post partum depression?

I was wondering if anyone else has suffered from PPD, and how long it
lasted. Does it always require some sort of treatment, or can you "ride it
out"? I'm really struggling right now with depression. I'm not sure if
it's just the hormones being out of whack combined with severe lack of
sleep, but I just feel really hopeless right now. Everything seems worse
than it is. I hate feeling this way, and am angry at myself for being weak.
I am afraid to leave the house with the baby alone, because it's so
overwhelming to get it all together by myself. I need to get out, but even
when my husband is at home and tells me to go, I feel so exhausted I don't
know what to do with myself...

Betsy

I was wondering if anyone else has suffered from PPD, and how long it
lasted. Does it always require some sort of treatment, or can you "ride it
out"?

It really depends how severe it is, just like any other depression it
varies. The treatments are also basically the same as other depressions, the
thought is that chemically it is the same, it's just that because there is a
baby involved the way it presents can be very different.

From what you've written it sounds like you do need help, but that doesn't
necessarily mean drugs, though this is what most doctors will offer first,
but talking treatments can be so helpful that they make drugs unnecessary.

The mildest forms probably could just be ridden out, I've heard many women
say they came out of a fog at about 9 months.

Postnatal depression also tends to last the same length of time as the
regular type, which means an episode lasts from 6-9 months.

I was very ill with PPD after my first child, not getting treatment was not
an option, I was for a long time a danger to myself, I did finally manage a
serious suicide attempt and it was meant to kill, not just a cry for help,
my husband was told 50 50 chance and I made it out the other side and for a
while was not particularly glad to have done so, when this happened I was
not on any medication, after that happened, I went on yet another med and
this one actually worked! I'm still on if over 2 years later, I've already
reduced from the max dose I was on and will reduce again at 1year postnatal.

Cheers

Anne

oregonchick wrote:
I was wondering if anyone else has suffered from PPD, and how long it
lasted. Does it always require some sort of treatment, or can you "ride it
out"? I'm really struggling right now with depression. I'm not sure if
it's just the hormones being out of whack combined with severe lack of
sleep, but I just feel really hopeless right now. Everything seems worse
than it is. I hate feeling this way, and am angry at myself for being weak.
I am afraid to leave the house with the baby alone, because it's so
overwhelming to get it all together by myself. I need to get out, but even
when my husband is at home and tells me to go, I feel so exhausted I don't
know what to do with myself...

It lasted about 3 months for me. I tried to wait it out, and it just
got worse and worse (and I was informed today that I may not get a
chance to have a second baby because I freaked my husband out so badly
with the first, he's not sure he wants to go "down that road" again...
But that's a long damn story). I don't advise waiting it out. The
zoloft really helped a lot. Really. You'll be amazed.

Get yourself to the doctor tomorrow. Why wait?

Hugs,
Amy

"Amy" wrote in message
oups.com...

oregonchick wrote:
I was wondering if anyone else has suffered from PPD, and how long it
lasted. Does it always require some sort of treatment, or can you "ride
it
out"? I'm really struggling right now with depression. I'm not sure if
it's just the hormones being out of whack combined with severe lack of
sleep, but I just feel really hopeless right now. Everything seems worse
than it is. I hate feeling this way, and am angry at myself for being
weak.
I am afraid to leave the house with the baby alone, because it's so
overwhelming to get it all together by myself. I need to get out, but
even
when my husband is at home and tells me to go, I feel so exhausted I
don't
know what to do with myself...

It lasted about 3 months for me. I tried to wait it out, and it just
got worse and worse (and I was informed today that I may not get a
chance to have a second baby because I freaked my husband out so badly
with the first, he's not sure he wants to go "down that road" again...
But that's a long damn story). I don't advise waiting it out. The
zoloft really helped a lot. Really. You'll be amazed.

Get yourself to the doctor tomorrow. Why wait?

Hugs,
Amy

And zoloft apparently is fine during breastfeeding... I wasn't sure that
you could be on antidepressants while nursing. That's good to know. I've
been trying to cope by eating healthy and exercising regularly - you'd be
surprised how much that has actually helped. But I think my husband is
ready to move into our travel trailer..;-)

It lasted about 3 months for me. I tried to wait it out, and it just
got worse and worse (and I was informed today that I may not get a
chance to have a second baby because I freaked my husband out so badly
with the first, he's not sure he wants to go "down that road" again...
But that's a long damn story). I don't advise waiting it out. The
zoloft really helped a lot. Really. You'll be amazed.

Amy, I suspect you would find that without the Zoloft you would likely to
still be ill, similarly if the Zoloft hadn't worked you would still be ill.
You may also notice in another few months whether you stop the Zoloft or not
you feel really better, certainly, I was doing fine at around 8 months pp
and I remember then at 18mths thinking gosh I feel normal, so though I had
been fine for ages there were still some niggles that were insignificant but
were a reminder that without the pills I could have been really ill. I
suspect the same would be true now, I'm 7 mths pp and I'm still popping the
pills, I have niggles, I have low times, they are a reminder to look after
myself and keep taking the pills.

Betsy, if they don't offer you Zoloft, but suggest something else, it is
worth asking for, it's the best one for breastfeeding and also does actually
seem to be the best one overall postnatally, it was the third I tried, had I
known what I know now I would have asked for it straight away.

Cheers

Anne

Please get someone to talk to Betsy. I thought I could 'ride the PND out',
and eventually tried to get help and found it not forthcoming but that's a
long story...what I'm trying to say is my lack of treatment did a lot of
damage I feel. It's part of PND to not want to leave the house, but you've
got to do it somehow or you'll continue to spiral downwards. I think if you
look around you'll find you have more friends or accquaintances who are
potential friends than you realise, and a lot of them probably understand
and need to get out the house every bit as much as you do. Can you go for a
stroller walk with someone, have a coffee out some place? Anything to give
you a bit of normalcy and adult contact in your life.
Take care of yourself.


--
Amy
Mum to Carlos born sleeping 20/11/02,
& Ana born screaming 30/06/04
http://www.freewebs.com/carlos2002/
http://www.babiesonline.com/babies/a/ana%5Fj%5F2004/
My blog: http://spaces.msn.com/members/querer-hijo-querer-hija/

oregonchick wrote:
"Amy" wrote in message

And zoloft apparently is fine during breastfeeding... I wasn't sure that
you could be on antidepressants while nursing. That's good to know.

Yeah, it's fine. http://www.drgreene.com/21_24.html

It's certainly better for the baby than having a depressed mom, or
divorced parents...

I've
been trying to cope by eating healthy and exercising regularly - you'd be
surprised how much that has actually helped. But I think my husband is
ready to move into our travel trailer..;-)

Here's the thing, though - I didn't know how bad I was until it was
over. When I was in it, I knew something was wrong, but I thought I
was doing a pretty good job of faking my way through it, hiding it from
the people around me, etc. HA! Apparently *I* am the only one who has
recovered, and everyone else is still handling me like a ticking
timebomb that could go off at any moment.

I had a very enlightening conversation yesterday... *sigh*

So, you may THINK that you're handling it, but the fact that you're
concerned enough to ask means that you really should get some help.
Because you're probably worse off than you think. We never see
ourselves clearly, do we?

Go to the doctor today.

Amy

In article . com,
"Amy" wrote:


Here's the thing, though - I didn't know how bad I was until it was
over. When I was in it, I knew something was wrong, but I thought I
was doing a pretty good job of faking my way through it, hiding it from
the people around me, etc. HA! Apparently *I* am the only one who has
recovered, and everyone else is still handling me like a ticking
timebomb that could go off at any moment.

I had a very enlightening conversation yesterday... *sigh*

If it isn't too painful to do so, could you be more specific? What symptoms
did your friends/family spot that you thought you were hiding?

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"In Melbourne there is plenty of vigour and eagerness, but there is
nothing worth being eager or vigorous about."
Francis Adams, The Australians, 1893.

In article ,
"oregonchick" wrote:

Does it always require some sort of treatment, or can you "ride it
out"? I'm really struggling right now with depression. I'm not sure if
it's just the hormones being out of whack combined with severe lack of
sleep, but I just feel really hopeless right now. Everything seems worse
than it is. I hate feeling this way, and am angry at myself for being weak.
I am afraid to leave the house with the baby alone, because it's so
overwhelming to get it all together by myself. I need to get out, but even
when my husband is at home and tells me to go, I feel so exhausted I don't
know what to do with myself...

That does sound like depression, and there are a range of treatments for it.
The people I know who have been on medication for it say that it has given
them their selves back -- depression was turning them into someone else.

Go to your Dr and say you think you have PPD. There is a checklist that is
used in diagnosis called the Edinburgh scale:
http://www.wellmother.com/articles/edinburgh.htm
Fill it in and take it along.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"In Melbourne there is plenty of vigour and eagerness, but there is
nothing worth being eager or vigorous about."
Francis Adams, The Australians, 1893.

Chookie wrote:
In article . com,
"Amy" wrote:


Here's the thing, though - I didn't know how bad I was until it was
over. When I was in it, I knew something was wrong, but I thought I
was doing a pretty good job of faking my way through it, hiding it from
the people around me, etc. HA! Apparently *I* am the only one who has
recovered, and everyone else is still handling me like a ticking
timebomb that could go off at any moment.

I had a very enlightening conversation yesterday... *sigh*

If it isn't too painful to do so, could you be more specific? What symptoms
did your friends/family spot that you thought you were hiding?

Oh, wow... Well, if it helps one other person, I guess it's worth it.

Let me see... For a long time I blamed the depression on the supply
problems - I thought that if I could just get the BF to work, it would
all be ok. So, I'd cry a lot, but instead of saying, "I'm so sad and I
don't know why..." it would be, "I'm so sad that I can't feed her..."
and I know that was part of it, but it wasn't the whole problem.

Then the BF started working, and I was still so sad. That's when I
knew there was a serious problem, but I still thought I could fool
everyone. "I'm just tired," "It's such a big change," and my favorite,
"I'm sure everyone goes through this, it's just that I'm the only one
brave enough (or stupid enough) to say so." Ha.

She had a couple things, health wise, that were scary - she had a
hematoma on her head and the doc felt it at a weight check and said,
very casually, "I wonder if there's skull under here..." and I about
lost my mind. Of course, she's fine, but I felt more than a normal
amount of anxiety over that, and the other medical stuff, all of which
turned out to be nothing...

I didn't want to go anywhere or do anything. Beyond the normal, "I
have this new baby and I'm not sure what to do with her so I'd better
stay here," thing, I was a hermit. It was lonely, but I was too
depressed to make the effort to get up and get dressed and get out.

For a while I was more interested in taking pictures of her than
playing with her. I could handle the pictures, but I didn't feel like
I could deal with her, does that make sense? So, I'd objectify her. I
thought that if I had 9000 pictures of her, that must mean that I was a
good parent, because look how much I love her and want to remember this
time in her life, right? So I'd dress her up in outfits and take
pictures, hundreds of pictures. And it would've been fine, except that
photographing her and nursing her were my only ways of dealing with
her. I couldn't figure out how to relate to her, otherwise. The
picture thing, it was obsessive. It was every day. I can't explain
it.

I slept in the Lay-Z-boy chair for the first 8 or 10 weeks, so no one
in our house was getting decent sleep. I was afraid I'd kill her if I
slept with her - not deliberately, but on accident. I mean, beyond
normal fear, it was seriously irrational. Terror. I was terrified of
co-sleeping. We do, now, and it's fine. I mean, I would've put her in
the crib if she had let me put her down, but she screamed like I *was*
killing her every time, so I had to hold her, and the Lay-Z-boy seemed
like the safest place, where both of us could sleep. Oh, it sucked.
We've rearranged the whole living room, the whole house, really, so
that the room doesn't remind me of that time anymore. I'd burn all the
furniture and buy new if we could afford it.

I think the scariest aspect, and one that a friend of mine with PPD
also experienced, was that I had irrational thoughts about doing things
to the baby. I can't believe I'm about to admit this, but I actually
told my mom, "She just won't be safe until she doesn't fit in the
microwave anymore." Now, I was mostly kidding, but I find it scary
that the thought that she *would* fit in the microwave had even
occurred to me. I have a pretty sick, dark sense of humor sometimes,
but that's beyond humor, I think. My friend with PPD (right now - her
daughter is 7 weeks old) said that she was convinced that her baby had
a heart problem, and that the baby would be better off if she simply
dropped her off a balcony. Even though everyone assured her that the
baby is fine (and she is), she couldn't turn off this thought.

Mine was more directed at myself. I told everyone who would listen
that my husband and the baby would be better off without me. I dreamed
about running away. I nearly did once or twice.

I guess it was clear to everyone who knew me that I was Just Not Right.
I really scared my husband. I was on the phone with a friend and I
told her that sometimes I just wanted to throw the baby out the window,
and my husband heard, and he didn't realize that I was (mostly) being
absurd, and he flipped out. I guess I was scary enough that he
believed that I might actually do it. It must've been hard for him to
go to work, huh?

I told someone this weekend that it was like looking at the world
through a fun-house mirror - little things seemed huge, and huge things
seemed insurmountable. I had no reserves left to deal with anything.
It was the scariest thing I've ever lived through. I kept telling
people, "I cried for her for two years, and now I'm still crying and I
can't figure out why - I have everything I ever wanted..."

Oh, it sucked... The Zoloft really helped. I'm back to my old self,
now, thank God.

Amy