I’ve been on both sides of depression and I can tell you that you WILL get better. It sounds like you’re doing everything right that you possibly can at the moment so just try to be patient (HA!).
I remember that about the only thing that helped me for awhile was reading. Me and my good old friend Harry Potter. Those books were so long and interesting that they took my mind off of what was happening around me.
Part of any depression whether postpartum or any type is to function.
You first need to get a routine. Second you need to make sure you follow it. Third you need to occupy your time, and forth you need to participate in life.
Meds are only a PART of getting better. Postpartum depression seems worse 'cause you tell yourself, “I should be feeling joy.” OK so you’re not. So what? You’re of no danger to anyone, apparently so don’t focus on what you can’t do but focus on what you can do.
Exercise is a very important regulator. You need to get up and get active. So you can’t help with the baby, you can certainly do things like organize the closet, cleans the walls, if you look you’ll find stuff to do.
If you were a patient in a hospital you wouldn’t be allowed to sit around all day and stew until you felt better. No you’d be given tasks and expected to perform them.
So until the meds kick in, start a plan. What can you do? Then start doing it? Get up everyday and follow your routine. So your husband has to do some extra work, it won’t kill him and you can make it up to him.
Think of things you can do, and I mean simple things that have been put off, such as cleaning the walls, organizing the photos, stuff that is body intensive and light on your mind.
Keep to a routine and when you see you are succeeding before you know you will be easing back into life.
My children are 2 years and a month apart, it is not easy but it is do-able. Routine helps more than anything. If they know they are with family during the day but mummy comes at bedtime, that’s a good routine for them. As long as they know what to expect they’ll be fine.
I have no other advice I can offer you, but I did want to say this: far from doing any damage to your children, you have done what a good mum would do - you have acknowledged you have a problem and have asked for help. Your children are lucky you are strong enough to do this and that they have a family who will rally round.
Hugs to you, from a complete internet stranger!
Lots of good advice from people here. You can do this! I’ve dealt with severe depression myself (not post-partum), and the whole one-step-at-a-time concept is good. Focus on just making it through the next hour, and when that’s easy, the next couple hours, the next half-day, and so on. It’ll hurt, you’ll hate yourself (you shouldn’t!), but you’ll get through this.
And do think about picking up tiny little projects to finish. Going through a period of grief recently, I started with small things like putting a few items through the shredder, and finished with a whole lot of laundry getting done. You don’t have to expect anything big; it just feels nice to see, say, that jacket finally getting put away in the closet, a load of to-be-donated items finally being dropped off, or whatever. Start slow. Be easy on yourself. Communicate with your husband, even if it’s, “I’m still feeling crummy, but I appreciate everything you’re doing for us and the kids.”
I was there…
The tears are natures way of getting the hormones out of your body.
Mine were less than thirteen months apart. You need to accept that thinks are going to be far from perfect. If the house isn’t clean, if the groceries need to be delivered, the the toddler watches a few too many Disney movies or even Barney - they’ll come through the other end.
I haven’t personally had postpartum depression, but I am bipolar, so I have experiences with that “so-depressed-it’s-never-gonna-get-better” feeling. Since I’m bipolar, I know eventually it’ll leave, so I try to keep myself busy until that happens. The Harry Potter books are actually a good idea! I try to find something to take my mind off of it. My mind doesn’t permanently stay off of it, and there are times I just need to let the darkness envelop me, but it makes the time more bearable.
Best wishes to you and your loved ones. You have a great support system. When this is all over and done with, make sure you appropriately thank them. They are, literally, lifesavers.
Much love and support. We’re here for you.
Don’t feel guilty. You did not ask for this to happen or cause it to happen. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Not easy to do when you are depressed, but try not to beat yourself up. Also your husband and family are doing all those extra things for you because they love you. Let yourself feel that love.
Serenata67, I am bipolar (2) also. But I spent many years with lots of depression and little mania. Either way, OP, the meds will work and you’ll get to be the mom that you want to be, just maybe not as soon as you wish you could.
Thank you for getting help - you are doing everything you possibly can, so give yourself a break!
Some things that have helped me: remember you are not your thoughts, and you are not your feelings. Sometimes if you can just be in the moment and see what thoughts and feelings are racing through your mind, just looking at them can help you disengage from them a bit.
Also, you are doing something I do all the time, whether it’s about my depression treatment or being late for the dentist - feeling that the situation ought to be something other than it is. “If only I didn’t have to hand my kids over to others so much,” or “If only I could get better faster.” Well, the situation is the way it is. Starting from acceptance of how things truly are, no matter how sucky that situation is, is much less stressful, believe it or not. “You can’t get there from not here.”
Hang in there. Be kind to yourself as much as possible. Lean on those willing to be leaned on - that is what love is about. And know that children respond to what you do the majority of the time, not just to a few incidents or a brief period in which you couldn’t give as much as you would like.
Thank you everyone so much for your responses. They have truly helped (and some have made me cry, but so does everything these days!)
Last two days have been hectic with the funeral stuff going on, but I think the meds are maybe kicking in a little. I had a few anxiety episodes today, but I think they’re getting fewer and farther between.
You all are so right…my family has absolutely been wonderful through all of this. I was thanking my sister again for helping so much, and she reminded me how much I helped her when she had her twins…I pretty much moved into her house for those first three or four months to help out. I guess that’s just what family does, and I’m so grateful for it.
My husband has been my hero, too. He actually has bipolar II, as well. His is well managed with medication, but he totally understands the whole mental illness, you can’t “just snap out of it” thing.
For now I’m just getting through one hour at a time. My daughter is in preschool tomorrow, so it’ll just be me and baby for most of the day, which I think I can handle. And the day after that we’ve got some “mother’s helpers” coming in–they’ll be here until I feel like I can stand on my own again.
I just can’t wait to feel normal again.
Good news to hear.
I’m glad your sister reminded you of how much you helped her. Sometimes, it’s easy to think that you never help anyone, that you are a burden when it is NOT TRUE. And also good that your husband is understanding.
Keep taking it an hour at a time. Don’t try to rush getting better.
If “just me and the baby” gets to be too much, put the baby safely in the crib and go sit on the porch for 15 minutes. Or call someone who can be supportive. I’m glad you have a mother’s helper coming in.
That normal feeling will come.
Be good to yourself.
My midwives once told me that the worst time in the first year is when your baby hits their first major growth spurt at three weeks. If you’re nursing, you have a baby attached to your boob pretty much at all times. Even if you’re bottle-feeding, the baby starts sleeping even less than before, and you’re dealing with all the crazy hormonal changes at their worst and sleep deprivation to boot.
I had a birth that basically gave me whopping PTSD, and went on Lexapro soon afterwards, and thanks to the pain meds and birth hormones combining in an awful way with the Lexapro, got walloped with something called Serotonin Toxicity Syndrome–ended up back in the ER the day after I got released from the hospital, and thankfully got Dr. House to diagnose what I had from a bunch of random symptoms. For the first few weeks of my baby’s life, I was basically going through withdrawal. She’s 13 months old and shows no ill effects from the fact that the only thing I could muster up energy for was nursing her–I don’t think I actually cuddled with her beyond that until she was about a month old. Your baby will be fine if you take the time to get yourself back together again–he is surrounded by people who love him and take care of him, and that’s all he cares about.
Take time for yourself. You might want to try breath-counting meditation. My psychologist friend swears by it - either in conjunction with medication or on its own. It’s helped me with my anxiety attacks.
While I was pregnant, all the “authorities” said that it was crucial to spend as much time with your newborn as possible for bonding purposes. They also said that if you’re nursing, you must never ever give him a bottle or he’ll get nipple confusion which will totally screw up nursing.
Then less than a week after I gave birth, I was thrown back in the hospital for almost 4 days with a uterine infection, and my son wasn’t allowed to visit. I was heartbroken. And I definitely felt “worthless and guilty.”
All of a sudden, everyone was telling me, “oh, he’ll be fine with not seeing you for a few days” and “as long as you use the pump to keep the milk supply up, he’ll go back to nursing with no problem.”
WTF?
Talk about mixed messages! I figured everybody was just BSing to try to make me feel better because I was doing harm to my child. After all, why were they only telling me that that stuff wasn’t so important when I suddenly couldn’t do it?
You’re experiencing some of the same feelings–that you must be doing irreparable harm because you’re not able to do what you were pretty much unanimously told that you must do.
Well, you’re not.
It’s exactly as dangermom said. You have to put the oxygen mask on yourself first. Or to use another example from my own life–I used to be a whitewater raft guide. One sort of standard question was the following: You’re guiding a trip. It’s unexpectedly cold. You’re cold. You have six guests on your raft that are cold. You have an extra shirt in your dry bag. Do you put it on yourself or give it to one of the guests? The answer is that you put it on yourself. The guests will be fine and you need to make sure that you’re okay because otherwise you may not be able to guide the raft safely and end up putting your guests in a lot more danger than they’re in by being a little bit cold.
Sometimes, by putting your own needs first, you ARE putting the needs of others first.
(And I bonded with my son just fine and he went right back to nursing with no trouble.)
Anyway, is there any way you can have therapy daily? Many therapists will do telephone appointments. I think it might help a lot for you to have that outlet every day. When my depression was at its worst, I met with my therapist twice a week, and I just focused on getting through to that next appointment. Considering that you’re really in crisis, maybe knowing that you have that outlet every day might help.
Absolutely. A key element in starting to overcome my depression was accepting myself as a person with depression. I stopped thinking “I shouldn’t be this way” and started thinking “okay, I AM this way. What can I do about it?”
Stop beating yourself up about feeling this way. It is what it is.
So true.
Please keep posting in this thread and telling us how you are doing.
I have depression and anxiety, not postpartum. I can relate.
That’s how it is, with depression and anxiety. That’s part of what makes it suck so bad- intellectually you know you don’t need to feel this way, but knowing that doesn’t make you feel any different.
Most likely, they won’t remember it. On average, an adult’s earliest memory is of things that happened when they were around three and a half.
Depression in general doesn’t seem evolutionarily handy, and there are a lot of people who’d like to know how we evolved to be as susceptible to it as we are. There are various hypotheses, but right now I think the only definitive answer on how depression evolved and why it persists is “nobody knows”.
Weird day. Spent the morning and early afternoon alternating between crying and sleeping. Then around three suddenly felt better, came out of the bedroom and starting playing with my daughter. Was doing so well my husband felt okay to leave me for a couple of hours so he could go to a meeting. I was alone with both of my babies for two hours and did just fine…gave my daughter her dinner and a bath, fed the baby, and now they’re both asleep.
Maybe I can do this after all.
But I’m afraid I’ll wake up tomorrow and it will just start all over again. Mornings are always the worst.
When I was recovering from anxiety, I remember going shopping one afternoon, and I felt normal for about an hour. Anyone who’s fought with anxiety and depression I think can understand how huge that is - I felt normal for a whole hour! It seems like that was the start of the climb up for me; I didn’t feel good every day after that, but knowing I had that respite I think helped me believe that I really wouldn’t feel terrible forever - if I could do it for an hour, I could do it again, maybe even longer, right?
You can do eet! 
ETA: I just noticed your last sentence - morning were always the worst for me, too. I think it’s a natural daily low for me. Just knowing that morning is my low time helps me to not take it too seriously - I get up, I have a good breakfast, I have a shower, whatever my routine is and I always feel better in a short time.
I’m so glad to hear that you had a good afternoon! When things are bad, you can hold on to that and know that it can happen again.
It’s nice to remember what feeling good feels like. Sometimes things get so bad you forget.
Cat Whisperer’s* right. Once you get that brief feeling of normalcy again, it’s a big step forward to feeling normal all the time.
“Whisperer’s” is a really hard word to pronounce
Right before you close your eyes to sleep tonight, revisit the wonderfulness of those two hours.
This is awesome news, thanks so much for sharing it. I can’t get you out of my mind, and think about you several times during my day. Even lit a candle on my Buddhist altar for you.
You hang in there, you’re doing just fine!