I'm so, so sorry. I had an incredibly traumatic experience with my first child. Coupled with PPD, it's almost impossible to imagine that it will ever be better - but it will, I promise.
Pieces of wisdom that helped me along the way:
- You can feel multiple things at once. You can be grateful and in love with your child, and incredibly sad about his birth. Those emotions are unrelated, and you don't have to feel guilty for feeling multiple things at once. Anyone who implies that you should "just be glad you have a healthy baby" has no idea what you've been through. A healthy baby is a miracle, and your experience was traumatic. Not related, and they don't need to be.
- Grieving and processing is spiral-shaped - imagine the event and emotions surrounding it as a straight line going out from the inside to the outside. When you start, you're at the center of the spiral, and so you have to pass that point over and over in short succession. As you move along the spiral, though, the time gets longer and longer between the times that you experience the emotion - although you shouldn't be surprised to experience it sometimes.
- If anyone gives you a hard time about Wellbutrin, tell them to shove it. You know what you need and what works for you (for me it's Zoloft, which I restarted yesterday).
I am wishing you peace and thinking of you often, Mama. Please PM me if you ever want to
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