Lauri's Update

Lauri's beginning is told Here ........this continues on from that.....

I wrote, My Struggle With Post Partum-Depression in April 2000. Things were just beginning to look up and my depression had cleared when I found out that my husband had decided to quit taking his lithium for his bipolar, and to stop seeing his psychiatrist. It was about two weeks after that when I found out he had not been taking his medication for some time and hadn't been taking it correctly since February. Although I could have easily gotten back on Prozac as a crutch (and I thought about it) or dipped headlong into another depression, I didn't. To me this was a sure sign that I was on the right path to heal myself. Rather than wallow in all the bad that was happening and dwell on my husband's role in my post-partum depression (he had been very verbally abusive during my last pregnancy and thereafter due to his bipolar episodes), I focused on what I could personally do to make the situation better.

So, I began researching more online writing venues, and building my career again. I had stopped working when I became pregnant with my first son due to bed rest and hadn't really gone back to work except for an article here and there since my pregnancies. I'd been living either for my kids, or for my husband and I began to recognize that a lot of my post-partum depression was because I had lost a lot of self-time and wasn't nurturing myself at all. So, I did what I needed to do for my family, tried to improve my relationship with my husband, but devoted at least 3 hours a day to myself, either writing, taking a bath or reading. Sometimes I just went for a drive. This time for my self kept me out of a depressive slump.

My husband refused marriage counseling, as well as to get back on the treatment protocol for his own depression. Our marriage hit the rocks and kept crumbling into pieces of flying dirt despite my best efforts. I was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation and auto immune hepatitis as well as other liver problems in July and August 2000. In mid-August I had to spend a week in the hospital with heart trouble and my husband didn't even bother to come see me. This led to a good cry, but not a depressive one. I knew something had irrevocably changed and that things were indeed over between us because he wouldn't get help for his illness, and I was. On August 22, my husband in the midst of an argument asked me if I wanted him to leave. I said "Yes". That one simple act is what kept me from becoming depressed again. I took charge of my life again, more than I had at any other time since my pregnancy. I filed restraining orders on my husband due to threats he had made, and on August 28, my birthday, I signed the divorce papers.

It's been a real struggle but I have not gone back into a depressive slump. And the breakup of my marriage was just icing on a very sad cake. Exactly one month to the day my husband left, my 2 year old son was diagnosed with nephrotic syndrome, a rare but potentially devastating kidney disease. My husband came to the hospital for our son and I had to spend 3 days sleeping in the same hospital room, where he insisted on going through all the bad in our marriage. I felt shattered again, I finally decided I needed to go see the psychiatrist who had first put me on Prozac. That was yesterday, October 3.

As I was speaking to him, I realized I didn't need to be there. The stresses in my life were affecting me, as they should, but I was having normal reactions to them. I was taking the steps to get things accomplished. When I cried it was justified and traceable to a specific, rational reason. The psychiatrist asked me if I wanted to go back on anti-depressant medications. My reaction was "No". Again, a simple little word, but it placed the power and responsibility in my hands instead of that of another or a pharmaceutical. I was pronounced, "not clinically depressed" and the psychiatrist suggested that if anything I might want to look into a divorce support group.

It will take a minimum of six months for my divorce to be finalized because I have minor children. My son is on an intensive 16 week protocol of steroids, antibiotics and blood pressure medications with a lot of home monitoring and clinic visits for his kidney condition. My own physical health problems are chronic and lasting. However, since my struggle with post-partum depression I have found new methods of coping that have made me a stronger individual who won't give in to the demon of depression again. I have too much to live for, and I want to live it in the open, in the light, instead of the dark shadows of my mind.

Laurie Jean Crowe is a Contributing Editor for the topic of The Art and Science of Dreams at Suite101.com. Visit her site Here