We Are Failing New Parents
As with everything else, we have culturally acceptable standards for pain and suffering. You’re allowed to grieve a relationship ending, but only for one and a half times the length of that relationship. You’re allowed to share about your trauma, but only during the one awareness week of the year where people have agreed to listen to it. With postpartum depression, you’re allowed to struggle during the newborn phase. Struggle beyond that and you are just whining. After this phase, babies are typically smiling, cuddling, learning to laugh, and expressing their tiny personality in a thousand different ways. You are supposed to love this child and be fulfilled in a way only other parents can understand. Well let me tell you - my postpartum depression most definitely did not understand this assignment because at almost a year postpartum it is still very much present.
At five months postpartum, I shared an essay entitled “A Letter to My Postpartum Depression.” This essay detailed my struggle with PPD, suicidal ideation, and a deep and all encompassing hatred towards myself, my child, and motherhood. When I shared that essay, it was met with praise and admiration. I was congratulated for my bravery and honesty. While blunt and moderately eyebrow raising, my essay was palatable. It was relatable and understandable because of course, in the early days of motherhood, you struggle. Of course, as you are getting to know the worst roommate you have ever and will ever have, you hit low points. Publishing this essay marked the beginning of what I saw as my healed period. It said, “I am better. I am whole.” To the outside world, it said, “I will only go up from here.”
The postpartum period, or fourth trimester, is typically defined as the first six to eight weeks immediately following birth. My first and only scheduled follow-up with my provider was at six weeks postpartum. At this appointment, the incision from my c-section was checked and I was asked a litany of questions about the baby and his health. Within fifteen minutes, I was sent out to my car, which at this point I had already considered driving into a brick wall or off a bridge. I was allowed to drive home to an apartment filled with the pills I had held in my hand and considered downing. While this appointment closed out my fourth trimester, my postpartum depression was still very much in control of my life. Now at almost a year postpartum, my psychiatrist has diagnosed me with just “regular” major depressive disorder and PTSD, but it is impossible to ignore what my depression was so clearly triggered by - a pregnancy that rattled the preexisting chemical imbalance in my brain and dissociated myself from my own personhood and identity.
My postpartum depression, who I refer to as a middle school bully named Karen, has changed faces over the last few months. It was so subtle that I almost didn’t recognize that she was still here. I am no longer crying inconsolably over seemingly small things. I am able to care for my child, fulfilling not only his needs but his wants. I am able to smile and laugh with him. But while I sit looking at my objectively adorable, raspberry-blowing child, I often cannot move past the feeling of wanting to die. I am finally able to look at my child and say, “I love you,” but I also crawl into bed at night not caring if I wake up. I love my family more than I can put into words, but I am struck by an apathy so deep that more often than I want to admit, I can’t bring myself to care if I ever see my child or partner again. Yes, I have gone up, but I always go back down.
Let’s be honest. People are more comfortable hearing about postpartum depression in the early days of parenthood when parents are in the throes of adjusting to life with a newborn. Family and friends are able to provide sympathy for the physical and mental exhaustion, all while promising that better days are ahead - singing the constant, reassuring refrain that soon this experience will be nothing more than a distant whisper of a memory and will be outweighed by how loving and adorable your child is. However, once parents reach the culturally agreed upon “better days,” understanding and support is harder to come by.
We have organized the struggles of parenthood into two categories - struggles that are acceptable to speak openly about and will be met with sympathy, and struggles that are unacceptable because they make people uncomfortable:
Acceptable
Sleep deprivation
Teething
Finding childcare
Diaper blowouts
Pacifier weaning
Toddler tantrums
Unacceptable
Antidepressant dose adjusting
Suicidal ideation
Apathy towards your child
Psychiatric care
Inability to care for yourself/your child
Disinterest in parenting
I have shared my struggles from both of these categories throughout my newfound parenthood but over the last few months, I have felt a change. I haven’t received the same type of sympathy and support that I was given during the newborn days. In conversations, it is as if I see an open door but when I go to walk through it, the door is actually bolted shut and I am knocked backwards. Have I hit the threshold for sympathy? Have my unacceptable struggles too far outweighed my acceptable struggles on the scale by which society judges new parents?
“I can’t sleep because I am fixated on the thought that if I could just fall asleep, maybe I wouldn’t wake up. And guess what - that thought is comforting to me.”
“But look at how cute he is! He knows you’re his mommy and he loves you!”
“I am switching antidepressants because Prozac isn’t working. I’m starting Cymbalta tomorrow.”
“But it’s tomorrow. Why aren’t you better?”
“He didn’t nap at all today. He threw food at me during all of his meals. He didn’t want to play with any of his toys. I hate this. I don’t want this life.”
“Being a mom is so hard! But look at you - you’re killing it! Go sit down and have a glass of wine. He’s asleep. It’s fine.”
These struggles aren’t unique to my parenting journey. They aren’t even unique to becoming a new mom during a pandemic. They have always been here for new parents. But have we always been willing to acknowledge them and provide adequate support and resources? The need for support, understanding, and resources above all else is only going to become more important as we move forward in a world that is still dominated by the pandemic. Pre-COVID, the percentage of moms with depression and anxiety was 15%. According to The Motherhood Center in New York City, as of April 2021 this number had risen to 72%. I am part of that 72%.
My guess is that parts of this essay have made you viscerally uncomfortable. You are probably about to quickly like this post before continuing to scroll. But before you do that, pause. Sit in your discomfort. Take a breath and consider these questions. How are you supporting the new parents in your life? How are you showing up for and loving the people in your life who are struggling with their mental health, especially as our lives are still dominated by a pandemic? How are you contributing to a culture that delineates what struggles are acceptable, palatable, and deserving of sympathy? As you answer these questions, commit to being a better support system for new parents from here on out. But know that while you will go up from here, you will also go down. And that’s okay.
Resources
"We Are Living Through A Maternal Mental Health Crisis" | The Cut
Edited by Rae Fagin