Hello Eeyore - Part 2

I don't want to write this blog.  I want to keep what I am going through right now private.  Already when I walk in a room, I am the woman who just lost her baby.  I fear that by sharing this, I will be the woman who lost her baby and then had a mental breakdown to everyone I know.  I don't want to be that woman, but it is the truth.

It has been a long week of doctor appointments, adjusting meds and making time to rest.  Lots of psycho-analysis and reflection.  We have been working our way up the least invasive medical path available.  Last night we made the decision that I need full time intensive treatment.  Our local hospital has a partial hospitalization .  its a 9 to 5, monday through friday program.  i could be there one week or for months.  This is the path I am hoping that my doctors and our insurance allow us to pursue next.

Each day for about 3 weeks I've slide further and further into a hole of despair and self-loathing.  I am full of anger and guilt and hate.  The details of all of this I will keep to myself for now (although I am willing to share if someone in a similar hell privately emails me) but on a very basic level, I am stuck trying to make sense of Maddie's illness and death. I do not have the coping mechanisms needed to work through the emotions that come with this journey.  Although I have a wonderful support system, I am very self-aware, I am properly medicated, I am resting, I am in counseling and I acknowledge that most of what I am feeling is completely illogical, i continue to slide deeper into this hole.

There are three treatments that we are pursuing right now to help me to feel better:  I've already mentioned the medication and the psycho-analysis.  The last is to test my hormones and see if they are out of whack.  What you are seeing unfold in front on your screen is a severe form of post-partum depression due to infant demise.  Hormones are likely are huge culprit in these overwhelming feelings.

To be clear, I am not in danger of hurting myself. No one around me is in danger.  But if i do not get help and find a way to move on, my marriage and my ability to parent, not to mention to be a daughter and a friend, are in grave danger.

I love the outpouring of support these blogs bring with them and I appreciate you reminding me of what a wonderful support system i really do have.  But I do not write for sympathy.  And I definitely do not write to exploit what happened to my family for attention.  Both of these things have been suggested.  I do write because its therapeutic to me.  And i definitely write because of the confidently emails I receive that say, thank you for writing that, I feel the same way but didn't have the words.

I wish I could just stuck this up and drive on.  I wish I could flip a switch and be better.  That I could stop my whining and get on with life.  I wish that I knew a why out of this that didn't involve trusting the care of my family to someone else for several weeks.  But I plan to get through this, to work hard at it and to emerge as my best self.