Profoundly Alone: The Disconnection of Postpartum Depression

When you suffer from a postpartum mood disorder, you walk around in a haze while trying to seem as normal as possible.  You try to make yourself feel as connected as you can to your child and those around you.  Perhaps your dearest friends and family can tell that you don't seem like yourself, but then they just brush it off as normal baby blues.  And you soldier on, trying to pretend -- sometimes successfully, sometimes not so successfully -- that everything is cool.

When my son was a little over two months old and I was in the throes of postpartum obsessive-compulsive disorder I tried to host a ladies' luncheon at my house.  It was mid-December, and I guess I thought it would make me feel better to have a half-dozen women over and make them a nice little Christmas lunch.  I decorated the house.  I made goat cheese salad and butternut squash soup and little lemon tarts with sugared blueberries for dessert.

When the women came over, I'll never forget having one of the oddest feelings I've ever had.  I felt like I was inside of a bubble.  Or like I was hovering over the party watching it but that my guests couldn't see or hear me.  I was shocked out how disconnected I felt from the world, and it seemed like it didn't really matter whether I was there or not.  I tried to make small talk, but it seemed like the sentences just didn't come out right and that I wasn't making any sense -- it was almost like the air had been replaced by water that blurred my vision and muffled my sound.  Everyone seemed to have a great time, and they were chatting and eating away.  I kept trying to connect with them, to feel present, but no matter what I did it didn't work. 

To this day, I don't think they had any idea what I was thinking or feeling.  They seemed to have a lovely time.  After everyone had left and my son went down for a nap, I remember laying down on the couch in my family room and sobbing.  I had tried to do something to make myself feel better, to be a part of the world, and it only broke my heart.  I tried to be close to others and it only made me feel further apart.

One of the truly awful feelings you experience during postpartum mood disorders is that sense of disconnection from the world, from your friends and family, from your baby, and most of all, from yourself.  I felt so deeply, deeply alone. 

Profoundly alone.

This is why it's so hard for us to say anything.  We're ashamed, of course.  But we're also disconnected.  I didn't think anyone would hear me, or believe me, or perhaps even care.  I didn't even have myself to talk to anymore.  Myself had up and left and this new person I had become was clearly NOT my friend.  I had lost my ability to speak clearly and calmly and with reason.  I felt like I couldn't even communicate love to my own child.  How could I have been expected to understandably explain THIS?

I hope the people we love can try to understand why it is so easy for us to turn away.  It's much easier to run and hide, or give up, than to try and speak through the cement wall that life just erected between us and the world.  We try our best, but you may have to fill in the blanks for us until we find our words, and ourselves, again. 

Comments

[Sandra Wolf]

Great Article, Katherine!....Really taps well into that sense of isolation felt when going through PPD and the thinking that no one could really understand b/c you just don't know how to even begin to explain it yourself!

Take Care,
Sandra M. Wolf, MFT
Focusing on treating Postpartum Depression & New Parent issues.
www.SandyMWolf.com
Sandy@SandyMWolf.com
(714) 747-6959
Anaheim, CA, 92807

[Andrea]

Somehow, reading that just made so many feelings rise up in me. I had a moment just like your tea party, and sometimes I feel like I am still buried behind that cement wall. My son is almost 3 and yet I still feel like I am not the person I once was. On medication, and even therapy (although I haven't gone in a long time). I didn't realize/admit that something was wrong with me until he was over a year old. And yet I still somehow feel trapped in this little world and so detached from everyone, even my husband. Can PPD last this long??

[Sandra M. Wolf, MFT]

Hi, Andrea,

You asked if PPD can last this long, and the answer is that for some women, yes, the disorder can indeed last this long if help is not sought. I know from experience myself how very difficult it can be to ask for help. And when you do ask for help, sometimes, unfortunately, you're not taken very seriously by some.

You wrote that you haven't been to therapy in a long time. My suggestion is to contact your therapist again, if there wasn't a major negative reason you stopped seeing that particular therapist, to get back into treatment.

PSI (Postpartum Support International) also has a wonderful resource list of therapists in your area who specialize in treating PPD. Also, this website has a fantastic list of support groups in your area.

Sometimes it just helps tremendously to be around other women who "get" what you're going through so you can realize you are NOT alone and that you CAN get through this!

Sincerely,
Sandra Wolf

[jiny]

I have three children (4, 2 and 9 months). Lately I feel that it is very hard to be happy. I feel like I should be happy, but I am not. I find that I lock myself in the bathroom and cry. And sometimes I laugh and I smile, but then other times I cry...and I honestly don't know what is wrong with me. I wonder what happened to the person that I use to be before I had kids; I can't find that person anymore...how do I get her back.

[Cara Fletcher]

I was feeling very lonely after I gave birth to my first baby as my husband was abroad and he couldn't get home in time.Then I started my own therapy with magnetic painting and I painted our bedroom and this way I wasn't thinking about my depression so much.

[Kristen H]

I am sitting here in my kitchen sobbing.... finally something that is my reality right now.
I feel that disconection and I am doing everything I can to come out of this haze but I feel I'll never be the same again. I want to believe differently. Thank you. I actually feel better just knowing there is someone out there who "gets" me.