I was told in one of my past college Psychology classes that there are two types of people when it comes to dealing with stress, the first type deals with stress through anxiety, and the second type deals with stress through depression. I’m sure people fall on all levels of the spectrum, but it was interesting to know that everyone handles stress in a different way. For me, I am not someone who teeters on the depression side. If anything, I get over anxious, feeling impulsive and also feeling the need to get things done immediately to calm my nerves. So what was this feeling that came over me after just having a baby? Feelings of joy and happiness because I just had a baby, mixed with spells of guilt and sadness that would catch me off guard, so much that, I ran up to my bedroom embarrassed that I was even having these feelings, sobbing and feeling, well, just utterly defeated. “What is going on with me? I can’t believe I’m sitting here on my brand new glider miserably sobbing away feeling… sorry for myself?”

This wasn’t the mild case of ‘baby blues’ that I’ve heard about in the past. This was going on for almost a month now, and the outside world was totally oblivious to my feelings because of my ‘closet crying.’ I wanted to get well without having to divulge myself to the whole world about my condition. My sadness was deeper and longer than just the regular 2-3 week baby blues that some people get. I was even embarrassed to talk to my doctor about it because I would tear up just thinking about it.

But here’s what I found out and the steps I took to help myself. First, I allowed myself to cry, and just get it all out. Sometimes, it got so silly that I ended up laughing at myself, but it made me feel better.

Second, I started to research what postpartum depression was all about. Most postpartum depression is thought to be related to fluctuating hormone levels that affect mood and energy. Levels of estrogen and progesterone that have increased during pregnancy drop suddenly after delivery. These rapid hormone shifts affect the brain’s mood chemistry in a way that can lead to sadness, low mood, and depression that lingers. Stress hormones may have an added effect on mood. Some women may experience this more than others. For me, not only did I feel an overwhelming amount of stress from things in the outside world, like finances, business, relationships, bills, etc., but I also felt totally ‘alone,’ even though I had a husband and three children around me all day long, and even friends and family that were visiting.

Other symptoms of postpartum depression include having trouble concentrating or completing routine tasks, a loss of appetite or disinterest in food, feeling indifferent to your baby or not feeling attached or bonded, feeling overwhelmed by life and a feeling that there is no hope of things getting better, and even feeling like you are just going through the motions of your day without being able to feel happy, interested, pleased, or joyful about anything. The feelings are genuine. Sometimes when two or more symptoms are combined, one can feel a bit hopeless as well.

Although I did not personally seek out counseling or therapy, and was too chicken to talk to my doctor about medication (and was not interested in going this route), there were other things that I did to balance out my hormones and serotonin levels. First, I vowed to control what I could, which included a proper diet, exercise, in the form of stretching and walking, and expressing my thoughts and emotions. My form of accomplishing this was writing in my journal. This was a huge part of relieving a majority of the symptoms I had without embarrassing myself. The next thing I did was try to balance out my serotonin levels. There are many researchers who believe that an imbalance in serotonin levels may influence mood in a way that leads to depression. As a neurotransmitter, serotonin helps to relay messages from one area of the brain to another. Because of the widespread distribution of its cells, it is believed to influence a variety of psychological and other body functions. Of the approximately 40 million brain cells, most are influenced either directly or indirectly by serotonin. So moodiness, sexual desire and function, appetite, sleep, remembering things, regulating one’s own temperature and other social behavior issues are affected by an imbalance of serotonin. I’d even heard that massage was a jump start way for the busiest people who get the least amount of sleep to rebalance their serotonin levels. You got it, massage!

I remembered being so tired one day about a month after having our baby that I decided to get away for a massage, the first time I’d been out by myself since giving birth, I might add. I’ve had so many massages in the past that I truly didn’t realize that it was possible to feel totally and utterly rejuvenated after a massage. I had never felt the way I did after a massage, EVER, than I had that day when I walked out of that massage. I was reluctant to get one in the first place because I just wasn’t in the mood. But it must have been the 80 minutes of massage that I needed because it truly did have an effect on my mood. Just that small amount of time really helped me.

Don’t get me wrong, my sad feelings came and went for the next couple of weeks, but they were diminishing. I think it was a compilation of everything I did, but I did allow myself to get more massages than normal just to recenter myself and allow myself to take a minute or two away from everything and everybody and focus on myself. This is truly what I needed in my time of desperation.

For those that are reading this and thinking, boy, what a nutcase, why didn’t she just get herself out of the slump? (Thanks Tom Cruise!) That is fine; everyone is entitled to their opinion. But if either you or someone you know is experiencing some form of postpartum depression (and not every mother will admit it), give her an outlet outside of her immediate surroundings. A weekend getaway, a package of massages, a yoga class, a journal, a day out with her girlfriends.. You get the idea. Sometimes, just some time to balance out her hormonal and serotonin levels is all she will need. As I’ve always said, ‘Therapeutic Massage’… it works.