How to survive postpartum depression

A year ago, I watched a news report of a woman who had shaken her baby to death. I thought to myself, how in the heck could this mother have gotten to that point where she would kill her freaking baby? 3 months ago, I was imagining different ways to just have a moment of silence, no matter what it took. I was no longer the person I was before I got pregnant. I was an empty shell, a robot, doing the same thing day after day and ultimately I was in this woman's shoes, as sad as it sounds.

When I had my daughter, it was all so surreal because life changes so quickly at that moment. I went from having this little alien breaking my ribs from within my own body, to holding this random child after an immense amount of pain. Where did this freaking child come from? Did I really just push this thing out of my Vagina, and now I am supposed to hug and kiss it?! I had heard many things about child-birth, most of them being happy feel goods, because now you have your perfect little baby that you couldn't wait to meet. Truth is, I hadn't looked forward to having this baby. I hated being pregnant. I didn't like feeling her kick inside of me. I didn't feel like I had a "glow" or anything special. Instead I had insomnia, regret and fear. Her boxing match with my uterus was a constant reminder that my life was not about me anymore, and that it never would be ever again. That feeling didn't change when I held her in my arms at the hospital. I tried to hide it, and did pretty good, but I felt absolutely no connection to this little human whatsoever. I would later find out how crazy it would really make me.

Believe me, I realize how horrible this sounds, you may even be judging me, but you can never know quite how it feels until it happens to you. I contemplated many times, telling myself to wait just another week, it takes time to connect with your child, perhaps I will feel better. I thought, I have all kinds of hormones, once they are done being wacky, I will be OK. That never really happened and I felt I was destined for a life time of babysitting.

It wasn't until one early morning, waking up with her, seeing her round little innocent face in the dim light, that I saw the deep love she had for me. This cute baby, that I had absent-mindedly been caring for, actually loved me and it clicked in my mind,that this little girl was not getting the love from me that she deserved. I have had so many close friends who had lost their babies before birth, when they were born, or  just flat out weren't able to have children of their own. I had this little miracle right in front of me, and I had not even thought about how selfish I was. But it just didn't process in my head, and I realized that I needed to find some help.

The problem with post-partum depression, is that it can happen to anyone. Personally, I have suffered with depression for most of my life, but I have a good friend who had no symptoms before having her little girl and ended up with raging PPD. I was prescribed some anti-depressants which did nothing. I felt no difference in my mood at all. I was expecting an easy fix happy pill that would make all my thoughts and problems go away. The mind is quite a silly, awesome, complicated thing, because it turned out that I had a pretty bad vitamin D deficiency. Such a small thing that seemed to be causing so much sickness in my head. So, I was put on a prescription strength vitamin D pill (which helped a little).

I can tell you now, there is only one thing that has saved me, that is exercise. I can testify, right here and now, to the power of a good old run outside in the sun. It has done something that medicine could not do, given me the confidence to be me  and that it is okay not to be perfect (because I am far from it). Because I have taken time to take that little baby out on a run through nature, I look forward to the life time I have with this sweet little child of mine, and as she grows, I grow too. I have learned so much about myself, and how strong I am through this trial. In reality, my mind fixed my brain. It still wasn't a quick fix, and I still to this day have spouts of heavy depression,  but it is completely worth the work for those good days.

The moral of the story obviously is, don't shake your baby.

Also, don't give up. It really does get better. 

I was beat up by a kid named Rusty

Here we are.

You and I.

I can basically feel your hot breath on my forehead.

Now, before this turns into another porno  and I make a trajillion dollars, I will just straight up say, I have no idea why you are here. I am not famous, trendy, a hipster, or fashionable in any way, shape or form. So why are you still here? Maybe you are one of my childhood friends, come to see how stale my life is. Are you one of my Facebook friends that I don't even know, but your name sounded kind of familiar, so I accepted your request? Oh wait, you may be a family member, then this all makes sense to you, because you know I am sooooooo painfully awkward.

For you to understand my mind (and you still probably won't) you must go back to the beginning...

I am Whitney. I have been told against my will that I was conceived on a cruise ship some 25 years ago (GROSSSSSSSSS!!). You can ask anyone who knows me, and truly KNOWS me, that I was never that normal. My beautiful mother being pregnant with her first child (bless her heart), was hoping for a little girl, but instead she received a man-girl (and no, I am not a literal man-girl, so this may not be the story of transformation you are looking for). I was just totally and completely a little tomboy. My mom tried her best to make me frilly with little dresses, and get me to wear any kind of pink. I quickly took power from her and started dressing myself in the boys section at clothing stores. Most of my friends were boys. We played with bugs and dirt, you know, "boy stuff". For my 6th birthday, I asked my grandma for a ninja set, solely for the ninja stars it contained. She obliged. I became that cool kid with the ninja stars.

I am there on the right, with the sweet boots

I went to a stereotypical white-trashy elementary school in the trashy part of town. My principal was a farmer, as it should be in a town like mine. We had big bullies who had names like BUTCH and RUSTY. I wouldn't even believe that someone actually named their kid Butch, if I hadn't have actually met the actual Butch (and yes he fit the stereotype). One time a kid in my kindergarten class pushed me on the ground and sat on my face yelling "dumb ass" over and over. (I am still searching for you Boddy, you little turd face!) I was punched in the face in 2nd grade, for no reason that I can remember, resulting in my front tooth chipping, similar to Lloyd Christmas from Dumb and Dumber (I am also searching for you Sam, you big bully! Just kidding, I found her... She was my waitress at I hop once, and that was revenge enough.) Then there was good ol' rusty who insisted on calling me a dyke in 1st grade. 1st grade people! Obviously I didn't really know what that was, but it sounded mean so it made me cry.

I didn't really think about it being "bullying". So much so, I never really told my parents about it, because I didn't know it was a problem. I knew I was just kind of different, I knew that, and to be honest I really liked it. I liked not being a cookie cutter. I am in no way condoning bullying, because those kids were total ASSHOLES. They probably had asshole parents, who taught them to do asshole things, to kids who were different than them. It made me stronger and more confident in who I am today. I know that people who attack other human beings are uncomfortable in their own skin and with their actions.

Third, fourth and fifth graders at this dumpy school were all lumped together in classes. I was obviously the brunt of, again, more teasing from older kids (this is when you make goopy faces and hold up picket signs that say 'stop bullying').  Whatever. I was way cooler than them anyways. I still didn't pay much attention to them because I was too busy choreographing a dance to N'sync songs for me to perform during show and tell every Friday. (Every Friday. Same song, different moves.) I also had some sweet cowboy boots that I wore everywhere (including bed). No one can argue against that.

I later moved from the ghetto (ghetto being lower middle class) part of town to where all the rich kids lived (rich being middle class). I was in this whole [kind of] new environment without people trying to wipe boogers all over my sweatshirt. Now, I am absolutely sure I was called names behind my back by probably those darn popular kids (I called them the Gap hoodie gang, because they all seemed to wear the expensive Gap sweaters that my parents couldn't afford) but it was behind my back, and it was better than being punched in the front. These kids brought cookies to class for their birthday! WHAT THE?!

This is where my life became pretty fun and complicated. I found some awesome friends who are still to this day, some of my bestest friends. The complicated part? They had gotten me addicted to Neopets in 4th grade. Does anyone remember Neopets? Mine always died because I never had enough Neopoints to feed my poor starving Neopets. Off topic.

They didn't punch me, shove my face in the dirt, call me dyke (although I still hadn't grown out of wearing my cousin Jakes hand me down baggy corduroy shorts.) To them, I am forever grateful that they embraced me and invited me to be who I wanted to be. Kind of nice having friends who don't mind if you look like a little man-girl.

Cool hat Shwhit!

Through the years I have developed quite the personality. I have grown into a loud, outspoken adult. I can't help but think, all of my experiences contributed to these traits. If you ask my family, they will straight up tell you that I have an opinion on EVERYTHING. Every single thing.  Sometimes they embrace it, sometimes I MAKE THEM EMBRACE IT (bwahahahaha). I suppose there is not much more to describe me with, other than RADical. I am sure no one stuck through this, so at this point I am inevitably talking to myself, however, if you are out there... Welcome to my mind.