In words

I want to try to put into words what post-partum depression feels like. While it obviously is different from person to person, I want someone reading this days, weeks, months, years from now, to be able to find themselves in the words. I can only describe this as to how it effects me. Another person may feel differently, but this is how I feel. I imagine that "regular ol' depression" is the same as post-partum although I do not know that first-hand.

• I feel very fatigued. Obviously this is hard to differentiate between depression and just having a newborn and three little kids.
• I, personally, do not feel negative feelings toward my children whatsoever. But I do feel that I have difficulty fully engaging with them. For example, they say something to me, and I phase out and don't reply or hear them completely. If Abigail cries, I feel like I am slow in reacting to the cry. I have heard that some people do feel negatively but that is not the case for me. However, I do know that when I am feeling better, my feelings toward my children will be even stronger that they are now. 
• I actually feel intense love toward my children during this time. The love is so strong that it really seems to morph into guilt quite often. If I am holding one child, I can barely handle the overwhelming guilt of not spending time with the other child. I know in my head it is not possible to be everything to everyone, but I have trouble figuring out how to accept that.
• I wrote previously about the social impact of how I am feeling. I do not feel like talking, even in my own house. Although I have found that it is easier if I am around people I feel closer to or whom I readily have conversations with. Not only do I not feel like talking but attempting to talk completely exhausts me. 
• I have an overall weight on my shoulders. I just feel heaviness with the world -- both at large and in my own small circle.
• I feel overwhelmed. Clutter, dishes, clothes feel too much for me. I have read that people struggling with depression have to simplify their lives, and I can understand the need to do that. What I normally can handle with relative ease feels too much for me.
• Small changes throw me for a loop and threaten to overwhelm me. If I am planning on one thing and those plans change, I have trouble adjusting.
• Making decisions is difficult for me. Many times during the day I just turn to Veronica and say, "You decide what we should do." She has done a great job doing that easily.
• For me the crying comes in waves. I'll have an entire morning that I can't stop crying and then I don't cry for days. 
• I do not feel "engaged" in activities taking place. I feel like I am watching them from the outside. The intensity of this feeling comes and goes. 
• I feel the inability to celebrate or participate in a happy moment. Laughing is not coming easily.
• Fatigue seems to make the depression worse. A good nap will often take the edge off.

Again, I am feeling the edge slightly coming off of this, and I am feeling the cloud lifting slowly but surely. I have no doubt that I will be back to myself at some point in the future. I just have to trust the Lord to continue to lead me out of this.