Part 2: What Is Wrong With Me?
by Alicia
From what I can remember, and based on what I know now, I have had “issues” since I was in high school. When you have been living a certain way for so long, these “issues” become the norm. In times of greater stress, my “issues” were easily triggered, but I didn’t recognize that what I was experiencing wasn’t healthy. I often hid how I was truly feeling/acting because I thought I was alone; or worse – going crazy. When my husband, Russell, saw me react in ways that were not appropriate, he thought I was just different than him – you know, men are from Mars, women are from Venus (I have never read the book). I had asked him on several occasions, “how does one know if he/she could or should be feeling better than what he/she is currently feeling?” My main problem was that I was just plan exhausted and I rationalized that this was causing everything else. Also, I rationalized that I was just plain exhausted because I was the mom of 3 young kids. I was however a little confused that sometimes I was so tired but just couldn’t fall asleep at night. It wasn’t until the summer of 2007 that my “issues” got bad enough and/or that I was gaining a better self awareness to know that one should not feel like I do.
I began my second attempt at counseling with a new therapist the beginning of September, 2007. My original purpose for going (with urging from my husband, Russell) was to make sure that I had worked through 2 traumatic “wrongs” that had been done to me in the past. Russell said he would come to the first few sessions with me until I was comfortable doing things on my own. My therapist said that I would probably only need to meet with her for 4 to 6 sessions to make sure I had dealt with things. She would give me “homework” to do between sessions and this was extremely hard for me. By doing these homework assignments, I started to realize that I didn’t know who I was and that I didn’t know why I did the things I did. I came to the conclusion that I was JUST MOM (more to come later on what I mean by this) and was not feeling right. My dream was to get married and to raise a family. Once I found out that I was pregnant, I could hardly wait to quit work and be a stay-at-home mom – but this job is hard! My counseling focus shifted to who is Alicia and how can she feel better?
After 3 weeks of counseling, my problems did not go away so I called my doctor’s office. I talked to a nurse over the phone and she asked if it could be PPD and I said I didn’t think so. I thought to myself, “I don’t remember being ‘depressed’ after my first two kids were born, so why would I be now, after the third baby?” Also, I thought, “David is 5-1/2 months old; doesn’t PPD happen right after your baby is born?” I told the nurse that I was not crying all day every day and that I could get out of bed in the morning, but was extremely tired. She asked no more questions and told me that they would start with getting some blood work done. The lab tech who was drawing my blood looked at Brooke and David who had to come with me and asked sarcastically, “you wonder why you are tired?” I started to doubt myself. Maybe I am just being a wussy mom. Then 2 days later I got a call from my doctor’s office saying the blood work showed that my thyroid levels are really low (a.k.a. hypothyroidism). AHHH…I was so relieved that something tangible was found to be wrong with me. They right away prescribed me 100MCG of levothyroxin (a synthetic thyroid hormone) and told my to see an endocrinologist. I immediately scoured the internet for information on hypothyroidism and found that a lot of the “issues” I had were symptoms of hypothyroidism. I could not get into the endocrinologist for 3 full months, but had high hopes that this drug would fix me.
I took my thyroid meds for 7 weeks along with weekly counseling sessions. Seven weeks and I still did not feel much better! I called my doctor’s office again and they said they couldn’t do anything for me now and to call the endocrinologist. I called the endocrinologist’s office and a nurse told me it could take 10 to 12 weeks to see results from my thyroid medicine. She said they really could not do anything for me yet because I had not yet had my initial visit to become their patient . I asked if I could get in sooner and they had nothing available, however I could call every morning to see if there was a cancellation – yeah right. I called my doctor’s office again and no one returned my call. Seriously, do these people know how hard it is to ask for help – why doesn’t anyone want to help me? I guess I am partly to blame because I wasn’t offering up all my “issues” — again I thought all the other “issues” were just because I was so exhausted.
I went to all the LAB meetings since attending that second one. There was something about what I was hearing from everyone there that was strangely familiar. I remember talking to Jenna one night after everyone else had left. I asked her, “so on your bad days with PPD, did you just cry all the time?” She answered, “no it didn’t hit me like that” and then honestly told me what she dealt with. Let me tell you, I was completely intrigued with her answer and with what she shared with me over time. I recognized myself when Jenna verbalized it. I began to look on the internet for information about PPD. In my mind, the symptoms of depression were simply being sad and crying about everything. I had also seen some commercials for antidepressants that said depression can make you lose interest in things that you normally enjoy. In my mind, postpartum depression was just depression after your baby is born; and it most likely happened to people who had unplanned pregnancies, colicky babies, had bad relationships/marriages and a lot of life stress — sorry I was so ignorant!!! Through my research about PPD, I realized that there was so much more to it — why didn’t I know all of this before? I began to get mad that I wasn’t warned of all these other symptoms. I was mad at myself for not knowing. I told myself that I should have known about this when Paige was born. I didn’t learn about this stuff in my birthing class because I never made it all the way through due to her being born 6 weeks early. I also never read about this stuff in either of my 2 pregnancy books and when I recently went back to read about it, I still would not have got it right. I had the assumption that something like this would NEVER happen to me.
So you say, what were Alicia’s “issues”? I am glad you asked, I will list them for you:
* exhausted – at times I slept more than my kids
* persistent and sometimes intense anxiety – mainly with how to accomplish daily tasks, and when going out of the house (especially grocery shopping)
* physical symptoms due to the anxiety – I had a lot of the symptoms listed here: http://www.anxietycentre.com/anxiety-symptoms.shtml
* irritable – level 10 response to a level 1 situation, lack of patience
* racing thoughts – my husband even told me to quit thinking so much and I think this is why I couldn’t fall asleep sometimes
* trouble concentrating – I felt like my head was stuffed up
* overwhelmed – this would cause crying
* guilt – this could also cause crying
* mood swings – not sad, but angry
* feeling distant from the kids – I loved them, I just wasn’t loving all the time
* intrusive thoughts – mainly that something was wrong with David
* OCD behaviors – I had to constantly check things and had a need for order
* low self-esteem – worried of what others thought of me
* withdrawal – from social activities
These “issues” did not plague me all day long nor every day. However, I just couldn’t make them go away permanently no matter how much I tried to avoid them.
…to be continued…
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As a master’s level counselor, I spent hours working with people who were depressed, anxious, and out-of-sorts. To be honest, I was all of those things myself! I struggled with the disconnect between what I could offer to my clients as a mental health professional and the seemingly insignificant difference it made in their lives and my own. On the other hand, I wasn’t comfortable with the medical system’s contribution to the dis-ease crisis I was witnessing all around me.
life.after.baby 