26 | Brittany - 4 Births, Vaginal & C-Section Deliveries, Placenta Accreta, Hysterectomy, PPD

Yeah, and were you able to kind of clock that because you have had different postpartum experiences before? Like, I know you said some anxiety was present in the past, but was this just an overall different feeling with the depression that you were able to notice, and were you able to either get some medication or talk to somebody for help with that?

Yes.

So I realized pretty quickly, like, this doesn't feel like, um, the postpartum anxiety, which is j- really hard.

Like, I don't think a lot of people talk about postpartum anxiety, but the, the difference in just how I...

It didn't affect my bond as much, because I think with, like, breastfeeding and stuff, I just was...

Our bond was great.

Um, everything else was just so hard, and the things that play over and over again in my head, and, like, I'm so scared to leave the room, because what if I, like, leave and, like, I come back and he's not okay.

I reached out to my doctor pretty quickly and was like, "I need to be medicated.

Like, I do not feel okay." Um, I started meds pretty quickly after that, so I think he got me in within, like, the week.

Um-

Great

... 100%, like, if you don't feel normal in your body after birth, which everybody always says, like, "Oh, it's just like the postpartum blues." Half the time it's just really bad depression, and everybody's just brushing it off as it's not bad.

Um, but, like, the thoughts that you feel at 2:00 AM by yourself, those are the ones that should judge which one, where you go, and I tell everybody, like, definitely just...

You, you don't have to stay on it forever.

But, like, it makes it so much easier to, like, exist if you go ahead and take meds for depression.

Like, it's really bad.

Um-

Yeah, absolutely.

I know the stigma is changing a little bit around mental health in general, but like you said, if you are having dark thoughts or having this, like, uncontrollable anxiety, you don't deserve to feel like that, and you have to take care of yourself before you're even able to take care of a baby, so there's nothing wrong with reaching out and, and asking for help in that situation.

And I think so many people are like, I know a lot of my own friends are like, "No," like, "It'll, it'll be fine." Like, "It's not that bad.

I'm not, like, raging," or, like, "I'm not, like, thinking of doing anything bad." And I was like, "Yeah, okay," uh, which is good, because that's also...

If you're thinking of doing bad things, that's psychosis, not depression.

And, like, it also changes how you bond and, like, how things go, and, like, one of my closest friends was like, "I don't want to take meds because I don't want to be stuck on them." And I was like, "Okay.

Do you want to remember your baby being a baby?" And she was like, "Yeah." And I was like, "Great.

I don't," because I was in, like, a constant phase of, like, just existing and, like, just trying to get through, that, like, so many chunks of my second and third, like, their babyhood was so blocked off that I, like...