The Blessings of Complications, Part 4

So I've had a couple of posts in between, but I wanted to finish up my series about the blessings in my life that came about during my complicated pregnancy with K.  This last one has to do with my mental health.  It was kind of intertwined with what I've written before, but it was such a dramatic change for the better that it should get its own section.  So here goes.

A little backstory, for those who don't know me as well: I've struggled with depression for most of my life.  It first reared its ugly head when I was a kid, and I've battled it ever since, with varying levels of success.  I never got so depressed that I couldn't function, but I also spent most of my existence mildly blue.  There was such a perpetual negative conversation going on in my head that I was under daily attack from myself.  Throw in the other triggers that can make this stuff worse-- cold, gloomy weather and hormonal cycle stuff-- and by the time B was born I hit bottom.  After B my persistent mild-to-moderate depression morphed into serious postpartum depression.  Bad enough that more than once I considered suicide.  I always managed to pull back from the brink, usually by convincing myself that no matter how awful a person I thought I was (I was especially convinced I was a completely horrible wife and mother) the worst thing I could do to my family was kill myself.  My religious beliefs also helped-- I was quite sure that killing myself wouldn't really "end it all" and that I might end up even more unhappy with myself if I did so.  Eventually, Terence and I felt that it was absolutely necessary to move from Sanders and back closer to my family, where I would have some support.  We did so when B was about a year old, and I started to get a little bit better.

But only a very little bit.

I knew I needed help but didn't know where to get it.  Didn't even know how to get it.  I was too scared to tell anyone how bad things were, and I was terrified about talking to a doctor about it (certain that a doctor would tell me that I was "fine").  In the end I just decided to keep on, hoping that it would get better on its own.

At some point during this stretch of time I made some visits to an acupuncturist (for unrelated reasons) and the depression came up. She said she had struggled with the same kind of stuff, and lent me a book that had really helped her.  I took this book home, a little skeptical (it talked about being a "new mood therapy" and had rainbow colors on it-- I wondered what kind of "new age" bellybutton gazing it was going to recommend).  It wasn't that kind of book at all.  It turned out to teach cognitive therapy techniques that you could do yourself without even seeing a doctor.

Exactly what I needed to start changing the negative voices in my head-- and just in time too, because a year later I was stuck in bed, wondering if I was going to keep my sanity, and suddenly I had ample opportunity to revisit the book (I got my own copy) and practice all the mental skills.  It was a huge, huge help, especially coping with the challenges of being stuck in my house for two months.

The other big help came from my OB.  I finally got the courage to confess to her that I had been a wreck after B was born, terrified that she was going to either harangue me about choosing to having another baby or that she was going to dismiss it out of hand with some trite comment about how "new mothers just get the blues."  Nope.  She listened to my concerns and matter-of-factly told me that she wanted me to start taking an antidepressant.  She actually had me start taking it during the last trimester of the pregnancy so that it would be full strength when K was a newborn.

I felt like a whole new person.  I really did.  I had NO IDEA it was possible to just feel so generally happy.  I wasn't euphoric.  I just wasn't feeling constantly mildly blue.  It was amazing.  Part of the reason I had such energy at tackling the new lifestyle changes (the diet changes, the exercise, and coping with four kids) was because I didn't have long stretches of days where it was a battle to drag myself out of bed because life felt so bleak.  In return, the weight loss and the new exercise (the triathlon training) fed into the positive feelings.  It was an upward spiral.

It couldn't stay that way forever.  Turns out that I couldn't stay on that class of antidepressants because my body reacted like I was on blood thinners (nothing like scratching your face with a fingernail and having that tiny scratch bleed without stop for four hours).  And the replacement category of antidepressants didn't work very well.  But I did have that window, long enough to get a solid base of the cognitive therapy skills and running that have basically served as my way to ward off depression ever since.

Thank heavens for that difficult pregnancy.  I wouldn't be the mostly sane woman I am today without it!!!