In-Depth with Stephanie Manning

Nat: How bad did it get?

Steph: January came and I don’t remember exactly when I realized, “This isn’t good.” But, at some point in January, I remember thinking that I just didn’t care. I’d gotten to the point where I knew I was depressed, I knew that it wasn’t good but I was so depressed that I didn’t care. That’s the difference, right? Between the baby blues and postpartum depression, at least for me, was “I just don’t care whether I get out of bed or if I shower today.”  “I don’t care whether my oldest child’s homework is done and all the papers are signed and whether lunch is made. She can buy lunch, I just don’t care.”

Nat: Did that scare you? Or were you too out of it to feel that?

Steph: It was literally a total feeling of indifference and apathy, of wanting to sleep and retreat from life. It was a full retreat from life, thinking, “You know what, let other people step in and take care of this. I’m not going to function for awhile.” I think in the back of my mind, I knew – or at least, hoped – that I would come out of it at some point. It was almost like I was giving myself a pass but it wasn’t because I wanted to. It wasn’t because I wanted to stay in bed all day or because I wanted to ignore what was happening with my other kids. It was literally the feeling that there was nothing I could do about it.

Nat: Can you describe the darkness?

Steph: Completely dark. It’s hard to describe even now. I feel like I thought I knew what those feelings were before, I thought maybe going through periods in my life where things weren’t great or work was super stressful or there was some other major stress in my life where I thought things were really bad but I had never felt this way before.

Nat: Was that the distinction? Being able to compare it to other dark periods and knowing it was drastically different? Almost like, the complete opposite end of the spectrum, but how you know you’re really in love because it’s nothing like you’ve experienced even though you may have thought you were in love before? You may have thought you were depressed before but, compared to this, it was nothing.

Steph: Yes! I thought, “Oh my God, this is postpartum depression! This is how this feels. How do people with chronic depression live like this?”

Nat: Did you worry for your safety of your kids?

Steph: I was never to that point where I thought I would hurt myself or my kids but it was the feeling of not wanting to exist. It wasn’t a suicidal thought, it was thoughts of, “I want to sleep and I don’t want anybody to wake me up. I just want to go away. I don’t want to die, I just don’t want to exist. I just don’t want to be here for awhile.” It was a very real feeling. I wished for it. I wished I could just pause everything, take off for years and then come back and be okay.

Nat: I identify with that. After Lilly, I was put on the wrong pill and had a very scary week. Thankfully, it was only a week, which sounds like nothing but, in those moments, felt like an eternity and, really, it only takes one horrific, extremely dark moment to change the course of everyone’s lives forever. I’m so thankful I came out of it and cannot imagine what it’s like for those of you who suffer for months- or years. My heart goes out to you.

Stephanie: It’s extremely scary.

Nat: I didn’t want to harm myself or her but I just wanted to go away.

Stephanie: Exactly. And if someone had offered it to you, you might have taken it.

Nat: I absolutely would’ve hopped into some random car and gone with some stranger. How terrifying is that?

Stephanie: It was almost like looking for someone to rescue you from your own life, right? It’s that feeling of, “I just want to go away. I just want to not exist. I want to be somewhere all by myself.” Or, actually even worse, “I don’t even want to be myself.” Even if I was on a beautiful beach in a tropical paradise, I still wouldn’t have cared.

Nat: Because you wouldn’t have enjoyed it. Any mentally healthy mom would love to run away, at any moment’s notice, go to a deserted island, but that’s the distinction, they would enjoy it. They want a good book, a spa, peace and quiet, a cocktail… A depressed person wouldn’t know or care that there was sun on their face, a cool breeze in the air, a gorgeous sunset, high thread count sheets…

Stephanie: Oh, totally. It didn’t matter where I was, who I was with – friends, family, my kids, who usually bring me such joy, it was like, “Everyone leave me alone. Let me sleep.” Because sleep was my only way of escaping.

Nat: Was there a defining moment when you realized it? Or was it kind of a gradual thing where you realized what you were going through?

Stephanie: I think I knew. I think my mom knew. I think Drew, in particular, knew. He would ask, “Are you okay? What can I do? Do you need to get help?” He’s pretty perceptive so I think he was very much in tune with everything that was going on. But he didn’t know how to approach me with it because I was so shut down.

Nat: I know it’s a blur but do you recall any specific conversations about it with him?

Steph: I remember the kids were sleeping one night and us sitting in chairs in the kitchen and me saying to him, “I don’t know how I’m going to do this.” And he was like, “What do you mean? Do what?” And I said, “All of it. I don’t know how I’m going to do any of this at this point. I don’t know how I’m going to function and take care of three children and work part-time and get through their schoolwork and stay on top of everything and deal with other commitments with friends and family.” I remember the feeling of complete and total overwhelm, but not, again, in the regular sense of overwhelm which a lot of us feel on a daily basis.

Nat: How was it different? Can you describe the distinction?

Steph: It was all the time. It was this feeling of, “No. I can’t do this. Like, I can’t. There’s absolutely no way.” Every single task in my day seemed difficult. That was when I figured out that this was different, that it was not normal because everything seemed difficult, basic ordinary things.

Nat: Like what?

Steph: Like if someone said, “Hey, we’re out of milk. Can you go to the store and get some?” it would have seemed insurmountable to me that day. It was like, “You’re asking me to climb Mt. Everest and I don’t have the tools to do it.”

Nat: Whereas normally, on a bad day, you might have been annoyed or it might have stressed you out, added one more thing to your list but you could have easily gotten it done. The thought of buying milk wasn’t going to break you.

Steph: Exactly. It was this very strange feeling of, “What’s happening to me?” And I was very much aware of the fact that there was something going on in my brain that wasn’t right. Like, this is not okay but I wasn’t ready to fix it.

Nat: That’s an important point. You may be aware but you have to be ready to do something about it. What made you finally want to get help?

Steph: I knew it wasn’t going away. I had to do something or I was going to “function” like that for a very long time. I really felt like it was incredibly unfair to Drew and the kids. Even though I really didn’t want to function, I had to for my family.

Nat: How was Drew handling it?

Steph: He was incredibly supportive but he was visibly upset. I think his reaction was, “What do we have to do to make this okay?” It was sort of desperation on both of our parts. At least that’s how I remember it. He may remember it a little bit differently but I felt like, in that moment in the kitchen, we were desperate. It was like, “We have a family of five. When I’m not functional, the whole thing isn’t functional.” He didn’t know what to do and I didn’t know what to do. I think that may have been the moment where he was like, “At the very least, you have to stop nursing. You can’t have this idea in your head of ‘I’ve got to make it to a year’ or whatever other bullshit you want to pretend is important right now but it has to be about preservation so that eventually we’re all okay.”

Nat: What about the kids? Did they notice? What did you tell them?

Steph: They never said anything to me, but I could tell they knew something was going on. I remember one night tucking Clara in to bed and she gave me this sort of sad look. I gave her a big hug and said, “I’m so sorry Mommy isn’t feeling well. I promise things will get back to normal soon, ok?” I teared up as I said it and she then started tearing up too. We hugged for awhile. I’ve always figured I’ll ask her if she remembers when she’s older. I guess my go to explanation for when I wasn’t up to doing anything was, “Mommy is really tired from being up all night with Vivs. Things will change soon.” So that’s probably what they were hoping for…a change soon.

Nat: It has to be so tough for loved ones.

Steph: Drew said that he always had hope and always knew, in the back of his mind, I would figure my way out. But I think the hard thing for loved ones is, the person who is suffering really has to figure out how to get through. There is only so much a loved one can do. You can’t change a chemical imbalance. You can’t force somebody to go to therapy. You can’t fix their problems. Not a lot rattles Drew, he’s pretty grounded but, in that moment, I remember his face, he had a look of desperation of, “How am I going to help my wife come back?”

Nat: How did you finally get there?

Steph: It took awhile and the typical remedies didn’t work for me. I’m a big believer in therapy. I’ve seen a couple of different therapists over the years. I think it’s very healthy. I look at it kind of like going to the dentist, but better. It’s good to have that kind of communication, to sort things out. My husband and I have gone to marriage counseling before, I’m very open about it. We still, to this day, go occasionally when we’ve hit a rough patch. I look at it as something that’s really beneficial to our whole family, our marriage, me personally. I’m not afraid of it and I’m not afraid to talk about it. I don’t necessarily love going when there are things that are important to talk about but I love that I have it as a tool. So, I went to therapy. And I tried medication.

Nat: Did it help? How long till you noticed a change, or did you?

Steph: I remember Googling how long it was going to take. Every day, I would sit there and think, “How much longer? How much longer am I going to have to wait until I feel better?” And it went on and on, week after week after week. I tried a different medication, same thing. 8 weeks and I still had no relief. None. I stopped nursing because I got so paranoid about the whole thing. Even if doctors told me that it was safe to take the medication, I was still going crazy. I talked with lactation consultants, pediatricians, everybody. I made myself nuts about the whole nursing thing. I had nursed my other two, 14 months and 10 months, respectively. So I thought, “Surely, I’m gonna go a year,” but I was just making myself crazy. So, I finally weened her at 5 months, which killed me, but in the back of my mind I was thinking, “Okay, Steph. You’re not the mother you need to be for her right now and it’s not going to make a difference if she’s getting breast milk or formula if you can’t bond with your baby. You need to show her you’re okay.” I was literally talking myself through it saying, “Fuck this, I can’t be up in the middle of the night anymore. I have to bring my brain back to a place where I can function again.”

Nat: So important. So many mothers, including myself, put themselves- and the whole family- at risk for the sake of breastfeeding because it’s what’s been ingrained in us. But what’s really best is not the breast but the mentally healthy mother.

Steph: Yes! So, I got off of the medication. I tried two different ones with no relief at all. It’s interesting that when The Washington Post reporter interviewed me, we didn’t talk about medication or therapy. He asked how I came out of my postpartum depression and I explained how, in the context of hiking and setting and achieving a goal of 40 hikes in my 40th year. And a couple people, as a result of that article, asked me whether I had tried medication, or if it was really hiking that helped. I thought, “Wow, so if you read the article — which was great but limited in terms of space and scope — it may seem like, “Oh, Steph went out into the sunshine and she’s better!” But I tried everything I could think of that was at my disposal. I tried two different antidepressants, therapy, talked with my doctor, my kid’s pediatrician, my parents, a couple of close friends…I wasn’t sitting alone in a corner in the fetal position not doing anything and then went outside. I really was trying. At some point, probably about 3 months in, when I realized that this wasn’t going away, I really worked at it.

Nat: You mentioned the sunshine. Let’s get to that.

Steph: It was 4th of July weekend. Drew, the poor guy, had a miserable life [at that point]. I wasn’t mean to him but I was just completely emotionally detached. I was like a walking zombie. We’d gone to brunch or something and he said, “Hey, it’s gorgeous out. You’ve always wanted to go to Harper’s Ferry, is that cool with you? Can we take a drive?” And I was like, “Yeah, whatever.” Again, I just didn’t care. Did not care. And on this beautiful Sunday afternoon in early July, we went on a walk with the kids and I was sitting on these rocks by the side of the river, giving the baby a bottle and my [other] kids were playing by the water, digging up smooth glass. They were finding all these cool colored pieces of glass and showing them to me. The sun was out, hitting my face, and I remember closing my eyes and feeling the breeze. It was the strangest thing. I don’t understand it to this day, but I am not kidding you when I say that that was the moment where I felt, not instantly better, but a little tiny bit like my self again like some sunlight had broken through.

Nat: You felt hope.

Stephanie: I did. I felt hope. I felt, “Wait a minute, am I enjoying this?” That’s what it was. It was this moment of, “I’m recognizing that I’m enjoying my kids being happy. I’m enjoying cuddling this baby. I’m enjoying being on the water and feeling the breeze and listening to the trees rustle. All of those things that I didn’t care about ten minutes before. Finally, it occurred to me that, “I’m enjoying this moment in my life, even just a little bit.” And it was amazing. I’ll never forget it as long as I live. I don’t know why it happened but I’m so thankful for that moment.

Nat: Where did you go from there?

Stephanie: My 40th birthday was coming up and Drew had been asking me, “What do you want to do? How are we going to celebrate?” We’d always talked about throwing a big party. [Originally] I wanted to hang out and have fun and go dancing. But leading up to it, I was like, “I don’t want to do anything. I don’t want to see anyone, I don’t want to celebrate. You and I can do something. Maybe we can just go away for a night, so I can be free of my responsibilities.” I just didn’t want to celebrate. I didn’t care about turning 40. I just didn’t care. And on the way home from Harpers Ferry – Drew had to remind me of this when I did The Post interview, he helped me sort of piece it all together – I was looking up hikes. Just randomly started looking up hikes because the kids had such a good time and, I won’t say that I had such a good time, but I felt a little bit of normalcy, that I thought, “We need to do this again. When’s the next time we can do this?”

Nat: So hiking would be your therapy. The one that clicked.

Steph: It was so beautiful. One of my closest friends that lives out West, north of Seattle, had turned 40 the year before. For her 40th, she ran 40 miles in one day and I remember talking to her about it and thinking, “That’s just amazing.” She’s like, “What are you going to do for yours? You know, you’ve got to set a goal. Some kind of 40-something.” And I was like, “I have no idea, but I’m definitely not running 40 miles.” So on the way home from Harper’s Ferry, apparently I said to Drew, “We should try to find a waterfall to hike to. The kids love being around the water. I know I’ve heard there are waterfall hikes in our area, we should really try to find one.” And he was like, “Great.” I mean, he was just so floored that I had an interest in anything.