Greetings from a new blog

Hello - My name is Erika and I have created this site to increase awareness and outreach for women who have been through the pain and confusion of postpartum depression (PPD). I have been there twice with my oldest two children. I was diagnosed with PMDD (premenstrual dysphoric disorder) when my middle child was about 1 1/2 years old. PMDD is a severe form of PMS that affects about 3% of women, and is somewhat commonly linked with postpartum depression. With that diagnosis, my doctor and I agreed that I had also experienced PPD with my two previous pregnancies. With antidepressants and some brief counseling, I was much improved in time for my third pregnancy. What a complete difference! Motherhood was still stressful and busy, but no longer so personally painful and isolating. Those were the darkest 3 years of my life, when I had PPD and PMDD undiagnosed. I couldn't always hide my symptoms, but I don't know that people in my family really understood what was happening in the first place.

What makes this all even more interesting is that I am a mental health counselor, and was working in an agency full time during all of this. I know my coworkers cared about me, but I did a lot of work to hide my problems. It was kind of like drowning at a lifeguard convention. Thankfully, that knowledge about depression (even though I succombed to it) eventually prodded me to seek help from my doctor. That's when the PMDD diagnosis occurred. Ever since then, I personally promised that I would do whatever I could to help, particularly in my midwestern community, prevent others from having to go through multiple pregnancies with various forms of undiagnosed depression like I did. This is a work in progress and there is much going on to increase awareness and improve access to help in all kinds of forms - internet, phone, email, in person counseling, etc. I truly hope that if you have found this blog, you will find it helpful either as a someone seeking to understand postpartum depression or a woman seeking understanding.

Thanks,
Erika