Thursday, February 21, 2008

Brains and guts

One thing that came up during my first Birth Center prenatal appointment, while going over my general medical history, was that I have a few episodes of depression and/or anxiety in my past. No huge drama, no hospitalization, not even any medication for it, but still it's there. The nurse-midwife cautioned me that women who have such a history are more likely to suffer from post-partum depression than women who haven't had past problems. That doesn't mean I will have PPD, but that I should be alert to the possibility. She said that many women have trouble recognizing the signs because there's so much else going on at the same time - sleep deprivation, the physical recovery from birth, sore breasts from starting to breastfeed, body image issues, the sense of huge new responsibility, and the list goes on. With all that, it's hard to say what's "normal."


I wondered whether that might happen to me - would I be able to tell if I was having problems more than just the usual adjustment period to being a new parent? Thinking about it made me realize that at least for me, mental health is nowhere near as self-evident as physical health. I know at any given time whether I'm in a good or a bad mood, but if it's a bad mood I can't say whether it will go away in an hour, or a day, or whether it might drag on for much longer. I can tell after a specific stressful event that it caused a stress reaction, but if it's the more ongoing, long-term kind of stress, I can't easily say whether it's getting to be too much, or if I'm coping well. I can't tell by "asking myself" whether I'm just having a bad day or a bad week, or if it's something that I need to take steps to fix.


Then I realized that I do have an excellent built-in barometer of my overall mental health: my stomach. I may feel stressed or moody, but if I'm eating normally, that's a good indicator that it's nothing too serious, and will resolve itself soon. When I lose my appetite or feel sick to my stomach and there's no obvious physical cause, it's a probable sign that there's something that I'm having trouble dealing with. In particular, during a few times in my life that were especially stressful, I thought that I had some mysterious stomach ailment; eventually I figured out that I was having panic attacks, but without the stereotypical hyperventilating and heart-pounding.


So for me, as for many people, a "gut reaction" is a not just a metaphor. It's an interesting example of the inseparability of mind and body. I wonder whether this tendency to physically express mental turmoil evolved for some reason - can there be any possible advantage to having physical symptoms of unhappiness? Or is it just a side effect of the fact that the physical brain is part of the body, and that having thoughts and emotions is a chemical process, and is not independent of the rest of the body's workings? It just seems funny that for all its power, the brain isn't very good at identifying and troubleshooting its own problems.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think every new Mom deals with a certain level of depression after child birth but some slip into that chasm that is dangerous to her, the child and her family.

How can a new Mom not suffer a certain level of depression and stress? Though people claim that you have 9 months to get used to the idea I think this is a crock. You have 9 months of getting used to an alien form occupying your body, changing you from the inside out. Then birth happens and you've got to deal with the odd sensation of no longer feeling the child inside you but instead you're staring at this brand new tiny being who depends upon you.

In that moment you know that your life is forever change and there's no "Pass Go Collect $200" card to be found.

You'll do great, I'm sure of this. Just do not attempt to be Super Mom when you arrive home with the baby. Laundry can wait, dusting can wait but those little naps for you while the baby is asleep are OH SO important.

I could ramble on and on but I'll just stop here.

Beth said...

I also know that you'll do great! And I'm happy to talk on the phone with you too since I'm doubting I can be there enough in person. But I think the other thing to do is to listen to your body (or your stomach) and see how you're doing. And if you're getting stressed out - tell your MD. Also get your local friends to cook for you so that you don't have to worry about that for a while.

Sparkling Squirrel said...

If you were fishing for reassurances, I, too, am confident that you and your Mister will be good parents and I am confident that you can listen to your gut enough to know if you need extra help.

As an intellectual topic, I think you raise really good points. Sleep deprivation does really really weird things to people, as does sudden change in responsibility as do huge hormonal fluctuations. I don't know how someone in the midst of this for the first time can accurately determine if she is experiencing soemthing that is "normal" or really problemmatic. Both being sleep deprived and even just a little down screw up one's sense of time, and things always feel like they are lasting forever.

If you haven't read Annie Lamott's Operating Instructions yet, you really should soon. It's hilarously frank about the cats glaring at the new mom "What hideous thing have you brought into our house?" and the mom really beginning to wonder what this hideous thing is.

Somehow new mothers never find it as funny as soon to be mothers or mothers of toddlers.