I Loved My Baby. Postpartum Depression Told Me She Was Better Off Without Me.

The Mother I Thought I Would Be

I’ve avoided writing about this topic, especially on my professional page as a mental health provider. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge how much the Lindsey Clancy story has affected me because of my own experience with postpartum depression.

For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be a mom. In pretend play, I was always the teacher, the mom, or the babysitter. I grew up caring for infants and children with developmental and physical disabilities. After I got married, I wanted children right away. Motherhood was something I had imagined for myself for so long that it had already become part of my identity.

Shortly after my then-husband and I started trying, we conceived. I was, of course, elated. This would be the first grandchild on my side of the family, and everyone joyfully rallied around me.

I had even timed my pregnancy so that it would coincide with finishing the core classes for my PhD. “All” I would have left was applying for internship, completing my dissertation, and eventually internship itself. In my mind, I had planned it perfectly.

Physically, my pregnancy was fairly straightforward. I had some nausea and headaches that mostly disappeared after the first trimester. I stayed active, ate a healthy diet, and tried my best to keep my stress levels down.

I also studied how to be the perfect pregnant woman, and wow, was I succeeding.

I read parenting books like they were beach reads at night when my hands were tired from typing internship applications or running data. After we found out I was having a girl, I excitedly bought tiny pink clothes with matching shoes and hair bows.

We would be best friends.

I would give birth, look into her eyes, and our hearts would immediately connect. My recovery would be seamless. Breastfeeding would come naturally, and we would exclusively breastfeed for at least a year. I’d sleep when the baby slept. Our family of three would feel closer than ever.

We would live happily ever after.

Everything changed on the second night after my daughter was born.

When Postpartum Depression Started for Me

By then, I had been awake for close to 72 hours. There had been the sleepless night before my induction, followed by labor, delivery, adrenaline, and then another night without sleep.

I was completely exhausted, but I couldn’t fall asleep.

I lay there staring at my daughter, listening to every tiny squeak she made. Her cry wasn’t the soft newborn whimper I had imagined. It was abrupt and piercing. I would later learn that she had colic and a dairy allergy.

And then there was breastfeeding.

None of the books or classes prepared me for how hard it would be. She was what they called a “lazy latcher” and would frequently fall asleep shortly after starting to nurse. I immediately blamed myself.

As she slept peacefully next to me in the hospital, I became convinced I was already failing her.

And when my eyes weren’t fixed on my newborn, they were looking over at my then-husband, peacefully—and loudly—sleeping.

Immediate resentment.

I remember the moment so distinctly.

I turned away from him on the hospital couch and felt it.

A heavy wave of crippling sadness.

It felt like it was choking me. My heart wouldn’t stop racing.

I didn’t sleep that night either.

I told the postpartum nurse how I was feeling.

“It’s second-night syndrome!” she told me. “Be happy you have a beautiful, healthy baby girl.”

So I kept going.

I continued struggling to nurse before we left the hospital. I nervously buckled my daughter into her car seat, and the staff cheerfully told us, “Come see us again soon!”

I was terrified to bring her home.

I still hadn’t slept, and the depression was getting stronger. I felt unmotivated and disconnected. I was scared to hold my daughter because I became convinced she would somehow feel my pain and know I wasn’t a good mom.

Our first night home was awful. I fell asleep with her on me and woke up terrified that I wasn’t safe to sleep around her.

I Thought My Baby Would Be Better Off Without Me

The next morning, I called a friend and told her having a baby had been a huge mistake.

I wanted to run away.

I didn’t want to die. I wanted to leave and never come back.

I truly believed everyone—especially my daughter—would be better off without me.

Mornings were the worst.

My then-husband would start getting ready for work, and I would sob and beg him not to leave. I was anxious of being alone with her because I felt completely incapable of taking care of her.

I was afraid to hold my own baby.

My family essentially implemented around-the-clock care for both of us. Before my husband left for work, my mom would arrive. She would bring me food and make me take a shower.

I would hand my daughter to her almost immediately.

I was desperate for someone else to love her because I was convinced I couldn’t do it correctly.

I spent much of those days in my dark bedroom with my eyes closed, drifting in and out of sleep. I felt guilty when I held her. My heart raced when she cried. Instead of hearing my baby needing me, I heard proof that I was failing.

I would come out of the bedroom to pump, hand the milk to my mom so she could feed her, and then retreat back into the darkness and try to ignore the heavy fog of depression.

Later in the afternoon, my dad or my twin sister would take over until my husband came home from work. There was essentially a warm handoff of caregivers throughout the day because everyone knew I could not be left alone.

And somehow, that made me feel even worse.

Not only was I incredibly depressed, but I felt horrible that my family had to take care of me instead of simply enjoying their first grandchild.

I wanted to disappear.

I became convinced that staying in my daughter’s life would ruin her.

I was aware enough to know my family was very worried about me.

I just didn’t care.

Because by then, I was trying to figure out how to escape.

Would I even pack a bag?

Would I leave after a nighttime feeding so no one could stop me?

I didn’t know where I would go. I only knew that, in my mind at the time, leaving felt like the most loving thing I could do for my daughter.

How Postpartum Depression Changed the Way I Saw Myself

And that is one of the hardest things for me to explain about postpartum depression: it changed my perception of everything.

It changed the way I saw myself. Before my daughter was born, I had thought of myself as capable, driven, educated, nurturing. I was working toward a PhD in clinical psychology. I understood depression. I knew the symptoms. I knew what treatment looked like.

And yet, when it happened to me, I didn’t experience my thoughts as symptoms of an illness.

They felt true.

I didn’t think, I’m experiencing postpartum depression and it is making me believe I’m a bad mother.

I thought, I’m a bad mother.

There is a huge difference.

It changed the way I saw my daughter, too. I loved her, but depression distorted what I believed my presence meant to her. Her crying became evidence that I couldn’t soothe her. Breastfeeding difficulties became evidence that my body was failing her. When she settled for someone else, I didn’t see a baby being comforted by another person who loved her. I saw proof that she didn’t need me.

Even the help surrounding me became evidence against me. My mom taking care of her didn’t register as support. In my depressed mind, it confirmed that someone else could mother my daughter better than I could.

I wasn’t seeing myself or my baby clearly anymore.

Postpartum Depression vs. Postpartum Psychosis

That is part of why the Lindsey Clancy case has been so difficult for me to think about, both personally and professionally.

There is an important distinction here, though.

Postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis are not the same thing, and I think we do a disservice to women when we use the terms interchangeably.

Postpartum depression can involve profound sadness, hopelessness, guilt, anxiety, irritability, difficulty bonding, feelings of worthlessness, and thoughts of death or suicide. For some women, it can become severe enough that their perception of themselves and their ability to parent becomes incredibly distorted.

But postpartum psychosis is different.

Postpartum psychosis is a psychiatric emergency. It can involve delusions, hallucinations, paranoia, severe confusion, disorganized thinking or behavior, dramatic mood changes, and a loss of contact with reality. A woman experiencing psychosis may believe things that are objectively untrue but feel completely real to her. The condition can carry a significant risk of suicide or harm to the infant and requires immediate psychiatric intervention.

Most importantly, postpartum depression does not inevitably progress into postpartum psychosis, and having either condition does not mean a mother will harm her child. The overwhelming majority of women experiencing postpartum mental health conditions do not hurt their children.

What the Lindsey Clancy Case Brought Back for Me

I want to be careful here, too, because discussing the Clancy case is different from evaluating a patient sitting across from me. There are legal questions, psychiatric questions, and details of her individual clinical history that cannot be reduced to a diagnosis from afar.

But her story has forced a much larger conversation about maternal mental health, and for me, that conversation is impossible to separate from the woman I was after my daughter was born.

I think about how educated I was.

How supported I was.

How desperately wanted my baby was.

How much I loved her.

And how sick I still became.

Those things existed at the same time.

I could desperately love my daughter and feel terrified of being near her.

I could have an entire family surrounding me and still feel completely alone.

I could understand mental illness professionally and still not recognize what it was doing to me personally.

And I could believe with absolute certainty that my daughter deserved a life without me while everyone around me could see how profoundly untrue that was.

That is what depression did.

It didn’t take away my love for my daughter.

It convinced me that my love wasn’t enough.

Support for Postpartum Depression in Michigan

If parts of my story feel familiar to you, you don’t have to wait until things become unbearable to ask for help. Postpartum depression and other perinatal mental health conditions are treatable, and getting support early matters.

I’m a clinical psychologist and founder of Pearl Beech Psychology in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where I provide therapy for women experiencing postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, identity changes in motherhood, fertility concerns, pregnancy, and other perinatal mental health challenges. I offer in-person therapy in Bloomfield Hills and telehealth throughout Michigan.

If you’re looking for postpartum mental health support, you can contact Pearl Beech Psychology to schedule an intake.