August of 2016 I gave birth to my third child. At the time I had a 7-year-old son and a 22 month old daughter. I was operating my own childcare out of the house. I worked Friday and gave birth to my daughter Addie on Saturday. This was the long weekend before school started and I was back to work Tuesday for before and after school childcare. I didn’t see this as being a problem as I already had to take my son to and from school. In hindsight I now realize taking care of other children right away was too much too soon.

Fast-forward a few months and I am now back to a full house of children between before and after school care and some part time children during the week. I have always been a person who needed to stay busy and was undiagnosed with ADHD at the time I coped by being busy all the time. This started to have a toll on me. I was breastfeeding and my daughter never slept more than 3 hours straight at night. I always started her off in her bassinet and once she woke, we would end up bedsharing so I could fall back to sleep. At some point within a few months, she would fall back to sleep, and I would lay there wide awake. I would lay there thinking if I could just fall asleep now, I could get a few hours of sleep before she woke for her next feed. I tried transitioning her back to her bassinet to see if that would help with my sleep and still, I could not sleep. The insomnia was exhausting. I would lay awake for hours at a time during the night and not have the ability to nap during the day as I was working. I was lucky if I was getting hours of sleep a night. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it I was high functioning. I was able to get up in the morning, shower and be ready for morning drop off for the day home. I continued with my routine with taking the kids to school and some days having a kindergarten drop off after lunch and then pick up after school. I was getting out of the house and moving my body every day. None of this seemed to make a difference. I started to slip further and further into postpartum depression and was still not realizing it. I started to have intrusive thoughts and with the intrusive thoughts came me avoiding a lot of normal activities such as driving with the kids or if I absolutely had to drive with them, I avoided driving over bridges. At this point I still had not brought myself to go to visit my doctor for myself. I was talking Addie to all her appointments and when I was asked how I was doing I just repeated the same answer, “I’m fine.” I knew the intrusive thoughts were not right, but I was afraid to say them out loud. I was scared that if I said them out loud that Children’s services would get involved and I would lose my children. I now know that that is not the case. Intrusive thoughts are almost always violent or sexual in nature and that they are unwanted and unpleasant. Intrusive thoughts can be a type of OCD and that’s where my avoiding driving with the kids was coming from. As things continued, I started to be on edge all of the time and would have panic attacks out of nowhere. My depression was telling me that I was a bad mom and that I didn’t deserve to have children and that I couldn’t handle being a mom. At this point I still had not looked for any support. I was just putting one foot in front of the other and making it through my days.

Finally, around 5 months postpartum something snapped in me. We were playing a friendly game of cards and I was the scorekeeper. As we went around the table with everyone telling me their points I started to struggle. I could not do simple math. I sat there staring at the paper blankly with no idea how to add 2 numbers together. My husband Derek being the jokester he can be started throwing out random numbers trying to be funny. I didn’t find it funny and I snapped. I threw my pencil across the room. This was completely uncharacteristic of me, and this was the sign I needed. I finally made a Dr. appointment with my family Doctor. When I went in for the appointment, she had me fill out the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) and I scored a very high score indicating that I had severe Postpartum Depression and Postpartum Anxiety. My dr had recommended medication along with talk therapy. I was still breastfeeding at the time and refused medication as I didn’t want to have anything that would pass into my breast milk. I went home and made the call a psychologist and started therapy right away. My family dr also referred me to the Perinatal mood disorder clinic which at the time had a wait list of 7 months. I continued to go to therapy, but I was not improving even though I was following through with all my homework. I was continuing to slip further into the depression. Finally, when Addie was about 13 months old, I had made it off the wait list and into the perinatal mood disorder clinic. We discussed medication again and this time I decided to give them a try. Unfortunately for me I didn’t react well to the medication and became more suicidal. I ended up being hospitalized for a week where they tried to stabilize me. Once I was home, I was slipping further and further away. In December of 2017 my husband Derek brought me back to hospital saying I was suicidal and that I needed more help. Unfortunately, the Psychiatrist didn’t take me seriously and sent me home. The next day things didn’t improve, and I had attempted to take my own life. Thankfully Derek sensed something was off and I told him what I had done. I was taken by ambulance to hospital and then admitted into a Psychiatric unit. I ended up staying in hospital for 7 months which they tried many different treatments such as Electric Compulsive Therapy (ECT), many different medication trials and 6 rounds of Ketamine infusions. Towards the end of my hospitalization, it was determined that I was mostly treatment resistant, and I would have to do more work in therapy paired with medication to make things less severe.

Once out of hospital, I did a 4-week outpatient program and then transitioned back to the perinatal mood disorder clinic. I have since moved on from that clinic and now attend a community mental health clinic where I am still in therapy. What I know now and I try and tell anyone who is expecting, or is a partner, friend or family member of a person who is pregnant is what I wish was told to me. Postpartum Depression is a very anxious depression, many people do not experience the “classic” sadness they are told to look out for. I remember being discharged after Addie’s delivery and they told me that if I experience extreme bouts of sadness and crying that lasts longer than 2 weeks to seek help. I never experienced the feeling of sadness or crying. The symptoms that should have been a red flag for me were the insomnia, irritability, feeling numb, intrusive thoughts, feelings of hopelessness, feeling like I was not meant to be a mom, and the complete loss of joy in everything that I used to enjoy. The stats for perinatal mood disorders is 1 in 7 will experience some type of perinatal mood disorder and 1 in 10 dads will suffer from Postpartum depression.

Some risk factors for moms are if you have experienced or have a family history of depression or anxiety, lack of adequate support, the type A, perfectionist type of personalities who have a hard time asking for help, any major stress, complications in pregnancy, birth or with breastfeeding and so much more. For people in a person’s life during the postpartum period take notice of anything that seems different or unusual for them that could be signs of depression. For me one of the signs was an intense rage feeling, not sadness. There is so much support out there for postpartum depression for both mom and dads, birth parents or adoptive parents, same sex families. Postpartum mood disorders do not discriminate. Postpartum is a time frame including the babies first year and beyond. Without the right support there is a very good chance the mood disorder will continue past babies first birthday like mine has.

Postpartum depression is treatable and temporary with professional help. Please lets end the stigma and do not be afraid to look for support. Your family dr should be a great starting place but some others I have found to be great and easily accessible are linked below.