My Darkness Turned to Light

“I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them, I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do, I will not forsake them” Isaiah 42:16

Two years ago I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl in Perth, Australia. My husband Sven and I named her Autumn Claire. Though there were slight complications at birth, I never expected the biggest complication of all for me would be a diagnosis of postpartum depression (or in my specific case a major depressive and anxiety disorder brought on in the postpartum time period), 8 months after Autumn was born. But first lets start with a little about me. I'm 32 years old, I was born in BC Canada, and moved to Perth, Australia when I was 20 to join a Christian Missions organization called Youth With a Mission (YWAM). Little did I know back then that I would give the next 10 years of my life serving as a full time volunteer there. As long as I can remember I've been described by others as a happy, joyful and creative person. Although I went through the stereotypical emotional teenage drama years as most teenage girls do, it wasn't anything overly concerning and in the following years I found the greatest joy and purpose in my life through my faith in God. I grew up in a loving family with good morals, and though depression does run within my family, it wasn't something I really struggled with. I've always enjoyed my life, and especially enjoyed it once I met my (now) husband Sven! This cheeky guy stole my heart while we worked in YWAM together and we have been married almost 6 years now. We have a great marriage and family, especially with our super cool dog Morty. Sven and I have been on the same page about most things, especially the important things. I guess all this to say, I didn't think I would ever picture

myself to be a prime candidate for postpartum depression (PPD) and to be honest never expected myself to diagnosed with something so out of left field.

It was interesting trying to figure out the cause of my PPD. Autumn's birth was nothing out of the ordinary, it wasn't perfect but it wasn't terrible either. But the most important thing is that we ended up with a healthy beautiful baby girl and thats all we should hope and pray for in labor anyway. And in the following months, we honestly were surprised at how easy parenting was. Autumn was a dream, she rarely cried and slept through the night from early days. Okay other parents, put down your pitchforks! :) I'm not saying this to brag, but I just want to make it clear that Autumn and adjusting to parenting was never something we saw as the cause of my PPD. (Just to say, I met moms when I ended up in hospital who hadn't slept for months, who had screaming babies, who couldn't cope.. these moms are my inspiration.) This pattern has followed Autumn to this very day, even in the so-called terrible two's. Yes, I know we'll probably pay for it when she's older! But what I'm saying is, my PPD seemed to come out of nowhere, I didn't see any major causes for it which made it extra hard to admit that I had it and also really difficult to communicate my situation to other people. Looking back on the first 3 or so months of Autumns life, some of the beginning signs of PPD seemed very obvious, but at the time they were pushed to the side and not fully understood. The first signs I started to notice were anger for no good reason, extreme jealousy and feeling overwhelmed with daily life and responsibilities that I could normally handle. In Perth, after having Autumn I always had my Child Health Nurse, Chris, to talk to about anything to do with parenting (a Child Health Nurse is a free government service available to every new parent in each subdivision of Perth). She would later play a key role in helping me realise what I was actually coping with. In the next 4 months before my PPD became full blown, things gradually became more intense. I started to really feel the squeeze of stress and anxiety like I had never felt before, and it was weird and confusing. Simple tasks became huge challenges, and I would daily find myself crying uncontrollably not able to handle life. But hey, its just the 'Baby Blues' right?! At the time, my mind was fluttered with thoughts of what was going on and how I should be handling things – “maybe my faith was weak, I wasn't being resilient enough, all new mothers have to adjust to being a new mom, why should I be different, it'll pass.” I prayed into this a lot and asked God where He was through it all, the answer always remained the same; He was not far, He was not abandoning me, He didn't make this happen so that I could learn a lesson, but He was close and His voice was always there guiding me through it. I am so grateful as well that I had the encouragement of many loved ones around me, helping me realise that I was doing a good job as a mom, and also helping me realise that there was in fact something wrong with me... they too could see I wasn't myself and that I wasn't handling things like I normally could. And soon, things stopped getting gradually intense, and became immediately worse. It was as if all of a sudden things started to get dark in my mind and I started loosing control of my thoughts. I can remember my first panic attack on our trip back from holidays in the airplane as we were descending into Perth. I'd never felt like that before. Sven could see that this was very abnormal for me and started to take action helping me to calm down. For a few weeks I still had such a hard time admitting that I had a problem, but after many more freak outs (including a hallucination) Sven presented me with an ultimatum. He told me that I either need to find a way to get back to my normal self, or realise there was something terribly wrong and I needed help. And in that moment I knew that there was no way I could get back to my happy, Andrea self. I am so grateful that he said what he did, it made me realise the state I was truly in. The point of him giving me an ultimatum wasn't for me to simply snap out of it, but to admit to myself that something major was going on (which he had already come to realise). I have a very wise, kind, caring, thoughtful, patient and servant hearted husband who I love so much. I know without a doubt that I wouldn't have come out as strong as I did if it wasn't for him. (He didn't know I was writing all these nice things about him as we were writing this together, tehe.) I'm not going to go into all the details, but after admitting to the severity of my situation and even getting help, I went through the darkest moments of my life; moments that break my heart just thinking about. It was like my brain just snapped and I didn't know how to control my thoughts anymore... myself and others close to me were fearful of my actions. The moment that we all knew something had to be done was when I took a routine questionnaire to assess my risk for PPD with Chris, my Child Health Nurse. I had taken this many times before and it almost always showed slight awareness signs. This time she noticed that I was ticking off all the major danger areas and she quickly but lovingly lead me into immediate medical care under the supervision of medical professionals. For me, everything became a blur around that time. It was a completely different situation for Sven. I ended up being admitted into a Mother & Baby Unit for women with postpartum depression in a mental health ward hospital in Perth. I was there for four weeks, and in that time my life changed completely as I got the help I needed for my sickness. There were many points of humbling myself, a major one admitting that I couldn't function properly without medication, seeing a psychiatrist and psychologist daily during that time to help me figure out what was really going on. These people are often misunderstood by some, but they are now my heros as they helped me to see things in a clearer light than I've ever seen before. They tackled deep issues with me and gave me strategies to get through it all, as well as being kind and understanding. Thinking back on that time with its roller coaster ride of emotions and extreme measures that had to be taken, I would say the only thing I would have done differently would have been to admit that I was sick earlier than I did. I was someone who carried a wrong stigma towards mental health. I didn't want to be someone who had to get help and realise I had a problem. But now I see it as a reality that so many people struggle with and often something thats unfortunately dealt with in isolation. Issues of mental health need to be brought into the light, whether its postpartum or any other form of depression or illness. If untreated, it's too easy for something awful to happen and the right help is out there for those who need it.

I've mentioned a few anchors that got me through – family, friends, my hubby, professionals in mental health, our church and missions community and my faith in God. It was the simplicity of scriptures like the one mentioned at the beginning of my story- the reminder that God was with me, His promise. In the darkness it helps to put things into the light. I felt led constantly to be open and honest about how I really was, which I know was a huge part of my healing and how my darkness turned into light.