
Amelia’s tendency to have angry outbursts was coincident with her ongoing depression, which she believed had been her primary mood state since the birth of her second child almost three years before. We focused much of our work on her depression as we also continued to work on her anger and emotional sensitivity.
Her experience with being pregnant with her son contrasted sharply with how she felt soon after he was born. “My pregnancy was fantastic! I was blissful and happy. After the baby was born I had no problems for four months. Then my milk dried up. With my first child, I nursed for seven months. At four months with my son, I became irritable. I couldn’t feed the baby. I had no energy to get up. Michael had to go back to work after the summer, so I had a baby and a two-year-old and no help.”
Amelia soon experienced additional emotional changes. “I became attached to the baby at this time. It relaxed me when he took the nipple, even if I had no milk. I just wanted to be with my baby. I didn’t want to be around my husband or my daughter, just my son. I would snap at and yell at my daughter.” Her alienation from her daughter later became another focus of healing work.
Amelia continued, “I went to a psychologist, who said I had postpartum depression. I saw her six months after the baby was born. I was in denial about my condition, though, and didn’t start meds until nine months. The meds helped a little. But I was still irritable, still attached to the baby. I wanted to stay home, not go out. I was still in school at night, two nights a week. The meds helped with my anger at my daughter.” Her postpartum depression continued in a mild form to the present, but continued to be experienced more intensely for a few days each month as a part of her PMS. “I started PMSing right after the baby was born, but I didn’t notice it until after I started taking an antidepressant. The postpartum was the worst part of my life.”