I Knew it Was Bad When Coffee Couldn't Make it Better

Though chocolate might make it better. I will take that kind of help.

It knots up my chest to think about telling my boss I have PPD. I guess there's no need for her to know. But it might help in explaining why I'm leaving work early every now and then (for counseling appointments) and I'm afraid it may turn into something bigger. I guess it can't hurt for her to know. There are times I feel like I just might break.

I hope this is PPD and not just motherhood. What if I go to my counseling session tonight and the therapist tells me that this is just what being a mom is? This constant state of feeling awful but loving your child so, so much? It can't be motherhood. It can't.

I mentioned the other day how I wanted to avoid medication if I could. The doctor offered Zoloft to me like it was candy. He said "This is a chemical imbalance, something with a very physical basis and solution." But I guess I don't agree with the solution part. I'm glad he's not my doctor (my doctor sent me to him because she was booked through the afternoon but wanted me to see someone right away).

I'm excited but also all up in knots about the appointment tonight. I'm taking my baby. I'm not giving up time with her for these sessions—I mean, it's counterproductive to my PPD to spend less time with her. And she's so well behaved most of the time that it won't hinder our session. I don't think. (Watch, I just jinxed it.)

I'll let you know how it goes. I hope the knots and the courage and the scheduling and the running around are all worth it. She's worth it.

UPDATE: Worth it. My fears about the therapist were unfounded. She did what she's there to do: Validate my feelings, encourage me to talk through it, give me hope that it will get better. She did even more than that. It's strange but I have to admit that I went there so full of hope, so excited that I would be making the best sort of friend—the kind that's paid to listen to you. Well, I don't think we'll be best friends but I believe this will be extremely good. In fact, I don't know what I would do without it.

My baby breastfed during my session, like the angel that she is. My therapist asked, "Have you been tired?"

"Exhausted."

"Trouble concentrating?"

"Extreme. I've never had that problem before in my life."

"Withdrawn from things you normally enjoy doing?"

Somehow, these words, when written, DO seem like a script. Like something unfeeling out of a textbook. And maybe they are. But I suppose it means she's either a really great therapist or I am desperate for some sort of help that I felt like they were the right human questions to ask. They're what I've needed to be asked, rather than all the unfeeling demands that surround life as a mother.

She's confident we can make progress without medication, and if we need that extra boost, we'll use it. I'm confident. And I'm confident any mother can do this.

We just have to be able to accept the help.