Posts from — March 2009

I realize that I am really dragging out the telling of my story, and I do apologize.  I’ve found that it takes lots of emotional energy to find words that best describe my experience, so I have had to space out my posts.  If you’re just joining in, read Part 1, 2 and 3 first.  I’m going to try my best to finish this saga soon so that I have the energy to write about new topics.  Hang with me if you can!

I’m pretty sure the date is not correct on this photo.  I think this was taken soon after my first hospitalization (early November).

As I said in Part 3, the two week hospitalization for ECT’s was a blur in many ways due to the nature of the procedure.  However, I have never been able to forget the anxiety I felt when my husband came into the room as I lay in the bed to tell me that he had just gone and smoked crack, once again.  Yes, this had happened while I wasn’t hospitalized, but this time, the anxiety was more than I could handle.  He told me that I couldn’t tell anyone, because our child could end up being taken from us by the state since I was hospitalized and he was considered to be the sole caretaker.  I felt like my world was completely out of control and as soon as he left, I called my Mom, who was working at the hospital.  I informed her of what was going on, and she was able to calm me and convince the nurses to give me something to ease my nerves.

The reason I share these details here is to give you all an understanding of the factors surrounding my mental state.  I have always believed that  I may have never suffered from postpartum illness, had my circumstances been different.

Upon finishing Electroconvulsive Therapy, I was released from the hospital once again.  And, once again, my family was shocked at how confused and disoriented I was.  I couldn’t remember how to do simple things in the kitchen, like mixing up a batch of cookies.  My sister has video footage of me being instructed on how to mix up cookies, and I have still not watched it.  In many ways, I think I just don’t even want to remember how bad it all was.  Seeing it in action just seems too much for me.

After a few weeks of being home (late December to early January) my husband (okay, I’m going to stop referring to him as “my husband” b/c he isn’t anymore, and it just seems weird.  From now on, I will refer to him as  “D”) decided that it was time for us to move out of my parent’s home and so we began renting a place of our own.  During that time, I was able to function, but still very depressed.  It seemed that the ECT’s jolted me out of the vegetative depression, but I was still far from being myself.  My son (who was, by then, 4 months old) spent most of his time in a swing while I slept on the couch.  I never went anywhere or made any efforts to contact my friends.  I fed my baby and slept, for the most part.  My Mom checked on me regularly throughout the day because she was worried.  She, and the rest of my family knew that I was far from better.

One day, my Mom stopped by and told me that she had found a doctor in Chapel Hill who specialized in postpartum illnesses.  She had already scheduled an appointment for me to see him on March 6th.  At this point, we were still in the month of February, and things were not going very well with “D”.  He ended up checking into a drug rehab mid February, and Gage and I moved back in with my parents.

On March 6th, my Mom, Gage, and I took a trip up to Chapel Hill to see a man who will forever be my hero.  His name is Dr. Pedersen, and he spent about 30 minutes with me, and knew what changes needed to be made in my medications to bring me back to myself.  I began those changes according to his instructions immediately, and within a week, my entire family began to see changes in my behavior.  For months, I had been non-conversant.  I had made no effort to take part in conversations.  I began taking part in the conversations going on around me.  Everyone knew that things were changing.  After 2 weeks, I began feeling motivated to do things I had not done in months.  I went for walks and cleaned up the house.  I began taking pictures of my baby and enjoying every second I had with him.  It was as if I had awoken from a fog to find a precious baby ready for me to be his “mommy”.  When I visited “D”, he could see the changes, too.  We were all thrilled.  I felt human for the first time in 5 months and I began to feel confident things would be okay.

Fast forward 2 months…………………

By May, I was completely back to normal, and had begun working again as a waitress. “D” came home from rehab and we rented a nice apartment.  I remained on my medication and things went smoothly with my mental state, despite numerous ups and downs in D’s struggle with addiction.  My doctor advised me to remain on medication for a couple of years, and so I continued taking my meds and had regular appointments in Chapel Hill for him to continue monitoring me.

Life through a new lens.   July, 2000

Over the course of that next year, following my extraordinary recovery, I encountered numerous trials, including a divorce and custody procedures.  I ended up moving away from family to go back to college as a single mom and maintained straight A’s, all while trudging through a divorce and the eventual termination of my ex-husband’s parental rights.  Things were far from easy, but my mental state remained steady and consistent.

It didn’t take long for God to bring me an amazing man who soon became my husband (and Gage’s Daddy).  Three years after our marriage (and 6 years after Gage’s birth), we welcomed our second son into the world, and I encountered no postpartum issues.  We did, however take some precautions, at the advice of my brilliant Dr. in Chapel Hill.  I’ll share those precautions in the next post.  Stay tuned!

Sitting down and writing all of this out has been harder than I expected.  I really want to do it, though.  Especially after finding on my blog stats that numerous searches for “postpartum stories”, “postpartum psychosis”, etc. have landed people here.  If you are just joining me, you need to read part 1 and part 2 before proceeding any further.  I’m excited about continuing the story, because it is one that can give many of you out there much hope.  I promise, it ends very well.  But, to get you to the end, we’ll have to traverse some pretty rocky territory.

So, where did I leave you hanging?  If I recall correctly, I had awoken in a psych ward room after being forced to the floor and jabbed with a shot of something that knocked me out.

The next few days are a blur to me.  Here are the things that I can remember about my stay.  At some point that night, some of my personal belongings were brought to the hospital by either my husband or my Mom.  I remember being so glad to have a pair of socks because the room was freezing.  I was given a hospital gown to wear.  Lovely.  Because I was stopped from nursing my baby, a lactation consultant was brought in to familiarize me with a breast pump.  I was told to pump every 3 hours or so to keep my milk supply up.  The milk was instantly thrown away after each pumping session, though, because of the medications I was prescribed.  It was not easy for me to pour my breast milk down the drain, knowing that my baby was being cared for by someone else.

The first drug I was prescribed was Haldol (an anti-psychotic).  Haldol is known to cause muscle spasms in the neck and another drug called Cogentin is required to stop the muscle spasms.  In my whacked out state of mind, I believed that when I had the muscle spasms, the Holy Spirit was controlling my movements.  It turned out that I just needed more Cogentin. A good friend and I ( who was a part of my life during this nightmare) actually laugh about this now.

When I was first admitted to the hospital, I was diagnosed as bipolar, but once the doctor met with my family and discussed things further, he came to the conclusion that I was suffering from postpartum psychosis.  There had been absolutely no prior history of any mental condition in my past.  I had never even suffered from depression or anxiety, so all of this was a complete shock to everyone.

After being hospitalized for 2 weeks, I was released.  My family had no clue how hard things would end up being once I returned home.  I was in a complete fog because of the Haldol.  I was in no way able to care for our baby.  When released from the hospital, I was instructed to check in periodically with an outpatient facility, where a doctor would oversee my medication.  The first time I met with him, I begged him to decrease my Haldol dosage, because I was literally in a zombie-like state and wanted to be able to function.  He instantly cut my dosage in half, and we soon learned that outpatient care for mental illness through the system we were referred to was a joke.

I took a quick plunge into a severely depressed state once the drugs were altered.  I can best describe what I went through over the next couple of months as a vegetative depression.  I laid on the couch day after day while my baby was cared for by my family and neighbors.  It literally took all of the strength that I could muster to get in the shower and wash my hair.  My arms were so weak and it hurt to hold them over my head.

At some point during this time, my family found a different doctor in hopes that he would be able to help us.  Everyone was scared and desperate.  The baby developed colic and cried non-stop every afternoon, while I laid on the couch, doing absolutely nothing about any of it.  My Mom tried to make sure that I at least touched my baby, so she would bring him over to me and lay him on my chest or beside me on the couch.  I had absolutely no feeling.  I couldn’t cry or be angry.  I was just a shell and nothing was helping.

There were a lot of other dynamics at play in the situation, also.  I have written about this here, but my husband was struggling heavily with drug addiction, and during this time, when our life fell to pieces, he began crumbling, also.  I would wake up in the morning to realize he had been gone the entire night.  Later, he would come home and tell me that he had been out all night smoking crack.  I was so numb that I couldn’t even be angry or cry.  My parents asked him why, and his response was, “I don’t know.”

Sometime in mid-December (remember, Gage was born Sept. 29th, so this had been going on for almost 2 months), I came out of the room I was attempting to sleep in and started crying in absolute desperation to my Dad.  I couldn’t even sleep during this time because my mind raced constantly.  So, it’s not like I could sleep the time away.  It was torture, to say the least.  The doctor kept telling us to hold on a little longer. He kept saying that the new medication would start working soon.  That we just needed to give it more time.  After weeks, and weeks of hearing this, I felt that I could take it no longer.  We called the doctor and he recommended that they take me back to the psychiatric hospital as an in-patient to have Electoconvulsive Therapy (ECT’s).  We were desperate, and at that point, were willing to try anything.

I was quickly admitted into the hospital, and the therapy began right away.  They had to space the treatment out to every other day, so my stay ended up being 2 weeks, just as it was the first time.  The therapy caused me to be extremely disoriented and confused.  I slept a lot while I was there.  Much of the time during those 2 weeks is a blur, but there is one memory that I will never be able to forget.  However, I’ll have to share that, along with much more of this story, in a few days.  That’s all for now, folks…..

One of the things I enjoy most is uploading pictures off of my camera and finding the ones that just pop out at me.  I love the anticipation as they upload and then the feeling of satisfaction as I find one or two that capture something beautiful.

Today, I’ve spent most of my time in a chair due to a pinched sciatic nerve.  This seems to be an ongoing issue for me with baby #3, and I have to say it really is getting old quick.

But, I’m not going to think about that right now.  I’m going to enjoy sharing some of my favorite images with all of you.

I have found myself to be extremely irritable today, and I think I know why.  My 9 year old son has been stuck inside the house for 3 or 4 days straight now.  I’ve lost track at this point.  He’s facing the consequences of wasting LOTS and LOTS of time completing his school work, and he finally realized that he would prefer to get outside and actually have a life apart from us.  I love my kid, but space is desperately needed, especially when you have a kid as intense as our Gage.  In less than 30 minutes, my child will be outdoors, where he so desperately needs to be, and I CAN’T WAIT!!!!!!!

“People ask me if I have some kind of death wish, to keep saying the things I do. The answer is no: I would like to keep living. However, some things must be said, and there are times when silence becomes an accomplice to injustice.”

~Aayan Hirsi Ali, in “Infidel”

This brave woman’s story is one worth reading. I know, from experience with Muslim families (of which I dearly love), that there are different levels of devoutness to Islam. When reading this story, it cannot be assumed that all Muslim families practice the same customs.

With that in mind, go pick up a copy, read it, and tell me what you think.