I will lie to you

Following the birth of my first son, I had postpartum depression for several weeks. I knew that this could happen. I knew that I was supposed to ask for help. I knew I needed help. But I couldn't do it. I couldn't tell my husband. I couldn't tell my friends. And I couldn't tell my doctor. I lied to everyone.

I'm not sure what I expected postpartum to be like but here's how it was for me: I held everything together. I showered and completed everyday tasks. I went back to work at 6 weeks. I had no inclination to hurt myself or my son. But in private, I was falling apart and had no control over my emotions or my incessant dark state of mind. I knew it was irrational. I knew I was not okay. But I absolutely couldn't tell anyone about it. Every time I tried to talk about it I froze. As it began to subside, I was slowly able to talk about it with my husband but even months later, there were very few people I could open up to about it. Years later, I could talk freely about it in one-on-one conversations. Which became very important as my husband and I decided to try for another child. There are six years between our two children and my postpartum depression was a very big reason for this. The biggest reason, really. What if it was worse? What if I didn't get better? What if this time is different and I had an inclination to hurt myself or our baby? I ask these questions every day as I am 2 weeks out from delivering baby #2.

Postpartum depression likely isn't any more common now that it was six years ago. It appears to be talked about more in public spaces and certainly talked about more in my personal circles. I very intentionally bring it up all the time. I want people to know that there is a chance this could happen to me again. And that again I will likely be too paralyzed to do what I know I should to get help. I asked three people in my life to check in on me: my husband, a local friend of 15 years, and an out-of-state friend of 4 years. I anticipate the out-of-state friend being pivotal for a couple of reasons - we've become extremely good friends in the past few years but he's not personally involved in my day to day well-being so he'll have a zoomed out, bird's eye view of what's going on with me and he has experience with people dealing with depression and anxiety. So I asked him to check in on me. I gave him permission to check in my with husband and friend so they could compare observations and figure out how to help me if I need it. And then I had to explain that I would most likely lie to him. When he asks if I'm okay, I will lie. When he asks if I need help, I will lie. When he asks if I'm being honest about how I'm feeling with my husband, I will lie. This was hard because I've never had to give someone a warning that I was going to betray them - and trust that they will forgive me. But he listened and he understood and he committed to checking on me in the weeks and months following the birth of my baby.

Several months after my initial ask, out of the blue, he asked if I had ever lied to him. I didn't make the connection between the two conversations and was taken aback that he would challenge our friendship in that way. My mind raced through personal, minuscule omissions I kept from him and slight exaggerations I had made about useless life details like how I slept on this night or that night. And then he reminded me of our conversation and rephrased the question, asking what it'll be like when I lie to him and how he'll know. This was a surprisingly difficult question to answer. I'm a really good liar. I once read an article that children from "broken homes" are the best liars because their formative years occurred through a time of hiding feelings/actions at home to keep the peace and hiding feelings/actions in public to avoid shame and embarrassment. I pride myself on being an extremely honest person but that is an active choice. Of anything, lying about my feelings is one of my most refined abilities. I explained this and that he very likely would not know.

I'm trusting him to know me well enough to know if my tone is off, if my responses are too aloof or dismissive or shallow. I really can't offer any guidance for how to tell when I'm lying about depression except that it will almost inevitably happen. So instead, I said this: "I'm asking you now, in my clear state of mind: I will need your help. I won't be able to ask for it. And when you ask if I need help, I will lie to you. And I hope you help me anyway. And when I'm better, I hope you can forgive me."