Can Postpartum Depression Begin in Childhood?

This post was originally written by C.C. Mendoza for mommynoire.comIn many ways I'm still coming to terms with the feelings I experienced in the months after giving birth to my youngest son.  It still aches my soul that the one thing the universe definitely meant for me to do, procreate, was something I hated.  But, I think the eventual result of my postpartum depression started way before I began having children.  It began when I was a little girl.

See in my family, and I'm sure other brown mommies share this experience, I was told to put motherhood off as long as I could. It was all too common for my mother to give me the “You betta not get pregnant” speech.   So when I got knocked-up with my oldest son at 19 I felt ashamed and most of all I could see the disappointment on my mother's face.  Once my son was born I went on a one-woman mission to prove to the world I was more than a statistic.

Fast-forward six years later I got married and moved to New York City.  My husband made a six figure salary and so requested that I stay home and take care of our children. It was what I thought my mother wanted for me. I was living her dream and all it took was a broken bowl to shatter that dream into a million pieces.

My baby throwing his bowl against the wall of our kitchen so hard that it cracked into pieces is what broke me.  My youngest son stopped eating when he was 4 months old.  The doctors had no idea what was going on and I was going crazy.  My middle son had just been born the year before and I was trying to create normalcy for him while dealing with my starving child.  He was losing weight and I was losing hair.  Not to mention, my oldest son was having trouble transitioning to his new life in the Big Apple.

Minutes after that bowl crashed into the wall and fell to the floor, I found myself in the living room crying and screaming with all three of my children at my feet.  I had no desire to be a mother.  It meant nothing that they were crying or that they were confused as to why I was crying.  I just knew that I was alone in a world I didn't understand; a world where I was expected to full-heartedly commit to a job I'd been told 'would be the end of my life,' and ' is the hardest thing I'd ever do.' I was in NYC by myself doing a job I hated.  Continue to read at mommynoire.com.