Postpartum Anxiety — Running from the Storm.

Why I have compassion for Lindsay Clancy

I always felt immune to my family’s history of mental health. My mother battled severe alcoholism her entire life (and in my opinion an untreated bipolar diagnosis). I believe my brother had an untreated anxiety disorder coupled with depression. Both of their lives ended tragically in overdoses before I even turned 25.

I watched their demise with confusion and frustration. I personally had never experienced depression. I never felt sad or unable to cope with problems in my life. I never felt dependent on a substance and didn’t experiment with drugs. I was actually pretty confident and felt immune to the impacts of anxiety or stress. In fact, I always had prided myself on being abnormally resilient in the face of crisis…

This changed for me exactly 90 days after the birth of my third child. Though he was my smallest baby, he was the longest delivery. Midwives tell you that the third birth is a “wild card”, which was true for me. My first two labors were both almost exactly 12 hours each. My third baby took his time…. 48 hours to be exact. I actually think he would have been 60 hours if I let him… but at 48 hours I declared I was “done”. I stood up and pushed him out standing without a contraction to back it up. He came out through sheer will at home in my bedroom at the surprise of the midwife that was not prepared to catch him… and he was perfect…and I was happy…. and exhausted.

Prior to the 90 day post-baby mark I was having headaches. They were small headaches that kept growing more painful. They would happen all hours of the day, especially when I was nursing. At first I just assumed they were normal headaches… but they weren’t getting better. Every time I nursed (8–12 times/day) I would just take a deep breath, close my eyes, and suffer through a pounding headache that was growing in intensity. I just endured it — but I was having a hard time sleeping and waking up each night with insomnia and racing thoughts. Just part of being a new mom, I thought.

In the meantime, I was just going about my “normal” life. My house was under construction and we had wires hanging from the ceiling due to an unfinished “nesting” project we started before the birth. I had two toddlers (one of which I was trying to potty train during my maternity leave….unsuccessfully). Mark and I decided to buy a historic home two months after the birth…. a home which would require a major renovation and addition and city approval. My businesses were on the rise, though we were still in “start up mode”, with problems and processes and people issues that still required my daily/hourly attention to fix . I never took a maternity leave. I checked my email the day I gave birth to each of my children…. and never stopped. It was just what had to be done and so I did it. I had a nanny and resources and felt generally like “I can do this working mom thing”.

My husband was excited to take the two older toddlers skiing for the first time and so we went to the mountains and I stayed at home with the baby….by myself. I think this may have actually been the first time I was truly alone with the baby for an extended time after the birth. No big deal — it was my third baby, I was an experienced mom. No problem. I had just finished nursing the baby and was having another headache. Maybe it’s the altitude? I drank some water, put the baby down for a nap and then got my computer out to find something to distract me. Eventually I found myself on a familiar “mom” website where I was perusing articles about breastfeeding and some cute nursing shirts… and then I came across an article about headaches.

The tagline stood out to me: “New mom had chronic headaches…until she found out why”. I clicked on it….*sigh* and I read every painful word. I read about this new mom in her 30’s with three children at home. She was experiencing chronic headaches and finally went to get it checked out… just in time to find out she had a terminal brain tumor. She died a short few months later after living through misery knowing she was going to be leaving her husband and young children without a wife and a mother.

I shut the computer and couldn’t breathe. I thought I was having a heart attack. I ran through the house and opened windows. I still couldn’t breathe. I thought I was going to faint. I debated calling 911. I went to the bathroom and splashed water on my face and I gasped. My heart was beating so fast — it was definitely a heart attack. I hoped someone would get home soon and find the baby because I was definitely dying. I layed on the bathroom floor and cried. I couldn’t move. I layed there until the baby started crying….and I still didn’t move. I was dying and couldn’t bring myself to nurse during my last moments. I was convinced that the article was written about me and the universe was telling me a secret…..

I had a brain tumor and was about to die…

Yes, that’s it. I pulled myself together, started nursing the baby again and then started to google. What are the symptoms of a brain tumor? Yep, I have every single one.

How long do you live with a brain tumor? Ok, I have about six months, if I’m lucky. I sobbed and started planning the last six months of my life.

Every time I googled it just got worse. WebMD confirmed the brain tumor as did the online Mayo Clinic. In the matter of an hour I had become convinced that I was living on borrowed time. I didn’t have much time. I couldn’t catch my breath — my body was already starting to shut down.

I called my dad. I was sobbing and I told him about my new brain tumor. He tried to reassure me that I was healthy, but I spent the time trying to convince him of my symptoms. I then called my best friend. I told her about the brain tumor and she as well tried to talk me off the ledge. At one point she said “I think you had a panic attack, friend”.

A panic attack? I got off the phone and googled symptoms of a panic attack. I read and re-read the symptoms and I realized that yes, it was a panic attack…. but clearly a tumor-induced panic attack. Knowing what I had just experienced had a name helped me kind of calm down. I took a shower, picked up the baby, tried to watch a movie and by the time my husband and in-laws came home I looked “normal”.

That night as my husband was trying to fall asleep I told him about my brain tumor. “What are you talking about?” he asked. I told him of my self diagnosis to which he tried to reassure me that I was ok. He just didn’t get it. I let him fall asleep and then woke up several times that night to feed the baby, each time imagining my tumor grow with each nursing headache.

My panic attacks started increasing to the point of having them almost daily. My headaches were getting worse. I started having new symptoms — extreme cramping in my abdomen, shortness of breath, pain in my legs, pain in my arms. I could taste blood in my mouth. All symptoms of impending death. I couldn’t sleep…. and the baby kept needing to eat so the headaches kept coming.

Mark: “Carmen, go see a Doctor”.

Me: No.

Mark: “Maybe you need medication”.

Me: I’m not crazy, I’m dying. There is a difference.

I knew my husband felt helpless. He would find me crying when I woke up, crying in the shower and crying when I was trying to fall asleep. I cried when I nursed. I cried in between meetings at work. I was just so worried that I was clearly dying and I didn’t know what to do. He would encourage me to take a bath. He would rub my feet and listen to my worries and do his best to reassure me I was fine….. but I wasn’t fine.

I eventually told a few of my employees about the brain tumor. I felt it was time they knew. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen in the companies if I wasn’t around and it was time to make a game plan. My team looked at me with concern, but all agreed that having a baby and working is hard and I would get back to normal.

I think nobody responded with a sense of urgency about my brain tumor because to the outside world I appeared ok. I kept going to work. I could have a normal discussion about unrelated topics. I was able to keep balancing the normal expectations about life despite knowing for sure I only had a few months left to live. I was just waiting for my organs to shut down one by one….I dreaded being alone with my kids because the intrusive thoughts were the loudest during those times.

I was convinced I was going to die at night while sleeping so I stopped sleeping. I couldn’t fall asleep. I couldn’t stay asleep. If I did sleep I would wake up crying out of relief and fear that it would happen the next night.

I felt like a shell of myself. I would have moments of seeing parts of my “old self” but I just couldn’t reach her. I could see her far away but just couldn’t get to her. I was having destructive thoughts about my body deteriorating that I knew weren’t my own. I knew that sounded crazy so I didn’t tell anybody…. I just saw the thoughts and tried to push them away. Sometimes I won. Sometimes the thoughts won and I would feel paralyzed. It was a constant battle…..for another six months.

At the 9 month point Mark told me I had to go and see a Doctor. I made an appointment against my will, but at this point I was certain the tumor had spread to my lymph nodes and my uterus and thought maybe chemo would help.

I went to the Doctor. She said my headaches were “stress/tension” headaches and likely hormonal (she didn’t get it). She did an ultrasound on my uterus because of my abdominal pain…. there were no tumors (they must be somewhere else). She said she was certain I didn’t have a brain tumor but if I wanted to go get a MRI she would make a referral. As she was writing out the referral she gently said “Ya know, some women that experience postpartum issues spend thousands of dollars trying to find out what is wrong to no avail.” Postpartum?!?! What was she talking about? I was fine directly after the baby came. My symptoms started 3 months after birth — clearly the sign of the onset of death, not hormones. I wasn’t depressed or sad….. I was worried….extremely worried. These people just didn’t get that I wasn’t experiencing post partum depression…. I was dying.

There was definitely something wrong. I took the referral number and put it in my purse and thought about it. I just wasn’t ready for the confirmation that the brain tumor had expanded yet. I wasn’t ready to hear the terrible news. I couldn’t breathe when I thought about it until I finally pulled out the number and called. It was time to get confirmation. It was time to face my fear.

They could get me in that same evening.

I drove myself to the MRI and cried the whole way there. I had a panic attack while I was in the machine and I just started counting. I started at one and was in the thousands when it was over. I cried the whole way home.

I woke up the next morning to an email from the Doctor: “Your brain scan was normal. No tumor. I think you should see a postpartum therapist and we should talk about medications”.

I called Mark and told him “The results came back normal! No brain tumor”…………..silence……….. “Yes, of course it is normal”. He sounded so confident that it upset me as he didn’t understand the extreme distress I was experiencing with the hidden tumor.

If it wasn’t a brain tumor then what was it? I googled the Doctor’s reference to “postpartum issues” and came across the link “Postpartum Anxiety….how it is different than Postpartum Depression”. I clicked on it and read the symptoms:

Your thoughts are racing. You can’t quiet your mind. You can’t settle down. You can’t relax.
You feel like you have to be doing something at all times. Cleaning bottles. Cleaning baby clothes. Cleaning the house. Doing work. Entertaining the baby. Checking on the baby.
You are worried. Really worried. All. The. Time. Am I doing this right? Will my husband come home from his trip? Will the baby wake up? Is the baby eating enough? Is there something wrong with my baby that I’m missing? No matter what anyone says to reassure you, it doesn’t help.
You may be having disturbing thoughts. Thoughts that you’ve never had before. Scary thoughts that make you wonder whether you aren’t the person you thought you were. They fly into your head unwanted and you know they aren’t right, that this isn’t the real you, but they terrify you and they won’t go away. These thoughts may start with the words “What if …”
You are afraid to be alone with your baby because of scary thoughts or worries. You are also afraid of things in your house that could potentially cause harm, like kitchen knives or stairs, and you avoid them like the plague.
You may feel the need to check things constantly. Did I lock the door? Did I lock the car? Did I turn off the oven? Is the baby breathing?
You may be having physical symptoms like stomach cramps or headaches, shakiness or nausea. You might even have panic attacks.
You feel like a captive animal, pacing back and forth in a cage. Restless. On edge.
You can’t eat. You have no appetite.
You’re having trouble sleeping. You are so, so tired, but you can’t sleep.
You feel a sense of dread, like something terrible is going to happen.
You know something is wrong. You may not know you have a perinatal mood or anxiety disorder, but you know the way you are feeling is NOT right. You think you’ve “gone crazy.”
You are afraid that this is your new reality and that you’ve lost the “old you” forever.
You are afraid that if you reach out for help people will judge you. Or that your baby will be taken away.

Ok, this sounds right…. maybe, just maybe… it was related to postpartum anxiety. Turns out Postpartum symptoms can start up to 2 years after the baby is delivered….who knew? I’m a licensed therapist…. and I didn’t even know that.

*sigh* (of relief this time). This was it. I had Postpartum Anxiety. I finally had my diagnosis… and this one was real. In all my googling of brain tumors, Postpartum Anxiety never popped up….and I knew the depression label was wrong so I disregarded it as an option completely in my initial email searches. I wouldn’t describe myself as “sad” during this time (apart from knowing my kids would grow up without a mother) …. no — I was deeply worried.

So now what? I couldn’t bring myself to take meds though I was also scared that I now had a mental illness. I mean, I had just gone through 3 home births to intentionally avoid meds and I wasn’t going to start now. My brother and mother died from prescription meds and I didn’t trust Doctors.

I tried to treat myself:

I researched anxiety and I bought every vitamin and essential oil that I could find to treat it.
I started getting massages. I needed to reconnect with my body again after disassociating with it for almost a year.
I sadly stopped breastfeeding at 10 months. I loved nursing so much but I just needed a hormonal break. My headaches soon subsided.
I saw a Postpartum therapist. I only went once and I think all I needed to hear was “Your symptoms are normal. This is temporary”. I felt a little better.
I stopped watching crime shows. I am kind of obsessed with dateline and forensic files and sometimes think I should have been an FBI detective….just saying. I watch them too much.
I read Brooke Shield’s book “Down came the Rain”… multiple times.
I made an agreement with myself to stop googling.
I bought a workbook on Postpartum Anxiety and I started doing the suggested exercises…. one of which is “facing your fear”.

These things actually seemed to help. And then I waited. I waited for the thoughts to go away. I waited for the worries to calm down. I waited for my “temporary” mental illness to go away. It didn’t. It was like dark storm clouds that circled me, taunted me, and then slowly engulfed me.

I had more awareness now, but it wasn’t getting better. In the first chapter of my workbook about post partum anxiety it was describing how PPA can manifest for people. For some it is sadness or worry about the baby. For some, it is intrusive thoughts about harming their baby or themselves. For some, it is worry about their own mortality — and the author proceeded to describe a story about a mom that thought she had a brain tumor… I tabbed that page and highlighted it and re-read it over and over and over and over again. I bet I read it 50 times as this helped me think that perhaps my situation really was something that could be accounted for, something that maybe I could fix.

While I waited I just kept a copy of the clean MRI results on my phone and would look at them whenever I felt like the tumor was coming back….I waited until my baby was 18 months. I must have looked at that screenshot 100 times.

…. and then out of nowhere…. the dark clouds dissipated. I felt like myself again. I woke up happy and unstressed one day and then I was fine. Just like that the storm was over.

“Well, that was weird, right?” I would ask with a smile to my husband to his look of concern and slow head nods.

I thought it was over and I could move on without more despair… I was wrong. There was another baby was in our future.

In between my third and fourth baby I started trying to understand what had happened to me. With more information I could look back and I had all the triggers:

I had a challenging birth (48 hours long home birth with continuous contractions, no meds, and no sleep is no joke)
I had a major life event (purchased a new home)
I had major life stressors (my new neighbor filed a lawsuit against us after we bought the new house and my business was growing fast)
I was uncomfortable in my environment. I hated the house we were living in and it was in a state of disarray with renovations.
We had just opened a new business — a restaurant, nonetheless. It was unstable and constant drama. The business was a strain on our marriage.
I had a disruption to my routine (this was my first baby where I actually tried to work from home to spend more time with the baby — I don’t think this helped me. It disrupted my work “sense of self” and made me lost for a minute).
I was alone a lot of the time. Because we were starting new businesses Mark was gone…and I was left alone…. by myself… with a crying baby…. I spent most of my day nursing and when I nursed I would have tension headaches. It was a constant negative loop.

Now I know enough about marketing algorithms that this “article” ad was fed to me because of my search history of researching ways to naturally ease my headaches and clicking on ads for baby products. Had I continued to click on the article instead of have a panic attack it probably would have led me to an ad to buy a new baby bottle or prescription drug or something. The algorithm knew I was a new mom. It knew I was in my 30’s. It knew I was having recent headaches… this didn’t change how real and applicable this particular article felt to me: It felt like a sign from the universe that was intended to tell me something was terribly wrong.

I had the first three babies 22 months apart and then waited almost 4 years for the last baby. We always wanted four kids but I think Mark and I were both scared of what might happen to my mind if I were to do it again…. but the desire of having another baby outweighed the potential concern. I was “ok” with my first child (or too busy to notice the clouds) and I didn’t have any postpartum issues with my second child. It then came crashing down with my third. Maybe I would get lucky and it would skip this baby? I crossed my fingers and hoped.

I had the fourth baby in late 2019…. and I had a plan:

I wasn’t going to sit at home and be alone
I was going to keep working on low stress projects.
I was not going to make any major decisions for at least a year. No big purchases. No new businesses. No new stressors.
I was going to do arts and crafts
I was going to read happy books.

All was going ok and then Covid-19 hit 6 months after the baby came.

My life became a fast blur — I was forced to jump into action and restructure 5 companies with over 500 employees over the course of several weeks…. all with having four little kids home all day. I stopped nursing to do it and I immersed myself in the game of business…. and in some ways…. I think it saved my mental health at first. I had to be productive. I had to work fast. I didn’t have time for nonsense. I had an important job to do that impacted the lives of thousands of people….and I couldn’t have a personal breakdown. It wasn’t an option.

So I did the job…and I did the job well. I averted a major life crisis professionally, and in some ways I think the big task at hand of work helped me circumvent the dark world of post partum anxiety. It was almost like my mind held up its hand to the dark clouds and said “She has important things to do…please don’t distract her”.

During times of rest I started to see the storm clouds swirling in the distance…sometimes it got close and at those moments I would physically move into another room or go take a walk until they went away. I would put on music and audio books. Looking back, I spent a lot of energy running from it….and I ran so fast that they didn’t catch me.

And that approach worked….for awhile.

And then I started having panic attacks again when my fourth (and last) baby was almost 2. I didn’t think that I couldn’t call it “postpartum” anymore. I had to deal with the fact that maybe this was now something different. Something that had become part of me — like the final stretch mark scar from my four babies. One of many that would never fully go away. Sometimes it is almost invisible and sometimes it is bright purple and I can’t predict the color change. It will always be there…no matter how much cream and oil I use to get rid of it.

The thoughts started getting louder and then a few weeks before I turned 40 (my last baby was now 4 years old) I came across this new article on the internet about this mom in my artist world who got diagnosed with a freak illness and died…..just like that…….

*sigh*. I cried for days. I needed more tests. I guess I needed them because……well…..ya know…..just to make sure…..because I started having these new thoughts….thoughts that maybe the tumor moved somewhere else….. that it was hiding from me.

I went to a fancy program in New York with a team of Doctors and I spent 8 hours doing tests…..and my full body MRI came back clear. My blood tests came back clear…. and yes, I was actually surprised…..Again. Can I tell you the craziest part? After getting the results that I was “all clear” the FIRST thought that entered my mind was “well the tumor probably started after the scan was taken”. I kid you not — that was the thought that entered my mind. I told the Doctor and she said “I think you need medication to help you”. No, I refused.

And then it got worse.

On a trip to Europe I experienced several weeks of the most debilitating rolling panic attacks that brought upon me pain I didn’t know I could experience. I came home early from my trip and could barely function.

I called my childhood therapist and he agreed to see me. 20 years later I sat in the same therapy office I had sat in when I was an emotional adolescent trying to talk sense into my drunk mother.

For two years I did intensive therapy — a combination of EMDR and “inner child” therapy… and after several more rounds of intense rolling panic attacks…. and I finally saw a Psychiatrist and agreed to try a medication.

These things saved my sanity and helped me rebuild my relationship with anxiety.

Ultimately, I’ve had to make “friends” with my anxiety…or at least frenemies. I had to invite it in and try to live in harmony with it. I have learned I have to give it tea and give it an (uncomfortable) chair to sit in while I ask it questions. I’ve had to write letters to it and study it from a distance and challenge the things it says to me. I’ve had lay next to it in the middle of the night ask it to please go away.

I’ve learned to live with it and find ways to soften it — therapy, yoga, walks, meditation, tea, pets, reading, friends, kids, crafts, art.

And yet the thoughts persist. Sometimes like a whisper….and sometimes like a clap of thunder. It is an inner battle that only I can fight.

I keep the results of my most recent tests saved as a picture on my phone that I reference from time.

I hoped it would get better and so I waited.

Fast forward to where my fourth (and last) child is almost seven years old. It has been 10 years since my first run with postpartum anxiety and I’ve now had two years without a panic attack.

It is true that things got better….but never fully went away. The therapy helped and the medication helped too, though I take the lowest dose possible because it still kind of scares me. I still tried to ignore it and tried to distract myself from it and I tried really hard to outrun it…

Sometimes I still think it’s hiding.

Sometimes I think that maybe the MRI machine wasn’t working correctly the day of my tests and maybe I should get another one.

And I tell myself: Don’t be Crazy — there is nothing wrong with you. When I watched Stranger Things years later I identified with the little kid that just had a piece of darkness living in him after an event that he had no control of — he looked fine to everyone but he knew there was a dark mark that he just kind of co-existed with, hiding it from the world.

Lindsay Clancy’s story resonates with me when I hear people say “she never presented as being unwell”. To the outside world — you would have never known I was unwell either. I have four beautiful children, a lovely marriage, several successful businesses, wonderful friends and family. I smile and laugh and love my life — and I acted like that throughout my postpartum episodes. I’m not sad or depressed and I’m pretty sure I’m not crazy and yet those feelings and thoughts were there and I couldn’t control them, though I tried my best.

Lindsay did everything right. She went on medication quickly, she told people she wasn’t ok, she reached out on online blogs and forums for help, she even self-admitted herself into a hospital. She was stronger than I was and took action faster than I did…. and then the unthinkable happened.

Postpartum issues manifest differently for everyone. Some women get depressed, some women reject their babies, some women think of harming themselves, some women think of harming their babies…and some women have no symptoms at all. Sometimes the thoughts are a whisper and sometimes they are thunder and sometimes they are a single strike of lightning that gets one of us and takes full control. The intrusive thoughts come out of nowhere. One minute you are fine…. and then you are not. I remember begging my husband not to go to work because I was afraid of being alone with my self in those early months after the baby. I needed someone to take care of me, but had too much pride to say it.

Postpartum care available to us is essentially non-existent — we care so much about the babies and ignore the moms.

So I carry on. I pet my dog and go to therapy and play with my kids. I do yoga and take walks and quiet my mind through meditation. I am grateful that though my experience was awful and agonizing, that it could have been worse. And I keep that screenshot on my phone of clear MRI results…..just in case the dark clouds come back so I can show the thoughts that they have no place in my mind when they come knocking.

I watch Lindsay’s trial with fear and deep, deep, deep empathy for her. I wish I could sit next to her and hold her hand and lie next to her in her cell when she has a panic attack at night. I watch her in such deep agony knowing that it is the luck of the draw who postpartum psychosis chooses and she drew the short straw in this life.

I’m thinking about her every day — hoping for understanding and compassion for a fellow mom that didn’t get the help or supervision she needed and was overcome with feelings that were so severe that she couldn’t get through it. She isn’t evil — not even close. She is described by her friends and family as a wonderful mom. She had a moment of insanity and was trying to end the suffering for herself and those she loved, even if it doesn’t make sense to anyone else. As awful as it was, I see how that decision made sense to her in that moment under the grips of postpartum psychosis.

She was struck by lightning that you could only even begin to understand if you were in the same storm.

If you or someone you love is struggling after pregnancy, you are not alone. Postpartum depression, anxiety, OCD, and other perinatal mental health conditions are treatable, and help is available.

Postpartum Anxiety — Running from the Storm.

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