9 June 2016, the day we brought my newborn son, R, home from the hospital, I had a dream in which, my mother came up to me and said that R’s real mum was here and she wanted to take him back.
The dream version of me heaved a sigh of relief — free at last.
I woke up with a jolt, my stomach sinking with horror as I realized that the only mom R had was me, no one could bail me out of this.
While R slept comfortably next to my mother, I crept into the bathroom and stared at the many bottles of body wash on the counter. For the first time in my life, I very seriously considered drinking all of them.
Looking back, the only reason I didn’t go bottoms up on the Body Shop shower gel was that I didn’t know for sure what damage it’d do. What a waste it’d be to have my stomach pumped and sent back home — a failure even at suicide.
Just then, R started fussing in his sleep and I knew it was time for his feed. I sat nursing him in a daze and all I could think of was finding a way out of this responsibility.
You’re probably thinking that R was a surprise baby. That we weren’t ready to be parents and we somehow conceived accidentally. But you’d be wrong in that assumption. We planned baby R every step of the way, months of folic acid pills and period tracking and peeing on numerous sticks finally gave us the pregnancy we so desperately wanted. I enjoyed every last minute of being pregnant — weekly bump pictures and tracking the baby’s growth through various apps. The first time we saw his little face in the 20-week ultrasound, it felt like I was floating. Every kick to my bladder filled me with joy and even the urinary incontinence of trimester three was something I delighted in. I knew in my heart that I loved my baby, and I was prepared for the fact that it would take me a few days of recovering from childbirth to truly bond with him.
The day R was born, I honestly don’t remember much. I remember not being able to feel my legs for a long time and I remember feeling at peace. I couldn’t wait to recover from surgery and start mom-life.
The very next day, it felt like a switch had flipped. Childbirth seemed anticlimactic and I cried every minute I had alone. I answered all the congratulatory phone calls in a daze, and I believed my doctors when they told me that these ‘baby blues’ would pass. I was told to give it a few weeks. All mothers went through it, apparently.
I am no stranger to anxiety, and panic attacks have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. But no one — my family, my doctors, or I — understood it for what it was. Heart exams, blood tests, hormone profiles — nothing gave us a conclusive answer. Eventually, I learned to accept it as just one of those inexplicable things. Sometimes, for no reason at all, my heart would start to race, my body would tingle, my breath would be short, I’d throw up. It would always subside after half-an-hour or so. Then life would be back to normal.
None of my previous brushes with anxiety had prepared me for this. Week after week of darkness, week after week where I went through the motions of breastfeeding and bathing and massaging my baby, all the while visualizing my corpse. One particularly horrific night, I remember waking up and staring at my baby, convinced that his face was covered in red ants and somehow I wasn’t being able to move my hands to brush them away. I tried to call out for help, but all the breath remained stuck at my throat. I have no idea how long this waking nightmare lasted, and to this day, I don’t know what it was.
When I finally found it in me to move, my baby’s face was free of those imaginary red ants and at that moment I truly believed that my child was cursed to be stuck with me as a mother.
I kissed his sleepy face and ran into the bathroom, stuffed my fists into my mouth and cried my heart out. This was the lowest moment I had ever experienced — my life prior hadn’t been smooth, but this was so shocking and shameful to me that I swore I would take it with me to the grave. Did it make sense to take myself out of the equation as quickly as possible? R would be better off with no mother.
The next day, I downplayed what went on but I convinced my family that maybe it was time to see a doctor — because baby blues weren’t supposed to last this long. The busy-busy doctors listened to me talk for but a minute and then put me on the lowest grade antidepressants they could since the drugs could pass through my breast milk to my baby. I wanted to yell and scream — ‘Don’t you see doctor, don’t you see that something really bad is about to happen — is breast milk really more important than my life?’
I am one of the lucky women who didn’t have to rush back to work, and what more, I had my parents helping me out with the baby in those early months. But even the most well-meaning family member will eventually tire of dealing with an empty husk of a person. I was ridden with guilt as to how I was letting my husband down, this despite logically knowing that he always had my back.
I would hear from my parents, tales of the hardships they had faced in their lives, and how I needed to get it together for the sake of my child. Tough love had always worked on me in the past and my bewildered parents were sticking to a previously successful script. I listened with half an ear and nodded absently. I would go in the afternoons to the nearby mall and look over the railing on the third floor. How easy it would be to just tip over. Everyone would be free of the liability that I had become. If you think about it, we’re constantly dancing with Death. One misstep on an uneven road, one moment of balance lost on the balcony, one careless attempt at crossing a road and its game over for us.
I thought about death all the time. Visualizing my own corpse became an obsession. Soon it was time to leave my parents’ house and return to my own home. When my husband’s paternity leave ended, I was alone with R for the first time.
I had been living under this black cloud for close to two months now. It felt like it had been two months since I took a full, deep breath. It had been two months since I slept well. It had been two months since I laughed. It had been two months of wanting to die every minute of every day. It had been two months of pretending that I was getting better, but truth be told — the extra mild antidepressants were a joke.
I wish I could tell you that this story has a happy ending. That I had a magical moment of bonding with my baby that took all of this darkness away. But life isn’t a movie and it just doesn’t work like that.
I decided on my own, without informing my parents, that I wanted to stop nursing my baby and take a stronger medicine. My mother had been a champion breastfeeder in her time and she truly believed that nursing was the best way to bond with the baby and get over my depression. And believe me, I tried. But no two situations are ever the same and I needed to feel something other than gloom. I remember the day I first gave R the bottle, he drank to his heart’s content and I couldn’t help but smile at the little droplet of milk that seeped out of the corner of his mouth. I felt a just a little lighter for the first time in months.
It took time for my new medication to take effect. I took my gyno’s approval before I started working out and my early morning runs with Sia blasting through my headphones became my favourite part of the day. Over the next year, I had light weeks where it seemed like I had never known sadness in my life, and then I had dark weeks where I would hand R to the nanny as soon as my husband left for work and cry for hours in the bathroom — once again staring at the bottle of body wash and wondering if having my stomach pumped was a risk I was willing to take.
We made an effort not to change our lifestyle too much just because we were now parents. We had our friends over regularly. We went on vacations and watched movies on Netflix whenever the baby slept in. But all the while, I could feel the Grim Reaper beckoning.
I was plagued with a feeling of gloom like something really, really bad was about to happen. Why was I still having these visions of my son in danger and me not being able to help him? Why could I see my own corpse every time I shut my eyes? Why was I living with this vague feeling of foreboding?
Almost two years after my son’s birth — I got an answer. What I was going through really had nothing to do with ‘baby blues’ as many doctors insisted. It wasn’t even your regular postpartum depression. Upon finally taking the DSM-5 diagnostic test, I got my answer. What started out as postpartum depression had somehow morphed into GAD or generalized anxiety disorder — the symptoms of which include constant worry even in the absence of any stressor, restlessness, and trouble concentrating. Check, check, and check. People with this kind of anxiety anticipate disaster and also exhibit a variety of physical symptoms that can range from migraines to diarrhea.
Then came the understanding that this wasn’t something that I could just power-through as I had somehow done in my pre-baby years. This was something that would require me to change my thought patterns using cognitive behavioural therapy. Yes, I would need to be counselled for a bit. But with time, this is a condition that I, and many others like me, could somehow live with.
Earlier this month, my son started play school. Despite all my struggles, he is somehow unscathed. He is a happy, normal child who inexplicably loves me just as I am (though I anticipate some rebellion in the teenage years — Lord ‘beer’ me strength for that).
When I look back at my journey of motherhood thus far, I have been consumed by the fear that I wouldn’t be able to save my child. When in reality, it’s R who has saved me. Even in my darkest, most miserable hours — I somehow, unconsciously put him first. His feeds, his sleep, his growth, his development. He has been the reason I get out of bed every morning. The responsibility I have towards him is the only thing that sometimes cuts through the numbness. In the very early days, only his cries could rouse me out of my self-destructive thoughts. Not because of any outpouring of love, but more because ‘why are his cries so loud?’
Today, when my days are lighter, I realize that the one person who has stood by me through thick and thin is this miracle baby of mine. Over two years, the feeling of fear and responsibility has grown into the most overpowering affection. Even when he poops on my new clothes, all I feel like doing is kissing his little dimpled cheek.
When he grows up, he will never hear the Hallmark-card story of the mother who was overjoyed and blissed out in the early years of his life. Instead, he will hear the story of how he saved his mother’s life. How his mother loved him so much that she fought her way back to him. Our story isn’t the idealized one — but it’s real and I wouldn’t change it for anything in the world.
There’s a lot of resistance when people, especially mothers, talk about mental illness. Perhaps I would be judged less if I attributed the darkness to a physical ailment. I know many will read this and wonder who is this weak woman who couldn’t be happy with the healthiest, cutest baby the universe ever created? But this is me, and I know that there are many others like me who suffer in silence (10 million cases of postpartum depression are reported each year in India alone). Even as mental illness is now something less of a stigma — new mothers aren’t allowed to suffer. We’re only ever allowed to feel grateful. If I had a rupee for every time a well-meaning elder told me to ‘stop sulking’, I could perhaps afford that dream trip to South America.
As I bring this note to an end, I want you, whoever reads this, to spare a thought for mothers. Mothers like me who have the means to talk about this subject, and the thousands of mothers all over the world who don’t have access to healthcare or even familial acceptance. In a world where we still grapple with maternal mortality rates, do spare a thought for mothers whose demons are less visible but still debilitating.
So as I walk towards the light at the end of the tunnel, I do so with the knowledge that one battle might be won, but there are likely to be other wars ahead. GAD can take years to overcome, but overcome it I will — hand in hand with my little savior. My son.
