First of all everyone from My Depression Connection wants to wish all the moms out there a Happy Belated Mother’s Day. I hope the day was special for you and you got to do something fun or at least relax for awhile. Being a mom is one of the hardest jobs out there but you add something like depression to the mix and motherhood can soon become overwhelming. So I am going to give you some tips and suggestions of how to stay afloat and be able to take care of you and your kids despite your depression. But before I do, I am going to first talk about why some moms may be susceptible to depression.
If you are a mom with depression, some contributing factors might be…
• You have just had a baby and you are suffering from postpartum depression. The first three months after giving birth can be a rough time emotionally for some women. Postpartum depression is fairly common. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists say that one in ten new mothers will experience this type of depression. If you worry that you have postpartum depression I have written an article to help you identify the warning signs in my post entitled, “I have a new baby. Why do I feel so Depressed?”
• You lack support. There are many single moms out there or mothers in relationships where they may not have the emotional or physical support from their partners. The task of parenting can seem overwhelming without some sort of support system.
• Hormonal changes may play a contributing factor again for depression in later stages of a woman’s life. The transition to menopause can trigger depression in some women. Information from our My Menopause Connection warns that: “Women who have no history of depression may experience depression as they transition into menopause, suggests a study in the Archives of General Psychiatry.”
• You have “mother issues” with your own mom. Perhaps you didn’t have a good role model for being a mom as your basic emotional needs were neglected. It can be difficult for some women who experienced childhood deprivation or trauma to come to terms with being a mother themselves. Parenthood may trigger some of those old childhood feelings and can cause them to resurface.
These are just some of the many varied factors which may exacerbate depression for some mothers. And some women may enter motherhood with an already existing pattern of depression but the challenges of parenting can make it seem all that much harder to cope with.
So this is why I am going to give you some tips and suggestions of how to manage your depression when you also have children in your care:
• There is a sign in the cabin of every airplane near the oxygen masks which instructs parents to use the mask first in case of an emergency. This seems to go against our gut instinct as mothers to take care of our children first. But the thing is, who is going to take care of the kids if you don’t take care of yourself? If you suffer from depression, it is all the more reason that you need to make sure that you get some of your needs met so that you are more capable of giving time and energy to your children.
