A Trail of Tears and Fired Doctors
Let’s take a closer look at potential cause ## – stressful life event or season of Life.
I personally believe that giving birth was the event that “turned up” my autoimmune condition. Whether it was the physical strain of pregnancy and giving birth, the hormonal upheaval that accompanies these processes or the intense foray into parenthood, or, a combination of all of the above, it was not until after giving birth to my first born that the symptoms of my autoimmune condition became pronounced enough for me to start to wonder if something was really wrong.
Symptoms such as: erratic and delayed periods sometimes coming between 40 and 60 days apart, difficultly falling and staying asleep, hot flashes as I lay awake, anxiety and depression (surely exacerbated by lack of sleep), brain fog and extreme daytime fatigue made even more maddening by the fact that when I was finally presented with the opportunity to fall asleep I couldn’t thanks to the seemingly incessant ramblings of my own disquieted mind.
FIND PICTURE FROM THIS TIME WHEN WAS QUESTIONING WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME.
INCLUDE LINKS TO INNA PODCAST WITH GREAT SYMPTOM RUNDOWN.
*********Post partum depression was the #1, most frequently proposed answer to my issues by several different doctors time and time again. Looking back, I have more grace now for the doctors than I did at the time. At the time, I felt like my concerns were being dismissed. I felt like this easy “blanket” was being thrown over the array of problems I was having that were effecting my life in a huge, negative way. I really did feel like they wanted to just give me a pill and send me on my way. I felt like no body cared to have the intellectual curiosity to figure out what was really wrong with me. “Does no body care? Do any of the doctors actually want to help people with health?” I can certainly appreciate why appreciate why postpartum depression seemed like a fitting answer to my seemingly complex constellation of symptoms. I am grateful, however, that at the time, I simply could not accept this — that postpartum depression was the route cause of all my physical and mental symptoms — as an answer. Somehow, I knew in my core, that they were wrong. Somehow I just knew that the doctors were missing something and I wasn’t going to stop until I got answers and a real solution to the problems I was having.
The timing, was… let’s say unfortunate. For both myself and doctors, there seemed to be way too many potential viable options for the causes of my problems. The
Prior to pregnancy my periods had been irregular. After giving birth and the cessation of breast feeding, my periods were very erratic. A woman’s normal monthly cycle is somewhere between 28-32 days roughly. Mine were coming sometimes 40 some odd day’s apart to, at times 60-some days apart. I was having trouble sleeping. I had a very difficult time falling asleep and once I did finally fall asleep, I would sometimes have a hard wake-up and roll over to look at my clock to find that it was only a few hours later. I was extremely fatigued. In light of my sleep problems, this might seem like an obvious “duh” right? Like, of course you were tired. You couldn’t fall asleep, or stay asleep. But, that was one of the most maddening things about my experience. I was so, unbelievably exhausted during the day, when my baby was crying, awake, alert and needing me I felt like I was moving through molasses. The best way I could describe it was that it was like, someone had just come along and pulled my plug from the wall. Everything I was doing felt like a shear act of will. And the emotional fallout from this physical fatigue felt just as heavy.
I was a new mom. I was supposed to be delighting in my baby. Enjoying her in all her adorable, ooey-gooey, pile-of-mushy splendor. And, as much as I could, I think I did. But every task, every to-do, every need that pulled at my non-existent energy stores felt like a Herculean task. I felt like a bad mom, sitting around, waiting for nap time and night time. But then, the most maddening symptoms of all, when I finally could lay down, could hold still, and could be quiet, my mind would not shut up. It may have been anxious in content (post partum anxiety and depression was the #1, top, most frequently proposed answer to my issues by different doctors time and time again). But, from my perspective, this inner monologue, this incessant mental waterfall of ramblings wasn’t anxious in and of itself (as a matter of fact, there are still some “topics” I remember that I found fascinating trails of thought. Like, how none of the Disney princesses had mother’s in the movies I watched growing up and that maybe, this fact, might have had something to do with these young women’s proclivity towards questionable judgement). The content of my thoughts themselves weren’t particularly anxious. It was the fact that I could not “turn my brain off” and that that was happening when I knew that I needed to be getting precious sleep that was causing me to feel anxious and the subsequent loss of sleep was certainly leading me to feel depressed. And, the way these symptoms were all playing into other way I was able to show up as a wife and new mother were also certainly leading to some anxiety, harsh, critical self-judgement and feelings of insecurity as I compared myself to many of my peers who were also making the transition into parenthood around the same time I was.