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When my daughter was born, I expected to be exhausted. What I didn’t expect was the fear that I might not love her. This is what postpartum depression looked like for me, and how I came back.
After I stopped breastfeeding, I was happier. My anxiety lessened because I knew she was getting enough to eat. After each formula feed, Lily would fall asleep on my chest. I’d pat the milk off her chin with a burp cloth as she faintly snored. I wished I could match her peace, but I couldn’t shake the want to escape.
I just want to get in my car and never come back, I’d whisper to her as she slept. I don’t think I love you.
Life with Lily and Joe improved after I stopped breastfeeding, but I still wasn’t sleeping enough. Even though babies wake often, the rational part of me lost every argument. I fought sleep. I read every baby book. Nothing worked.
“Babies need to eat,” Joe said. “They have tiny stomachs.”
“Yeah, but my sister’s baby has been sleeping six hours by now.”
“That’s not our baby, Loren.”
He looked at her like she was a miracle. I looked at her like she was a test I was failing.
The shame built slowly. It told me I was defective. I stopped sharing what I felt with friends, afraid they’d pity me, or, worse, agree. I told no one how often I fantasized about leaving. Or how many showers I spent crying or cutting myself with a razor just to feel a different pain. One I could name. One I could bandage.
Joe noticed the marks. One night, after a long shower, he reached for my arm and saw them.
“What did you do to yourself?”
I told him I was fine. He didn’t believe me.
“You need help. Now.”
He found a postpartum clinic in Manhattan. The next day, he packed the car and drove me there. I cried the whole way.
“I’m an awful mom,” I said.
“You’re not an awful mom,” he said. “You’re having an awful time.”
During intake, I asked the psychiatrist: “Will I ever love her?”
“Yes,” she said. “This is textbook postpartum depression. You will get better. And you will love her.”
I told them I sometimes thought of driving off the road. That I’d imagined doing it with the baby in the backseat. That scared me most of all: that I thought it. I thought it more than once.
They didn’t hospitalize me. Instead, they let me attend the outpatient program daily, as long as Joe accompanied me and Lily there and back. So we did. Five days a week. Every rush hour. For weeks.
I learned DBT skills, radical acceptance, and the STOP method, but I didn’t feel better. Women came and went from the group. I stayed. Why was it working for them and not for me?
I started to think they wanted their babies more.
I didn’t know if I wanted mine.
One night in October, after too much wine and too little sleep, I took more pills than I meant to. Joe found me slurring my words and called my mom to watch Lily. He checked me into the hospital.
The psychiatric unit was cold. No towels. No locks. Plastic utensils. A young man tried to strangle himself. A woman slit her neck with a spoon.
I didn’t belong there. But I did.
After five days, I started to imagine spring again. I dreamed of my garden, and for the first time, Lily was in it.
That scared me, too—that I had forgotten to include her in the first dreams.
I came home different. I held her. I cried. I said, “I promise I’ll be better.”
But I wasn’t better. Not yet.
The cracks came back. I lost control one night and broke things like chairs, toys, and the changing table. Lily was far from the room, but not far from the damage. Joe gave me a choice: Go back to the hospital or stay with my parents. I chose my parents.
Then Child Protective Services got involved. Joe’s therapist had reported the incident.
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I was furious at him. But I also knew he was trying to protect Lily (and me).
He said, “I think I should take Lily to Washington to stay with my parents. Just for a while. Just so you can rest. We’re not leaving you. We just need time.”
I said, “Will I see her before you go?”
He said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
I stayed with my parents and did everything right: therapy, meds, check-ins. CPS eventually closed the case.
And when I reunited with Lily, I knew: I loved her.
I’m still learning what kind of mother I am. But now I know that love doesn’t always arrive the way we expect. Sometimes, it takes the long way home.
If you or someone you love is contemplating suicide, seek help immediately. For help 24/7 dial 988 for the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, or reach out to the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741. To find a therapist near you, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.
