The postpartum trifecta: depression, anxiety, and intrusive thoughts/OCD

As I mentioned previously, postpartum depression often involves symptoms other than depression, including anxiety and intrusive thoughts (my husband would like to add a fourth category called postpartum aggression).  I actually only recently learned the term "intrusive thoughts," prior to which I referred to them as "scary thoughts."  Postpartum intrusive thoughts might include thoughts of your child getting sick, of you doing something to hurt your child, or of someone else doing something to hurt your child

Back when I was struggling with it more, intrusive thoughts would just pop into my mind.  It's not like I was sitting around thinking, "Hmmm, what are all the possible ways my child could be hurt?"  No, I'd be cuddling with my daughter, and all of the sudden the thought of something really terrible happening to her, sometimes at my own hands, would pop into my mind.  It was very disturbing.

I'm not going to go into detail about what my thoughts centered around in case there are any postpartum moms reading this.  Thinking or reading about scary things can actually make intrusive thoughts worse.  I believe my intrusive thoughts were aggravated by me looking at some pictures of POWs from a war documentary book.  Don't ask me what I was doing looking through a war documentary several weeks postpartum.  I'm a very intellectual and well-read sort of person.

In addition to having scary thoughts about things happening to my daughter, I also had scary thoughts of things happening to me.  I would lie awake at night imagining various scenarios of things that put me in a sweat and made my heart pound.

Emma Pillsbury wiping a grape.

My intrusive thoughts were bad enough to affect my behavior.  On the bad days, I wouldn't leave the house because I was afraid something would happen to me or my daughter.  Severe intrusive thoughts can lead to OCD.  The intrusive thoughts are the Obsession, and the Compulsive behaviors are rituals that help you cope with the thoughts.  The classic depiction is of someone constantly washing their hands or cleaning things.  Think Emma Pillsbury from Glee.  But let me tell you that in real life, coping with intrusive thoughts is not cute and fun like an episode of Glee.

I mentioned the intrusive thoughts to my counselor, and she only told me that "thoughts of mortality" are common for postpartum moms but didn't say much more about it.  My husband knew I was having scary thoughts but didn't understand the extent of how much fear they created in me until two years later.  This whole time, I thought my intrusive thoughts were some macabre part of my psyche that had suddenly come out and that it was primarily a spiritual issue.  I didn't trust God enough.  I didn't know His love and was therefore afraid.  I was relieved when I only very recently learned that there is a biological basis to these thoughts.  I'll be sharing more in future posts about my experience with intrusive thoughts, how they affected me spiritually, and other thoughts I have from the experience.

Have you ever battled any of the postpartum trifecta: depression, anxiety, or intrusive thoughts?  What helped you to cope?  I would love to hear from you, so please leave a comment.  If you have questions, please also feel free to leave in the comments.  I will address any questions/comments in the comments or in future posts.