Quettandil: Getting So Much Better (It Gets Better Part 3)

Parts 1 and 2.

I think I'd started towards scheduling my first postpartum therapy session already. So after a lowest point where, though I wasn't going to commit suicide, I still had a case of clear and definite suicidal thinking, I took the leap and told my therapist about it at my appointment, in early November 2017. My baby was born in late August, so I was just a little over two months postpartum.

You can love your baby with all your heart, feel intense gratitude, and still be depressed.

I agreed with her that it was time to try medication, that we don't earn brownie points for making things harder and more painful than they have to be.

I'd also already had postpartum checks and discussion with one particular amazing OB at my practice, I'll call her Dr. B. (She happened to be the first doctor, after we found out in the prenatal visits about my baby's rare and scary organ placement, who stopped and asked me how I was doing with all of it.)

So when my therapist talked about contacting my doctor to ask about a prescription, I gave her Dr. B's name. To my surprise, though it felt at the time like it took me forever to schedule that initial therapy session, and I'd put in the time and effort earlier to have that support network in place, after that things moved very quickly.

I got a call from Dr. B the next day, she put a prescription through to my pharmacy, I went and picked it up in the evening and started taking it first thing in the morning. Even though it was so quick, with all my depression history, my main reaction was one of relief and "Really, it's about time."

That said, it still wasn't an instant fix. To minimize side effects, Dr. B started me on a very low dose, a dose that is enough for some people, but certainly there would be zero surprise if we needed to raise it. (In fact, I believe the maximum dose is eight times higher.) Between that, the fact that it takes at least two weeks to feel the full effects, and that one of my major symptoms was mood swings, it was a nerve-wracking time of trying to evaluate my lowest moods and figure out if they were getting a little better or not.

I worked hard in the interim. I fully admitted to myself and others that I had PPD, I took my medication, I went to therapy, I took notes and filled out assessments to track how I was doing, I asked to try raising my dosage, I checked in with Dr. B, I asked for help and received so much support, from my husband and from others. I apologized to my oldest for losing my temper with her, explained it wasn't her fault, made it through the holidays and Christmas.

Reflections.

Somewhere around January 2018 I decided to purchase one of Michael Hyatt's Full Focus Planners, and I made one of my goals to reach a stable medication dosage. All of my goals were geared towards that end, starting with early bedtime and rising habit goals, and one to plan out my days in advance, things I'd discovered seemed to help my brain.

A couple months after I started on medication, several things came together, I reached a good dosage for me and it came into full effect, and then I had my therapy appointment and realized that I'd actually been doing fairly well that week, considering. It had still been a hard week -- I'd been stuck inside with sick kids for several days in a row, never good. But I made it.

Later I scored nice and low on the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale when I saw Dr. B, and after a while my last episode of passive suicidal ideation was nice and distant, and I celebrated.

As my first time on an antidepressant the contrast was stark. I felt... maybe even better than I've ever felt before, at first. It was a heady mix of fierce victory with the fear... not exactly that it could come back at any time, I was pretty certain fairly early on that I was definitely better, but... still, what if it did? What if, even at my best, I wasn't good enough to manage? And either way there was the nervousness of living something new and unfamiliar, even though I fully acknowledged it was VASTLY preferable to the depression that had become familiar.

I kept taking my medication and kept going to therapy and working through issues, one by one, and I still felt so, so much better, and was so grateful for that. All of a sudden I realized how bad it had gotten, and that maybe it wasn't "just" bad mood swings, that there had been so, so much almost constant struggle. The weight and the anxiety were real, and now they had lifted and I could breathe.