Is it PPD or is it LIFE?

Life does not sail by calmly, without obstacles and challenges.  I guess if it did it would not be much of a life.  It is the experiences that we have that shape the people that we are.  Everybody is faced with circumstances in life that can cause feelings of depression and hopelessness.  There are so many possibilities that could cause these feelings that it would be tedious to list them all here.

I often find myself questioning situations that present themselves in my life.  I find myself wondering if it is the situation that is causing the feelings of sadness and anxiety or is it just a flare up of the depression that is already there.   Dealing with PPD is challenge enough, but I have been faced with other challenges on top of it, and if those challenges present themselves during a time when I have been feeling better, it terrifies me to my core.  Is my PPD ever going to get better?  It can take a while for my logical thinking to take over.  I have to remember that some things would upset me anyway, even if I wasn't depressed, and I would still need to process through them, even if the PPD wasn't there.

It has been a tough year, this year of PPD.  I have gone through all the baby stages to toddlerhood, and I have been raising a spirited 2 to 3 year old, who took a year and a half to potty train (that is a story for another day).  As a Mom though, the hardest things that I have had to deal with this year are the issues that threaten the health and life of my child.

The above picture is of my daughter, just before her second birthday.  She had just eaten peanut butter for the second time, and this is what happened to her face.  She was covered in hives and her eyes swelled up.  Thankfully there was no airway obstruction.  We were a bit naive in the beginning and our pediatrician didn't seem very concerned.  He told us not to give her peanuts and wait until she was three to have her tested for nut allergies.  That is what we did.  We didn't really take any extra precautions.  We had NO IDEA how serious this could be.

After she turned three we pushed for an allergy test.  Our pediatrician still didn't seem concerned.  He actually suggested to me that I give her some peanut butter to see what would happen.  After seeing the horrified expression on my face at that suggestion he referred her to an allergist.  We had her tested almost immediately and she is definitely allergic to peanuts.  Our allergist is wonderful, but it was not until that appointment that I learned how serious her allergy was.  The doctor explained to me that reactions to exposures get progressively worse and it is very likely that her next reaction will be anaphylactic.  Then he explained to me all the things I need to look for when buying food.  My husband and I said many prayers of relief when we realized how many things that we let her eat since her first reaction that could have killed her.  This whole experience was a huge adjustment for me as a Mom and it all happened when I had only been in treatment for my PPD for a couple of months.  I was devastated.  I think that any mother would have been very upset in my situation, but at that point my PPD definitely made it harder to deal with.  I got through it by focusing on my child and what I had to do.  I learned to read labels, I learned how to use an Epi-pen, I learned what foods were absolutely unsafe, I learned what restaurants I could take her too, and I learned how to cope with my feelings of terror at the thought of every leaving her with anyone other than myself or my husband.  I survived it and we are doing well with it now.  We have learned to live with it.

I am currently trying to deal with her current diagnosis.  She has been showing symptoms of having some kind of allergy for a little over a year now.  It started with an occasional dry cough at night.  We thought maybe it was mold.  We got covers for her mattress and her pillow and she did better for awhile, but then late summer into the fall she got progressively worse. We were dealing with occasional hives and ectopic dermatitis.  She caught a mild cold the weekend before Halloween and we ended up at Urgent Care with a wheezing little girl.  Her pulsocs were 92.  The nurse told us if they were 90 she would have been hospitalized at least overnight.  So we went home with a nebulizer and have learned how to use that, and watch for the symptoms of asthma.  We have seen our allergist a few more times.  She takes allergy medication every day.  We have managed to stave off another serious asthma attack by knowing what to watch for....and lately she has seemed a little better...yesterday I discovered the reason why.

Yesterday we had her skin tested for respiratory allergies.  They did the full panel of cat, dog, dust mites, pollen, mold...etc.  They also added in rabbits since we have those in our home as well.  She tested positive for cat and dog.  Honestly I have been doing really well with my PPD lately, but yesterday was a tough day.  We have two cats and a dog.  I think that she has been doing better lately because the cats stopped shedding for the winter.  Now I am faced with making some extremely difficult decisions.  I would really prefer not to have to make these decisions, I would prefer to crawl under my covers and cry for awhile....maybe a day or two.  At least I can calmly say that this time, these feelings are not coming from PPD.  I think anyone faced with having to make decisions about giving up beloved pets are going to be feeling happy about it.

What makes it more challenging is that everyone has an opinion about it.  Whatever decision is made, someone is going to try to make me feel awful about it.  The doctor actually said this to me yesterday,  "You are the Mom, no matter what decision you make you are going to feel guilty about it".  Boy was he right.  Nothing has even happened yet and I feel guilty about the possibility of decisions.

The two cats that we have are mine.  I brought them into the relationship/household.  My older cat, Fuzzy, is 17 and pretty frail looking, he has lost weight and just looks old.  He is a sweet and loving boy, and was my only companion for years.  My other cat, Padme, is 10.  I have raised her from kittenhood, she is my sweet, gray and furry girl.  I am the only one in this house that really has a relationship with these cats.  My kids are fascinated enough by them, but the cats prefer to have nothing to do with them.  The difficult decision that has been made is that the cats have to go.  Allergies to cats are much more severe than allergies to dogs are, and Anne's was showing symptoms long before the dog arrived in our home.  However the decisions about where the cats will go and what their fates will be are completely up to me and it is breaking my heart.  I can think logically right now trying to find answers, but I will not allow myself to think about them actually leaving, and not being here anymore, because I know that the second I do that I will completely fall apart and I am afraid I might not be able to get myself back together.  I am pretty confident that I will be able to find a home for my 10 year old kitty, it is the grim possibility of choice for my elderly 17 year old that I am having the hardest time with.  I am not sure yet how I am going to get through this one!

My husband and I have decided that it is best for the family if we keep our dog.  Our daughter's health is not the only person's health to take into consideration when making a decision about the dog.  We have only had him for a few months but he brought a light into this house that has been missing for a long time.  He has done wonders for me and my depression, and giving him up right now would be too much for me.  And the kids absolutely love him.  I also don't feel that my daughter reacts to him like she does to the cats.  She is all over the dog all the time and he doesn't seem to bother her.  So there are some things that we are going to try to reduce his dander around the house.  There also is one question that remains to be answered.  Allergy testing tests for cat and dog saliva and dander simultaneously.  Clearly with the cats she is allergic to the dander, there is no question....my cats don't give kisses.  My hope is that she only allergic to the dogs saliva, because the fur doesn't really seem to bother when she has her face all over the dog.  I guess we can only hope that we are making the right decision for now, and we will have to see what happens.  I am the only one with an attachment to the cats, but the WHOLE family needs this dog.

Sometimes being an adult just sucks.  I hate having to make decisions that affect the lives of my family and my critters.  I wish that there were easier answers, ones that don't break hearts.  Thank you to everyone who has been supportive and loving to me during this difficult time, thank you to those who understand how hard this is.  I need you!

 

I am a Terrible Mother!

"I am a terrible mother, the worst mother in the world."  We all think that at one point or another, don't we?  When you are trapped in the throes of depression, some days it can be ALL that you think.

It is amazing how EASY the lives of everybody else can look.  I would drag myself out to the grocery store and watch how happy everybody else looked.  And Facebook, that is the perfect place to go if you want to feel more inadequate than you already do.  People usually only post the good stuff, and can leave a distorted view of the world to the rest of us.  To me it looked like all the other Mommies were doing all sorts of activities and crafts with their kids, living in their happy little bubbles.  I felt like everyone else had something that I didn't have.

But guess what?  After awhile I started feeling better.  Then I started talking to other Moms and made an important discovery.  The truth of the world is not on Facebook.  The truth is every mom feels like a terrible mother some days, even the ones that aren't battling PPD.   I actually read a comment on a blog once where a mother was saying how sad she was at bedtime, and how much she missed her kids after she went to bed.  I laughed out loud at that because it couldn't possibly be true.  Was she saying what she thought she should say?  Come on, we all have days when we can't WAIT until bedtime! We all hide in the pantry from the kids so we can get a nibble of chocolate.  None of us enjoy cleaning the toilets or folding endless baskets of laundry.  Everyone has parts of their jobs that they hate.

Guess what else?  We all LOVE our kids, happy or not, depressed or not, we all LOVE our kids.  We all feel guilty at some point.  We all wish that we could do more, that we could be more.  On the bad days we all need to remember that we love our kids.  It is okay to ask for help, it is okay to take a break.  It is important to remember that we are all doing the best that we can do.  There will be perfect moments in life, but there will be more imperfect moments.  Laugh at those moments and hug your kids close!

One of those imperfect, perfect moments of life! 

Hour by Hour

When my PPD was at it's worst, I lived life in complete survival mode, day by day, hour by hour.  Everything kind of blurred together, and I feel like I missed many precious moments during that time.  Actually now that I am in a state where most of my days are GOOD days, I feel like I am living my life again, instead of merely trying to subsist.

For the Stay at Home Mom weekdays kind of blur together anyway.  It is not uncommon to have to double check the date and the day.  For me it was compounded by the fact that my husband is self employed and is usually working most weekend days, so I lost all concept of days, weekend or weekdays.

I had a two year old and a baby and my daily goal consisted of getting them from wake up to bedtime so I could just collapse in front of the tv or go to bed myself.  At certain times of the year my husband is gone working up to four nights a week, so it was mostly just me getting through the day on my own.  First I had to get out of bed, which is still a challenge for me.  I could never see all the way ahead to bedtime so I had to break my day up into chunks.  First I had to get kids up, diapers changed and breakfast fed.  If we were home for the day morning was the best time for my kids to play on their own or my daughter would watch tv and I would just try to find some task to focus on, or I would hang out on the internet.  If we had an activity or a playdate planned it would be in the morning so we could be home by lunch.  Some days I got dressed, some days I didn't.  Lunch was the second hurdle of the day.  Feed the kids and then NAPTIME!  In the beginning of the depression both of my kids were still napping.  So I would feed them, get them in bed and then feel strangely free for awhile.  I would eat lunch, catch up on General Hospital, and then usually I would curl up on the couch and sleep, dreading the moment when the kids would wake up.  Naptime to dinnertime was always the hardest part of the day.  After being on the couch for a bit, it was always hard to get momentum going again.

Dinner, that was a challenge.  For a whole year prior to the depression I had worked really hard on changing my family's eating habits.  I cut out processed foods, cooked with more fresh, organic ingredients and whole grains.  We were really doing well.  Unfortunately I have always been an emotional eater and boy did that get worse.  I had no energy or motivation by dinner time.  It would be all I could do to throw together a simple meal that I knew my kids would eat.  Many days that would be too much and I would call my husband and beg him to take care of dinner because I just couldn't handle it.  I stopped caring so much was everyone was eating, and just cared that the kids ate.

After dinner things would get cleaned up and the kids would get put to bed.  Pulling myself together to give them baths on bath nights was another struggle, it isn't really a difficult task, but for me it was very overwhelming.

As soon as the kids were in bed I would stop for the day, no more cleaning, no more laundry, I was done.  I would stay up for an hour or two and watch TV and then I would go to bed, hoping to sleep well enough to gain energy to make it through the next day.  WHEW!

Wow, that is what my days were like.  I do still have occasional days where I will wake up in a bad way and know right away how much to expect of myself for the day.  What I have described here, however, is no longer my life.  It feels really good to write this all down and see it in black and white.  It makes me see how far I have come.  First I had to accept what was happening to me and name it.  Then I had to get help.  I enlisted support from close, trusted friends and family, I went to my doctor and I started counseling.  Defeating depression is a daily battle, some days mine wins, some days I win.  It is great to be winning most of my days now.

If you are struggling with PPD don't try to fight it alone, reach out to the people that love you, talk to your doctor....get help.  There are several websites that have helped me on my journey.  I am going to share some of those links now and hope that they may provide some comfort and support to others as well.
1.  If you are local to the Capital Region, Shades of Light offers local resources and support.
https://www.facebook.com/ShadesofLightCapitalDistrict?ref=ts&fref=ts

2. Katherine Stone, how I have grown to love her, as have many other women who struggle with Postpartum Depression and Anxiety.  She writes from real experience, and her articles are short, easy to read, and eye opening.  Her website really helped me to move forward, and feel like I was not alone.  www.postpartumprogress.com

3.  Glennon and her Monkees.  This website is not about PPD, it is the blog of a Mom....But her wonderful blog entries make us feel as we are not alone in the difficult world of motherhood.  She has uplifted me more than once, a definite good read.  momastery.com

One Year and Counting...

A year can go by fast or slow, depending on your perspective.  It's fast when you stop and realize how much your child has grown and changed in that amount of time, how they seem so much older, yet you don't feel any older.  The moments within that year can go by slowly though, and many of them can be lost when you are battling Postpartum Depression.

I am blown away by statistics I read.  As many as 1 in 7 mothers suffer from anxiety and depression during their pregnancies or after their babies are born, yet only 15% of those who suffer ever seek treatment.  Since so much is not reported I wonder how accurate these statistics even are, I fear that the numbers are even higher.  It breaks my heart to think about all those Mamas suffering alone in the darkness.  I know the thoughts that go through their heads, those thoughts have gone through mine.  I know the feelings of guilt and selfishness, the sadness and self doubt.  I know how it feels to compare yourself to every other mother you know.  I have learned that everyone's life can look perfect on Facebook, but everyone has their own challenges in life to deal with.  No Mama is perfect, no human is perfect, we all just have to try to be the best we can be with the challenges life has brought to us.

For me it started one year ago, January 2012, when my son was five months old.  Postpartum Depression can hit any time during the first year of baby's life.  It started kind of slow for me.  I would have bad days, but then days where I felt fine.  I called the good days "windows".  My professional background is in social work, so I knew what was happening pretty early on, but I had enough good days where I could ignore it to some point.  I had my yearly exam with my gyn in February. We briefly discussed what was going on and the possibility of medication, but I was breastfeeding so I decided to stick it out.  Then those windows of feeling okay rapidly decreased.  I was very "angry" depressed.  My then two and a half year old tried every precious bit of patience I had and then some.  I felt like a horrible mother, and felt bad that she seemed to get the brunt of my short temper because she was with me all the time.  It wasn't as difficult with my baby because he has been a happy, easy going little fellow from the start, but my daughter is just like me and knows exactly how to push all of my buttons.  I felt like I spent many days just yelling at her, and desperately waiting for naptime and bedtime.  My biggest struggle with my son was if he woke up in the night.  I had and still have such a difficult time sleeping that I often have nothing left when the kids wake up at night.  I will lie there and feel guilty that I don't want to get up, because I am just so exhausted.  Thankfully my kids have a great Daddy who will get up with them when I can't, I don't know if he knows how much this Mama appreciates that support.  I kept hoping it would pass, that I would just get better, but it didn't, it kept getting worse.

I knew that two major barriers existed to my getting help.  1.) Our health insurance does not cover mental health services, and 2.) I was breastfeeding a baby that wouldn't take a bottle, and I really didn't know if it was safe to take medication while I was breastfeeding him.  Since I didn't have the energy to really research and find my way....I just waited.

Then one afternoon I just couldn't stop crying, and I had absolutely no reason to cry at all.  My little girl kept asking me what was wrong and why was I crying.  I called my husband to come home and he did.  I could not stand the fact that my child had to see me so broken down like that. The next day I called our pediatrician and asked him what anti depressants were safe to take while breastfeeding, he told me absolutely none.  That really threw me.  I was so desperate and ready to get help at that point and then I just felt like there was nothing that I could do at all.  Then I found a website that led me to a support group in my area.  That is when things started to change.  The facilitator happened to be a lactation consultant who quickly set me straight in the area of medication.  My pediatrician was wrong and she had the information to back it up.  The group also provided me a list of services in the area including places that provided counseling to people without insurance.  So with the support of my OB, talking to my pediatrician for me, I started medication.  I also started counseling and was lucky enough to get a counselor that I really clicked with.  This was all last April 2012.

Since then it has been a constant journey, a constant battle.  The medication and counseling are helping, I am definitely stronger than I was, but I have not won yet.  We have changed my meds a few times.  I am still dealing with a lot of mood changes with every cycle.  There are still bad days, it is still hard to get up some mornings, but I am getting stronger.  I have been blessed with being able to find the right support from professionals and from family and friends.  I can deal with the bad days much better now.  And there are a lot more good days and I am able to enjoy more precious moments than I could before.  My kids are healthy and happy despite everything I have gone through, and I thank God daily for that.

There is so much more that I could say about it all, and I will.  That is why I started writing about this in a blog.  I felt really alone in the beginning until I found resources online and in local women around me and that helped me to move forward.  Overcoming PPD is a long and difficult journey that I am still traveling.  I just don't want anyone else to have to go it alone.

I fight this fight for them and I fight this fight for me!  Love my babies!