Waves

    Warning: This is heavy stuff, folks.  As Lemony Snicket advised, if you want to read a post about a happy little elf, it's not too late to close the screen.  I am writing this because I feel that, as a writer, it is my duty to write about pieces of the human experience which are ugly and misunderstood.  Life is beautiful, but it is also hard.  First and foremost, however, I am writing this in the hopes that it may help even one person who reads it to feel hope, to realize they are not alone.  It was because of a woman on television sharing her experience with postpartum depression that I was able to find a light at the end of what I had thought was an endless tunnel.  I guess you could consider this post "paying it forward."  So, at the risk of becoming a complete cliche (who ever heard of a depressed writer), I will proceed in relating my journey with depression; postpartum depression in particular.  Please be advised that none of this is clinical or scientific.  It is simply my own personal impressions gained through my battles with depression.

     I have found that depression comes in waves.  The only way I can think to describe it to someone who has never dealt with it is this:  Imagine you are sailing along on a peaceful, calm sea.  The sun is beaming, the water glistening.  You are content with the world and with your place in it.  Completely without warning, a rogue wave envelops you and you can't tell up from down.  The sun is still shining.  The water is still glistening.  But you are trapped under a giant, 100 foot wave.  Having dealt with my fair share of waves, I can now occasionally see one coming.  Sometimes, if I catch it just before it crests, I can ride it out.  But sometimes I am still blindsided.  If depression comes in waves, then the year after my daughter was born was a tsunami.  Like most young, expectant first time mothers, I was giddy with anticipation in the months before Morgan was born.  I thought, shopped and dreamed in pink.  I couldn't wait to meet the tiny person who had been nudging me and rattling my belly with hiccups for so long.  I dreamed of walks and picnics and patty-cake and lullabies.  My dream of motherhood was about to be fulfilled.    True to form for my perfectionist daughter, Morgan was born on her due date of August 28th, 2004.  The labor was complicated.  I narrowly avoided a c-section.    After twelve excruciating hours, hurricane Morgan came into the world.  She was completely blue.  After a few minutes, the doctors had her breathing.  I loved her the instant she was placed in my arms.  That instant love between mother and child would later become my saving grace, though I did not yet realize it as I lay in a state of exhausted confusion cradling the one I had dreamed of meeting for so long.  The next few weeks were filled with the bleary-eyed, sleep-deprived, terrifying yet blissful stupor which always accompanies new parenthood.  They were also filled with a lot of crying.  By a lot, I mean probably twelve hours out of twenty four.  We tried every remedy known to Western and Eastern medicine to calm Morgan's "colic."  She still screamed, and usually projectile vomited the most recent remedy.  Dirk was working and going to school.  I sat in our tiny, two bedroom apartment and listened to Morgan scream.  I paced halls, danced, rocked, nursed, sang, cried, prayed.  I didn't have many friends around and my parents both worked during the day.  I rarely left the confines of the apartment.  Looking back now, this should have been a red flag.  Looking back from the end of the tunnel, I can now see that the fact that I was literally afraid to leave the confines of my apartment with my new baby should have been a giant, glaring red flag.  But I had no idea.  When I would go out, I would notice other mothers with new babies.  They sat chattering happily as their newborn slept contentedly in his or her carrier.  I watched them with something between envy and desperation as I wondered how their lives could still seem so normal when mine had been turned inside out and upside down.  I went home and repeated the same daily cycle of pacing, rocking, nursing, singing, crying, praying.  There were a lot of tears.  I felt, desperate, lonely, hopeless, terrified, and tremendously guilty all at the same time. There were also many days when I felt too despondent to even cry.  I was becoming numb to the outside world.  I would stare out the window at the sun shining with some vague recognition that there was a world outside my window that I used to be a part of.  Christmas has always been my favorite day of the entire year.  Christmas Day, 2004 was one of the darkest days of my life. We had spent the day at my grandma's house.  The sun had gone down and the excitement of the previous day was dying down with it.  It had been a wonderful day, full of distractions, away from the confines of my cage.  It helped to be around people, to hear sounds of laughter.  I had almost felt normal again; almost like myself again.  At about 5:00, Morgan started in on one of her regular evening "colic" jags.  It became apparent soon enough that no one else wanted to hear it.  Dirk had gone to my parents' house with my dad to watch a movie.  The rest of my family was engaged in a card game.  Morgan was engaged in a mighty display of the power of her lung capacity.  After a few irritated stares in our direction, I got the message. I loaded Morgan into her car seat.  I began driving in the direction of our apartment, but I couldn't bring myself to go back to my empty apartment with a screaming baby on Christmas Day.  The motion of the car had temporarily calmed Morgan, so I decided to keep on driving.  I drove the empty streets, looking at all of the lighted windows I passed.  Everyone was together, celebrating happily in warm, lighted houses.  I was driving the dark empty streets because I didn't know where to go.  I had never felt so lost; I had never felt so alone.  All of the conflicting emotions I had been wrestling with for months came to a head.  I passed rows of telephone poles on the silent country road.  I wondered at what speed I would have to drive into one to end my life.  My foot pushed down harder on the gas pedal.  Then Morgan began to cry.  The very sound which had driven me stark raving mad for the past few months, literally saved my life.  I realized I had to stay alive, if only for her sake.  I drove home, put Morgan in her crib and let the wave wash over me.

     That was my lowest point.  I never again considered taking my own life, but I was living a sort of half life, trapped inside my own personal Hell, with absolutely no idea how to get out.  It was the hardest year of my life, and no one had a clue. That's the thing about depression; it is often invisible to the outside world.  We put on a happy face; we try to act "normal" because heaven forbid someone unearthed our deep dark secret and realized that we were crazy, or of unsound mind.  And then there was the guilt; oh there was guilt.  This should  have been the happiest, most blissful time of my life, at least according to all the Pampers and Huggies commercials, and instead, I was a psychotic wreck, barely hanging onto my sanity by a thread, and literally within an inch of my life.  What was wrong with me?!!  My answer came courtesy of Mrs. Brooke Shields.  One day, after Morgan was a little over a year old, I tuned in to Oprah, as I did most afternoons.  Brooke Shields was talking about a book she had written which detailed her battle with postpartum depression.  As she began to relate details of her struggle, I audibly gasped.  It felt like I was exhaling for the first time in over a year.  Suddenly, I could see a light.  I could see the past year flash before my eyes as an almost out of body experience.  The insurmountable wave that had been beating me down was postpartum depression.

     When I was eight months pregnant with Hyrum, I began taking antidepressants.  I stayed on them for a full year after he was born. Aside from the fact that the medication made me feel a little like a robotic Stepford wife, my experience with Hyrum's first year of life was much smoother, with only a few small waves lapping at my heels here and there.  When I went off the medication, I had panic attacks for weeks.  After the panic attacks wound down, I finally felt like myself again, for the first time in four years.  Then came the tidal wave of dealing with postpartum depression after a miscarriage.  I didn't even have a new baby to offset it this time.  When I found out I was expecting Ryan, I decided upfront that I wanted to attempt to tackle the pregnancy and first year without medication.  The medication after Hyrum had helped keep me on an even keel, but as I mentioned, it was a little too even.  I went through daily motions with no psychotic impulses, but I also lost my passion for writing, music, for just about everything.  I wasn't me.  With this baby, I wanted to be me, and I wanted to be happy about it.  A few days after Ryan was born,  I felt that all too familiar, suffocating feeling.  The wave had come.  Only this time, I knew I would breathe the fresh air and soak in the sunlight again.  I had emerged from an emotional and mental tsunami stronger before, and I knew I could do it again.  With the support of family and friends, and especially my rock, Dirk, as well as the God I pray to, I made it through the first year of Ryan's life with only a little Perkeset (don't worry- it was for the c-section) and Ibuprofen.

     I now understand that depression is real, terribly, awfully real. It is not my choice.  It is not my fault and it is nothing to be ashamed of.  It is not something that can be driven away if our attitude is good enough or if we lose ourselves in serving others.  These things can be good distractions, but they won't cure the disease of depression any more than they would cure the Swine Flu.  I am tired of depression being whispered about behind closed doors.  It is not a mysterious, taboo mental instability.  It is a chemical imbalance.  It is not a choice.  I did not wake up one morning and think, "I do believe I will try feeling hopeless and despondent today and see how it works out."  I now thankfully realize that there is help, and that I don't have to be at the mercy of the waves.  Every time I have emerged from a wave of depression, the air has seemed so much fresher, the sun so much brighter.  If anyone reading this has ever felt any of the feelings I have described, please talk to someone about it.  It's nothing to be ashamed of.  You are not crazy.  You are not alone.  And I promise you when you emerge from this wave, the world will seem bright again.