One of the symptoms of postpartum depression is difficulty concentrating and making decisions. When Iwas sick with postpartum OCD, I can rememberdistinctly two times when I almost gotboth myself and my baby killed by running stop signs. These weren't unfamiliar stop signs. These were ones I passed by every day. Yet I blew right by them on two occasions, primarily because I just couldn't think straight. I couldn't concentrate. I felt like there were too many things going on at once and I couldn't keep up. I couldn't trust my brain.

I just came upon this post fromJohn at themental health blog Storied Mind about making decisions when we're depressed. I love his description:

"Depression brings the whole world inside me. I look at people and everything around me, and I’m not seeing anything but evidence of how bad I am. I’m dancing with my own nightmares. Even if I’m only mildly depressed and feel suspended amid a thousand possibilities, no one of which I can choose, I’m assuming that whichever I might pick will not take me anywhere. I’ll move in an endless circle.

Or else I’ll feel nothing, and there is no point in wanting anything. I put on a good show, pass for happily adjusted to life but only see blankness ahead – if I take the trouble to look. And in the most desperate state of severe depression, I’m running for my life. The idea of choosing a different path doesn’t enter my mind.

What’s common to all those ways of being depressed is an all-or-nothing thinking. Nothing good can result from what I do, and so there is no vision that I can choose of my own will. Everyone else is better than I am, and each seems a powerful presence that only makes me smaller still. Whatever I do will not work and only confirms the worst. All the creative possibilities I might see when I’m healthy become so many triggers of obsessive thinking. "

I'm betting quite a few of you can relate to this.

Click the link for other stories on the symptoms of postpartum depression.