Chapter 17
Delight at the End of the Tunnel: Emerging with a New Sense of Self
In This Chapter
Examining the progress you’ve made
Handling your life and the activities in it
Moving on while taking the experience with you
Near the beginning of this book I promise you that there will be a time when you’ll be done with your postpartum depression (PPD) and will finally see that proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. If you’ve followed most or all of the suggested guidelines throughout this book and have persevered through a treatment plan, not only are you alive and breathing, but you’re probably doing very well. You’re probably fully on the road to being even better than ever before.
PPD isn’t an easy road to travel (to say the least!), but you hardly had a choice in the matter. It’s the same kind of choice as that of a woman in active labor who turns to her doctor and birth team and nonchalantly says, “I’ve decided not to go through with this after all. I’ve changed my mind and I’m going home.” So, if you’ve made it through all the obstacles and have done what was necessary, you need to take a breather and congratulate yourself. But, don’t forget to also shore up any loose ends and make sure that your forward progress continues.
Just like getting through your PPD is primarily your responsibility, the responsibility for creating your post-PPD world the way you want it rests mainly on you. That’s not to say that you can’t still ask for help at this stage (you should) or that every moment will be wonderful. But having been through the ringer, you still need to stay aware of your progress, your environment, and any challenges or obstacles that come your way.
To that end, this chapter takes a look back at some of what you’ve endured (if you’re at this stage of recovery), and it also focuses on the here and now as well as the coming days. By spending some time thinking about where you’ve been, where you are now, and where you’re headed, you’re far more likely to avoid any setbacks or regressions. In fact, you may instead find yourself in a better place than you would have once thought possible.
Looking Back: Build Yourself Up, Buttercup
Just in case you haven’t had the time to notice just how good you’re feeling, it might be useful to review a little bit of what you’ve been through and how you came through it. Although the tendency to push the unpleasant memories into the past is completely understandable, it’s really not a good idea. You don’t want to simply lock up those memories and throw away the key. By seeing and honoring the past, it becomes possible both to fully understand it — to see the puzzle pieces and put them together — and to fully take advantage of it. You don’t have to like what happened, but by acknowledging that it did happen and accepting how it happened, you put yourself in a much stronger place to go forward. Similarly, there’s a great deal of value to be had in acknowledging what you’ve been through and where you are now.
Remembering the past: The healing gift that lasts
The best way to become grateful and joyous for where you are now is to remember where you were back when it wasn’t great. Remembering the past, however, does not mean focusing on and reliving all the negative details — it simply means to generally and briefly review how you used to think, and then quickly come back to the present and revel in the difference of how you think today. Just allow yourself to review your past perspective about your self, your life, and the illness you were pushing through. Sometimes you simply leaf through a journal (don’t immerse yourself in it — just pick a paragraph or two every few pages) or speak to a loved a one who reminds you of your successful journey. But the majority of your time is in celebrating now and marking this time as the triumph that it is.
Those who try to push their past PPD into a dark closet and shut the door on it forever. Many women, having made it most or all of the way through their PPD, simply want to forget that it ever happened to them. For these women, the attitude is “It’s over and it’s done. I never want to think about it again. I’m moving on.” (Interestingly, these are the same women who tend to end therapy too early and cut off support systems before they really need to or should.)
Those who make it through the full recovery plan and who are willing to fully remember, embrace, and learn from the past. I urge you to join this second group. If you try to push your memories down, they’ll likely pop right back up when you least expect it.
Based on my own personal experience, and on the experience of hundreds of my clients, I can assure you that you want to remember what you endured in your bout with PPD. Consider just a few reasons why:
It reminds you how strong you are.
It helps you continue the healthy steps you started in your recovery, such as sleeping, good nutrition, and taking breaks.
It awakens you to what helped shape who you are today (as all important experiences do). In order to benefit from the PPD and find some meaning in it — and take all you learned with you into the future — you need to remember what happened.
If you’re clear about what happened to you, and what you did to face the intense adversity that dominated your life, you’ll not only be more able to enjoy the fruits of your labor (pun intended), but you’ll also emerge stronger and more able to enjoy the silver linings that now cover your life. As you face the past, you may find that you gain an even deeper level of understanding, strength, gratitude, and self-compassion. You’re probably better at taking care of yourself than you were before. You’re probably more able to let go of little things and let them roll off your back. You’ve probably grown an extra antenna, a heightened sensitivity that enables you to recognize when another woman is depressed, even if no one else can tell. Some women at this point report a sense of “waking up,” as if they’ve come out of a dream or a coma.
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Consider German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s famous quote: “In life’s school of wards, that which does not kill me makes me stronger.” It’s true that you’re stronger for having recovered from PPD, and if you allow yourself to remember how exactly you recovered, you’ll be able to take maximum advantage of all your experiences as you move forward in your life.
Congratulating yourself for pressing on the journey of healing
Take some time to pat yourself on the back. It was a long, hard road — one that sometimes seemed impossibly difficult. It took your strength, your courage, and your ability to keep believing in yourself. It also took willingness on your part to discard old beliefs and myths about motherhood and to ignore or brush aside the unkind and uninformed judgments of others. Despite the many challenges that you faced, you were able to push through them, putting one foot in front of the other. You did what it took, and look where it got you — to a much better place than you thought possible.
Understanding the need to celebrate your triumph
In order to recover, you probably had to let go of numerous habits and tendencies that weren’t healthy. For instance, if you were too hard on yourself, you had to learn to be kinder in your self-talk. If you held double standards about certain things (“It’s okay if almost everyone else is out of shape, but, regardless of my PPD, it’s not okay that I’m out of shape.), you had to let go of those as well. If you and your partner had an unhealthy arrangement with respect to splitting chores and household tasks, you’ve probably already worked it out. And, hopefully, you’ve learned to say “no” to people when you mean it and to ask for help when you need it.
Because you already find yourself extremely grateful to have made it most or all of the way through the PPD tunnel, you may think that a special emphasis on celebration is unnecessary. Just as survivors of other traumatic events or life-threatening illnesses are wholly changed and have an ever-present sense of gratitude, some women who come through PPD never again take for granted a good day with their babies. Even so, you should still find the time to cheer for yourself, and let your accomplishment really sink in.
You may even want to take this to the next level and throw a little post-PPD celebration party with your partner, family, and friends. You don’t have to make it a big deal with dozens of people, balloons, and a three-tiered cake (unless you want to), but instead, have an intimate gathering with those who supported you and those who can help you affirm your strength, courage, and newfound wisdom. Rites of passage are important and should be acknowledged.
Meditating on your progress
You’ve arranged some free time in a relaxed setting, so now you can take this short mental and emotional voyage. Feel your body as it rests against the chair, couch, bed, or floor. Once you are ready, relaxed, and comfortable, take a deep breath, let it out with a sigh, and if possible, allow yourself to become even more comfortable.
Now allow your mind to drift back to when you first knew you were going to be a mother. Picture yourself remembering the feelings, whatever they were, that you had then. Now fast-forward to when you first held your baby, and then see yourself at home with your baby. Watch yourself experience that, like you’re watching a movie on a screen. Were you already depressed or anxious, did it sneak up on you, or did it hit later all at once?
Allow yourself to watch this screen and scan the struggles you had — with your baby, your partner, family members, friends, or with yourself. Remember how difficult it was, especially when you knew very little or perhaps nothing about PPD.
Picture yourself in the middle of the depression and give that woman lots of compassion. Let her know that it will be okay and that she will recover. If tears are ready to come, allow the release. These are healing tears. If you have no tears, that’s fine too.
Now, shift gears and fast-forward through all the positive changes that you initiated as you followed the advice in this book and worked through your situation. Consider, for example, your health and other habits and how, over time, you changed them for the better. Maybe your communication skills have improved — perhaps you’re able to ask for help — and this left you in a better place with your supports, and best of all, with yourself.
At first, you may have thought that PPD was your fault or that it was a weakness. But now you know the truth — and not just intellectually, but down to your core. You now know that you didn’t cause your PPD. With your newfound perspective, affirm in your deepest heart of hearts that you did not bring PPD on yourself, and that you have no need to hold onto any guilt or shame. You may have had certain traits — such as preexisting tendencies toward depression or perfectionism — that made things more difficult for you, but those weren’t your fault either. You’re completely blameless in what happened to you.
You took on your PPD and triumphed over it. With help, you did what it took to create and implement a recovery plan, and now you rightfully and deservedly should feel good about yourself. Allow yourself to celebrate exactly who you are, just the way you are, right this very instant. You did it! Yes, there’s still more work to be done, and yes, you may still have some challenges, but you did it! Congratulations!
Completing and “anchoring in” the healing process
You may be so relieved, grateful, and happy that you’re feeling better — a lot better — that you tend to forget that there’s more healing to be done and more work ahead of you. You may still run across some dips, whether physically, emotionally, or otherwise. As is detailed later in this chapter, not only have you been given the opportunity to heal yourself vis-à-vis your PPD, but a silver lining may also be peeking through at this point: You have the opportunity to recreate yourself and put yourself back together even better than you were in the first place. It often takes hitting a crisis before healthful and necessary changes are finally made.
Some women rely on affirmations to keep themselves motivated, as I discuss in Chapter 20. Feel free to come up with an affirmation that works for you — and give it some rhythm to help you remember it. After you choose an appropriately uplifting affirmation, remember to say it to yourself (with purpose and meaning) a couple of times a day, ideally upon awakening and going to sleep. Your subconscious mind takes seriously what you say to yourself consciously.
Continuing with therapy and support groups (online or in the real world) is another useful possibility for some women. You’ve been through a really difficult time, so don’t be too quick to cut off the support mechanisms that really made a difference to you. Slow and steady wins that race here, and if you happen to dip, you’ll be glad that you still have some of your support mechanisms in place.
If and when you joined your first support group, there may have been one or two women who were then where you are now — well on their way to health. It probably felt great to have them there to give you hope. What you may not have realized is that you were giving them a gift as well. Part of recovery is seeing how far you’ve come. There’s nothing like being the one in the group who’s now saying to the newcomers, “I felt just like you do when I first started. Hang in there. You’ll get through it.” You’ll derive great satisfaction and therapeutic benefit from doing this for others.
A mommy’s miracle, from yours truly
As the president of Postpartum Support International, I attended the annual conference during the process of writing this book. My term was up, and I passed the torch to the incoming president. My daughter’s graduation from college was scheduled for the very next morning, so I flew all night to arrive a few hours before she crossed the stage. Elana’s birth and my subsequent postpartum illness had launched the beginning of my new career and mission in life. I had completed the journey, and I experienced a poetic feeling that I’m still having a hard time putting into words. From depressed special education teacher to president of our international organization to a mother watching her baby — the one who suffered through my PPD — graduate with honors. This girl was one who, due to my untreated PPD and inability to even give her eye contact, developed an attachment disorder that led to life-threatening self-destructive activities and no desire to go to college, which in turn almost led to the failing of high school. With great strength she pulled herself together, physically and emotionally, and did what she had to do to survive and finally feel good about herself.
As I watched her at the ceremony, both of us glowing with joy, an unexplainable miracle occurred. My mind filled with visions of tenderly holding my newborn daughter, gazing at her with tremendous love, bonding with her like normal mommies do — something I had never experienced, until that moment. I welled up with tears, realizing that I was finally getting to experience what I thought was a long-lost opportunity!
I’m here to tell you that it’s never too late. My baby girl finally knows her mommy loves her, and I’m feeling closer to her than I ever thought possible. We’ve been enjoying this newfound relationship for a few years now, but that graduation ceremony was my private miracle. I’m writing this book to help you from the very beginning, so you and your child can be spared what Elana and I went through. There’s always hope. Never, ever give up.
Taking Back the Reigns
You’ve probably already found that you’ve begun to feel more and more like your old self, and your activity level has probably picked up quite a bit. Still, it’s important that you take a moderate pace after you take back the reigns and regain full control over the direction of your life. After all, you did go through an ordeal, and some of its aftereffects (including, perhaps, a wee bit of self-doubt) may potentially be lingering. Just take it one step at a time and you’ll be surprised or even delighted at just how well you’re able to handle things that not long ago would have overwhelmed you.
There are good, solid ways to move forward as you take back your life (and adjust to the new parts about having a baby), and I offer them to you in the following sections.
Setting realistic goals
An important task that you want to undertake as you feel better and better is setting goals for yourself. When you set goals, you give yourself something to shoot for, and as you feel good about achieving your goals, you gain even more energy and feel even better about yourself, which enables you to set and achieve additional goals.
Luckily, you have an accurate built-in feedback device — your body. If you’re attempting to do too much, your body will quickly let you know, and you may find yourself dipping in mood. A better plan is to try and protect yourself from getting to this point. Instead, scale back your ambitious goals from the start. You can break down projects into manageable chunks, which allows you to feel good if you get to one or two of them.
Similarly, you can look at the calendar and say to yourself “Even though I’d love to attend all three of the local events I’ve been invited to — the baby shower, the neighbor’s birthday party, and the community barbeque — it’s probably not a good idea to commit to all three.” Pick one, or maybe two of them, and that’s it.
Making decisions again
As you feel better, you’ll find that there are so many types of decisions that you’re now ready and able to make — decisions that may have once overwhelmed you. As part of your healing process, you were probably deferring a great deal of the decision making in your life to your partner, if you have one, or to the other professionals or support people who you were relying on. In addition, at the beginning of this book, I specifically suggested that you not make any major life decisions (for example moving, marrying, or returning to your old job outside the house).
Depression can make any kind of decision extremely difficult, so as you’re feeling better and better, take back the decision-making reigns on everything from small decisions to large ones (no need to get controlling, though!). In some cases you’ll be the sole decision maker, just like you once were, and in others you’ll return to the status of co-decision maker with your partner. And as you fully recover, you may just find yourself taking over the decision making in areas that you once had no interest in or were excluded from. You can continue to make changes and renegotiate these as well. In any case, you can enjoy the fact that you’re once again an active participant in the many decisions that are part and parcel of your life.
If you haven’t already done so, start with everyday decisions that you may have let go of. Now that you’re mostly or completely through the PPD tunnel and into the light, it probably won’t prove very difficult for you to decide what’s for dinner, if you want to join your co-workers for an evening out, or whether to schedule an appointment. If you can, decide to take some pleasure in the sheer fact that you’re once again making decisions.
Ultimately, there aren’t any mistakes, just opportunities for further learning. Take, for example, the decision about using a pacifier with your baby. Well, there are as many opinions about this issue as there are “experts,” and no one knows what the “right” answer is for your family. So, the best you can do is review the information that you have, make your decision, and see how things go.
Taking over tasks
One type of decision you want to make is whether or not you’re ready to take over household chores and day-to-day tasks. Presumably you and your partner reached an understanding about your previously diminished capacities, thereby letting you out of some or all of the ongoing chores necessary to keep life going, such as cooking, shopping, cleaning, laundry, yard work, childcare, bill paying, and so on. Perhaps your partner took over most of this, or perhaps you received other outside assistance. Now that you’re feeling better, it’s time to get reacquainted with the day-to-day tasks of your daily life.
Some of the changes you’ll want to keep, such as having your partner continue to be fully involved with taking care of the baby. (It would be sad for all of you if your recovery meant that the baby and his daddy didn’t spend as much time together.) This example is another silver lining — and there are tons more. What began as a necessity due to a crisis, you and your partner may want to keep as your new, healthy way. On this note, be sensitive to your partner, because he may suddenly feel as if he’s being pushed aside as the recovered you emerges. Even though he’ll undoubtedly feel relief on some level and happiness for you, he can also start feeling useless or unappreciated because of all he’s been doing and is no longer overseeing. Of course, don’t assume that completely taking over the house or baby care is what he wants. The point is, as you recover, you can redo your expectations not only for yourself but also for your partnership and family.
Feeling Like Yourself . . . Or Even Better
You’re probably wondering how you know if you’re all the way back to your old self when, in reality, you’re now a new self with a new child? Most of what you’ll feel is the familiar “you” before pregnancy. You’ll recognize her — she’s the one you’ve been missing. Of course, the exact moment that you’re back — if there is an exact moment — will be different for every woman. And then you have the adjustment to new motherhood on top — that’s the new part that you’ll be incorporating into your life and that will take time.
Whenever you notice those moments that your old self is back, take time out to congratulate yourself (see the section “Congratulating yourself for pressing on the journey of healing” earlier in the chapter for tips). And while you’re at it, take a quick inventory of the ways in which you’re not only back to who you were, but perhaps are even a bit better than you were before. For example:
Maybe you didn’t have good communication about certain issues with your partner during your marriage and when the PPD first overtook you, but the PPD forced you to communicate with him and work things out.
Maybe you weren’t good at saying no to people in general or at asking for help. Or maybe you weren’t particularly good at setting realistic goals and not being hard on yourself when you didn’t reach them all. If any of these were the case for you, in order to emerge on the other side of that dark tunnel, you probably uncovered existing strengths and developed new ones entirely.
When you emerge from PPD, you may be aware that other moms, those who didn’t go through PPD, seem a bit ahead of you regarding knowledge about everyday baby things. This is normal, so don’t worry — you’ll catch up quickly. You see, they jumped right into new motherhood and started adapting to their new role, doing the normal new mom things earlier than you did. It’s not a judgment, just a fact. Now you’ll be learning and feeling what the other moms have been doing for a while now. If you haven’t already, now it would be appropriate, if you so desire, to join a regular new mother’s group.