In my quest to stave off seasonal depression before it starts, I’m treating a chronic IT Band pain with a relaxing massage. Treating physical pain and illness helps reduce emotional vulnerability, and makes it easier to manage depression.
Becoming a mom can make you feel vulnerable and isolated. This is compounded when you find yourself in a new community without a support system. You eagerly open yourself up to other moms expecting to find people who share and understand your need for camaraderie. When instead you find the kind of judgment, cattiness and cruelty usually relegated to high school cliques the results can be devastating.
Being a mother is something you’ve always known you wanted. As you counted down the days until the baby came you fantasized about how wonderful it would be to care for your beautiful baby. You imagined holding your baby in your arms, pushing your baby through the park, kissing the tiny toes as your baby cooed. Now all your dreams have come true. You have a loving husband, a beautiful house and the much longed for children. You also have a secret: you don’t like motherhood.
Of course, you love your kids, but for you, life as a mother is far from enjoyable.
In your mind, motherhood was supposed to be a deeply fulfilling…even magical experience. Instead you’re deeply exhausted. You are never alone, not even in the bathroom. It seems someone is always touching you, sitting on you, grabbing at you, needing you. You are constantly hearing screaming and crying dealing with mess after mess and it never ends. Even when you go to bed you can’t completely relax. You are always on alert for a child to cry out in the middle of the night. You’re worn-out.
When you were in the hospital having your baby they made you watch a video about the dangers of shaken baby syndrome. You just couldn’t imagine how someone could do such a thing to a defenseless baby. Now it's not such a mystery.
When the toddler is throwing her breakfast on the floor and the baby is screaming and your husband is away and you have barely eaten or slept let alone showered in days, and the house is a mess and this is not what you thought being a mother would be and you just want the crying to stop…you suddenly understand the importance of watching the shaken baby video, and you hate yourself for it.
A good mother, a loving mother shouldn’t be able imagine such a thing. And with every dark thought you also feel incredibly guilty. You LOVE your children. You really do, and you would never hurt them.
It’s no wonder you’re at the end of your rope. You’re completely drained physically and emotionally. It is incredibly difficult to offer kindness and empathy when you are empty. In addition, you’re disappointed. Your expectations of motherhood did not match up with the day-to-day reality of caring for small children.
Our society romanticizes motherhood. Mothers are revered, but not supported. Mothers are expected to dive into this new role with little training, little to no experience and often alone. They are doing all of this while recovering from the physical trauma of childbirth and the hormonal shifts that come after. Many moms rarely get breaks let alone days off. It’s no wonder so many moms feel at once at their wits end and incredibly guilty for feeling that way.
Give yourself a break. You are not a bad mom. You are doing an unbelievably hard job, and you’re doing a lot better then you think. It is not unusual to feel this sense of maternal discontent, or even to have dark thoughts. Being able to understand the impulse to lose control when you are at your wits end is far from acting on it. Many people have dark thoughts when they are overtired and stressed, but few people act on them.
Here are suggestions for easing the stress of motherhood and getting the support you need:
June 2014
Three months ago I was nine months pregnant and worried because I needed a c-section as the baby was breech. I had the c-section. It wasn’t all that bad. In fact, it was nice to know exactly when the baby was coming. We were able to plan rather than making frantic 3am calls to friends who agreed to help with our older sons. There is a scar, but its in a place that won’t show even in a bikini…not that I plan on wearing one any time soon. The real difficulty for me is juggling the baby with the other two boys.
The baby is at an age where he wants to be held all the time, and he usually wants to eat while he’s being held. My 3 year old wants the same amount of attention he’s always had. He’s understandably frustrated that his baby brother gets so much of mommy’s time. He’s become defiant…his favorite word is no, he flies off the handle at the slightest provocation. In my sleep deprived emotionally overwhelmed state, I find myself losing patience with him regularly.
My 9 year old has said he wishes he could have me all to himself. He’s also heartbroken that we are moving this summer. He will leave the school and friends he’s known all his life. He’s able to verbalize the frustration that his 3-year-old brother is acting out.
I really try to make time everyday for each of them individually, but it doesn’t always happen. Sometimes, when I have a minute, my older one can’t be interrupted as he’s in the middle of building a world in Minecraft. Then at bedtime he wants to snuggle, but the baby is screaming to be fed.
It’s maddening because I simply cannot meet all their needs. I’m leaving them feeling shortchanged, and I’m feeling like a lousy mother. This is not the parent I want to be.
Fast forward 17 months:
It is amazing to see how life has changed since June 2014. At the time, I was nursing a 3 month old, potty training a 3 year old, selling a house and soothing a 9 year old who didn’t want to move so I forgot to post it. It’s pretty interesting to look back on a struggle that felt so overwhelming at the time, but is only memory now.
My tiny infant is now a walking talking toddler, my middle son is a confident pre-k student taking the bus to school and my grieving nine year old is now a thriving 5th grader who loves his new house, new school and new friends. The kid has a much more active social life than I do.
This flashback serves as a reminder that for better or worse nothing is permanent. There were many changes going on in our lives back in the summer of 2014. Not to mention the big unknown of where we were going to live in a few short months. It’s no wonder we were all so overwhelmed and afraid. But, life moves forward and we humans, it turns out, have an uncanny ability to adapt.
The baby you have anxiously awaited has just arrived. You should be on top of the world. So why are you so sad? It’s not clear, but you are not alone. As many as 80% of women have some mood difficulties after giving birth. They feel alone, disconnected, upset, scared or unloving toward their baby…and, of course, guilty for having these feelings.For the majority of women, the symptoms are mild to moderate and go away on their own. However, about 10-20% of new mothers experience a more debilitating mood disorder called postpartum depression. So how do you know if its just common baby blues or something more serious?
The “baby blues” are a temporary state of heightened emotions that effect about half of mew mothers. This usually peaks 3-5 days after giving birth and can last for about 2 weeks. Indications of baby blues include, crying easily, difficulty sleeping, irritability, sadness and edginess. Baby blues are not considered an illness, and do not get in the way of a woman’s ability to care for her baby. The tendency to develop postpartum blues is not connected to a previous mental illness and is not brought on by stress.
On the other hand, postpartum depression is a serious illness, and it requires the mother to get help. Postpartum depression occurs in about 10-20% of women who have recently given birth. It usually happens within a few months of delivery, but it can develop anytime in the first year. Risk factors include previous episodes of depression, severe stress, inadequate social support and previous premenstrual dysphoric disorder (a severe form of PMS).
Symptoms can include depressed mood, tearfulness, inability to enjoy pleasurable activities, difficulty sleeping, low energy, change in appetite, suicidal thoughts, feelings of inadequacy as a parent, and impaired concentration. A diagnosis is made when these symptoms are present for a least a week. Unlike baby blues these symptoms do not resolve on their own, and they do interfere with the woman's ability to function.
If you experience postpartum depression, you may worry about the baby’s health and well-being. You may have negative thoughts about the baby and fears about harming the child (although women who have these thoughts rarely act on them). Postpartum depression impedes a woman’s ability to care for herself and her baby, and if left untreated can create a very dangerous situation for both mother and child.
If you suspect that you or a loved one has postpartum depression call do not wait until the situation gets worse. Call your obstetrician or contact Rebekah Shackney, LCSW at rebekah@rebekahshackney.com for questions or concerns regarding postpartum depression.
Like so many new moms, my friend Sarah struggled with breast feeding. She felt tremendous pressure to be the sole provider of nourishment for her firstborn child, and she always worried about her daughter getting enough. And, if she broke down and gave her a bottle, she felt like a failure. Sarah is not alone.
Breastfeeding can be a very emotional issue for new mothers. It can be immensely pleasurable, excruciatingly painful, extraordinarily frustrating, fulfilling, exhausting, joyful, etc. When a new mom successfully feeds her baby with her own body there is a sense of mastery that is created at a time when everything else in the mother’s life is trial and error. On the other hand, when breastfeeding does not go well the mother can be left feeling like a failure.
From the beginning, many new moms are flooded with information about the benefits of breastfeeding. There is tons of research showing that breastfeeding is very beneficial for the child. But here’s what I know, my grandmother and many of yours did not breastfeed. In the 1950s, formula was the state-of-the-art so doctors recommended it. My father, aunts and uncle never had a drop of breast-milk, and they became healthy, successful adults. In the 1970s my mother-in-law shocked her family when she decided to breastfeed her children. Both women made a choice that was right for her at the time, and their babies were non the worse for those decisions.
New moms encounter so many opinions from friends, family, books, doctors and society. The bottom line is that there is no right or wrong answer. Breast feeding is fabulous, but it is not essential. Every woman must weigh the pros and cons and come up with a decision that makes sense for her life.
As for Sarah, by the time her second baby came along she had learned to be much more forgiving herself.
I am Rebekah Shackney. I’m a wife, a psychotherapist and the mother of two. Seven years ago, as I waited for my son’s birth, visions of rocking my baby in the nursery wearing a beautiful nightgown with bluebirds singing at the window danced in my head. I heard from friends that new motherhood was difficult, but like many women before me I didn’t take the warnings seriously. How hard could it be to care for my beautiful baby boy?
Well, let me tell you it was harder than I ever could have imagined.
It was not just the sleep deprivation, the pain, the crying, the lack of free-time, etc. I felt completely alone even though my husband worked from home, and my next-door neighbor also had a newborn. I felt desperately insecure about my abilities as a mother. I worried constantly that every wrong decision I made would ruin him for life. I was miserable.
New motherhood was not the fairytale fantasy I had imagined. Instead of a beautiful nightgown I wore milk-stained t-shirts as I sat on the couch with my son on my lap, unable to move. I was paralyzed with sadness, resentment and guilt. I was suffering with post partum depression, and I did not realize it.
How does such a thing happen to a person who spends her professional life educating people about their mental illnesses? Depression is a covert illness that infiltrates the mind and body so gradually that the pain it causes feels normal. I thought it was normal for a new mother feel as bad as I did.
Thankfully, I was wrong. I got help and so can you. It wasn’t an instant cure. It was a long process that took time and effort, but I can still remember the enormous relief I felt the day I made the call. It was then that I realized I was not alone, and neither are you.
If you are struggling with postpartum depression, don’t wait for it to get better on its own…it won’t. Get help right away. You owe it to yourself and your family.
Rebekah Shackney, LCSW
P: 917-721-2257 | E: rebekah@rebekahshackney.com
