Deviant Dispatches

First of all, my postpartum depression post has quickly become the most viewed one I've ever written. You are all amazing - thank you for all the support. I hope that post has helped many of you in some way. Here's a bit of an expansion on that. I mentioned that I had two dreams that led to my decision to take meds; they were so vivid and spoke so clearly that I still recall them in detail seven months later. The First Tickle was two and a half months old, and I couldn't admit to myself yet that I was experiencing PPD. And then I dreamed. I saw a drawing. That was it: a simple drawing that could have been a cartoon clipped out of a newspaper. It was an alphabet quilt, colored in brown scale on a bright white background. Each square of the quilt was its own letter, with a corresponding animal family: A for alligator, B for bear, and so on. But in each panel, one parent played energetically with the child and smiled happily, while the other parent sat by themselves t...

Let me preface: I love my daughter. I have loved her since Day 1 (however you might measure that). I'm continually amazed at all the things about her - from the way she stared at everything so intently the moment she was born to all the shifts and changes as she's become a different person over the last nine months. She's incredible and studious and smart and adorable and (yes) perfect. I thought (hoped) it was just hormones at first. Then I thought it was just trouble adjusting to this big life change. Then I called it by its true name (at least, in my head) and tried to ignore it, and then hoped it would go away on its own. I'm sure many other mothers do this too. I felt so guilty for having postpartum depression. I also felt angry for so many reasons: I couldn't figure out how to do it right (because surely I was doing it wrong). Spousal Unit had (still has) a different parenting style than me and we had trouble compromising (largely because of the...