Sharing Your Voice: Welcome PPD Survivor Devon

This weeks Postpartum Depression Survivor Devon from Who Am I. I met Devon on Twitter on Lauren’s #ppdchat and enjoy her honesty, openness and sense of humor. She is a wonderfully caring mama and love reading her blog. She has such a vibrant energy and a huge heart. Her son is adorable and her blog is full of all sorts of beautiful photos. Devon describes herself as fairly crunchy and embraces Green Living. And she recently did something amazing in the name of cancer that I am not so sure I would have the guts to do…you have to go check it out! I am in awe of her courage 🙂

Devon also suffers from Postpartum Anxiety and is working hard to overcome both PPD and PPA. After you finish reading her Postpartum Depression story here, head on over to her blog and get to know her better. I am so honored to share her story with you here at The Nut House.

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I have PPD. Postpartum Depression. And PPA. Postpartum Anxiety.

There. I said it. It’s out in the open now. I need it to be out in the open because I need somewhere to write about it, an outlet. And that outlet is here.

I’ve been on medication for anxiety and depression since before I got pregnant. I stayed on it throughout my pregnancy and 4 months after Pierce was born I expressed to my doctor that I didn’t feel normal. She asked me what, specifically, I was feeling and I told her. She tripled my medication and lately I’ve actually started to feel a lot better. Just last night I was thinking to myself that I haven’t had a bad day in a long time and maybe I’m ready to start weaning myself down to a more regular dose of my meds.

But today I had a bad day. It started out well, but went downhill when Pierce only napped for an hour instead of two this afternoon. This boy needs a lot of sleep and when he doesn’t get it, it makes him cranky. He wouldn’t go back down, and I thought he would, so after I got him calmed down, I went to bed myself, only to be woken up not much after I went to bed. He was whiney and I was exhausted, which is a bad mixture for me.

Thank God I had already planned meals for this week or else I don’t think I would’ve had the energy to make dinner. But luckily the chicken was already defrosted in the kitchen sink and all I had to do was cut up a few carrots, cut off a few pieces of cauliflower and stick the chicken in the oven. I had planned to make rice as well, but that didn’t happen. And I’m okay with that. After dinner my husband bathed Pierce so that I could chill on the couch for a minute and then I put him to bed. I am so glad that he’s in bed now, and that doesn’t make me a bad mom, it makes me normal. I will be going to bed way early tonight.

This is not such a big surprise for those of you who follow me on Twitter since I have been participating in #ppdchat every Monday afternoon and evening for a while now. It has actually been VERY helpful and I would encourage anyone who even has the slightest inkling that they may have a postpartum mood disorder to join in Mondays at 1:00pm & 8:30pm EST. It was started by @unxpctdblessing who is freaking awesome.

So, there you go. I have PPD & PPA and I am no longer ashamed of it. I can talk about it. That’s some pretty damn sweet progress if you don’t mind me saying so!

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If you are a Postpartum Depression Survivor, and wish to share your story, you can find all the details at The Nut House Community. Sharing Your Voice is a weekly feature at The Nut House and visiting authors share their stories on Mondays