This post, submitted by a woman who wishes to remain anonymous, is a powerful one. Within her words, she lays bare her soul and expresses a journey many of us know all too well.

The theme of her story?

Depression lies.

And lie it does, fiercely. To us, to those around us, to everyone. It makes us believe things about ourselves, about those we love, about our worlds that simply aren’t true. It is a battle to escape from these lies and make it to the other side. This mother did just that – she fought through to the other side – for herself, and for her family.

If you are fragile, I would suggest you refrain from reading this as there are some descriptions you may find troubling. Instead of reading this, as is my habit, I’m providing a video for you to escape into. Today’s video? Guys wear bras for a week. Enjoy!

 

I don’t recall the exact date, as those days – all of those days – are a blur. I look back on my Facebook posts and blog entries, photographs and videos, and I’m amazed at how wonderful a liar I was. I looked happy, healthy, full of life, and completely, madly in love with my baby girl. You wouldn’t have known that I so badly wanted to die.

I’ve held off publicly admitting it for so long because I am, to this day, horrifically ashamed of that time in my life. I have no desire to have my daughter read this someday. I don’t want her to know what I thought during the first years of her life. Maybe this is why I’m writing this anonymously.

I’ve said it before and it is worth repeating: depression lies. Especially postpartum depression.

I was *so* sure I wasn’t going to be in that statistic. I had such a great pregnancy. And then? Then it all started to fall apart.

It was a gradual descent into madness for me. At the beginning, I was just a tired mom, as all of us are. Very little sleep. A colicky baby. Loneliness. I lasted a little over a month back at work. See, my employer does FMLA, but at the cost of all of your vacation and sick time. That means that when I got back to work, once she started getting ill from being in daycare, I couldn’t go home. And D couldn’t take off work either.  So we were screwed. I quit my beloved job.

That’s when things started to go downhill. For the next six months, all through the long cold winter here, I started to slip from depression into something called postpartum psychosis. I had severe intrusive thoughts that started out as only an occasional occurrence…then weekly, then daily, then hourly, then every other thought.  Of horrific things being done to my daughter. Think of the sickest things you can imagine involving an infant, then try to make it worse, then imagine having those kind of thoughts and images pop into your head every other minute.

And that wasn’t it.  I started to see things out of the corner of my eye. Not the normal, “What’s that?  Oh, it’s just a leaf.”  No, large, animal like beings just out of the corner of my eye were stalking me, and when I turned, nothing was there.  At all.

I was absolutely losing my mind.

Then there was the whole part of me failing as a mom and woman. All my life, my comfort in my German hips and thighs lay in the knowledge that at least I was built for birth.

I had an unnecessary c-section. Didn’t feel a wink of a contraction. To some of you, that sounds like a win. Not for me. Not in my mind for myself. That was my birthright and I let it be robbed from me. Then, for whatever reason and despite all effort, I couldn’t feed my child with milk. For over 2 weeks I tried to nurse her and had formula not been invented, she would have starved to death. Another part of my female anatomy failed me. I failed me.

I wasn’t a natural mother. I didn’t even love her. I wanted nothing more than to drop everything and disappear and that this whole thing was a horrible mistake. Then I dwelled on having those awful thoughts and came to the conclusion that I was a horrible awful person that shouldn’t live. I was a horrible mother. I was a horrible wife. They’d be better off without me. For months and months I lived like that, trying to summon up the courage to do what was right for my family and just kill myself. I even had two different options planned out.

Then I did something so “me”… I googled what suicide of a parent does to a child.

It ain’t pretty and I certainly wouldn’t be doing her any favors. What then?

Just leave. Just up… and leave. Disappear. Let her grow up. Let him find a new, much better woman to raise that little squalling baby and she’d be so much better off. He would be too, without a blubbering waste of human space he called a wife.

All during this time, I spoke with my husband every day. My mom every day. Had play dates weekly with 3 amazing human beings. And I hid it. Because if they knew, they’d be so disappointed. They wouldn’t trust me with their children. They’d alienate me.  They’d know the truth and hate me for it.

Depression lies so so much.

Then the day came when it all came crashing down. I was alone on a Thursday with my screaming 1 year old and I realized I was going to hurt her. I called my husband. No answer. I drove around aimlessly, just to resist the urge to hurt her. I drove to his work.  Called him. No answer. Drove home, shaking. Then I finally called my mom and confessed it all to her. She finally got a hold of my husband and he came straight home. After a lot of heated debate, they decided not to commit me.

Instead I went to therapy and then finally, gratefully, I went on medications.

To this day, I don’t think people realize how bad I got, how close I got to truly doing unthinkable things, to ruining the person who is now the love of my life. My husband didn’t know. I know people find that hard to believe, but he was lost in his own exhaustion and confusion of having a hormonal wife.

So why am I writing this?

It’s been 3 years since my meltdown. I still take some mild anti-depressants, but: I’m alive. I made it through. I wish it didn’t take so long for me to realize I needed help. I wish I didn’t take 16 months to fall in love with my daughter. I wish my loved ones could see through my lies to the absolute blackened misery I drowning in.

But I can’t go back and change it. It happened. It happened to me.

And maybe reading this, seeing a bit of your struggle in mine, maybe this will be the push to get you to get help. Depression lies. Depression is telling you you’re a bad mother, a bad human being. Whispering destructive thoughts, pushing you to do horrid things. It’s depression. Not you. NOT YOU.

You can get better. Reach up through the darkness to the pinpoint of light and just say: I need help.