Postpartum Depression Diaries Part 1: When Parenthood Rubs You The Wrong Way

I thought I was a bad mom. I thought I wasn't cut out for motherhood. I thought I would never be the same. That last part turned out to be true, but not in the negative sense I first thought. I was never diagnosed with postpartum depression, but only because I never reached out for help. Only in hindsight, now that the inner chaos has calmed, do I realize how very dark my experience was as a new mom. Here's part one of a collection of writings I scribbled while in that dark place...tidied up so as to not scare anyone. 

If you are experiencing any symptoms of postpartum depression, seek help from your doctor. There is no shame in what you cannot control.

My husband is highly introspective and equally fascinated with my brain. So it's natural that he's pretty obsessed with personality tests. If you're like him, you know what I mean when I say I'm an ISFJ on the Meyers-Briggs and a super high S on the DISC profile. If you're not like him, it means that I strive for harmony.

In my adult life at least, I have been calm, cool, and collected. As soon as I was legal, I moved away from home and ended up halfway across the country. I love family, but I chose a fresh start and gloriously lived anonymously. I married young and found a partner that selflessly gives of himself every day. I have always made my bosses happy. And even when I was in a toxic work environment, my face never gave away the stress ulcer inside.

I used to think I was emotionally balanced. And then I became a parent.

My true self emerged the day I brought home my daughter, when harmony as I knew it ended...abruptly. Cue copious amounts of crying, screeching, screaming, and snarling...those sounds belonging to both baby and mama.

This was us about a month in. You get the picture.

Just a few days prior, I could come home from a crazy day at the office and unwind. Now, my haven, my slice of paradise had become her lair of fuss.

It's not that I mind being needed 24/7. I just feel unhinged when I can't satisfy those needs. Even well past the colic stage, I found myself stepping over my parenting paradigm line. Like yelling at her for not sleeping. Or feeling resentful that she made my husband into her daddy and now we have to share him.

This is not the mom I wanted to be.

I've thought about 978 times that I wasn't made for motherhood. Other women transition into the role with grace, but I've questioned whether I'll ever be myself again...or at least who I thought I was.

My thirst for harmony is never going away. It's intrinsically who I am. Parenthood has taught me that when my need for harmony goes unmet, the worst of me shows. And somehow I need to be ok that the worst of me has to be good enough for my daughter.

We're all going to fail our kids. I just never thought my failures would stem from my very personhood.

Loss and Motherhood

Years back I told my husband that I hoped pregnancy would come as a surprise to us–oh sweet, naïve me.

But at 4:00 A.M. that Saturday morning when I followed my gut (literally) and verified that something, or rather someone, other than last night's pizza was in my tummy, I didn't feel like destiny had kissed our lives. 

I felt a sense of loss.


photo credit: kanira.supono via photopin cc

Just a week before I saw those double pink lines on a home pregnancy test, I finally came to a definitive decision that I didn't want to have children. Cue the irony.

In an instant, my priorities changed. I was forced to think beyond what was best for me and tune into what was best for this stranger growing inside me.

For 9 months, I worried about the changes this little one would bring. And I wasn't wrong. Change did come in big ways. My daughter didn't take a bottle, so going back to work, to a job I really liked, was out of the question. And even if she had been a champ with a bottle, I knew being away from my high needs baby would be a terrible decision for this low energy mama.

Baby was a nurse-o-holic from the very beginning, slowly graduating from nursing every 30-45 minutes to oh, an hour an a half by 3 months old. Mama was on call all hours of the day and night which meant me-time was non-existent.

What I feared most was what would change between my husband and me. After being spoiled with 5 years of blissful marriage, I worried what adding a third person would do to our rhythm.

For those first few months, we hardly spent one moment in peace or romance together. We felt miles apart without any tools to lead us back to each other. One of us always had our daughter with the other fleeing to gain their sanity back. And for the first time ever, I worried that we'd never get what we had back.

See, we obviously have chemistry...even in pointless selfies.

And to be honest, we haven't gotten it all back. But what I couldn't conceptualize was what I would gain when my daughter joined us at 9:56 A.M. that snowy morning. 

I gained a new soul mate.

She is a mix of me and him and a dash of everyone else. She's unique and delightful and curious and emotional and adorable.

I voluntarily love my husband. I choose him every day, but my love for my daughter is completely involuntary. This kind of love is nothing I've ever experienced before–more profound than I could ever hope to put into words.

Things weren't always rainbows and lollipops. My soul mate wailed for the first 4 months and nearly drove us to madness, but even in the hardest moments, I missed her. We were once one and though my body seemed to want to violently puke her up several times a day, we were as close as any two people could ever be.

Since that confusing morning when I learned of this stranger in my belly, I have grieved many losses. I'll never again be just me. And my husband and I will never be just us. We're our daughter's mama and papa. That's an identity we'll never shake, nor want to.

And every day it's like I'm teaching her how to gradually leave my nest. I can't bare to think of how profoundly I'll feel that loss when the day comes for her to fly away.