By Fiyola Hoosen-Steele

The doctor said it was postpartum depression. All you know is you want out, to run from a husband who cups his head in his hands as he tries to understand, to abandon a baby you adore until the crying sets in—crying that sends your thumbs digging into your palms and your toes curling into your soles, crying that soaks your shirts with breastmilk you neglect to pump, crying that unleashes rage, fangs, claws, spitting, shivering.

He said it was an easy fix. A combination of therapy and anti-depressants and you would be your old self. He was wrong. Talking about feelings and popping pills does not make your old self. Heck, what is your old self? You can’t remember. What you remember is an afternoon when you fled the nursery, bolting the door, the baby on one side, you on the other, both screaming, sobbing. The baby eventually surrendered and fell asleep against the shut door. You continued to howl, unable to erase from memory the anguish on the baby’s face, to unsee the little hands that reached for comfort only to find thorns, to unhear the desperate pleas of Mama, Mama. You are the boogeyman, a motherfucker, affectionate at first, then exceedingly cruel. And the guilt, well, the guilt, it poisons, pus oozing out of pores until it kills.

What set you off? The medical profession points to hormones gone askew. All you know is you would never harm the baby. But then you remember a morning of butterfly kisses and rainbow nuzzles that turned into a horror show. It was bath-time. The baby refused to be still, splashing and splattering. You applied caution, then begged, then exploded. Grabbing the small body, you lifted, hurled, and flung it onto the bed. The baby landed amongst pillows, thank God, but the forehead was a breath from the sharpest edge of the nightstand. Angels must have been present, big beautiful singing angels, for how else was death averted? You drew the baby to your breasts and lamented: Sorry, darling. Sorry, sweetheart. Mama will never do that again.

What is ironic is that your pregnancy was fuss free. You feasted on avocados and bananas and sipped coconut water as if it were a mai tai. You relished the gynecologic visits, excited to see how the baby was developing, eager for another sonogram picture to tag onto the refrigerator. You took long walks, swam laps, and did yoga. Afternoons were for naps cocooned in your body pillow. Evenings were for reading books to your belly, your husband telling the stories, speaking of hopes and longings. There were no signs of an impending storm, no signal that clouds were gathering furiously, black and heavy, toxic and lethal. Nothing prepares you for the tempest. When you are in it, you are in it.

The doctor said postpartum depression usually runs its course after two weeks if mild, six months if grim. It has been ten months. The psychotic incidents you now label alphabetically rather than chronologically are minimal. Your self-control has swelled. Smiling is on the up. Joy has multiplied. Laughter has amplified. But what has not changed is the dread that seeps into your bones every morning when your husband says goodbye and sets off for work. Then you want to say, shout, whisper: Don’t leave me alone with the baby. Don’t leave me alone. Don’t leave.

And when you look away from the closing door, the baby is smiling up at you, loving you through it all, unconditionally, and you think to yourself: I am in it now.