by Laura Falin posted in Parenting

It's taken me a long long time to realize I should have gone to a counselor after my first baby was born.
I didn't exhibit any of the classic signs of postpartum depression -- the ones they warn you about. I didn't want to hurt anyone, including myself. Sure, there were a few bouts of uncontrollable crying here and there, but I chalked it up to hormones and a lack of sleep and...I was fine.
But there was a lot going on in my head and no one to talk it out with. I was the first of my friends to have a baby, and I opted to stay home. So all of my friends were still working all day. I didn't have any mom friends yet. I didn't know where to go during the day with my baby. It was all I could do to shower. It was also the first time since I was 12 years old that I wasn't earning my own income. I've always had a job. I had a full-time job lined up before I graduated college. It was exciting and often fast-paced and going from that to staying home with a newborn was a HUGE shift.
I started freaking out because now my husband was the sole provider for all three of us and I worried about what would happen if he decided to leave or died. My head played an endless loop of things I should probably do to make him happy so he'd be sure to stick around. Let me be clear -- he never once gave any indication he was leaving. He would have been mortified to know that I was thinking all this. And I didn't dare say any of it out loud in case he thought I ...