Perinatal Depression update

(8 weeks+6 days) Yesterday, I woke up and felt like a terrible, depressive, four week-long fog has finally lifted.

I’d never been diagnosed for depression prior to this. Anxiety, yes, but not depression. In the last weeks, I learned from my doctor:

• Women who’ve experienced anxiety prior to pregnancy are more likely to experience depression when pregnant
• Depression can be caused by hormones or it can be caused by worries (even deep, hidden fears that we don’t consciously know we’re fretting over; like shock)
• It’s good to try to do things to help curb the depression (exercise, eating right, reaching out to friends, practicing mindfulness, and to generally try not to react with life altering decisions like quitting your job or letting your whole life fall by the way side)...
• ...but those good habits won’t necessarily “cure” depression
• Depression is NOT a product of you not exercising, being lazy, being unmotivated, etc. In fact, the former causes latter.
• Depression can’t be willed away
• medication can help you cope with debilitating depression

What depression felt like for me:

• deep sadness
• waking up feeling like someone had died but that I just couldn’t remember who (yet no one had died)
• feeling exhausted, but on a mental and emotional level
• I sometimes sobbed for no reason, or for the smallest thing (different from getting weepy or teary eyed from cute videos). I would just cry and cry and cry.
• sometimes my mind felt completely blank, like it forgot how to think
• I stopped caring about literally everything-work, deadlines, my students, my future baby, my own life, how my family would feel if I died
• feeling like a zombie, or like I had taken a drug that dulled my senses... like I could just zone out while driving, drive into a wall, and hardly even notice

Y’all... I felt like this for FOUR WEEKS. What the fuck. The best that I can describe how helpless falling into a depression is it’s like when you get a migraine: you know it’s not anyone/anybody’s fault, there’s nothing you can do to make it go away, and you’re only options are to either hide in bed until it’s over or try to carry on with your life while just trying to ignore how paralyzing it feels.

My therapist said that depression can be triggered by thoughts (like fear of motherhood), environmental events (like a loved one dying), and/or a hormonal imbalance. To me, the cause of my depression didn’t matter because I felt incapable of processing my thoughts (whether or not there were buried fears) and I wasn’t in a dire situation that needed fixing (I have a loving partner, food on the table, and a warm bed). What mattered to me was snapping out of it.

At one point, I started to feel like the depression was wearing off. Then, I found out that a former student of mine has tragically passed (depression and suicide). It sent me right back to how I was feeling before I started to get better, back when no one had passed. I felt the same grief I had felt before, but this time for a concrete reason.

I was ready to resort to medication because I felt like my selfhood was drowning and lost in a shell of a person.

But then yesterday, I just... snapped out of it. I still get fatigued, nauseous, slight insomnia, loss of appetite, but the fog is gone. I’m uncomfortable without feeling depressed.

Whew. What a ride. It could happen again, it for now, that episode is over. I just wanted to share in case anyone else is feeling super low, and has no idea what is going on with their body/mind/emotions.

(8 weeks+6 days) Yesterday, I woke up and felt like a terrible, depressive, four week-long fog has finally lifted.I’d never been diagnosed for depression prior to this. Anxiety, yes, but not depression. In the last weeks, I learned from my doctor:Women who’ve experienced anxiety prior to pregnancy are more likely to experience depression when pregnantDepression can be caused by hormones or it can be caused by worries (even deep, hidden fears that we don’t consciously know we’re fretting over; like shock)It’s good to try to do things to help curb the depression (exercise, eating right, reaching out to friends, practicing mindfulness, and to generally try not to react with life altering decisions like quitting your job or letting your whole life fall by the way side)......but those good habits won’t necessarily “cure” depressionDepression is NOT a product of you not exercising, being lazy, being unmotivated, etc. In fact, the former causes latter.Depression can’t be willed awaymedication can help you cope with debilitating depressionWhat depression felt like for me:deep sadnesswaking up feeling like someone had died but that I just couldn’t remember who (yet no one had died)feeling exhausted, but on a mental and emotional levelI sometimes sobbed for no reason, or for the smallest thing (different from getting weepy or teary eyed from cute videos). I would just cry and cry and cry.sometimes my mind felt completely blank, like it forgot how to thinkI stopped caring about literally everything-work, deadlines, my students, my future baby, my own life, how my family would feel if I diedfeeling like a zombie, or like I had taken a drug that dulled my senses... like I could just zone out while driving, drive into a wall, and hardly even noticeY’all... I felt like this for FOUR WEEKS. What the fuck. The best that I can describe how helpless falling into a depression is it’s like when you get a migraine: you know it’s not anyone/anybody’s fault, there’s nothing you can do to make it go away, and you’re only options are to either hide in bed until it’s over or try to carry on with your life while just trying to ignore how paralyzing it feels.My therapist said that depression can be triggered by thoughts (like fear of motherhood), environmental events (like a loved one dying), and/or a hormonal imbalance. To me, the cause of my depression didn’t matter because I felt incapable of processing my thoughts (whether or not there were buried fears) and I wasn’t in a dire situation that needed fixing (I have a loving partner, food on the table, and a warm bed). What mattered to me was snapping out of it.At one point, I started to feel like the depression was wearing off. Then, I found out that a former student of mine has tragically passed (depression and suicide). It sent me right back to how I was feeling before I started to get better, back when no one had passed. I felt the same grief I had felt before, but this time for a concrete reason.I was ready to resort to medication because I felt like my selfhood was drowning and lost in a shell of a person.But then yesterday, I just... snapped out of it. I still get fatigued, nauseous, slight insomnia, loss of appetite, but the fog is gone. I’m uncomfortable without feeling depressed.Whew. What a ride. It could happen again, it for now, that episode is over. I just wanted to share in case anyone else is feeling super low, and has no idea what is going on with their body/mind/emotions. https://ift.tt/eA8V8J https://ift.tt/2NrEFhL