I feel such gratitude for the outpouring of support from people after I read my previous blog post in church. Many have expressed regret that they didn’t help us, and sorrow that they were unaware of how bad things had gotten. I appreciate these sentiments so much but want to make certain that no one feels guilty about what has or has not happened in the past. To be honest, even I was unaware of how bad things were: so much so that I was unable to accept or even ask for help. At this point, however, I am better able to recognize what is happening with me emotionally and will absolutely accept any help in the future!
There are many ways that you can do this.
- Ask me how I am doing, and if I give you a vague answer (like “Well, you know” or “Hanging in there”), push me. Ask me again how I am.
- Ask Ryan how he is doing, and then ask him again. It is difficult to be the spouse of someone who is fighting a mental illness; he needs all the support he can get.
- Ask your family members and friends who are new moms how they are doing, and then ask again. Make sure to push beyond the typical answers of, “Tired, but happy” and the like. It may be entirely true that she is tired and happy, but it is equally likely that she is saying what she feels she should.
- Ask your family members and friends who are new dads how they are doing, and then ask again. (See a pattern?) It is common for new dads to feel anxious and concerned, particularly if they have returned to work and left their loved one at home with a newborn.
- Ask your family members and friends who are parents of a newborn and other children how they are doing, and then ask again. Postpartum mood disorders don’t only happen to first-time parents. In fact, it is often more difficult for parents of multiple children to go through mood disorders because people don’t ask about their emotional state (since, after all, they’ve done this before).
- When you offer to help parents, sometimes you need to just inform them that you will be helping instead of them having to ask. For me it was nearly impossible to ask for help because I didn’t want to inconvenience anyone just because I was having a hard time. So tell parents something like, “Just so you know, I am free on Wednesday from 6-9, and will plan on being available for you. I’m happy to do dishes or laundry, to hold the baby so you can sleep, to sit with you and chat about non-baby related things, vacuum your house, or whatever you need. But I am planning on that time.”
- Talk about postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, and postpartum OCD. They are real, they are devastating, and they are often ignored by those who are not experiencing them.