New Month, New Pain

Postpartum Depression sucks. Depression sucks. I don’t know how else to put it, but it literally sucks the life out of you to the point where many days, I am both mentally and physically numb. As last week came to an end and I was recovering from a pretty awful couple weeks, I found myself dreading planning Boogie’s 1st birthday party. Not that I didn’t want to celebrate her birthday and amazing little life, but because I couldn’t bare the thought of having to be around and entertain a large group of people. The hard thing, it was all immediate family and close friends. That’s what depression does to you. It affects you in such a way, that you can’t even stand the thought of being around those closest to you. I kept pushing myself through and told myself, that I needed to relish in the moment of my little girl’s party and why we were throwing a party, to celebrate her precious life. While everyone was celebrating Boogie, I was secretly celebrating something else: my life.

What many don’t realize, even though I have talked about my struggle with PPD, I have never really talked about how bad it has been. There have been many moments over the last 7 months that I have suffered from PPD that I didn’t think I could make it or would make it. There were many nights I didn’t want to make it. That I would think to myself that if I went to bed and never woke up, that it would be okay. Everyone would be okay without me. Fighting those thoughts were so hard. There is nothing harder than having your husband hold you so tight, while you cry so hard, and have him tell you to fight it because he knows, this too shall past. He could see the light at the end of the tunnel when I couldn’t. I’ve slowly come to realize that those thoughts are from the depression. They are the lies that satan likes to whisper in my ear on an almost daily basis.

Not only has depression filled my head with a bunch of nonsense junk and has kept me from enjoying this life God has truly blessed me with but it’s clouded me from realizing that depression has not only hurt me, but has hurt those closest to me. While I have been the one suffering from PPD, I have not been the only one suffering in pain. Depression doesn’t just affect you, it affects those around you and closest to you. To find out that someone I love so much has been fighting their own battle and chose to hide it from me, hurts. It hurts a lot. It’s a new kind of pain I have never felt before and I wish I didn’t have to feel it at all. I wish they could come to me and tell me about their hurts and hang ups. Instead, no one wants to add more to my plate. Which I can respect because they understand I have a lot I am going through and trying to get through, but now I feel even less wanted or needed. And that right there, is the vicious cycle of depression. It makes my blood boil to have this illness rob me from me being there for those I love.

This evening in the shower, I cried and I prayed. Hard. I cried because of my pain, I cried for their pain, I cried because I am happy to feel this pain (as weird as that sounds) and I cried because I know even in our pain and suffering, God is right there with us. I know I am not alone in this and although there is pain to be sorted through, it is nothing that God can’t carry us through.

And it brings me back to Boogie’s 1st birthday party. Postpartum Depression has robbed me of so much and has caused me so much pain, but through it all, I am still alive. I am breathing. I got to be there for my Boogie’s 1st birthday. I can see the light at the end of this dark tunnel. And for that, I am thankful.