Postpartum Depression

[causticthings]

Hi all,

I'm currently struggling with Postpartum Depression following the birth of my first child and have been for six months now.

I've been tried on a number of different medications; had ECT (Electroconvulsive Therapy) and talking therapies but nothing seems to be shifting this black cloud that's hanging around my head.

I feel that people expect me to be "better" and no matter how hard I try or what I try, it just seems to remain.

Has anyone suffered with this and do you have any advice on how to overcome this or even get by? I'm getting to the point where I'm losing hope of it going away and feel devastated that it's causing me difficulties on spending time with my beautiful daughter.

It sounds like you have mental health support in place so I hope that you have the opportunity to keep trying more treatment options in case something helps. There are a lot of medications out there. There are several types of talking therapies. And there are many, many possible combinations of these. So frustrating of course when you see no effect, but don't give up.

But possibly it's just a question of time. Unfortunately that time might be a bit longer than you and others expect. I had a depression once (not postpartum though) that took about two years to lift and I'm not sure what made it lift in the end. It just did at some point. So be hopeful that some day, you will just realise that things are better.

In the meantime, I wonder how you can block out these expectations that you "should" be better by now, because that's untrue and unhelpful. If this were cancer, no-one would be thinking like that, including you. Maybe if you re-conceptualise this as though it were a physical illness, it would make you see things a different way.

I'm really sorry this has happened to you. It's very unfair that you don't get to enjoy this time. Unfortunately it's like this for now but it is going to get better.