8/12
"I knew there was something wrong, but I was refusing to identify it. Is this just what being a mom is? Is this how every woman feels? Does everyone feel this way and they just don’t talk about it?
Everyone would come over to the house and hold the baby and say, 'Isn’t this the best time of your life?! Isn’t this the greatest feeling in the world?!' I would just want to die inside, like, What’s wrong with me?
Everyone would say how beautiful, how perfect he was, and 'Isn’t being a mom the best?!”'
I’m thinking, No, this is not the best. I’m not sleeping. I’m not eating. My body’s terrible. My life is different, I have no idea what I’m doing.
But you have all these people just saying how great things are and you’re like, Well I can’t tell them that it’s NOT great, so I guess I have to say, 'Sure. It’s great.'
One day I was coming back from one of my baby’s cardiologist appointments, which was across the river. I was driving across the bridge and I remember thinking, I should just park my car and take Noah and jump off the bridge. That was probably my darkest moment.
There were times I would think about drowning him in a bathtub. There were times I thought about turning my car on in the garage and drinking a bottle of wine and going to sleep with him in the backseat.
I didn't have an attachment to him, but I didn't want him to be without me. I was like, Well, I can't LEAVE him. He can't grow up and know his mom killed herself.
It’s really scary to think about that now. That’s what severe postpartum depression looks like."