It was the perfect storm, and I never saw it coming. No weather report, no green ominous skies, no feeling in the gut. Only my family doctor suspected and even he only expected a rainstorm…not the storm of the century.
Merriam-Webster defines the idiom ‘perfect storm’ as: “a critical or disastrous situation created by a powerful concurrence of factors.”
What was MY perfect storm? The concurrence of the following volatile factors:
- Hormone explosion from giving birth
- Decades of a yet undiagnosed genetic anxiety disorder
- Ignorance to being a Highly Sensitive Person and to an empathic level at that
- Repression of and ignorance to nearly two decades of constant emotional abuse
- An inability to properly and/or adequately breastfeed my baby
Put all these things together, each in and of itself something that could destabilize my mental health unless properly dealt with, and mere days after my daughter was born, the following was my personal reality:
But I just saw my reality as personal weakness. A failure to be a good Mom, even though I had wanted to be a Mom for as long as I could remember and honestly thought I’d be a pretty good one too.
I saw the storm, but I saw it as my own creation and something I had to overcome, pull through, pray through, calm down and logic my way through…if only I could just get some sleep.
Sleep.
I kid you not, I didn’t sleep for more than ten minutes at a time (if I was lucky) for nearly a year. And I am a person who NEEDS sleep. Who LOVES sleep. Who uses sleep as nearly the only way I can fully recharge mentally and physically. And no one could seem to fix it. I damn near called my doctor and begged to be put under anesthesia.
The only time I slept, and by slept I mean dozed about 80% asleep for maybe ten minutes, was when my daughter was asleep on or next to me.
But even that was tainted my first night in the hospital when I blissfully fell asleep with my daughter in my arms in my hospital bed…and JUST as I did I heard a nurse come to freak out and inform me that I can’t fall asleep with my baby in my arms, even though I had made sure she was completely safe, because it’s a safety issue for the hospital.
That was it. That was the last time I dozed blissfully into sleep for over a year or more.
Memories
If I didn’t have the pictures to remember, that first year would be nearly dust to me (except for some dramatic mental moments I doubt I’ll ever forget).
But thankfully I DO have those precious pictures. Because then I can remember the moments of joy and peace and awe. I can SEE with my own eyes that I was a loving Mom to my daughter and held her SO much, spent SO much time with her, smiled at her, took her out to see the world, when I honestly don’t remember it that way.
Why? Because Severe Postpartum Depression can alter your mental reality. And that is THE most effed up part of it all. That what you are seeing and hearing is not exactly what’s occurring.
What do I mean? Let me describe another sign I eventually understood to be evidence that something was very wrong.
Before my daughter was born, I had found a fantastic nurse practitioner to be her primary ‘doctor.’ She was kind and smart and married western knowledge with her own knowledge as a mother and grandmother. And frankly, she essentially adopted my husband and I before Willa was born. Lol. We loved her.
At my daughter’s checkups the first month or two, my husband would come with me so that we were all on the same page and could work as a team. But these checkups would become more and more frustrating and almost defeating for me.
Why? Because our nurse practitioner would ask how our daughter was doing, what was going on, if we had any concerns, etc. and when I would answer, my husband would look at me like he didn’t know who I was.
My answers to her questions? Our daughter seemed to be healthy and had a great appetite, but she cried ALL the time. She NEVER wanted to sleep. I was worried something was wrong that I just couldn’t figure out. (Yes, this is the same baby you see cooing and sleeping above.)
Each time my husband would cut me off sooner and sooner to say that is NOT what was going on. Our daughter cried, yes, but it was not all the time. She had some trouble sleeping sometimes, but it was NOT all the time. In fact, he didn’t know babies, but it seemed pretty normal.
I would get so annoyed with him, but at the same time, I started noticing the nurse practitioner would look at me with what I can only describe as the look a mother gives you when she knows you’re hurting and she wishes she could fix it, but she can’t. She would also always ask me how I was doing and if I needed anything.
just be a mom, damn it
Was I losing my mind? Was I crazy? Was the lack of sleep truly affecting my ability to be a Mom? It was one of the most vulnerable and confusing times of my life to not feel like I knew what was ‘real’…at least according to someone I trusted.
But you know what? I KNOW I’m not crazy. I’m a smart, observant woman who just needs sleep. And my husband isn’t with the baby all day like I am. He doesn’t fully understand.
What else was I to think when I had a baby to take care of? I had even looked at PostPartum Depression (PPD) lists online to be sure I wasn’t suffering from something like that…and the symptoms were not mine. So I just had to be a strong mama and get through this, right?
Thousands of mothers have infants and no sleep and they can do this. I have to be able to get through this, even if I am dealing with motherhood worse than anyone I know...
