If you’re a brand-new mom who expected to be full of joy at this point, it can be upsetting and confusing when you’re actually feeling the opposite. Be rest assured, you’re not alone: Anywhere from 40 to 80 percent of new mothers go through the baby blues, an emotional state of tearfulness, unhappiness, worry, self-doubt, and fatigue. The baby blues typically begin a few days after delivery and go away on their own in a week or two.
However, if your feelings seem unusually intense and last longer than two weeks straight, you may be wondering whether you have a more serious condition. Sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference between clinical depression and the normal stress and exhaustion of new parenthood. However, if your feelings of sadness or despair are so powerful that they prevent you from being able to do your daily tasks such as caring for yourself and others; you could have PPD.
What does it feel like to have postpartum depression or postpartum anxiety? What are the signs or symptoms? How do you know when you have it? And if you do have it, what should you do?
When you read the two different symptoms listed below, one for Postpartum depression and the one after itfor Postpartum anxiety and OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), please remember a few very important things:
(1)You may not be experiencing all of the symptoms listed below or even most of them. Postpartum depression and anxiety are not “one-size-fits-all” illnesses. Your experience may include just a few of the symptoms and you may not have others at all.
(2)Many people have a feeling like the ones listed below every now and then, for a day or two. We all have bad days. Postpartum depression and anxiety are not just bad days. Women with PPD or anxiety have symptoms like these most of the time, for a period of at least 2 weeks or longer, and these symptoms make it feel very hard to live your life each day.
(3) Postpartum depression and anxiety are sometimes “comorbid.” This means you can have a bit of both, or all of both. If you have symptoms on both lists, that’s not unusual.
You may have postpartum depression if you have had a baby within the last 12 months and are experiencing some of these symptoms:
You feel overwhelmed. Not like “hey, this new mom thing is hard.” More like “I can’t do this and I’m never going to be able to do this.” You feel like you just can’t handle being a mother. In fact, you may be wondering whether you should have become a mother in the first place. Moreover, you feel guilty because you believe you should be handling new motherhood better than this. You feel like your baby deserves better. You worry whether your baby can tell that you feel so bad, or that you are crying so much, or that you don’t feel the happiness or connection that you thought you would. Again, you may wonder whether your baby would be better off without you.
Furthermore, you don’t feel bonded to your baby. You’re not having that mythical mommy bliss that you see on TV or read about in magazines. Not everyone with postpartum depression feels this way, but many do. You can’t understand why this is happening. You are very confused and scared. Also, you feel irritated or angry. You have no patience. Everything annoys you. You feel resentment toward your baby, or your partner, or your friends who don’t have babies. You feel out-of-control rage.
You also experience emptiness and numbness. You are just going through the motions and nobody seems to understand your state of mind.
In addition, you feel sadness to the depths of your soul and can’t stop crying, even when there’s no real reason to be crying. Then you feel hopeless, like this situation will never ever get better. You feel weak and defective, like a failure. Some new mothers can’t bring themselves to eat, or perhaps the only thing that makes them feel better is eating. Another problem is lack of sleep. You can’t sleep when the baby sleeps, nor can you sleep at any other time or maybe you can fall asleep, but you wake up in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep no matter how tired you are. Again, some women sleep too much, and they can’t seem to stay awake to get the most basic things done. Whichever it is, your sleeping is completely bad and it’s not just because you have a newborn.
A new mom can experience lack of concentration and can’t seem to be focus. They can’t think of the words they want to say nor can remember what they were supposed to do. You feel strangely apart from everyone for some reason, like there’s an invisible wall between you and the rest of the world. Maybe you’re doing everything right. You are exercising. You are taking your vitamins. You have a healthy spirituality. You do yoga. You’re thinking “Why can’t I just get over this?” You feel like you should be able to snap out of it, but you can’t. You might be having thoughts of running away and leaving your family behind or you’ve thought of driving off the road, or taking too many pills, or finding some other way to end this misery. However, you know something is wrong. You may not know you have a perinatal mood or anxiety disorder, but you know the way you are feeling is NOT right. You think you’ve “gone crazy.” You are afraid that this is your new reality and that you’ve lost the “old you” forever. Moreover, you are afraid that if you reach out for help, people will judge you.
Now that you’ve gone through these lists, are you thinking, “How the heck does this lady know me? Is there a hidden camera in here?” Nope. What this should tell you is that you are not alone, and you are not a crazy and are not highly unusual. If you are having these feelings and symptoms then it is possible you are experiencing common illnesses that 15 to 20% of new mothers have, and they are completely treatable.
Could we look at the process of going through postpartum depression and postpartum anxiety in a similar way? I think so. In addition, I think it might help moms understand what they’re going through a little better.
