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When asked to describe now how she felt then, her account is heart-wrenching:
"Try imagining taking everything that you have grown to depend on in yourself and turn those characteristics inside-out. For instance, if you are caring, picture yourself being unfeeling. It's as if you are a different person, almost outside of yourself. Sometimes you have thoughts that you would have never had before, sometimes you say or do things that you would have never done before. Sometimes you just don't care one way or another. Just picture yourself being trapped in a very deep well alone and not being able to hear anyone who is trying to speak to you. That's how it felt to me."
Fortunately, Stacey Glaesmann cried out for help, first to her husband, who then called her parents for assistance. At their insistance, she began seeing a therapist who diagnosed her PPD and prescribed anti-anxiety medication.
For Glaesmann, there were pre-existing risk factors which could have signalled her and her loved ones, if she had known.
"I had never heard of PPD. No one in my childbirth class mentioned it, my OB/GYN never mentioned it, and the books I read on pregnancy never mentioned it. All I had read about was what they called the “baby blues” where you cry a lot then you are okay."
In addition to panic attacks that she'd experienced "off and on for 10 years" before her pregnancy, she says that she considered herself a "very controlling and organized person."
"A baby sure puts a kink in your perfectly cleaned house, doesn't it? I think the loss of control over my own time was a HUGE factor," Gaesmann says.
© Tracy Morris
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