A Bad Cycle

When I talk about things that seemed overwhelming to me at the time, I realize how incredibly silly I sound and immediately follow it up by, “It doesn’t sound like a big deal now, but it was for me at the time”.

I have the sense to know that these events/things aren’t a big deal when I think about them AFTER they’ve happened, but not so much while they’re happening. They really are a big deal to me emotionally and it often translates to a physical response.

Today I cried for the first time since Sunday. Now this is really big for me—no tears in almost 5 days! I thought maybe I was getting better, but I think having my mom here and the pressure off really helps me to relax (which is a good thing) but when I’m back by myself again I start to feel overwhelmed, anxious and tense again. Bummer.

Today started off well. We had fun playing, baby girl being her silly and lovable self. Really, she makes me laugh so much. She is so funny. I think she is just the prettiest baby ever, but I am biased. I just love her. She’s going to be so full of herself with all of the times I’m constantly telling her how pretty, cute, and funny she is. haha

And then nap time came along. I don’t have a set time for naps but I go by her tired signs and it’s usually right around the same time every day, 9:30 or 10:00. Sometimes she doesn’t want me to rock her, which makes me sad because I love to rock her to sleep when she will actually go to sleep without a fight, but that’s beside the point. When this happens, I put her in her crib with her pacifiers and little security blanket and she eventually settles herself down and goes to sleep.

For whatever reason, putting her in her crib when she is awake makes me incredibly anxious. She might whine a bit sometimes, but often she just sits in there and plays with her security blanket. Many times, she throws all of her pacifiers and her security blanket out of the crib—which means there’s no way she will go to sleep until I give them back to her. If she cries, I go up there right away and try to rock her again and often the entire process starts back over. We often go through this 3X.

So we went through this for quite a while. And maybe it’s not a big deal, but it was to me. It completely drains me. And today, she refused her nap altogether which I know that she needs because she routinely will sleep for over an hour in the morning. Babies need sleep for brain development.

So I ended up feeding her a bottle and then her lunch. She threw her sippy cup on the floor for the 100th time and the top popped off and water went everywhere. She was fussy, probably because she was tired.

I clean everything up and then notice that I think she might have a dirty diaper. So I picked her up to smell her to be sure and in that split second, she grabbed my Valentine’s Day flowers off of the table, vase and flowers falling on the floor, water going everywhere and onto everything. She did have a dirty diaper, by the way.

And that was it. I just started crying. Of course, there are always a million thoughts going through my head. I don’t like to cry in front of the baby—she’s not doing anything wrong, she’s just an innocent little baby. I, however, do not know how to get it together and handle the things that moms should know how to handle with stride.

Hubby called and was able to stop at home for lunch. I asked him if he could pick something up and he didn’t argue at all. When he walked in the door, I started crying again. It was a relief to see him, if even for a short lunch break. My poor husband has to deal with a mess of a wife!

And when I told him about why I was feeling overwhelmed, I found myself following it up with “It doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it was for me at the time”. It really didn’t sound like a big deal. But he told me this is why I’m getting help and it’s all a part of postpartum depression.

I don’t feel like anyone understands how I feel when I talk about these things that feel so overwhelming. I think it’s because for most people these things are not overwhelming because they shouldn’t be overwhelming. I am always a little bit taken aback when I explain something that happens that I feel completely overwhelmed about and the response is “yep, that’s gonna happen”. And I realize they’re right, but I don’t know how to get to the place where I can just brush everything off and roll with it.

I used to be a pretty strong person who wasn’t easily phased by things. I rolled with the punches pretty well. I used to get annoyed with people who dwelled on problems because I didn’t feel like there was any reason to. I was the type of person who believed in finding solutions and taking care of business. Where in the world did that person go? I feel like a different person sometimes—I guess this is what postpartum depression does.

I still have a hard time accepting that I have postpartum depression and that it’s not just something that I am doing wrong or that I just don’t know how to be a mother. I am really struggling with that and I know that I need to come to terms with it. Good grief, a doctor diagnosed me with it—I should probably accept it.

I should probably also admit that after all of this I baked some chocolate chip cookies and I ate three little ones. Purely just because I wanted to feel better. And I know food isn’t the answer.

I seem to have a cycle: stressful event (even if it’s not that big of a deal to most people), feeling overwhelmed/anxious/stressed, emotional eating, self hatred and feeling stressed again. This is a really, really bad cycle.

But anyways, this is how I’m feeling. I feel better for writing about it, talking about it, analyzing how I’m feeling, etc.

I was so hoping to be fixed and I thought maybe I was—I guess I will just continue to be patient as it’s only been a week.