To all of the people who don't believe there's such a thing as postpartum....well, my middle fingers salute you.

I guess you could say we started my second pregnancy on pins and needles. Before conceiving my now middle child, I had suffered a miscarriage, which left me holding my breath for my entire pregnancy. Every flip-flop, bump — or  the worst, no movement  — for a day or so made my mind travel to some dark places. I was googling the “what if’s” and “how longs” for everything that frightened me.

Our little cuddle bug came one week early. Her head was covered in soft dark hair and her eyes were as big and bright as a full moon. But what really set her apart were a set of lungs that would put Adele to shame. She was perfect and so stinkin' cute. We were in love and grateful to have another precious blessing that would also be a playmate for big sister. As if this wasn’t enough stress, we were in the middle of selling our downtown condo and moving to suburbia life. My husband started a new rigorously demanding job soon after her birth and during all of this transition in our life, we discovered our daughter had severe colic. Like, I want to stab myself in the eardrum colic. Postpartum depression snuck up on me like a fat ass zit on the tip of my nose,

I was back at the Google game, except this time it was:  “what the f*&^ is wrong with my child?” For months, the of guilt washed over me and I continued to question, “why is it so damn hard for me to figure this out?” To add to the drama, I woke up one morning sick with fever and chills which prompted my husband to call my OB. I had double mastitis so badly, my fever reached 104 and the infection was rapidly moving up towards my neck. My husband was a bit nervous because the infection was spreading quickly, but I was hell bent on nursing, so I continued despite how horrible I felt. Allow me to paint a picture, nipples covered in red blistery scabs, oozing blood, and knots so crushingly painful, my eyes would water at the thought of them. Luckily, the antibiotics began to work and I enjoyed some relief physically, but breastfeeding was still an uphill battle. I cried; all day, every day. The constant flow of tears cause eyes to remain bloodshot around the clock and bed was the only cure to comfort my anguish. Late one night after nursing, I burped my daughter and noticed her spit-up contained chunks of blood, arriving there via the scab from my nipple.  That was the moment I decided I should stop nursing — it just wasn't working out for me. I was disappointed that every time I turned around there was a new challenge to face and desperately needed something to numb my pain. Helplessness set in and I began a vicious spiral that would change the course of my life.

I am the type of mother that tries to do everything opposite from the way I was raised. I so badly wanted to scream at my precious infant who had no idea how badly her little screams were triggering me. But I had made a conscious decision to handle intense situations with a loving approach. On the outside, I tried to appear like  a mom that wasn't losing her shit despite enduring the code red level colic of my baby and still be a present parent to my school-aged daughter. But under those layers of a facade I was withering away mentally and feeding my growing battle with alcoholism. The guilt and shame of my history was showing up daily to torment me.. The sum of my Dad issues, parenting issues, and childhood trauma began to spill over into my current life, adding a new self-imposed demon to the list as I began to hate myself for not knowing how to be the perfect parent and wife.

Each night I would rock my screaming daughter to sleep as tears ran down my cheeks and I cried out to God for help. I was extremely overwhelmed and tired of not getting any relief. Exhaustion hit a point of no return and so I turned to the only thing that I knew would knock my depression out quickly: alcohol. I started my love affair with this soothingly toxic drink that took all of my troubles away after the first two glasses. I had not touched alcohol since the night we discovered we were pregnant and after two months post baby, I was slamming bottles of wine like my life depended on it. I crossed the line when I went from wanting alcohol to soothe my pain into needing the alcohol to escape the triggers that were eating the hell out of my soul. The "switch" happened quick for me, the switch that I hear so many talk about in my recovery. I used to drink for fun, or just to decompress, but during this time of my life I drank to numb the chaos of life and to get out of my head. Within four months of drinking postpartum I made that chemical switch. I started hiding bottles of wine in my closet so that my husband wouldn't question how much I had to drink that night because the typical two to four glasses of wine was not cutting it for me. Six months after giving birth to my second daughter, I had a single car wreck and  found myself in and out of an alcohol induced blackout. I don’t remember much from that wreck besides sitting in the back of a cop car with a convicted DUI on my record.

Postpartum is REAL, folks, and so is alcoholism. It waited for me to become complacent with drinking and in a situation that had me stressed to the core before it took over my life and caused a heap of trouble. My life had become unmanageable. I was restless, irritable and discontent - trying to take control of my own life. I would go weeks without washing my hair, days without bathing or brushing my teeth. I was not taking care of myself mentally or physically. The thought of wearing a pair of fishnet panties and pads the size of depends was traumatizing enough to keep my ass planted where I was. I isolated myself from friends, family and activities ...and drank myself to sleep. I used alcohol to try and fix my problem instead of reaching out for other sources of help. It was by far the most humiliating, mentally and physically time of my life and it took a long time to forgive myself. Today, I am grateful for that moment. I am grateful God gave me a second chance at life. I am glad that I can reach out for help when I have hit the point of “I am about to go batshit crazy if I don’t get help.”  It was a hard lesson I had to learn, but it lead me to a path of empathy, acceptance and love.

I don't blame my DUI on postpartum because ultimately I have the freedom to choose what path to take... my point of sharing my struggles with postpartum is to shed some light to others who may be experiencing PPD as I did. Take care of yourself, get out and enjoy beautiful weather while rocking those sexy ass fishnet panties, call friends and family, take a bath...even when you don’t feel like it,  ask for help and the infamous “sleep when your baby sleeps” ha! Yeah right...sleep as often as you can. If dishes and clothes have to pile up for weeks…..oh well. That is materialistic shit and can be replaced. You can’t. Happy trails to you, my postpartum Momma’s!

XO

~Chasity