PPD

I didn't write a whole lot about my post partum depression with Zac because my family was so worried about his family, or more specifically, Zac's FOB finding out about it and using it against me. I was largely undiagnosed with Zac and my post partum depression (PPD) took the shape of destroying my sense of self. I was convinced that Zac was better off without me and did everything in my power to destroy myself physically so he could be raised by someone else. The crime of this is that it lasted for years. Literally, I think my last episode of self-harm was when Zac was four years-old. Between his birth and then, I was in and out of hospitals, in patient, partial patient, and out patient. What finally broke the cycle for me was dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) going once a week for group therapy and once a week for individual therapy. I was lucky because my therapist's office was close to where I worked so I could go at lunch (although my co-workers, who didn't know where I was going, were more than happy to mention to my boss when I took longer than a 60 minute lunch break).

Everything was hidden and shameful. I once wrote a post about the amount of medication I was on in terms of sheer pill bottles and my Dad asked me to take it down. I embarrassed them. They loved, and continue to love, their grandson fiercely, and were completely at a loss at how to deal with their daughter who was entrusted to care for him, yet hell bent on hurting herself at every juncture. They were never fully confident that I could be left alone with him and for two years I lived with them off-and-on, when living with myself with a newborn/toddler was too much for me to handle.

Then things started to settle down. I got my current job which eliminated my hour commute each way, Zac and I lived in a two bedroom apartment, he enrolled in Kindergarten, and eventually I got the house I'm living in now. KGII was in and out of the picture as we dated and remained friends, then more than friends, then friends again. I got pregnant and convinced myself it was the second baby I had always wanted. Sure, the pregnancy caught me completely off-guard. I wasn't using birth control, but who ovulates a week late? It was such a rhythm method fail as to be laughable. Even though KGII might have made a different decision, I wanted to raise the baby and grow him in my body. What a decision that was. At every turn, growing Ben inside me took a toll on my body and my mind. I had to leave work at almost 5 months pregnant and spent seven months out of work. I threw up almost every day and dealt with borderline gestational diabetes, high blood pressure, depression, and countless trips to the hospital. The only bright spot of my pregnancy was that I was able to complete almost seven weeks of IOP at my therapist's office, where I went to group therapy from 9am - 2pm every day and got to be reminded of the principles of DBT and my self worth.

Then Ben came in a rush of blood and terror. He spent 20 days in the NICU and I kept waiting for the PPD to hit me. Three months turned into six months and I kept waiting for the post partum freight train to run me over. Finally, even though I had been seeing it in the distance for almost nine months, I was powerless to stop it, or even slow down it's momentum. I want to write about my PPD because I don't think I'm alone. This time KGII has been right by my side and even my clients (which I've always been worried about finding this blog and who I refuse to friend on Facebook) know that I've being dealing with post partum depression. I'm owning it in a way that I never did with Zac.

The tipping point was KGII applying for a job with my company. There was a referral bonus of $1000, so I referred him and the recruiter called in a matter of hours to set up an appointment for him to interview for the position. The job would have literally doubled our household salary. He says the interview didn't go well and the next day I was in patient in the hospital. The pressure of financially maintaining a family of four came crashing down on me. I push myself incredibly hard at work and felt like (although KGII would disagree) that I was doing a disproportionate amount of household chores and it all felt like much too much.

I went and saw my prenatal psychiatrist and she recommended electro-convulsive therapy (ECT), which was done in-patient at a world-renowned hospital a block away from her office. She said, "At least this way you won't have to fake every second of every day". So I went and admitted myself. I had forgotten how horrible in patient is. How they take all of your belongings and catalogue them, deciding what it is "safe" for you to keep and what isn't. I had forgotten how literally crazy your roommate could be and how she could wake up screaming every two hours. I had forgotten what it's like when bipolar folks go maniac and fly into a rage. What I was most struck by in the few group therapy sessions that I went to (they made me too anxious) was how all of the people seemed to be in the beginning of their therapy/recovery journey. I'm practically a guru of psychological teaching, even though I struggle to implement it in my life.

The hospital made me watch a video on ECT and my first clue that something was amiss should have been that everyone in the video was over the age of 75. They were happy and clueless. Just some very happy old people. ECT is done when medication is either ineffective or when a person's body can't tolerate the side effects of medication. In my case, ECT was considered viable to get me off of the large doses of psychiatric medication that I was on which was causing secondary side effects and, actually, PPD is the number one indicator of ECT in women my age. It is most common with the elderly and with women who need to return to their responsibilities quickly.

Sylvia Plath documented her experience with ECT in "The Bell Jar". Ms. Plath is one of my alma mater's more notable alumna and her book is one of the definitive works on depression in the 1950s. When she did ECT, she was awake, biting down on rubber to not swallow her tongue, and she tasted copper. Now, it's considered more humane to put someone under sedation to administer ECT, although not much beyond that has changed. Memory loss was listed as a possible side effect and I was taken off almost all of my medication (early psychiatric medication was actually early anti-seizure medication and to perform ECT, you need to be off all anti-seizure medication). I had four sessions of ECT in-patient and then I was discharged from the hospital and had three more sessions. The first four sessions were done bilaterally, which means I had electrodes on both sides of my brain. My memory loss was so severe and my confusion was so profound when I woke up that they downgraded me to right unilateral treatment, which at least allowed me to know that I was in a hospital when I woke up.

It was traumatic and I still find myself thinking about it. I have the memories of going into a OR, getting an IV started, feeling electrodes strapped to my head with a rubber band, going under sedation, and waking up and not knowing where I was seven times. Think about how many times that is. Seven. I remember almost nothing for the little over two weeks when I was having the procedure done. I'm on the more extreme scale of memory loss. I might have partially contributed to it because I was on very small doses of anti-anxiety medication (because having your memories erased and living in a state of confusion causes a lot of fucking anxiety) and that might have contributed to the memory loss, although that was never explained to me. I basically can't remember from August - early November. If you tell me something happened or I said something, there is a chance I'll remember it, but it's not guaranteed. The big question people ask is will your memory come back. Basically, it's unknown right now. What I do know is that my memory is not as good as it was even before the procedures. The most embarrassing thing that happens is when I tell someone I have problems with my short term memory and then get stuck somewhere in a conversation and I'll forget that I told them about my problems, so I tell them again that I have problems with my short term memory. They look at me strangely and reply, "Yeah...I know. You told me". It's incredibly embarrassing professionally, but my friends have been more forgiving personally. My main psychiatrist said that my immediate memory problems should resolve themselves within the next six weeks, provided I stay mentally active. Whether or not I will ever recover the memories from those four months is anyone's guess.

As for Ben and I, it's a struggle. Part of what is so hard is that he's been constantly sick for the past month with double ear infections so he cries all the time. He looks at me and starts crying. He also looks at the cats and starts crying, so I try not to take it personally. He is very, very attached to KGII. He's also one of the most opinionated babies I've ever encountered. Very little happens to that baby without his complete approval or noisily voiced, rowdy disapproval. Whereas with Zac I thought he was better off without me, with Ben, I feel like I'm better off without him. Here is where the judgment comes in, hard and heavy, both from myself and from other people. I cringe when Ben pulls my hair or pulls my lips and explores my face. I want to walk out of the room when he starts crying and have to force myself to attend to his needs if KGII or my parents aren't home. He's largely indifferent to me and I'm ok with that. It's when he is on a mission to attack my Iphone or grab handfuls of pumpkin pie off my plate that I struggle most with him. I took him and me to the doctor yesterday and we are both ragingly sick. At one point, I couldn't handle him crying anymore (he screamed throughout an entire 15 minute breathing treatment) that I just started crying. KGII doesn't understand and I've been begging him to talk to his therapist about it. I know there are times I shouldn't be left alone with Ben, but I don't know how to make a partner take that seriously, other than continue to repeat it over and over. I love both of my sons, but this is very hard.