Gross.
It was the word I used to describe the feeling I got sometimes when breastfeeding. I was most aware of the sensation late at night, or was it early in the morning? When all was quiet and it felt like I was the only person awake in the world. A slight tingling would wash over me, followed by the feeling of… gross. And then, as fast as it came, it was gone.
I couldn’t describe it any better than that to the doctor I had started seeing at the Royal Columbian Hospital’s Reproductive Mental Health unit in New Westminster. But she listened to me patiently and suggested that what I had been feeling wasn’t at all just in my head but a documented syndrome called D-MER (Dysphoric Milk Ejection Reflex). It’s a phenomenon I had never heard about before, or since. As I sat there listening to her explanation, suddenly very aware of my circumstances, I thought — how did it come to this?
After having my first child, the baby blues crept in and never left me. At first, I kept clinging onto the notion that they would eventually subside. Except I never really started feeling better. Finally, after two months of being paralyzed by obsessive thoughts, I called the Pacific Postpartum Support Society. Maybe that’s why I had held onto the pamphlet given to me at the hospital. Because while no one expects PPD to happen to them, maybe there was a tiny thought at the back of my mind that it could happen. And it did.
I had never called a helpline before so didn’t know what to expect. But the person who picked up put me at ease and finally put a word to what I was experiencing: anxiety. I would later be diagnosed with postpartum depression, something that often went hand in hand with anxiety, because as my counsellor explained, “Having anxiety is depressing, isn’t it?” Finally, I was talking to people who understood what I was going through — even though I was still trying to make sense of it all myself. Well-meaning family members and friends would share their own motherhood struggles with me but I never got the sense that they quite knew what I was feeling.
The person I talked to on the phone that day ended up being my support group leader. I had waited a month for a spot to open up near where I lived, and now that the evening of my first session was here, I didn’t want to go. The last thing I wanted to do at that point was listen to how depressed other mothers were. But I forced myself to go, as I forced myself to do everything else that came afterward to help myself get better.
It was a little depressing at first. It hurt to put into words what I had been feeling. I was unsure if I had anything of value to offer to the group. But slowly over the course of several months, I started to smile again as we commiserated over our shared experiences. The smiles finally turned into laughter when it was revealed that I was not yet on medication, “You’re not?! You’re doing so well. We thought you were already on medication for sure!” said the women around me, laughing as they disclosed that they currently all were.
At the same time, I started looking for a counsellor who could help me make sense of what was happening. Not knowing where to begin, I googled counsellors in my area because venturing out farther seemed like an impossible feat. I knew it wasn’t going to work out with the first counsellor when, after hearing my predicament, she gave me a sad look and said, “Oh dear…” If she couldn’t help me, how could I help myself? At the time, it really felt hopeless and I feared that I would have to accept my motherhood experience was destined to be one of misery. Needless to say, after two sessions I decided I had to find help elsewhere.
Eventually, I started seeing a counsellor who specialized in women’s issues, which included postpartum depression and everything that comes with it. She instantly put me at ease with the thought she put into analyzing each of my anxieties. Like the support group, I was new to therapy. How would I know it was working? When the sobbing through whole sessions lessened into crying intermittently, which then led to getting through a session without crying at all, I knew I was finally on the path to recovery.
I recently had a second child, and throughout the pregnancy I thought about the possibility of going through this all again. It made me nervous but it also made me vigilant. I made sure my supports were in place by checking in with the people who had gone through this with me the first time around. I was comforted by the fact that this time, it would be different because I could look out for the warning signs and not dismiss them as “just” the baby blues. Everything that I’ve learned about postpartum depression and anxiety has empowered me to share my knowledge with other women so that they know they are not alone and will get better.