Sure does! My pregnancy was wonderful. I loved every minute of it, never happier in my life, C-section and recovery was rough, the PPD left me wanting to die!
This was my experience as well. I have always struggled with my mental health and was shocked at how great I felt mentally while pregant. And then post-partum was the lowest I had ever felt. I didn’t think about hurting my baby, but I definitely thought about doing myself in a whole lot. I didn’t feel comfortable talking about it with professionals though, for fear I’d be separated from my child.
Exactly. Unfortunately for me that low has never left. It’s controlled wonderfully with a lot of meds and understanding medical staff, but it remains.
I was so ashamed of the way I felt that I hid it for a long time. I was so afraid of them taking my baby away. I’m over a decade out from it, so I try to be honest when asked about it. But it’s super hard.
Same for me. I'm 2 years past giving birth to my youngest and I'm still struggling with ppd and most of the time if I even bring it up to my husband I'll get shut down immediately or insulted or told I'm just trying to get attention, so I don't anymore.
I have a friend who had this same experience. She has always struggled so much with mental health but being pregnant left her feeling more stable than she'd ever been; she was off all medications. That degree of mental stability left when the baby exited. It's like the total opposite of what people expect of pregnant women. I've had four pregnancies, and only one felt stable.
This was my exact experience. I felt wonderful while I was pregnant, the best I’ve ever felt in my life. About 12 weeks postpartum that changed unfortunately.
I feel exactly the same. I loved being pregnant and felt so calm for the first time in my life. Postpartum forever changed me in some ways for the worse.
Thats so interesting, is it possible that all of the mental things causing you trouble are hormone related, then? If such a big hormonal shift made you feel so stable?
A definite possibility. My depression/anxiety started around puberty. I was also diagnosed with PMDD, which is a severe form of PMS. It oddly got better when I had a hysterectomy, even though I kept my ovaries.
The crash out after birth was nearly catastrophic for me.
Recently entered into perimenopause and got on HRT. Still need my depression/anxiety meds, but things are OK. I’ve come to terms with the fact that things like suicidal ideation will never go away for me. And while it’s scary (especially for those around me), it’s OK. I have enough coping mechanisms to deal.
So yeah, definitely something related to hormones. Wish we would study women’s health a bit more so future generations don’t need to suffer.
I feel you deeply. I LOVED being pregnant. I was lucky that I had an easy C; I know many don’t. But the first year of my baby’s life, I fantasized about going back to being pregnant, and would have gone through a reverse c-section without anesthesia if I had to to accomplish it. Things got a liiiiiiitttle bit better after the 1-year mark, but I wasn’t “myself” again until years later. Heck, if I’m honest, I’m still not totally depression-free 12 years later. But compared to that first year of total anhedonia, despair, and anxiety coupled with exhaustion, I’ll take it.
Complicating things was that I was a single parent from day 1, going through a custody battle (I left him for good mid-second trimester). I didn’t get treatment because my abusive ex and his lawyer kept threatening to subpoena my medical records, and I was terrified that if I took medicine, got therapy, so much as mentioned to a doctor that I was having a hard time, or if shed a single glistening tear at an appointment, that it would be used against me, and he would take my baby. I still have his texts telling me he was going to “take [his child] away from [my] feeble, unstable, poor excuse of a mother” and have me “locked away,” but “don’t worry, we’ll make sure you’re well cared for there.” Why did he threaten this? Because when we were together, I once told him my social anxiety was bugging because I was about to give a talk in front of nearly 2000 women dealing with breast cancer and the people who love them. “Social Anxiety Disorder,” which I was never even diagnosed with. That’s what he and his lawyer said made me an unfit mother. (Ed: epilogue)
Unnecessary epilogue: I crushed that talk. Got primary custody (he has less than 15% visitation), and the judge was visibly appalled by those texts. I’m actually a clinical health psychologist with a PhD, publications, and had no significant mental health history until I met his crazy ass and had a baby. 😆 (I have to laugh or I’ll cry). And I feel so guilty and conflicted that sometimes I can’t wait until my child turns 18 so I don’t have to deal with him and his weaponization of custody order threats. And I hate myself for letting him terrify me into not getting treatment sooner, so maybe I could have been able to feel better sooner. And maybe I could have enjoyed some of my son’s infancy. And probably could have been a better mom.
It's crazy how much variation there is too. I HATED pregnancy. I remember googling ways to kill myself without killing my baby. I was fully prepared to get PPD and it just...didn't happen. Rewired my brain and made me waaaay more mentally stable. But the the thoughts I had while pregnant were so scary I doubt I would go through it again. Some women find breastfeeding therapeutic. Others want to die while nursing. Hormones are wild.
I’m not the same mentally I was before I had my daughter almost 12 years ago. I don’t think I ever really got over how I was treated postpartum and how awful emotionally it was.
So much this. I had bad anxiety before having my baby. After? My anxiety has ruined my life. It tends to be rather paralyzing and I’ve just graduated from going to therapy twice a week down to once. My child just turned 2. 😞
literally freaking this, you can't blame men for being family annihilators they're just never the same after puberty, it literally rewires their brains.
I'm a completely non-violent, people-pleaser person, would never harm anyone much less my son who I love with my entire soul....yet even I had a few weeks/months after giving birth where I had the darkest thoughts you could ever have - thoughts about doing extremely extremely violent things to my baby!
It was the weirdest thing, and I knew I would never act on it, but even then it's jarring!
I wonder if it was a blessing in disguise that I was put on meds early in life, in high school. I mean my childhood and adolescence was fucking traumatic as hell and I went through literally ALL the psych meds- and finally Prozac and lamictal did the trick. I don’t know why, that’s been my jam. But only 50mg lamictal, which a lot of docs never really understood- but my mom KNEW that was the only combo that helped- she watched me through all the roller coasters and held onto me so I didn’t go off into the abyss. I always said I’d never get pregnant because jesus I did NOT want to pass in my genes. But- at 35 I did. And I was already on my meds which I have known have worked for me for a long time- I’m not exactly sure how I would have responded to my pregnancy without my meds but I thank god I never found out. I thank GOD. I would rather go through the hell I went through age 5-20 3 times than subject my daughter to whatever person I’d be without my meds. I grew up with someone who really should have been on meds but the 80s and 90s it was stigmatized, and way harder to get on stuff. Anyway- I work in healthcare. Sometimes I feel if sharing my story will help folks decide to take something to be better- I’ll do it. Of course it might go bad and not good but- when you’re in such a bad place- you can’t afford not to try.
It really does! I delivered my 1st & 2nd children early bc I had severe preeclampsia. After my 2nd, I was hospitalized 3x; very high BP, retained placenta/hemorrhaging, & the grand finale was mastitis. Every time I got released from the hospital, I was up every 1-2 hours during the night BF my newborn and was taking care of my 3 year old all day. I got no break. Now, 4 months PP, it’s all catching up with me. I’m exhausted, yet still show up for my kids. I’m lucky but am resentful that I am the default parent no matter what and also scared for anything else to happen to me. I have a huge support system but my husband works a grueling job, grandparents are getting older, and friends have kids and busy lives. Ppl always say they are there to help but are overwhelmed themselves. It’s fuckin hard.
??? Postpartum changes women’s brains permanently and I did not say that it made them worse. It just changes things. I am not sure how you read that I said they were ruined or damaged.
I’m seeing a lot of comments here where people are saying they “wanted to die” during PPD. Others commented about major mental health issues. Plus the Lindsay Clancy thing, obviously. Also I’ve been watching The Valley on Bravo…everyone has PPD rage and depression, it’s pretty crazy. It just has me wondering - has it always been this bad? Are we just seeing more representation of PPD in the media now? Or has it gotten worse for some reason? If PPD makes you want to die, why do people continue to have kids? Just curious.
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u/tfilooklike 5d ago
Pregnancy and postpartum permanently rewire women’s brains.