Are you a Feminist struggling to make sense of domestic life?

Resolutions are over-rated...

So let's not end this year bashing ourselves! Please reply with at least one thing that you do not want to change about yourself this year. I'll start:

This year, I do not want to stop thinking of 'great' ideas. I've had so many over the course of my life that didn't work out, but look - this one did! I'm still excited over the wonderful response to the site and community.

- Erin

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Judy on January 16, 2008 at 11:33am: Ah PPD. It's a burden, curse, but also I think it's a revelation! Thank goodness we know about it now! Thank goodness we have husbands who have the balls to say..."honey, I love you but you need help."

My Mother-in-law told me, after I admitted to having PPD, that she had it after birthing my husband. Her husband's reaction? He told her to "suck it up". But those were the times. PPD was just starting to get attention 30+ years ago.

Since beginning medication I have felt stronger because I can think more clearly. I don't feel weak and I don't think asking for help was weak either. In fact, it was the strongest thing I have ever done!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Vavavoom on January 16, 2008 at 11:51am: You are so very right, Judy :) I felt weak NOT asking for help. My hubby was instrumental in letting me know that he loved me but that something was wrong. We have been together 10 years this year, so he knows me inside and out. Sure, it was embarassing on some level to admit that there was something really wrong with me, but it was also reassuring to know that it had a cause...I wasn't just crazy!

Now that I've dealt with the problem, it's hard to look back at the first 8 months of my daughter's life. I felt completely alone, completely out of whack. Most days, I woke up with dread at filling the hours between waking up and bedtime. It was so weird because I didn't have it with my ds, so the feelings and things were very new to me. I never, ever had depression before so it was a very new experience for me.

I now feel great! I'm on 10mg a day of Cipralex. I still have feelings crop up during my PMS but it only lasts for a few days and I can feel it coming on. I do my best to just talk myself down then, since I know it's only for a while.

I still feel like crying when I think back to what I felt like. I will definitely be telling my daughter about my experience when she starts having children of her own. My sis is currently 33 wks pregnant with her first and she knows she can ask me anything!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Judy on January 16, 2008 at 3:56pm: I know how you feel when you look back on those awful months when you didn't know what was wrong. I used to wake in the morning with the boys and go through the motions of mom-hood. All the while I was literally watching the seconds on the clock tick by, waiting for my husband to come home. I hated being alone with the kids. I was terrified as I wondered how the day would unfold.

I now tell anyone I have PPD...obviously only if the topic comes up somehow. It's not like I go around saying, "Hi. I'm Judy. I have depression. How are you?"

Now THAT would be crazy.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Marta Jespersen on January 14, 2008 at 11:54pm: I want to continue on my path to higher education, and to an enlightened spirituality but most of all I want to continue being all that I can be for myself, my children and my husband. That and I want to lose the baby weight...it's been a year and we're not planning anymore babies!; ▶ Reply to This