Karmin felt that postpartum depression was different from the depressions she had experienced before.

Transcript

I can try to describe it. I kind of feel like – I kind of feel like with the postpartum depression, like, I know that there’s, like, a lot of hormones going on. And I kind of felt like – I don’t know how to describe it but I felt like it was like an entire body situation. Like, I mean like my other mental kind of health things did too, but it just felt way different. Like, on a physiological spectrum because, like, there’s so many hormones going on in your body and I feel like I’m very sensitive to my hormones. Like, when – like I have a little bit of, like, premenstrual symptoms in regards to, like, my emotions. So, I feel like I was kind of like that, but it was, like, amplified to, like, a thousand. Like, it was so – it was so intense.

And I felt like my hormones were really fluctuing – fluctuating, with breastfeeding as well, with the progesterone hormone, and I feel like I’m a bit sensitive to that. So, I don’t know, I just feel like it felt different because maybe the hormones were involved. But it also was different because I had the responsibility of another life. And it was all on me, and sometimes I would have moments of, like, there’s no one but you. Like there’s no one here to help you, like, when your baby’s, like, screaming and crying and it’s on you and – like your spouse is at work and it’s just you. Like, yeah. It is definitely different because of those responsibilities, I think, the new responsibilities you have.

And, I feel like it can bring – being postpartum and being on maternity leave, I feel like in Canada we’re lucky to even have a maternity leave and receive benefits from the government. But there’s no way that that’s like a livable wage, so I feel like we had a lot of financial stress too, which I feel like contributed to my depression. Whereas, like, my regular depression I didn’t really have too much, like, for financial stress because I was still able to work and go to my job when I was experiencing that other depression. Yeah, there’s just a lot of change going on at once, and it’s a huge life change, and like I like to think that I’m somebody that’s good with change, but I’m not [laughs]. But, like I don’t respond emotionally well to change. And yeah, I just kind of felt like it was completely different because of all the other external factors, but also, like, a lot of physiological level.

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