Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Post Partum Depression

The demonic 7 pound figure withered with clenched fists and bent knees.  The skin sagged behind the knees, wrinkled on the hands.  It made sounds I had never heard, causing my toes to curl and my teeth to grind.  It moved in awkward motions, begging for one more drink.  I hovered over the figure trying to fixate my eyes to see correctly.  I stared at it, my hands gripped on either side of it's make shift bed.  Tears rolled down my cheeks as I recalled a story I had heard of a you tube video of a mom killing her two year old because she thought he was demonic.

I reasoned with myself, "This is your daughter.  The way you're seeing her isn't truth."  I continued to cry, pools of tears spilling slowly over my face, inching into the corners of my mouth, my stomach in pain from the deep incision in my abdomen.  I forced myself to stare into her face while fighting the urge to throw her.  My mind was chaos, the pain was deep.  I spoke to myself again, "This is a spiritual battle.  The enemy is trying to destroy you and your daughter during a vulnerable time.  You will get through this."  I picked up my darling and held her little body close.  I would not give in to the irrational Post Partum Depression, although it literally felt as if someone had turned the lights off, put a dark bag over my head and was tormenting me with a cruel joke with me as the punch line.  At times I felt that I would be able to rip the shroud off my eyes and see light again, yet the shroud was over my mind; it wasn't physical, I couldn't rip it off.  I went to sleep and woke to yet the same veil of darkness day after day after day after day.

Today, I read of a young Pennsylvanian woman who committed suicide due to Post Partum depression just a few weeks ago.  It gripped me.  It took me away from my priorities tonight.  It brought me to a place of deep prayer for her husband and daughter because...I was there.  I sat in my room and pumped and cried and breastfed and cried and balled my hands in fists and cried...for no rational reason.  I wasn't sad because I was fat, I wasn't self pitying, I wasn't sad because my life was no longer my own....PPD isn't born out of selfishness.  It makes no sense to the rational mind...it's. just. there.  Yet, during the months of intense emotional pain, I was able to recall the alive God I serve, that I had given my life and heart to, and beg Him to show me what to do to get through this.  In my devastation, as if living the death of a best friend day in and day out, I was able to remember that there was a spiritual battle going on.  There was more than met the eye.

Day after day, I forced myself to dress, I forced myself to put make up on, I was raw and real to my husband...and I grieved and fought the spiritual realm until exhaustion.  This is a tid bit of what my days were like during the darkness.  It's only recently that I'm starting to feel somewhat human, like the light is dawning again.

One person had written condolences on a blog for this young lady stating, "No one could have known that she would be shattered by something that should have been her ultimate happiness."  By God's grace, I was able to recognize that I would be destroyed by a gift He had given me if I didn't persevere.  Yes, it was devastating seeing my baby as a demoniac day after day, hearing her cries as evil day after day, why couldn't I see the beauty God created?  Yet, a rainbow always comes after rain, darkness always leaves, and the only thing that kept me going was, "This won't last forever."

In your darkest days, always remember, Emotions don't always tell the truth, sometimes, they are just a symptom.






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