My Walk with Postpartum Depression & Anxiety

Yuck.  There is no easy way to start this. I want to write from my heart and I also need to protect the privacy of my family and my sweet daughter’s life. But, as Blooma takes this week to speak on Postpartum Mood Disorders, how can I, the owner of Blooma not speak of my own hard dark journey that I’ve experienced this year?

In the beginning it was bliss. Total bliss. I rocked the hell out of my birth. My long second stage of birth (pushing), was over 15 hours (no joke). It made my high of birthing Metta into my arms in the bright sunlit garden room of my father’s country home even brighter. I was so damn proud of myself. I rode this high of me and my power for several days. I loved my body. I loved what I accomplished. I loved my family and my birth team. I loved the phone ringing off the hook with words of celebration. My husband, family and friends took care of me. I wanted to ride this high forever. I never wanted my “birthing time” to end. But it did. And just like I have told hundreds of mothers and fathers, “Mama will most likely will crash on the 3rd or 4th day and have significant hormonal swing.” And of course, it happened to me, and I am not sure I ever really swung back until Metta was four or five months old.

It was pretty clear to me that within the first 7-10 days I wasn’t totally sure that I loved being a mom … and I wasn’t sure I knew how to love Metta. She was so yummy. I did want to eat her up, however, I couldn’t understand why she was here and why I wanted to run. I felt huge waves of anxiety and pressure to love her more then I was. I was deeply sad and found little room to come up for air. As a dear friend of mine said, “It’s like you’re homesick.” And I was. I was homesick for my old life. After 38 years of independence and entrepreneurship I felt so trapped and so sad. I couldn’t just run and be me, “Sarah.”

The tears starting flowing pretty heavily around days 7-10. I remember a home visit from my dear midwife when I just cried. You know, those tears that just keep coming and don’t stop as if a water hydrant won’t shut off. Now here is the interesting thing: I starting shifting from a place of “Poor me, I hate my new life. I want to run and hide”, to … “What the fuck? This world is so crazy and I brought a sweet young soul into it. Why would I do such a thing? The world has too many people already and we are all so fucked up and none of this makes sense. Everywhere I look there is war and hatred.”

Then the scary thoughts started coming on pretty strong. The ones that at the time I wouldn’t dream of telling anyone. The ones that still make me feel sick to my stomach. I will tell you, these thoughts were rarely about me and Metta. I never had thoughts about hurting myself, and I wouldn’t say that I had thoughts of hurting Metta. But, I would be lying if I didn’t tell you that at times I pictured the room spinning out of control with my baby in harm’s way — with no handle on how to protect her. The worst were those dark thoughts. They mostly came at night when I was breastfeeding (so you know, an average of 3-4 times a night. Ugh. It sucked).

The thoughts started with simple things like: I am rocking in a rocking chair. I am rocking my daughter. I am so blessed to have this chair. So many mothers do not have chairs. There are women right now that don’t have a chair. They don’t have a house. The are breastfeeding their babies in a shack on a plank. They are cold. They are sad. They are all alone. They have trauma. They have no food. I have a house. I am warm. Mothers are cold. Mothers are alone. I am scared. I am scared to be alone. I hate this. I hate life. I don’t want to live. Oh this chair. That mama, she is alone on a dark, cold floor. She is there crying. She is sad. She is sad like me. I can’t do anything to help her. I want to run away and leave this stress and this darkness. It is so scary in here … and I don’t want to tell anyone how bad it really is.