It started as postpartum depression, now it's just depression. I guess I should have known when I came home with the twins that things weren't quite like the last time I had come home from the hospital. Landon's health issues had me on edge. He was just so tiny, and those leads that kept him attached to the monitor kept me worrying about him. He and Juliana adapted well to life at home. The kind sisters in our ward set up a schedule to come over and help me during the first week, and it was such a relief. It wasn't really about them doing anything, like cleaning or organizing. I was just about having someone there, someone to talk to. Later my parents came into town and my mom stayed for 2 more weeks to help out. She was trying to help, I know, but I was still on edge and everything seemed to get on my nerves.
After she left we settled into a routine and I had to start getting ready to go back to work in just a few weeks, but I knew things weren't going very well. I was managing ok, but the nights were killing me. Andrew and I tried different strategies: getting up at the same time so we could go back to sleep sooner, taking turns getting up with the kids, having one of us stay late and take the midnight shift while the other went to bed early and took the early morning shift,but we were both still exhausted. I could barely get through the day and then I dreaded the nights. I lost count of the times I yelled at Andrew and I texted him the words "I can't do this anymore."
Finally, when the twins were about 5 months old, I realized I needed help. It's funny, when I had talked about it with my doctor, right after the birth, I was completely on board; if I started struggling, I would call him and ask for help, but when the time came, I couldn't. I felt like my anger was justified somehow. I felt like Andrew wasn't doing enough (he was), and Amber was always getting in the way (she wasn't) and the babies never slept (they did, of course). I also felt like I needed to put up a front and act like things were fine. I slowly realized how stupid that was. I opened up to my friends, who had been having some of the same struggles, and I called the doctor's office. And life has sort of gone back to normal, a less anxious, more muted, more peaceful normal.
I think one of the hardest things about this has been accepting depression, and especially medication, as the new normal. At the beginning, I thought I just needed what my doctor called a "boost" and and after a few months I'd be done, fine. I've tried weaning myself of the antidepressants twice, but after a week or two, I feel that irrational anger and irritability coming back.
The thing is, I am my father's daughter. I'm stoic, optimistic, a "suck it up and keep going" type of person most of the time. And even though I have been taking medication for physical ailments for more than 25 years, taking antidepressants sometimes still makes me feel like I'm weak, like I can't deal with life without some kind of crutch. But I'm also my mother's daughter, and my grandparents' grandchild, and I can't ignore their history of depression, now that it's a part of my own life, too.
