February 2019

Okay, it’s time that postpartum anxiety is talked about. In fact, it’s way overdue, but better late than never.

First of all, it isn’t even really a thing. Which is absurd. There’s no test for it, no evaluations for it. We kind of have to be aware of it and self-diagnose it to then even know to reach out for support.

Postpartum psychosis is fairly easy to diagnose – yes, I’m having thoughts of hurting my baby and there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind: that’s not normal.

Then there’s postpartum depression – no, I have no enjoyment in anything, I feel hopeless, I’ve withdrawn from family and friends. But that is sometimes hard – because, after you’ve had a baby, of course there are times you feel hopeless. Will I ever sleep again? Will I ever stop bleeding? Will she ever stop crying? Of course you don’t enjoy anything – you don’t DO anything other than feed, change diapers, soothe. And of course you’ve withdrawn from family and friends- there’s no TIME to connect or maintain relationships. Consequently, I think too many people get told “Yep – totally normal, it’ll get easier as she gets older!” (Which IS true, but it’s only helpful if what the person is experiencing is typical and not pathological. Also, don’t get me started on the lack of postpartum care – both physical and mental, and how there is ONE screening for PPD at your ONE postpartum physical.)

And then postpartum anxiety – a whole other ball game. Postpartum anxiety gets normalized. It’s also a really fine line, because it is NORMAL to be anxious as a new parent – but there’s no method for rating/qualifying just how intense the anxiety is, and just where normal ends and pathological begins. Do you have constant worry? Of course you do. You’re a new mom. Moms worry about everything. Do you worry something bad is going to happen? Of course. You’re responsible for this tiny human.

You see?

When you have (undiagnosed) postpartum anxiety (and/or OCD – I’ll lump them together per my own experience), it goes multiple steps further.

People talk about giving birth and kind of laugh it off – “Yup, gooooood times,” they joke. Oh. So it must be normal that I can’t stop replaying my horrific labor experience in my mind, that I can’t stop thinking about all those days in pain, that my body still feels it happening, that I know I will never in my entire life not recall every awful moment of it.

“Oh yes, I definitely obsessed over how much my baby was eating!” they say. Well, I check and recheck that her bottles are filled with EXACTLY 4oz of my pumped milk – not a speck over or under. Is that normal too? She eats every 3 hours, so I tell day care that they need to feed her at 9:05 exactly, and then 12:05 exactly. Um…that’s also normal….right?

“Yep, the days can definitely be long,” they say. So is it normal that I burst into tears every Friday afternoon because I’m afraid of how we are going to get through the weekend, just us in our house? It’s better at day care, she’s happier at day care, every other baby is happy at home….something is wrong with me.

Others joke about how complicated it can be to get a baby out of the house. I agree. That’s why I never, ever take her anywhere other than to and from day care and to and from my parents’ house. It’s just too much. The world is too unsafe and it’s better to just stay in our own little bubble. Right?

Some mothers talk about making sure their babies are warm enough. Oh, good. So it must be normal to open the hourly weather forecast every five seconds and then wonder if I should put her in a long-sleeved shirt with an undershirt underneath or a long-sleeved shirt with a sweater over it. What if one way she’s too hot or one way she’s too cold? What if it ends up being 70 degrees in the day care room instead of 71? What about when she sleeps at night? What if the temperature in her room rises from 72 to 73? Will she overheat?

They talk about making sure their babies are safe in their cribs. You wonder if that means it’s “normal” to reach over to feel your newborn’s chest and make sure it’s rising and falling, multiple times every night, to the point where it interferes with your own limited sleep. You wonder about the times you wake up gasping, frantically searching the sheets, because you know you fell asleep nursing her and now she’s going to be dead in the sheets – but then you reach over and she’s actually in her bassinet, because of course you put her back, you always do. And by the time your breath slows and the sweat dries, she needs to nurse again and it starts all over.

You wonder about how you can never nap while she naps because you just know that if you aren’t awake listening to the monitor and watching her breathe, she will die, and it will be your fault. I’ll just check one more time. Just one more time. Just. one. more. time.

But every parent worries, right?

—

Look, I had a physically hard pregnancy, a unimaginably hard labor and delivery, and an even more long, awful recovery. I had panic, anxiety, and OCD prior to pregnancy – it’s no wonder I developed it all postpartum also. But the point is, it’s so often a fine line. It’s easy to question the normalcy of our thoughts and behaviors, even if we are primed for it and are expecting it. We second-guess ourselves. I was primed for it and I didn’t even realize what it was.

And not nearly enough focus is placed on the mental health of postpartum mothers. And I’m not just talking when they’re infants – this can take hold and not go away, even into toddlerhood. Trust me.

I will always be an anxious mother. It’s in my wiring. I have my moments, but overall right now, at least for now, I’m not pathologically anxious or obsessive, and I am very aware of that line. I just am who I am, and who I am translates into parenthood. I am working on caring about the things I care about, and standing firm behind my beliefs as long as they are rooted in a healthy place, which nowadays, they are (even if other parents raise their children in different ways or have different beliefs – but that’s a post for another day).

But this – motherhood, postpartum experiences, labor, delivery, parenting, relationships after having a baby – it really needs to be talked about, so so much more. Better out than in, better to know than not know, better to have people to relate to than to feel alone, better to heal collectively than suffer silently.

(Seems that’s the case for everything, am I right?)

I would say about 99% of my panic (today) is caused by worrying that I might have a panic attack.

This is not uncommon.

People with anxiety and panic typically have a lot of panic about panic, almost as if it’s a PTSD response.

My heart skips a beat, because sometimes hearts skip beats, and that triggers a thought: Ohmygod. What was that? Was that panic? AM I GOING TO HAVE ANOTHER PANIC ATTACK? What do I do if that happens?! And THAT makes me anxious, so my heart races faster, which solidifies my belief that it is indeed a panic attack, and before I know it it’s a full attack all because of a stupid trigger. Not because of anything even legitimate! (Not that panic is legitimate – but you know what I mean.)

There are people I have had panic attacks in front of before – even a full decade ago – and I still get anxious when I am with them. Not because of THEM, but because deep in my brain, there is still an association there. Every time I go to Whole Foods I get on the verge of a panic attack because that happened one time last summer. Today I wore a sweater that I once wore during a panic attack and that brief memory put me on edge.

It’s annoying and exhausting.

But I think it’s important in distinguishing that difference between a true isolated panic attack and one that’s really just a traumatic response because panic attacks are freaking traumatic. For me at least it helps me understand that it’s my brain responding in faulty, stuck ways (just like with PTSD) and not because I am designed to panic in response to everything. I don’t know – it makes sense to me.

It also motivates me to find ways to break that faulty cycle.

Exercise is a huge one. There’s a lot of research that says that exercise helps panic and anxiety but I didn’t care about that until I understood why. And a big reason (aside from that the neurotransmitters that get released and bind to receptors, causing calming the same way medication would) is because your brain makes new associations. You learn to associate a pounding heart and sweating palms with the feeling of a good workout, instead of panic that’s going to leave you vomiting and passed out on the ground. And it works, for sure. Following an immensely panic-filled summer and fall, I made it a priority to make sure I got even 15 minutes of a good workout multiple times a week, and I saw a difference when I did.

Sometimes I face the panic head on. I know it’s likely to happen, given where I’m going or who I’m going to be with, and I do things to counteract it. Holding onto my cold water bottle is grounding. I choose where I sit and ensure I have an exit. I rub my oils on my wrists before I enter that situation. I remind myself that I can just get up and leave if I need to and it doesn’t matter what people think. (Although as an aside, having people know about my panic is immensely helpful because then the fear of what they would think is eliminated). I try to do something to get my heart moving before a potentially hard situation, even if it’s just walking up a flight of stairs or three jumping jacks.

I try ,and lately I’ve been succeeding. Sometimes I don’t, and I hate when I don’t, but that’s the journey, right? Also, sometimes when I get annoyed about it, I remember myself from 3, 5, 10 years ago and I am comforted by how much more I understand now, how much more control I’m in now. So while my brain can sometimes take hold and spin me out of control, the magnitude and frequency is negligible compared to what it used to be – and that, my friends, is freaking wonderful.

Month

Postpartum anxiety

Another panicky post