Six weeks after the birth of my second baby, I was diagnosed with postpartum depression. Even now, after having recovered to a large extent, I can’t think about it without feeling sad and overwhelmed. One of the earliest things that I remember is feeling anxious, and not the low-key ‘I-can-set-it-aside-if-I-want-to’ anxiety but the kind that feels like someone has thrust a large knife deep into your gut and periodically decides to twist it.
Towards the end of the fourth week this crippling anxiety turned into feelings of hopelessness. I would look at my beautiful baby waiting for the feelings of joy and happiness to surround me but they wouldn’t come and this in turn would lead to feelings of guilt. Maybe I didn’t deserve my bundle of joy, I thought. How awful a mother must I be, I thought, to feel no joy on seeing my baby? And on the days that I didn’t feel sad or hopeless, I felt rage — like I had never known before.
Like a pendulum, I got caught between these two extremes and each day became an exhausting exercise in trying to exist. One day when my husband came back from work, he found me sitting on the floor weeping. He picked me up and said, ‘I think we need some help.’ And he called Phuphee.
