Last month, when I wrote about the depression I was experiencing after weaning, a commenter asked if I could talk more about my predisposition toward depression -- a detail I'd timidly revealed only in the comment thread. The truth is, while I'm pretty sure that this depression was triggered by the hormonal and emotional event of weaning, I also know that it probably wouldn't have happened (or have been so severe) if I didn't have a history of depression.
Since that commenter's request, I've been thinking a lot about whether or not to write more about depression here. I've sort of glossed over it in my recent posts, either being glib and offhanded about it or just avoiding the subject completely. On the one hand I feel like: well, nobody comes here to read a blow-by-blow of the state of my mental health. This is supposed to be a blog about my parenting experiences, right? And while I reveal a lot of myself on this blog, there's certainly plenty I don't. Why should I write in detail about my experiences with a disease (condition, tendency, whatever) that's still so widely misunderstood, under-understood, and stigmatized. Do I want total strangers to know that I take antidepressants? Do I want the people at my work who read this blog to know? Or friends who I haven't revealed this to yet?
On the other hand, I feel like by dodging the issue, I'm just contributing to the stigma. If I had diabetes or migraine headaches or MS and it affected my day-to-day life, including my interactions with my children, wouldn't I write about it here? I think I would. I hope I would. Why should I be cagey or embarrassed about something that's both a common health issue and a part of who I am? This other hand is the one that (obviously) has won out. So, though it may make some folks uncomfortable, and though it may be slightly off-topic, I want to talk a little bit about depression. Bear with me.
First, some background: I started having occasional depressive episodes about ten years ago, and have been on and off (but mostly on) medication ever since. I stopped meds when we began trying to conceive, but it didn't go well -- the conceiving or the depression -- so I went back on, though at a lower dose. My doctors and I decided that the benefits of not being depressed far outweighed any risks that my medication could pose to my girls, both while in-utero and while nursing. (There are, in fact, no known risks with my particular med.)
I did OK; I had only one bout of depression during my pregnancy, and a few tough days post-partum, which is pretty much par for the course. But then came this recent period of depression triggered by weaning. (And perhaps pushed along by the emotional intensity of leaving my girls for the first time when I went to NY, and possibly a few other personal factors.) Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, I saw my doctor, and went back up to a higher dose of meds.
I'm happy to report that I'm feeling MUCH better now. You know, there's an advertising campaign out there for some antidepressant that uses the line "Welcome back." It's fucking genius. (I say that both as a copywriter and a depression sufferer.) That is exactly what it feels like to come out of depression. You come back. To yourself, your loved ones, your perspective, your life. If you're on the right medication, at the right dose, you don't feel euphorically happy or oblivious or without emotional range. You just feel like yourself.
I think it's really hard to understand clinical depression if you or someone very close to you hasn't experienced it. Lord knows I didn't. It's not something you can "shake off" or vitamin-supplement or talk your way out of. At least, not for me. And not for a lot of people who have it a helluva lot worse. Depression is highly individualized, so I can only talk about how it is for me, but when I'm depressed, it feels very phsyiological. I get lethargic and fatigued and foggy. I move more slowly than usual, sleep more than normal, and don't have much appetite. My eyes itch. My limbs feel achey and strange. I feel surges of dread for no reason, or suddenly feel like crying. I can't concentrate or think clearly or make decisions. My memory fails me, and I feel like I don't quite have a firm grip on reality or a perspective on the larger reality of my life. Everything feels like an enormous, unpleasant effort: going to the store, answering the phone, getting up out of a chair. But most of all -- and worst of all -- I can't experience pleasure in much of anything. It's not so much a feeling of sadness as it is an utter lack of happiness. I can know, rationally, intellectually, that everything in my life is fine; I wouldn't change a thing. And yet, still, I feel like shit.
This is what much of the last five weeks were like. Luckily, I had good days (those were the days when I was able to eke out a blog post) and good hours during not-so-good days. For better or worse, I'm quite adept at soldiering through, faking it, functioning. I think this is due to both the relative mildness of my depression and my go-getter-ish personality. If you encountered me at work on a particularly lousy day, you might just think I was a little spacey or distracted; maybe just getting over a cold. (Or maybe just an unfriendly bitch. Ha!) But I'm lucky. I've never felt suicidal, and I have a husband who gets it -- he has depression, too, and talks about it openly -- and who is incredibly patient and supportive. I have financial security, a great network of friends and family, and health insurance.
Another thing I am grateful for is that I never felt so low during this past month that I neglected or mistreated my daughters. I may have been distant at times, impatient and short-tempered at others. But I still tried very hard to act present, even when I didn't feel that way. They could actually still make me smile and laugh. And I think they're too young to really notice that I was acting weird. The one time I curled up in a fetal position on the floor of the nursery in the midst of playing with them, they just climbed all over me and yelled "da da da da da da!"
OK, reading back over this post, it seems slightly melodramatic and self-indulgent (Fetal position? Oh, please). I don't mean it to come across that way. There are people who suffer far, far more profoundly from depression than I ever have, sometimes for years on end. It's not like I've been dying or anything. I guess I just want people to know that depression is real, and to try to be forgiving and patient and empathetic with those who have it. I want people who think that they might be clinically depressed to get themselves checked out, and know that it doesn't mean you're a wimp (or a hypochondriac) because you go to a shrink or take meds or can't just "snap out of it." I want, someday, for it to be as acceptable to say to someone "I'm having a rough day with my depression" as it is to say "I think I'm coming down with a cold."
I also want other women who are predisposed to depression to know that weaning can trigger a depression. And I want you all to know that my "booby blues," weren't completely out of the blue, which was what I implied by omission, because I was chicken. And depressed.
But I'm not anymore.
(Welcome back!)
