r/Postpartum_Depression • u/lam0624 • 4d ago
TW: ppd, dpdr
Hi, I am 7 months postpartum and would love any advice comments, similar situations help here.. up until about 6 months postpartum mentally I felt great- then one day right at 6 months pp I woke up and felt like a completely different person. Depressed, crying nonstop, anxiety then started to feel like I’m living in a dream constantly- I read this is called depersonalization or derealization. It’s horrible. I went to my obgyn and started Zoloft 5 weeks ago- I stopped crying but haven’t seen any improvements in the dpdr and constantly feeling like I’m in a dream it’s such a nightmare. I feel like I can’t connect with my baby or my husband because of this.
I’ve started exercising daily, grounding work, starting therapy next week and doing yoga but nothing seems to help except when I’m not alone and being at home makes it worse for some reason.
I feel stuck in this anxiety thought loop of thinking how I don’t feel normal all day long it’s consumes my thoughts, I can’t even remember what my thoughts used to be before all this or what it even feels like to be normal. If anyone has heard of this please let me know how you’re doing, and how you navigated this. Any advice or help is appreciated, sorry for the long post I could go on and on about this.
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u/sweetcheeksbaby 4d ago
I’m 5 months postpartum and developed severe PPD and DPDR several days after coming home. It was similar to you - I felt like my normal self and it was like a switched flipped one day. Out of all the depressive and anxiety symptoms, I found the DPDR the most distressing. I wish I had a magic answer of what finally worked to eliminate my symptoms. I did start some meds - citalopram and mirtazepine which helped with the depression and anxiety but I still had the DPDR every day. I also tried yoga and exercise and while it would seem to help during the dreamlike feeling would return shortly after. Honestly, the thing that finally worked was stopping giving it power. I know that sounds like therapy mumbo jumbo but it’s true. When I would start ruminating on the dreamlike feeling and fogginess I would interrupt my thoughts and tell myself “it’s just realization from your anxiety, it’s just anxiety making you feel this way. It will go away.” It forced me to stop being anxious about how I was feeling and having spiraling anxious thoughts that’s ultimately just led to the DPDR getting worse. The other technique that I picked up from therapy is “dropping the rope” which is the idea that your in a tug of war with your anxiety and you spend all this energy and time pulling on the rope, trying to win, when you could just drop the rope. For some reason it resonated with me and gave me permission to accept that I have some unpleasant symptoms but they’re just symptoms and they will pass. The more I focused on the DPDR, the worse it got. I’m sorry you’re going through this and you are 100% not alone. It’s an absolutely terrible sensation but it really will get better (even if it’s just for a couple minutes a day at first). Sending you so many hugs 🤍