Welcome to Pospartumville

I had a baby 3 1/2 months ago. He is the light of my life. Beautiful, sweet, enchanting. He is far more amazing than I could ever have imagined. But with great love, comes great pain, and as I ushered into my heart this most precious being, I also let in an uninvited guest by the name of anxiety. All I have to say to you anxiety is you do not rock. In fact, you totally suck and props to you for basically ruining what is supposed to be the happiest time of my life. But I digress.

I'm a worrier. I always have been. I can recall worrying as a child about things like killer bees, polar bears, kidnappers. And I carried that anxiety with me all the way into adulthood. I was always able to get a handle on it though and was more than able to live my life happily.

I went into therapy three years ago when my anxiety was skyrocketing. At the time, I should've been on top of the world. Freshly engaged to a man that I could not have loved more, surrounded by amazing friends, in a job that I was content with for the most part, just comfortable and at ease in the world. But the worry caught up with me and I spent the next few years battling it out in life and in therapy with D.

D is my therapist. She saved me.  When I came to see D three yearso ago, I was thin, anxious and had some serious doom on the brain. D showed me another way to live. She patiently listened to my fears and gently guided me through them. Through our many sessions, I cried and I also laughed too. I got to a good place and was able to work around the anxiety.

Then when I got pregnant, anxiety's little mischievous elves were already at work planting seeds of worry. I worried for my baby throughout the pregnancy and yet it was still the most joyful time. I worried about my blood pressure rising, the baby not moving as much, what I ate, what I didn't eat - this lasted to the very end.

Then I gave birth.

I felt like I was flying and no that was not due to the fact that I was pumped full of drugs thanks to the epidural. I was enraptured. There are no words for it, I doubt there ever will be. The immense love I felt for my baby came with a shitload of worry. I worried about EVERYTHING and to a point that I was going insane. For the first two months, I could not stop fearing for the baby. Then as he grew into a thriving, big baby, the focus shifted to me. The most terrifying thing apart from something happening to the baby was something happening to me and having to leave the baby. And so with that a hypochondriac was born.

And so I am fighting to get through what I know now is postpartum depression.

I hope to use this blog as a tool to do so.

So welcome to Postpartumville, also known as Crazytown.