A rush of pure fury

[rivka]

First read this post.

I used to just be sad in the morning, and after 11am I was okay. But in the last two weeks that okay period has been pushed back to 2pm and then to 5pm and now I am not ever okay. My nights are just as bad as my mornings. There isn’t a moment in the day that I look forward to. I don’t see an end to this cycle of stress, and I find myself asking much too often, “Why go on?”

Yesterday I saw a psychiatrist who prescribed me a combination of drugs. I wish that there were other ways that I could go about getting better, but you have to believe me when I say that this is way beyond herbal remedies or dietary changes. I exercise all the time and I have a very healthy diet (except for the pop tarts, but people, a woman needs her pop tarts). This situation is life-threatening. I am afraid of hurting myself. [...]

But there is one terrible drawback to this step I am taking toward sanity. The doctor told me that I have to wean Leta if I want to work up to therapeutic levels of these drugs. I have to stop breastfeeding in the next month.

Then read this response.

Comments

*pote*

[(Anonymous)]

Perhaps this, which I found in a link off Doo-chay's blog, will help:

http://www.caulder.com/page/museum_pages/portablepudding.html

--
she who is not reading LJ today

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

Wonderful response letter! What I more wanted to note, however, is that both of those blogs have *beautiful* layouts.

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

Dear gods. Some people...

I'm really speechless; fortunately, other people have responded more eloquently than I can.

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

Good for Dooce doing what she needs to do! And I completely fail to understand how ANYONE can condemn a woman for taking care of her health so she'll be around to see how well her child turns out!

What roadnotes said - some people!

[kazoogrrl.livejournal.com]

I've been following Dooce for awhile - and am completely amazed at how much of herself she is willing to share. Thank goodness for these smart, caring, and well spoken people - hopefully they can help us beat back the idiots.

[barbarakitten-t.livejournal.com]

jezus christ on a pogo stick. SOME people are total ignoramouses and assholes. i hope douce gets the help she needs and says "bite me" to anyone who criticizes her choices...

[(Anonymous)]

Geez. People. It was a particularly timely thing for me to read today because, although it's not pregnancy related, yesterday I finally got up enough nerve to do something about my over 15 years of horrible depression. I was more scared of psychotropics than I was of wanting to die, and it took a really long time to get over that. So today I go get a prescription for antidepressents filled for the first time, and over the next few weeks we'll figure out if they do anything. It is important to take care of yourself, *** **** **!!!!!!

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Go, you! Congratulations for taking this powerful step towards getting better.

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

Good for you. And don't listen to the "all psychiatric drugs are eeeeevil" people.

Good luck with the anti-depressants

[hazelchaz]

Some people very near and dear to me are on anti-depressants of one sort or another. They saved my wife's life. I hope yours work for you.

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

I can't fathom the thought of going through all those years of suffering and then looking at my daughter and realizing that what she became is something my depression shaped, which is why I fought off a whole bunch of history and went to a therapist (and for SSRIs).

I'm with the group. Go you.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Some people are just not worth fury. Pity, maybe. Disgust, probably.

Blech. I have to take a shower now.

B

[nellorat.livejournal.com]

I agree 200%. (Clearly, the same Nellorat math that allows me to be all Womzilla's. all Supergee's, and all My Own Best Nellorat.) As I get older, I grow less worried about such rampant idiocy and more comfortable that people can probably see it for what it is. If the person it is directed at expresses doubt, or there seems to be similar effect but in collateral damage, then I can jump in with the best of 'em. Otherwise, why get in a pissing match with a skunk?

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

The mommy mafia just infuriate me. Including the people at La Leche who told my husband it was vital not to supplement with my first.

As someone who was undermedicated following my childbirths, which in resulted severe depression (including edging over to psychosis with my first -- those hallucinations can sure be convincing, can't they?) with two hospitalizations, I can categorically state that it is far more important for the mother to be safe, sane, and healthy -- no matter how powerful the drugs she needs to do that -- than for her baby to breastfeed. And I was not too keen with the commenter who insisted that it was possible for the mother to both breastfeed and take the meds, either. (Prozac is safe, but I was on Prozac and a fat lot of good it did me. Some of the other drugs -- especially some of the bi-polar or antipsychotics -- may not be.)

When will people take postpartum depression SERIOUSLY? I look at cases like Andrea Yates and shudder -- because that could have been me.


GRRRRRR.

[lysana.livejournal.com]

"Vital not to supplement with your first," meaning don't give the firstborn formula alongside breast milk? Or did they mean something else?

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

By not supplementing, they meant no formula. In fact, the lactation Nazi my husband talked to said we shouldn't give anything by bottle (including pumped breast milk) because she said once the baby had a bottle they would not want to nurse. From personal experience, that's hogwash.

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

Actually, the way I wrote that sentence was misleading. I am sure they would have given us the same advice for subsequent children, except we didn't call them.

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

"If mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy."

Word.

I think that, should the occassion arise, I'll take martial art classes before I get pregnant and then practice as much as pregnancy allows, to be ready when the kid is born.

Thanks for the links. And now I have two more blogs that I'll probably be checking from time to time.

[ororo.livejournal.com]

Wow. Just . . . wow . . .

[pameladean]

I have no additional remarks to those made already about the actual subject of that idiot email, but I feel compelled by the forces that make me a pain in the ass to all my friends to say that it's just Dooce. As in "deuce" if you don't pronounce that "deyooce" but just "dooce." There's an explanation on the website; she says she used to try to type "dude" in IM or IRC or one of those chatty things, but she was so lame (her term) that she always typoed it and finally just made it her name. I liked that so much that I bookmarked the site.

Pamela

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

I guess I never told you about the lactation consultant who came into my room twelve hours after my 36 hours of unmedicated labor when the nurses had not yet allowed me to hold my child (bless her, she refused to take any food from them, and once I had her I refused to give her back) and asked my about breastfeeding.

me: I'm going to try, but I don't know if I can, since I had breast reduction surgery.

her: Wow, I bet you could just kill yourself.

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

Oh, and my PC, who told me in the course of an exam that I was "a whale," tried to give me a twenty five year old 800-calorie diet for diabetics (severely restricted protein, lots of processed grains) and then told me that I had to see a psychiatrist if I wanted something for PPD because while it did exist, it was extremely rare and I was only pretending to have it to get drugs?

Ye ghods

[hazelchaz]

Dooce needs all the support she can get for a hard decision like this. I have to go with the person who summed it up "If Mama ain't happy, ain't noone happy" -- or, rather, the mother's wellbeing has the biggest impact on the child's health.

Can we get someone to show "Anon." how the clue-by-four is applied?

[ailbhe]

I just wrote to Dooce with tears dripping off my eyelashes onto the backs of my hands every time I blinked. Gods. I *loathe* people who make mothers feel guilty. I know two mothers who are torn between feeling guilty for supplementing their babies' diets with formula and leaving their babies *hungry*. They are feeling guilty because they don't want their babies to *starve*. That is so unfair. Apparently everyone should find breastfeeding as falling-off-a-log easy as I did, and if they don't it's their own fault.

That's so, so FUCKING WRONG.

I need somewhere to vent incoherently. And the time to do it in.