I have seen friends suffer through postpartum depression, postnatal depression or baby-blues, whatever the name, the condition is the same. It was traumatic for them and their families, yet things generally improved once the diagnosis and support was in place. But when I began to see similar patterns emerging in my own life, I was not at all prepared for the hurricane of emotional turmoil. Try as I might, I could find no on-line support group, and surprisingly no friends who had been through my particular condition before, as my condition differed from my friends in one, albeit crucial, detail. I suffer from late-onset postpartum depression.

This condition is not as rare as it first seems. It is a debilitating form of depression that kicks in around year sixteen following your baby’s birth. It can last anywhere between one to three years if left untreated. Now that I am well on my way to recovery, I would like to share my personal experiences of late-onset postpartum depression so that others plagued by this complaint may be able to help themselves through their own personal storm as health forums continue to neglect this very real and serious ailment. I might also add that my state verged on psychosis, as I will explain later, but for the most part the basic depression encapsulates my illness.

Identifying late-onset post-partum:

When your baby was nearing his or her sixteenth birthday did you find that you were more moody or sad than usual? Do you find you are having memory problems or feel guilty or worthless? Have you found that you no longer find pleasure in activities that you used to enjoy? Are you overwhelmed with the task of being a mother to a sixteen year old? Do you doubt your ability to be a good mother? Do you feel tired from having a restless or broken sleep for the past sixteen years? Do you have a marked lack of time to yourself? Do you feel less attractive than you did before you had your baby? If you are at all like me, you may even have answered affirmatively to all of those questions.

I found that not only did I feel sad, frustrated, and guilty about my inadequacy, but I felt increasingly irrelevant. There wasn’t a question, a quip, quandary that I could offer that his friends on Facebook or Wikipedia couldn’t top. I questioned my very role in his life. Then things became worse. I was on the verge of tears most of the time, and a slave to my blinding rage and irrational anger. I quickly found out that it was way too late to give him up for adoption.

I finally sought help when I began to contemplate doing irrevocable harm to my offspring. It was four thirty in the morning when I staggered out of bed with the sound of the front door. I had been lightly asleep, as typical since his birth. When I finally groped my way down the stairs into the kitchen, I looked up at him, into his glossy reddened eyes as he was about to put the following day’s dinner into the microwave. ‘What the hell do you think you are doing?’ I shrieked in a voice I could hardly recognize.

‘Just making a snack, Mom. I’m hungry.’ He keyed auto-heat on the microwave.

‘That’s tomorrow’s dinner.’ I breathed out in slow and even words.

‘I’m going out for dinner.’

A possessed by a demon, I grabbed the glass tray the lasagna was in, I pulled it out of his hand and sealed the foil over the top and put it back into the fridge. ‘You’ll do no such thing.’ I said, my eyes swollen with hot rivers of rage. ‘You’re, you’re …’ I could barely find the words to express my feelings, until I finally spat out, ‘GROUNDED.’

He shrugged and lumped down the stairs to his room in the basement.

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