My daughter is five months old and I have postpartum anxiety. Not depression — anxiety. And it looks like this:
I cannot put her down without imagining something happening to her. I run through catastrophic scenarios compulsively before I sleep. I check that she is breathing multiple times a night. When my husband takes her somewhere without me I am rigid with fear until she is back in my arms.
From the outside I look like an attentive mother. From the inside I am running a constant disaster simulation.
I mentioned it to my doctor at the six-week check and she told me all mothers worry and it would improve. It has not improved. It has become more structured — I have developed specific rituals that feel like they protect her, and I know rationally that they don't but I cannot stop.
I'm not sure how to get the help I need when the professional I spoke to didn't take it seriously. And I'm not sure how to bring it up again without feeling like I'm overreacting.
Has anyone navigated this? Postpartum anxiety specifically, the kind that gets dismissed because it doesn't look like not coping?