The scariest blog post I'll probably ever write: prenatal (antenatal) depression.

Someone recently wrote me an email to thank me for being so raw and honest here (thank you, again!).  I sat back for a few minutes and thought about this, because it isn't really the truth.

You see, just a few weeks ago I wrote a very raw and honest post about my struggle with a rather debilitating fear of vomit.  Yuck, right?  Not like anyone enjoys vomit, but it consumes my thoughts a lot.  Probably 30 minutes after I wrote it, I deleted it.  It was scary.  It felt way too vulnerable.  I have no idea who wound up reading it in that time.  I hope not a lot of you.  

So that thank you email made me feel a little guilty because there's a lot I hold back.  A ton, in fact.  Being totally open and vulnerable is terrifying to me.  The thing that holds me back more than anything else in life is probably my fear of being disliked or judged.  

Thus, I try to only share the things that are PC or acceptable enough that no one will quit liking me.  No one will decide they can't be friends with me.  

I know I'm not alone here.  I know it's totally human nature and that's why most of us keep our skeletons in the closet.

But what I'm going through is a continuation of something I went through when I was 22, and I'm struggling with it a lot more than I probably need to because I'm too scared to share it with friends and family.  Because when I went through it at 22, one of my very best friends at the time ditched me, told me I was f*ing crazy and we never spoke again.  That...left a deep scar.  And changed my behavior.  And taught me that depression is still not accepted.  It is still looked down upon.  People still treat those suffering with depression differently than those suffering with other illnesses.  

As long as I keep silent about what I'm going through, or only choose to share it with my friends who've also gone through it, I am a part of the problem.  Staying silent about depression continues the stereotype.  If everyone could be open and honest about it, I think we'd see that most of us have a mental disorder - whether mild or severe - and we could encourage each other and help each other through it rather than hide and handle it all alone.

You see, at 22, I went through a debilitating, life-changing depression.  I have very few memories from the whole time period and most of them are cloudy at best.  But every time I think back on it, all I feel is darkness, all I see is pitch black.  I try never to think about it because it was so horrific and so terrifying.  I spent weeks researching the best ways to commit suicide and I wanted to.  I had no desire for life.  I wound up in the hospital for issues stemming from the depression.  Poor Tim, my new boyfriend of only a month, was my sole support during this time.  He witnessed things no one should have to witness.  And when he tried to bring it up later, I would freak out and refuse to talk about it.  It was so incredibly humiliating and I swore I would never tell a soul about it.  Once the clouds lifted and I was my old self again, the knowledge that Tim was a witness to it all was too much to take and I very deliberately pushed him away until we broke up.

Luckily, time healed that wound and we got back together.  The rest is rather obviously history.  

I've thought about that dark time off and on, but luckily have not experienced it again.  I chalked it up to situational depression as everything in my life was falling apart simultaneously.  

Each pregnancy has been rather rocky emotionally.  It wasn't unexpected, though.  Growing up, I experienced depression and extreme irritability/anger for a few days each month, corresponding with "that time."  I'm pretty sure I have PMDD, but I've never sought help for it because a few days a month seems so manageable.  So the idea that the hormonal changes experienced during a pregnancy could also affect my mood in the same way they do during my cycle isn't a far-fetched theory at all.

The past two pregnancies have been survived.  I say that with a little fear, because I don't like admitting that I hate pregnancy, but I do, and my midwife is trying to get me to see that it's okay to admit that.  I mean, we puke, we swell, we cry, we get fat, we hurt and then we have to go through horrendous pain.  It's all more than worth it in the end, but I'm learning it's okay to admit that the experience is less than desirable.

This pregnancy has been different from the other two since early on.  While I experienced the blues with my other pregnancies, this time it's the kind of sadness that keeps me from getting out of bed in the morning.  It's the kind of sadness that has kept me from wanting go to church.  The kind of sadness that has made me a bad mom and a bad wife and a bad friend.  The kind of sadness that scares me, because I'm not really me at all.  I don't recognize the person I see in the mirror anymore.  I spend my days coping, praying (begging!) for relief, crying and then crying some more.  For those who don't know me well, I'm not someone who cries a lot.  Not in front of anyone, certainly.  

I don't know what I'm sad about.  I don't know why I can't stop crying.  I don't know why I've lost every ounce of motivation I once had.  I can't clean my house, I can't even cook food.  I can lay here.  I am a pro at laying here.

I don't return phone calls or emails.  I cancel almost everything I have planned.  I don't enjoy anything - even the things I loved so much just a few months ago.  I'm finding it difficult just to muster up the energy to pray, which is something I need more than anything right now.  I feel like a shadow of my former self.

My world is slowly closing in, just like it did back in 2005.  It sounds cliche to say that when you're depressed, your life is dark, but that really is exactly how I describe my depression.  Dark.  One day you wake up and your world is grey and every day it gets a little grey-er until one day it's pitch black and you can't see because you're suffocating in sadness.

I've started having panic attacks.  They are definitely one of the scariest things I've ever experienced and make me never want to leave the house again for fear of having another one while driving.  

I'm doing something about it.  I've sought help and I'm working on getting in to see someone who specializes in prenatal depression.  Did you know that prenatal depression is more common than postpartum?  Yet all you hear about is PPD because people with postpartum depression spoke up.  

So I'm laying it all out there, being more vulnerable than I've ever been able to in my life, in hopes that I can encourage one other person to speak up who can encourage one other person to speak up and so on and so forth until prenatal depression is something most everyone knows about, just like PPD is today.  

It's hard to admit that pregnancy, what's supposed to be one of the single most joyous events in life, is something that brings with it the kind of grief that makes it hard to breathe, much less function in any kind of capacity.  It's embarrassing.  But also a little therapeutic.  And the idea that I will no longer be the girl who hides what I went through and, now, what I'm going through, is a tiny sliver of happiness so desperately needed in my life at this moment.

I am not looking for sympathy.  Sympathy often perpetuates depression for me because I feel guilty, which compounds the feelings of depression.  My only agenda here is awareness.

Prenatal (antenatal) depression resources:

The Unspoken Truth of Antenatal Depression

I battled prenatal depression...for the whole nine months.

Pregnant and already a "bad mom"

'I Felt Completely Out of Control'

Breaking the Silence on Prenatal Depression

Postpartum Depression: Signaled During Pregnancy?