Personal Story told by:Natalie
“I can’t breathe.”
Postpartum depression is often over looked, misunderstood and not talked about. I want to help break that silence. I want to talk about postpartum depression and I want to tell you how it affected my life.
My first pregnancy was not planned. I was 16 and starting my senior year of high school when I found out I was pregnant. From the beginning it was NOT the best situation. My parents were definitely not thrilled to hear I was pregnant. I lost all of my friends and was talked about and starred at often down the halls of high school. Because of this, I decided to graduate early. I dedicated my time to finishing school, taking care of myself, and hanging out with my boyfriend.
Skipping ahead 9 months, I gave birth to a healthy baby girl. She weighed 8 pounds 2 ounces and as soon as the doctor handed her to me, I felt like my mommy instinct took over. Just like most moms, I wanted to do everything that was best for my daughter. I felt the need to protect her from anything that could harm her.
The day after giving birth I was “happy” (as happy as I could feel at the time). My daughter was healthy and I wanted nothing but to have her with me at all times. I remember my mom coming in and my boyfriend took a picture of my mom, my daughter and me. None of us were smiling. There was no joy in the picture. I felt like I was not supposed to be there. I wasn’t supposed to be taking care of a brand new baby. Not at this age. Not now.
My boyfriend and I did not have a strong relationship. We never had to time to build a foundation for our relation and we never saw eye to eye on anything. He wanted to establish paternity and in my head, I comprehended that as “he wanted to take my daughter away from me.” I became very protective of my daughter and never wanted her out of my sight.
About 5 months postpartum, my boyfriend and I broke up. My world fell apart. I felt like I was losing my daughter because I knew it meant I would have to drop her off with her dad and share joint custody. I panicked. I became hysterical. My body went limp. I remember being in the backyard and just falling to the ground crying. My daughter sensed I was upset and wanted me to hold her. I couldn’t even lift my arms to hold her. I remember saying over and over, “I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.”
At this point I wished I did not exist. I wished my daughter did not exist, so that we didn’t have to go through this. I considered running away with my daughter, disappearing so that I wouldn’t be a burden to my parents anymore and so no one could take my daughter away from me. I believed she needed to be by my side at all times. I thought of other options and went to a very dark place. I started thinking about killing myself; putting myself out of misery.
But there was no way I would leave my daughter here without me. So I started thinking of solutions. If I was going to kill myself, then my daughter would go with me. I couldn’t imagine shooting her because that would be too hard. Maybe I would cover her face with a pillow and when she was no longer moving then I would shoot myself in the head. Or maybe when I was giving her a nightly bath, I could just gently keep her under the water and then when she was gone, I would shoot myself. I truly did not want to hurt my daughter; I just believed she would suffer more on earth than she would if we were both gone. I wanted to save her. I wanted to rescue her from this awful place on earth.
My mom got on the phone with my nurse and told her what was going on. I could barely talk to my nurse because I was crying. I don’t remember much of that conversation except she asked me the hardest questions possible. “Have you had thoughts of hurting yourself?” “Have you had thoughts about hurting someone else?” “Did you have plan?”
I almost lied because I knew that this was not a normal feeling. I knew I wasn’t going to act on it because I really did not want to hurt my daughter or myself. However, I told my nurse yes. I felt so guilty and I knew I was so messed up to even have those thoughts.
With the support of my mom, nurse and case manager I went to an 24/7 emergency facility. At the facility, a social worker sat down and talked to me about what was going on, how I was feeling and a safety plan. I was very uncomfortable talking to a complete stranger about what was going on in my head but I knew I needed help. I knew that I needed to talk to a professional and I pushed myself to make myself better for not only me but especially for my daughter. She needed me.
I proceeded to get on antidepressants. That was not the easiest process. Antidepressants are like shoes; you have to find the one that fits you. It took about a month for the medication to kick in. I thought of stopping them because the medication was not working right away. But I also knew I had to give it a chance. I needed to make sure I was doing everything possible to make myself better.
While I was waiting for the medication to work, I couldn’t care for my daughter the same way I did before. She couldn’t sleep in my room with me anymore and I couldn’t give her a bath without having those reoccurring thoughts. I don’t like asking for help, but I asked my mom to step in and help me. So my mom took over her care at night, waking me to breastfeed and gave her baths at night. She helped me out more than I could have ever expected.
Once the medicine started working, I was able to slowly get back to my normal routine. I enjoyed taking care of my daughter and I stopped having the thoughts. I was able to think through situations and make decisions without a clouded mind. Even though the situation between my boyfriend and I was awful, I could still work though each day and do what I needed to do to move forward to better myself and my daughter’s life.
I never understood postpartum depression. It never even crossed my mind. Postpartum depression can be different for everyone. I now know that I showed signs of postpartum depression right after giving birth to my daughter. My postpartum depression worsened when bad situations occurred. It’s a miserable feeling. I couldn’t function; I couldn’t breathe.
Postpartum depression is a lot more common than I ever knew. I believe it needs to be talked about more. I want women to know, it’s important to talk about how you feel and seek help. If I did not express the way I was feeling, as hard as it was, my situation could have been so much worse.
My beautiful daughter is now 5 years old, her father and I are now married, and we just welcomed our second daughter. I couldn’t be happier or more proud.