Postpartum Depression vs Postpartum Psychosis; 1, 2, 3, 4, – I declare… War?

Are We Battling for Our Place; Our Voice?

In my longstanding pursuit of wanting to not only have a voice myself, but to enable others to have a voice in similar circumstances as well, it seems we have (and by “we” I mean ‘me’) inadvertently stepped on some toes. It’s often difficult to be heard unless you shout in this busy world of everyone talking over everyone else. 

So generally I still start out by saying in an ever so low voice, “excuse me, would you be so kind”. Then I work up to “pardon me, I have something to say and I would appreciate some of your time”. (Now this may happen a couple times) To eventually “Excuse Me! I Have Something I Am Going To Say And I Will Be Heard”! *Sigh*

Stormy Outside My Home Today. Our First Nor’Easter Of the Year.

Honestly, it never feels good to get to the point of the proverbial finger shaking (even in my own mind as I type). But what’s a gal to go? I mean these are important issues. 

Bridging the gap from the tragedies, to the happy endings of where we find ourselves at the mercy of Postpartum Mood Disorders. They strip us of our ability to function at the most basic level. They can take away our sense of reasoning and our ability to rationalize. It attacks our brain; what we rely on to tell us something isn’t right. If our brain is telling us  the water isn’t hot and we get in it and our brain doesn’t register it as pain, we get burned. 

So as I have stated previously, I have been wanting to narrow the gap between what I feel is all the women running blogs and speaking on websites about how they “survived” Postpartum Depression or Postpartum Psychosis or any Postpartum Affliction. I think it is more than wonderful that all those women are reaching out and talking. I want to hear from all the “other” women as well. Not only the women who committed infanticide or attempted suicide. But their families of suicide survivors. Also as one women on another site recently commented –

“Are we ready yet to talk about the abusive acts we have committed while suffering from postpartum depression and psychosis? I’m sure I am not alone in this. My kids and I have been through a lot of good therapy and healing. It was hell at the time. We worked very hard to heal. It was frightening and it continues to be scary to talk about; but I, for one, want to. Anyone else? Any why talk about it? Healing. Healing and forgiveness and moving on.”

I say yes to that. Yes! I want these women to come forward and to have a voice. Just as she said, because it’s healing. It’s about healing and forgiveness and moving on. 

This isn’t to “out” anyone who isn’t ready. My God is took me over 13 years to feel ready and that whole time I was looking for someone to start talking and asking, reaching out. Telling me they wanted to hear from me. Finally after a culmination of many, many things over the last year, (including but not limited to) my realizing I have no anonymity in this day and age. Not with technology and people making up whatever they want and claiming it’s the truth. So here I am, being my own voice and advocating for yours.

I love how far we have come so far in just recognizing Postpartum Mood Disorders. We can’t stop. I was chatting with Teresa Twomey the other day, specifically about this topic. I was referencing how the numbers for infanticide/suicide may be only at 5%, (and in the minority as someone pointed out) but that number gets much larger for the attempted suicides/infanticides or as the mother above pointed out “abusive acts”. These are not things any of us are proud of. But to pretend as though they didn’t happen does an injustice to all of us. How are we going to help all of those who have experienced this or will experience this if we don’t talk about it? 

I know I knew Nothing in 1999. Now I know so much more than I would have ever thought possible. I’m not going to be the person who doesn’t speak up because it’s uncomfortable to talk about and when tragedy strikes, know I could have said something. I don’t want that next mother, that next family saying; oh my god… we just didn’t know what could happen.

Do any of you want that? I certainly don’t.