PPD or just regular D?

[BabyOsMommy]

Is depression after having a baby automatically labelled PPD? I ask because I've struggled since my early teens with depression, eating disorders and anxiety. I'm well for a while and then I slide and the cycle continues. I've been on a variety of antidepressants, but off them completely for 5years. Life has been good, but I go through periods of happy and then sad, but the sad is nothing like it was before I was married. When I'm pregnant or have a newborn I seem to be okay, because everything is kind of on hold and about taking care of me and the baby. But once babe starts to get older and a routine is established I start to get a little crazy. Everything that I struggled with comes back and seems magnified 10fold. Does that even make sense?

I have a public health nurse coming next week to talk about my emotions and resources in the community. Somehow I need to figure out what to tell her, because I don't know right now whether it's even post partum depression or just life. I feel like if I admit out loud that it's post partum depression, or even just depression I'll lose it entirely.

Btw, I took the quiz in the sticky at the top of this forum several times, it was 70 one day and 38 a few days later... so I guess I'm just .

Do I even have a question? Cause I'm not even sure what I'm asking for here...

[MsMoMpls]

I'm not sure it really matters. If you have dangerous depression- thoughts of hurting yourself or your child, you need help right now. I have never seen PPD that didn't have a sense of being a bad mom, feeling like a failure as a mother or fleeting thougths of hurting the baby. Your risk of PPD is higher if you have had depression in the past. I think it just has a bit of a different "flavor" and treatment might be different but not really much.

[salado]

I've heard that if you are more depressed than "normal" anytime up to 12 months postpartum, it is considered to be PPD.Anytime after that, just plain old D.I'm sorry you're going through this and hope you get some peace.

[BabyOsMommy]

That's what I thought. To clarify, I have no thoughts about hurting my kids. I just feel so lost and useless right now. Some days I think I'll figure it out, others I feel like it'll be like this forever, but I really don't want to hurt myself either.

[Ruby Pearl]

Having struggled with depression does put you at a higher risk of suffering with PPD, but this is not something to be afraid of, it is something to be aware of and to make your DH and other family members aware of so that they will see it if you don't. Just be honest with the nurse so that she can help you ind resources in case you need them. Preparation does not breed inevitability. MY PPD felt different from my normal depressive episodes. It felt deeper and more debilitating and I recognized it as different. It was not "triggered" by anything, it was just there. If you know how your normal depression feels and what triggers it than you can watch out for these triggers to determine if they are not present when you feel depressed. I would highly suggest keeping a journal to help you. Write beautiful moments in it too so that these can serve as "reminders" when you are low and may help bring you back up. I prepared myself this time and have managed to avoid PPD.

[Jish]

I would recommend printing out the quiz after you take it and let the nurse see it. If you do it on two different days and you get two different scores, that is fine, it will give her an idea of where you are coming from.

My depression didn't start until my ds2 was almost a year. It took another year for me to get a correct diagnosis so my diagnosis was clinical depression. I asked my psychiatrist whether it was ppd or clinical depression and he said that it really didn't matter, that's just sort of semantics. If your depression onset is late in the baby's first year or later, many doctors will just call it clinical depression. The technical diagnosis often depends on who diagnosis you. One dr might call it PPD and another call it clinical depression, but both of them might treat it the same. All in all, I wouldn't worry about the label. In the later part of babies first year that can be so many factors that contribute to depression. It can still be the hormonal shifts, but often by that time the sleep deprivation from months upon months of lost sleep can become so severe that it can set it off (as was my case.)

Depression can manifest in so many different ways -- that goes for PPD also. It may be the sad and overwhelmed feelings that we often think of when someone mentions ppd, but it can also come through in severe anxiety, rage, or social phobia. Mine was anxiety about my health. I was sure that I was dying of something. I was happy in my life and I knew that I was a good mother (not everyone may feel like a failure as a mother) but I was just sure that all these physical symptoms (I later found out that they were symptoms of panic and anxiety) were symptoms of heart problems and that I was going to die. Sadly, I saw my doctor over and over begging for help and she ignored me for months and months. I think that the one common thread that weaves all the different ways it can express is the feeling that something is out of control -- it may be your anger, your life in general, your emotions, or in my case, my health.

Let us know how your appointment goes and hopefully you will see things looking up soon.

[laurata]

You might look into type 2 bipolar disorder. It's characterized my "cyclical" mood changes- up for a while, then down, then up, with some periods of "normal."

[Ruby Pearl]

my sister is bipolar

[Jish]

How are you doing, BabyO?

[BabyOsMommy]

Sorry it took me so long to come back here... sometimes I just don't want to even think about it, yk?

I've had good days and bad days. The public health nurse came in and had me take a 15question quiz and basically said, "Yep, you've got ppd". Then my ds#1 was talking to me, and basically being 2 trying to get my attention and she just flat out told him to go play because Mommy was busy and he could play with me after she left. I was a little put off by her telling my child what to do in my home, but really couldn't say anything because I was flabbergasted at the whole situation. She was supposed to be getting me in touch with a Healthy Babies Program where a home visitor comes once a week for 8 weeks to help me find community resources and figure out how to parent my 2year old better. I haven't heard back from her, and I'm not sure I'm upset about that. I acknowledge that I need help with my 2 year old, especially on my down days, so that wasn't her idea, exactly.

I get how to be a mommy to a baby, that's pretty easy, you just meet whatever need you have as best as you can. It's the headstrong 2year old stuff that leaves me bewildered, frustrated and crying because I'm either too harsh or getting walked all over. Or he's at me for something while the baby is screaming, and I end up being way to short with him (sometimes I'm yelling ). And he's a really good natured toddler. I'm terrified if I don't get myself together I'll crush his little spirit.

Phew, that was long. I started journelling when I can find 10minutes of quiet time, and am trying to cut myself some slack, which is so not easy. It's starting to help me organize all the thoughts swirling in my head a bit. There is just so much that I want figured out that I'm taking on way too much at a time when really most of it will work itself out if I'd just be patient. I was on quite a few antidepressants as a teen and early 20's and I'm not willing to go that route again. The resources for counselling in this area are horrible, so I'm not going there right now.

I have a lot of work to do to get myself out of this, and today I'm not so optimistic about it. I've had days where I feel like supermom... then it comes to a crashing halt and I feel like crap. We've all had colds here this week, which hasn't helped my mood.

Thanks for asking about me... sorry for rambling.

[Ruby Pearl]

I've been battling my way through a bout of depression right now and am finding it difficult to cope with my kids too. It's not PPd for me this time, just life. Too much to deal with all at once. I get tired of everyone telling me to take medication for it though, since I don't really feel medication is going to help me feel good about the things that are happening. i hope some of this is making sense since I am a little out of it right now. I just want to let you know you are not alone.

[EmmaJo'sMom]

I highly reccomend reading The Mother Dance: How Children Change Your Life by Harriet Lerner.

It's not neccessarily about depression, but it sure made me feel a lot better about being a mom.

I've struggled wit depression forever. For as much as I've tried to figure it all out, I have no answers. Sometimes drugs help. Zoloft was magic for me, but of course I don't take it now because I'm nursing. St. John's Wort helps, 5-htp does too. I'm just not good at taking anything every day. Plus, what works for one person doesn't work for everyone. Diet helped me a lot. Sometimes it can all stem from something simple like a food alergy.

Depression is truly Hell on Earth and I'm sorry to my fellow sufferers. What gets me through most often is knowing that my family loves me and I'd rather live through hell than hurt any of them.

Good luck.

~Amy