Negative thinking and self doubt is just part of the package when you are suffering from PPD. The thoughts can be overwhelming. But, even on days when I am not feeling depressed I still tell myself I am a bad mother. There are days when "bad mommy" thoughts are pretty much universal.
"I cannot get the 3 year old to do anything she is supposed to, I am a bad Mom."
"No matter what I try, I cannot get this baby to go to sleep. He wants his Dad, I am a bad Mom."
"I don't feel like cooking a healthy dinner tonight, I don't feel like cooking at all, I am ordering a pizza, I am a bad Mom."
"I have been yelling all day...I am a bad Mom."
"My kid is crying, but I am tired and I don't want to get out of bed. I am a bad Mom."
Any of those thoughts sound familiar. I could keep adding to the list for hours, but I won't put us through that.
This week both of my kids were sick, with what seemed like a pretty mild cold. Even with a mild cold, I have to watch my three year old like a hawk. Cold plus her allergies can trigger an asthma attack. This is a relatively new issue for her, so I am still navigating the waters of when to give her a nebulizer treatment or not. This week I recognized when her cough was getting worse, gave her treatments for one day, and had a kid that was 90% better the next day....Hey! I am a good mother!
My son started out with the same kind of cough his sister had started with. His nose was not running at first, so I figured post nasal drip was causing his cough. Then he threw up twice in one afternoon. Initially I thought he had the stomach bug, but then realized it was the build up of the mucus causing his tummy upset. He seemed fine for the most part, he was happy and playing. The next day he got sick once, and was a little more clingy than usual, but was mostly his happy self. Then he got sick in the wee hours of the morning...and just didn't seem right to me. He never had a fever, but he just was not himself. So I took him to the doctor Friday morning. I didn't want him to get worse over the weekend. It turns out he had a bad ear infection in his right ear. He has never had an ear infection before without a fever, neither of my kids have. I trusted my instincts though, I knew that something wasn't right. I am a good mother!
I have discovered that I have really good instincts when it comes to the health of my children. There has been only one time that I have taken them to the doctor and it has just been a cold. When it comes to figuring out whether or not my kids are sick I AM a good mom.
And you know what? There are a lot of other things I do right too. I challenge you today to take some time to think about the things that you are doing right, not the things you are doing wrong. Make yourself a list of the Good Mom things that you do, and remember that none of us are perfect, but we all LOVE our kids. I would love for you to share some of your good mom examples in the comment section.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Monday, February 18, 2013
How did I know I was getting better?
How did I know I was getting better? I have seen this question poised on a couple of PPD websites, and everyone has a different answer.
My recovery has been very up and down. Medication helped very quickly initially, and I started therapy. After a few months though, I took another downward dip, went over a few hurdles and eventually had my medication changed. A few months later, the same thing happened and I had to get my medication adjusted again. I have been getting progressively better despite these dips. The number of good days over bad days has grown exponentially. Therapy has helped me to be stronger and more able to handle the bad days. I am at the point now where I can see how my bad days are usually caught up in specific points of my monthly cycle. I am hoping to be able to weather the rest of this storm without having to change medications again.
I have felt myself getting better through this whole process, once treatment started. There have been points where I have stopped and noticed a change, something that was very different than the way life was during the dark days, and those are moments where I have been able to say, "I am getting better."
1. One evening when I was watching TV after the kids were in bed, I noticed that my two cats had both crawled up on my lap and were purring away. It took me a moment to realize that they had not been cuddling with me for months. They used to try, but I was so stressed out and in need of space by the end of the day, that I used to push them off the couch when they would crawl on me because I just couldn't stand another creature invading my fragile space and demanding my attention. It was such a relief to be relaxed in snuggling with my kitties again.
2. One day it stopped being a huge stress to get myself and both kids out the door to run errands, take my older one to pre-school, or go on a playdate. I am a very organized person, but leaving the house with everyone always felt overwhelming. In fact that is one symptom that I had almost from the very beginning of being a Mama of two kids. Suddenly, it felt like something clicked and I had a rhythm that worked. Now I could look forward to going out of the house, instead of worrying about how we were going to get there.
3. When I was pregnant with my son, I started making huge changes in our family's diet and the kind of food we were eating. I was really motivated to cook healthy meals from scratch with more veggies, and we all felt really good about it. Then I lost it. When I was in the throes of the worst of the PPD, I had no desire to cook, or shop. I made simple, not so healthy dinners, if I cooked at all. There were many days were I placed desperate calls to my husband and begged him to take care of dinner because I couldn't handle it. Now I am menu planning, recipe searching and cooking again, including making new recipes. I still have days where I don't want to cook, don't you? I am just happy that I am cooking more and getting more healthy food in my family. I still have a ways to go in this department, but I am making good progress.
4. This one is simple...my house is cleaner. Instead of a mad rush to try to clean because people are coming over, my house is pretty clean most of the time...except for the toys...but I blame the kids for that :o)
Getting better can come gradually, you might not notice it at first, like you don't notice that your kid has grown until all of the sudden their clothes don't fit. You will turn around one day and realize that things are different, they might be small things and the changes might be subtle, but they will be good changes and you will feel better.
Here is another example. I hated having my picture taken, because smiling was often so hard. One day my little guy wouldn't nap so I snuggled up with him on the couch and he fell asleep. My husband took this picture. I looked at it afterwards and realized that I had a genuine, happy smile on my face. I knew I was getting better.
My recovery has been very up and down. Medication helped very quickly initially, and I started therapy. After a few months though, I took another downward dip, went over a few hurdles and eventually had my medication changed. A few months later, the same thing happened and I had to get my medication adjusted again. I have been getting progressively better despite these dips. The number of good days over bad days has grown exponentially. Therapy has helped me to be stronger and more able to handle the bad days. I am at the point now where I can see how my bad days are usually caught up in specific points of my monthly cycle. I am hoping to be able to weather the rest of this storm without having to change medications again.
I have felt myself getting better through this whole process, once treatment started. There have been points where I have stopped and noticed a change, something that was very different than the way life was during the dark days, and those are moments where I have been able to say, "I am getting better."
1. One evening when I was watching TV after the kids were in bed, I noticed that my two cats had both crawled up on my lap and were purring away. It took me a moment to realize that they had not been cuddling with me for months. They used to try, but I was so stressed out and in need of space by the end of the day, that I used to push them off the couch when they would crawl on me because I just couldn't stand another creature invading my fragile space and demanding my attention. It was such a relief to be relaxed in snuggling with my kitties again.
2. One day it stopped being a huge stress to get myself and both kids out the door to run errands, take my older one to pre-school, or go on a playdate. I am a very organized person, but leaving the house with everyone always felt overwhelming. In fact that is one symptom that I had almost from the very beginning of being a Mama of two kids. Suddenly, it felt like something clicked and I had a rhythm that worked. Now I could look forward to going out of the house, instead of worrying about how we were going to get there.
3. When I was pregnant with my son, I started making huge changes in our family's diet and the kind of food we were eating. I was really motivated to cook healthy meals from scratch with more veggies, and we all felt really good about it. Then I lost it. When I was in the throes of the worst of the PPD, I had no desire to cook, or shop. I made simple, not so healthy dinners, if I cooked at all. There were many days were I placed desperate calls to my husband and begged him to take care of dinner because I couldn't handle it. Now I am menu planning, recipe searching and cooking again, including making new recipes. I still have days where I don't want to cook, don't you? I am just happy that I am cooking more and getting more healthy food in my family. I still have a ways to go in this department, but I am making good progress.
4. This one is simple...my house is cleaner. Instead of a mad rush to try to clean because people are coming over, my house is pretty clean most of the time...except for the toys...but I blame the kids for that :o)
Getting better can come gradually, you might not notice it at first, like you don't notice that your kid has grown until all of the sudden their clothes don't fit. You will turn around one day and realize that things are different, they might be small things and the changes might be subtle, but they will be good changes and you will feel better.
Here is another example. I hated having my picture taken, because smiling was often so hard. One day my little guy wouldn't nap so I snuggled up with him on the couch and he fell asleep. My husband took this picture. I looked at it afterwards and realized that I had a genuine, happy smile on my face. I knew I was getting better.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Why don't we talk about it?
It's funny the things that we think that we need to keep to ourselves. I understand that there are times when something is too painful to speak of, I have definitely been there...but when the pain starts to ease a bit, why do we still keep it a secret? Are we embarrassed? Do we think that no one will understand? Are we afraid that people will think we are weak? The most important thing that I have learned from sharing my pain is that I am not alone in it, and great comfort comes from knowing that there are other people who really understand what I am feeling. There is no greater hope for the future than knowing that someone else has been there and survived it.
Seven months before I got pregnant with my daughter, I had a miscarriage. It was the single most devastating experience of my life. For awhile I couldn't talk about it. I was in a deep depression for several months. I felt like I was in a trance. I honestly don't know what I did on a day to day basis during that time of my life. But I did survive it. Sometimes I think that the only reason I did was because of my dear friend (and I hope she knows who she is). I had just recently found out only weeks before my miscarriage that a good friend had had one too before she had her first child. So when I was broken hearted and felt like no one understood at all, I reached out to her. I remember her words to me so clearly. She said "Don't worry Laura, by this time next year you will have a little baby or a big belly." I held on to those words during the hardest days. Now I am not repeating what she said to suggest that another child replaces that one who is lost. I will always miss the baby that I lost and wonder what she would have been like, but my friends' words gave me hope for the future, that I would someday be able to be a mother to a child on this earth, like I had always dreamed of.
Some time after my loss, I started talking about it...and guess what? I could not believe the number of women who came forward and shared stories of their own loss. It seems that once someone talks about it, it makes it easier for others to come forth. Ladies, we need to be an army of support for each other. There is no reason to grieve alone, I promise you there is someone in your life who understands what you are going through and wants to help.
The same is true with PPD. The more I talk about it the more women I find who have been through it, and some of them didn't even realize it at the time. Talk about it ladies, find support for yourself and support other women. Nothing makes someone feel more alone than depression. You feel like you are doing everything wrong and that no one could possibly understand. But people do understand. I understand and so do countless other women. Let's own it, talk about it, deal with it, grow from it, and become stronger because of it!
Seven months before I got pregnant with my daughter, I had a miscarriage. It was the single most devastating experience of my life. For awhile I couldn't talk about it. I was in a deep depression for several months. I felt like I was in a trance. I honestly don't know what I did on a day to day basis during that time of my life. But I did survive it. Sometimes I think that the only reason I did was because of my dear friend (and I hope she knows who she is). I had just recently found out only weeks before my miscarriage that a good friend had had one too before she had her first child. So when I was broken hearted and felt like no one understood at all, I reached out to her. I remember her words to me so clearly. She said "Don't worry Laura, by this time next year you will have a little baby or a big belly." I held on to those words during the hardest days. Now I am not repeating what she said to suggest that another child replaces that one who is lost. I will always miss the baby that I lost and wonder what she would have been like, but my friends' words gave me hope for the future, that I would someday be able to be a mother to a child on this earth, like I had always dreamed of.
Some time after my loss, I started talking about it...and guess what? I could not believe the number of women who came forward and shared stories of their own loss. It seems that once someone talks about it, it makes it easier for others to come forth. Ladies, we need to be an army of support for each other. There is no reason to grieve alone, I promise you there is someone in your life who understands what you are going through and wants to help.
The same is true with PPD. The more I talk about it the more women I find who have been through it, and some of them didn't even realize it at the time. Talk about it ladies, find support for yourself and support other women. Nothing makes someone feel more alone than depression. You feel like you are doing everything wrong and that no one could possibly understand. But people do understand. I understand and so do countless other women. Let's own it, talk about it, deal with it, grow from it, and become stronger because of it!
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| A dream realized. |
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