Thursday, August 29, 2013

Hi there

Hi there. You can call me Red. I am 27, the mother of a 5-month-old girl, and I have been diagnosed with postpartum depression. I was diagnosed around 8 weeks after my daughter, who I will refer to as Raspberry, was born. It's taken me this long to get my shit together and start blogging about it. 

I am medicated and doing pretty well at the moment. As long as I remember to take my meds, I don't have any issues, so I feel pretty lucky about that. I am, however, angry yet that PPD had to happen to me. PPD stole the early days of my child's life from me. I kept her alive, thank goodness, but it's a blur of anxiety, exhaustion, sadness, fear and guilt, when it should have been a time of great joy in my life. I should have been bonding with my baby and instead I felt like I was losing my mind. 

This is something I wrote while I was waiting for my medication to begin working. 

I have a healthy, beautiful child who loves me and gives me her smiles and giggles I have a home, and a loving partner, two cats and a dog. I may not have much of a job right now, but I have the skills to get one when I can.  I have friends and family who love and care about me.  so why do i feel like this?

My goal with this blog is to connect moms and families affected by postpartum depression. I want you to know you are not alone, because that was how I felt for a long time, despite the fact that I have friends and family who love me.

I can be reached at redppdtbh@gmail.com. If you feel alone, you can e-mail me. I will soon have it set up so I will get notifications when someone emails me. I am not a counselor, psychiatrist or psychologist. I am just a mom who wants you to know you're not the only one going through this.