nutter butter

can you name a serious, potentially fatal disease that affects 1 out of 8 women? now let me make it harder: can you name one other than breast cancer?

it's postpartum depression.

and i ain't talking about the baby blues. i'm talking about can't eat, can't sleep, can't stop sobbing, can't stop obsessing, can't stop shaking. i'm talking about being unable to get dressed, unable to care for your children, unable to function. for weeks, for months.

i slipped into ppd (as the cool kids call it) after i had my second child. unlike most women who get ppd, i didn't develop symptoms soon after birth; instead, i went slowly downhill until the baby was 9 months old, at which point i had become unrecognizable to myself and others. if it hadn't been for the intervention of my two best friends and my mother, i am pretty sure i would have ended up in the hospital – and that's the best case scenario.

i got therapy. i got drugs. i got better. i hope i never again encounter the crazy stranger i was during those months.

other women have not been so lucky. they stumble along in silent pain, trying to "get over it." a few develop postpartum psychosis. melanie blocker stokes, a pharmacueticals sales manager, threw herself from a 12-story window when her baby was not quite 4 months old. dr. suzanne killinger-johnson, a psychologist, leapt in front of a subway train while carrying her infant son.

ppd is a disease. it is a toxic chemical stew that curdles your brain. it doesn't mean you don't love your baby. it doesn't mean you aren't grateful to be a mom. it means that your mind has come lose from its moorings and splintered on the rocks.

that's why this whole "happiest time of your life" bullshit myth has to be put down for good, or women will continue to suffer in guilty, fearful silence, dragging their families down with them when they go completely nutter.

real mommies know how terrifying a newborn is if you've never been around one before. real mommies know why sleep deprivation is used to torture prisoners. real mommies know that taking zoloft is not a sign of weakness; it's using medicine to treat a medical condition. (would you try to pull yourself up by the bootstraps if you had diabetes? kidney failure?)

i am a real mommy. i love my babies without limits, but i don't pretend it's easy or fun all the time. every stage is not a blessing; some of them are goddamned annoying, and some of them can kill you.

thank god mommies tend to run in packs. we need the protection and support of the herd. we need our friends to tell us what to expect when you're expecting is shit. we need our aunts to tell us they wanted to throw our cousins through a plate glass window when they were kids. we need our own mommies to sit in front of us and make us eat something, then tell us to go lie down and take a nap, no arguments.

i try to keep a closer eye on my herd since i've had ppd. you keep an eye on yours, too, ok?