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.
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