Post Pardom Depression Symptoms
Q.Been busy with the wee one and holidays and such. DH was home for 24 days and just went back to work this morning. Miss him, but glad to have him gone in some ways as well.
A.I actually could use a little support though. I'm pretty sure I'm suffering from postpartum depression. I kept thinking it was just hormones that would work itself out, but not yet. I'm not exactly depressed, but I'm totally emotional (I cry at the drop of a hat these days!), get angry and frustrated very easily, can't make a decision to save my life and I have varying degrees of insomnia, feeling hopeless and like a bad mom (even though Matthew is wonderful and fine and happy!). I thought it would all go away, but he's 4 months old now and I seem to be getting worse instead of better. Dh has commented a number of times and the other day it finally sunk in that I need help. (You should have heard me going off on myself because I couldn't park the car right! lol). So, I've made an appointment with my dr. for Friday. I'm assuming there will be some sort of prescription involved, as relaxation, exercise, sleep and the like aren't working at this point. So, anyone who's been there or knows someone who has? I did go through this with Hannah and it came on strong when she was about 3-4 months old. I ended up with a prescription of Wellbutrin, took it for about 4 months or so, and then I started to feel different again. So I stopped taking it cold turkey (supposed to have physician help wean you) but I didn't seem to suffer any adverse effects and I got back to my normal self. I think it's the first year and maybe after that it's not so bad. Tackle it now and you may recover more quickly. My heart goes out to you because the depression is hard. Glad to hear Matthew is great! BTW, what does DH do that he's gone? Mine started driving truck in Dec for extra money to pay off bills. The most he has been gone is 3 days. It's kind of nice - except when I'm trying to sleep! You might be suffering from sleep deprivation. I had a whole laundry list of symptoms I took to the Doctor thinking there was something terribly wrong with me about 4 months after my son was born. He looked at the list and questioned me about different things. Looked me over. Looked over the list some more asked a few more questions then he stopped, thought and asked, "How much sleep do you get at night?" I exaggerated and said, "5 to 6 hours" I was getting more like 3 to 4 and was embarrassed to say so. Never thinking sleep was a problem. He was alarmed that I had gone months on ONLY 5 to 6 hours of sleep and really it was less. He said it explained a lot of my problems. I had been taking the baby and all the house chores and my crafting on myself and not getting the sleep I needed. I didn't want my husband to be sleep deprived, because he had to go to work not really realizing that I went to work everyday sleep deprived. Yeah my work was at home, but still work. So, I started asking him for help, let a few things go around the house and tried to craft less and was able to start getting my sleep up to the 6-8 range and I was amazed at how much better I was able to cope with life. I wasn't so emotional, my memory was better (that's the one that really alarmed me was the inability to remember things like where I parked the car! I swore up and down once someone had stole my car. Called my husband to meet me at the mall before he picked me up he cruised the parking lot and found the car. I had NO memory of parking it where it was. That scared me.), my heart palpations stopped, the head aches stopped and the general feeling that I was a big loser, a rotten mom stopped. All because I was rested and could cope with life like a normal person.
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