Postpartum Weirdness, part one

You know, postpartum depression is a sinister thing. You are going along in life, taking your little purple pill each morning and evening just like they tell you, and then one day, the sonofabitch stops working. (No, not your husband. The purple pill.)

The other day I had a mild breakdown. Mild for me, anyway. See for me, PPD isn't so much depression as it is excruciating anxiety and internalized anger. There are days, and luckily they are few and far between, when the anxiety is absolutely crippling and I can barely move. Those are the days that I stay awake all night, making the rounds to all my children to make sure they're breathing. And if I do fall asleep, it's a weird, fitful sleep - kind of like the sleep you get when you're at the height of a bad cold.

Then I have days where I am just so angry. Sometimes the anger is scary, uncontrollable rage, and some days its just a mild simmering just below the surface, but either way, the anger is there on those days. I don't take this anger out on my children, thankfully, but I do yell at the dog a lot when I'm mad. It's okay, he's used to it. And I'm fairly certain he won't suffer any psychological damge from being called a stupid fat-ass chihuahua (especially since it's true.)

The other day was an angry day. I was so angry I could spit. Actually, I did spit and that didn't help so really I was even angrier than that. I was freaken furious. I don't want to go into detail because it will just make me angry again, but basically I was pissed off at my position in life, and at rich people, because I hate rich people. (I'm not rich, but if I was rich, I would still hate rich people, so if that includes any of you, dear readers, well, just don't tell me you're rich and I won't hate you.)

That day, I stalked all around my house, cursing everyone in the world who had more than me, and especially those that flaunt it. I stormed through my kitchen, slamming the freezer door and breaking the ice machine spout, which in turn made me curse all the people who don't have broken ice machine spouts. My PPD anger is not rational anger, although there is some thought put into it - when I am angry, like I was the other day, I get even more ferociously angry at the world's injustices, like people buying expensive handbags while other people starve to death on the streets. Fuck you capitalism. Except on angry days, I want to get up on my roof and scream FUCK YOU CAPITALISM!!, and if I lived somewhere where people could hear me (or at least where the paramedics could be there in less then forty minutes, perchance I fell) I would do just that, just climb right up there and scream my fool head off till I was too tired to be angry anymore.

I think that a big player in postpartum mood disorders is a desire to do more, to be more. To be better. I am no psychologist, but I did take Psychology 100 at community college, and since I'm on the internet, that more than qualifies me to talk about this with an air of authority.

But I'm too tired to go into that right now. I'm an old woman, people. Okay, I'm not, but I'm twenty-six years old and I have four children, and do you know what that means? That means Ninja Mom is going to take a nap while the babies are napping, and I will be back for part two later.