back. We can reevaluate everything in our lives and still find peace with the choices we made and where we are. We can be grateful for what we have and let go of what we don't.

Not everyone can.

Some of us start reevaluating things, walk up to the edge and jump. Some of us ruin our lives. Some of us have affairs. Some of us quit our jobs and try to reinvent ourselves. Some of us declare we aren't happy and decide we will do whatever it takes to be happy, even if it destroys our families. Some of us buy fast cars.

I was talking about this with a friend a few days ago, someone who's gone through a lot of life stuff lately too, someone who's trying her hardest to weather it all and not lose her mind, someone who understands me in a way few people do, and she asked me to smack her if she buys a fast car.

I promised I would...unless she buys a Camaro. She does that, I'm driving.

And yeah, we're totally going to Vegas.

Most of the comments were supportive, encouraging.  Some people commiserated.  Some shared their own stories.  Some expressed gratitude for their situations.  Some expressed anger and frustration at theirs.

They couldn't have kids.  Can't.

What those who expressed anger don't seem to understand, is that at least in my case, I've been in that place.  I've been told I wouldn't have kids without drastic medical intervention.  I've been half of a couple officially diagnosed with infertility.  I've mourned my period every month.  I've hated pregnant women, wondered why it seems like everyone else in the world can do this but me.  I've bought more than five pregnancy tests at a time out of sheer desperation.  

Not only that, but I lost the only baby I should have ever been able to get pregnant with.  

My point in writing those stories wasn't to upset people last night, any more than my writing this now is to garner sympathy from other people.

It's to communicate this truth: no one really knows what anyone else has been through.  

None of us is qualified to judge anyone else.

Recently, a good friend of mine posted something on Facebook about having a tremendous amount of gratitude for her son's upcoming birthday party.  That she had no memory of the prior one.  That she'd been through a lot that no one else could understand and was immensely proud of herself for coming out on the other side, with the fog lifted and cleared.  

Rather than express support and love for her, concern for her situation, or show respect for her honesty, she was bashed by family members. 

I'll tell you what kind.  

Her.  

Me.  

We both struggled with post-partum depression that manifested into bigger and bigger clouds of haze that sank upon us, crippling our lives.  Reached into every aspect of who we were.  Contaminated memories.  Ruined happy times.  Purely as a defense mechanism, I've blocked large pieces of those memories.  

She has too.  

I don't remember much of anything about the first 14 months of my daughter's life.  I think we had a small cake for her at home, but I'm not sure.  I saw a picture floating around once that told me I didn't screw it up completely.  That even if I didn't remember it, I had jumped through the hoops and done what I was supposed to do.  

I see pictures of her as an infant, most of which I must have taken, and I can't remember her like that.  The delicious rolls upon rolls.  I remember what I can through those pictures alone.  

Certainly not, though it's taken me years and years to reach the point where I could begin to forgive myself.  

The memories of my last child, limited by circumstances outside my control.  Ruined too.  Seeing pictures of him as a newborn break my heart and tear at my soul.  It wasn't depression this time that did it, but the effect is the same.

I want to believe it doesn't.  I haven't worked on forgiving myself for that enough yet.  Mostly because it wasn't anything of my doing that led to it in the first place.  Nothing I could have done.

I tell my friend at every opportunity I can that I love her, and that even though our situations are different, they are also very similar.  Good mothers can block the memories of their children, not by choice, but purely to survive.  

Then, a few days ago, I came across a blog recommended by We Band of Mothers.  It's called No Holding Back, written by a mother who lost one of her twins to TTTS.  

My heart broke for her, reading the piece about how she's never sure what to say when people ask her how many children she has. What do you say when there's a child missing who should be there?  

For a long time, I answered awkwardly too.  I would include the little girl who was supposed to come first.  The one that we hinged all our hopes and dreams on.  The one that didn't make it.  

Over time, I stopped.  I just told people how many living children I had.  Not because I cared one bit about making them feel awkward, because I didn't.  I stopped for my own sanity.  It was too hard to be constantly reminded of who was not here.  I stopped as a defense mechanism.  

Not too different than the repressed memories, I suppose.  

She's a piece of me, just as those missing years with my living children are, but I don't talk about them with many people.  

I share my stories only with those who I feel will understand, and sometimes I learn right away that I've made a terrible mistake in trusting someone with that information.  

Other times, I find that I make a connection with someone else, who starts nodding in agreement.  Someone who understands.  Sometimes that someone in turn confides in me.  There are usually a lot of tears.

We all have our tragedies.  We all have our demons.  

And no book can ever be properly judged by it's cover.  

Have empathy and compassion for those around you.  You don't know what path they've walked.