Mother’s Little Helper

What a drag it is getting old
“kids are different today,”
I hear ev’ry mother say
Mother needs something today to calm her down
And though she’s not really ill
There’s a little yellow pill
She goes running for the shelter of a mother’s little helper
And it helps her on her way, gets her through her busy day

I have always loved this song by the Rolling Stones – even before I became a mom.  The tune is catchy, Mick Jagger’s vocals rock on it, and I thought it was a funny commentary on modern mothers.   I used to joke that I would probably be popping a Xanax and drinking a glass of wine just to deal with my kids.

Then I became a mom.  And for the last eighteen months, I have been dealing with postpartum depression.  I ignored it for the first eight months.  I chalked it up to exhaustion, stress, not working out.  I didn’t want to utter the word depression, as I felt that made me a bad mom.  A bad employee.  A bad partner.  I was embarrassed that I couldn’t be strong and work through it.  I was  embarrassed that I  needed help, and that I was always on the verge of seriously losing my shit.   I felt like a failure.  In a way, still do.

I have struggled with depression for over twenty years.  Although in the early years, I was told to just get over it.  Snap out of it, weak people let their emotions bring them down.  In retrospect, not the best pieces of advice for a teen who is depressed.  Finally, after I started having panic attacks when I was 23, I approached my doctor and she called my demons out.  I was depressed.  I found the initial diagnosis hard to swallow (along with the meds she prescribed).  Depression equals crazy – at lease that is the unspoken stigma.  I didn’t feel crazy, just completely overwhelmed.  She suggested I go speak with someone.  I maybe lasted three sessions.  I felt like a whiny cry baby, and I felt vulnerable having someone know my thoughts.  I am very good at keeping my drama buried in the abyss.  I use humor to cope, I didn’t want some stranger trying to psycho-analyze my every word.

For the next ten years, I dabbled in prescribed depression meds my doctors at the time felt I should be on.  I’d be on meds for a couple of months, feel good and stop them for a year or two, and then start the vicious cycle again.  From Ambian to Zoloft – I have run through the alphabet.  Some made me too wired to sleep, some made me gain weight, but all made me even more depressed after a length of time.  I hated having to take a pill to make me happier.    I felt it should be natural, after all, I had a good life.   I numbed my pain through shopping, alcohol, and men.  I was always trying to outrun that horrible void, the emptiness that always seemed to come back and engulf me.

When I became pregnant, I felt like I had never felt before – a true happiness that stemmed from my very core.  Didn’t hurt that I had all of the amazing pregnancy hormones surging through my body – times two.  I was so happy, I know I utterly glowed every now and then.   After giving birth, I existed in a sleepless brain fog for a few weeks.  Snapping out of it, I was overwhelmed and had episodes of blueness creep in.   I attributed it to everything but postpartum.   Besides, I didn’t have the right to be depressed, I had two babies who needed me.  What kind of mother was I?  Sadder by the day, and now a working full-time mom, I struggled with keeping my emotions at bay.  I would freak out if the dishwasher wasn’t loaded right (by my extreme standards).  However, I knew I needed help when I went into the food store trying to pick an argument with anyone and everyone.  What the hell was wrong with me?  I was trying to pick a fight with a rabbi over him jumping ahead of me in the deli line.   Since the birth of my daughters, I had been avoiding the reality that I was depressed.   I finally went to speak with someone at the Postpartum Center in Bryn Mawr.  I only went to one session.  She couldn’t write a script for me for medication, and I felt I didn’t have the money or time to sit and talk with a very nice woman about my downward spiral.   Give me all the non-medicinal coping skills you have, but I need something a bit stronger than focused breathing and meditation.  I needed medication. 

I contacted my ob-gyn (I kind of feel they got me in this mess by inducing me and therefore ending my nine month high) and they prescribed Prozac.  Great.  The drug that spawned books and songs.  Well, all it did was make me too wired to sleep.  So then they wrote a script for some Ambian.  Ugh.  My night stand looked like a pharmacy.  It seemed to help a bit though.  I wasn’t picking fights with anyone except my fiance, so the general public was temporarily spared.   But the insomnia and anxiety that the Prozac caused started to take a toll on me.  So I stopped it.  Within a week, I was a woman on the ledge.  I couldn’t deal with seemingly anything.  I struggled to get out of bed every morning, to shower, to have enthusiasm to do my job.  The only highlight of my day was the short time spent with my girls.  Even that started to feel like too much.

After a long weekend with my fiance gone most of it, I got close to rock bottom.  I had to go out on a Sunday night to get diapers from Target.  As I was driving and hating the world, I saw a sign for the turnpike.  For a minute I seriously contemplated how much money I had in my bank account and where could I go to escape for a day.   Guilt got the best of me (my babies really did need diapers) and I proceeded on to Target.  

I was really bothered by that episode.  Surely it was crazy thinking to want to run away from it all.  I finally confessed to a friend who has a daughter six months younger than my girls.  She said she felt the same way, and that she was taking meds for depression.  I was happy to know one of my best friends was as crazy as me.  The next day I went to a play date, and all five of the moms there were on depression meds.  I was the lone idiot struggling on my own.  As I become friends with more moms, I am always surprised at how many are on antidepressants.  I suddenly don’t feel so alone, so crazy, and so overwhelmed.  To a degree, we’re all in the same boat.   Whether or not a pill is needed, we’re struggling to be the best we can be, with so many hats to wear.

I finally made an appointment to see a doctor and I am going next week.  Hopefully he’ll have a magic pill that takes away my headaches, my anxiety, and my insomnia.  If it is makes me thin and blond, that would be even better.

This has been my most difficult blog posting to write, since it is about something I am ashamed of.   I debated writing about the way I was feeling for months.  Even though depression seems to be a common affliction, no one talks about it.   I hesitate to publish it, because then my Achille’s heel is out there for the world to judge me on.  However, I do know I am not alone, and that this doesn’t make me a bad person.  I am a good mom who occasionally swears too much.  I am a good friend who is loyal and compassionate.  I am a faithful partner and dedicated employee.  I know my strengths and am finally beginning to accept my weaknesses.  I look forward to the day when I feel like my old self, and I know it’s right around the corner.

Doctor please, some more of these
Outside the door, she took four more
What a drag it is getting old

Tags: Ambian, antidepressants, depression, mother's little helper, postpartum, Prozac, Xanax