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.