The Dark Place

Postpartum, 5 and a 1/2 weeks...last 2 weeks been to the dark place too many times to count. Here's what it looks like....I'm looking at my newborn baby and I'm wondering when his parents are going to come get him. He is only 8lbs. yet frightens me in a way I cannot describe...what am I supposed to do with him...???! Every time he starts to stir from sleep, I get on edge, I start freakin out....don't wake up, don't wake up...and then he does....and I take him and nurse him and change him and do all those newborn things you're supposed to do...I do it in a fog, but at least I do it. Then I pray he goes back to sleep...and then I feel like a failure because I feel this way...I hate myself, I'm ambivalent towards my baby, which makes me hate myself more, I'm irritated by my daughter, which makes me hate myself more...and the anxiety consistently washes over me like a wave in the ocean...as if you just laid down in the sand at the shore and let the waves come, that's what the anxiety does to me. This is what they call Postpartum Depression/Anxiety.