Postpartum Psychosis And Drugs: Steps To Overcome Both Problems Successfully
If you developed a drug addiction and severe postpartum depression after you delivered your baby, take steps to overcome both problems successfully. Postpartum psychosis is a rare, but devastating condition that affects you after you give birth. It creates a host of dangerous symptoms that include suicidal thoughts and urges. In most cases, you refuse to care for your newborn, which endangers your child's safety and well-being. Your postpartum symptoms increase dramatically when you abuse drugs because they escalate them. Here are things to know about postpartum psychosis and drug addiction, as well as steps to overcome them.
How Bad Are Your Drug Addiction and Postpartum Psychosis?
Drug addiction and postpartum psychosis are both dangerous problems because of how they affect your mental state and ability to cope with life. A number of psychoactive drugs alter or suppress your emotions or make you believe you feel things you really don't.
For example, if your mother-in-law expects you to be the best mother in the world to your new baby, and you really don't feel that you can be, you take drugs to cope with that expectation. If your spouse doesn't stick up for you against your mother-in-law, your emotional distress increases. The drugs cover up your distressed feelings every time you take them. It becomes a cycle you can't break alone.
Your addiction and mental illness affects your baby as well. If you nurse your child while you take drugs, the chemicals in your system place the baby at risk for poor growth weight, brain development and motor skill development. Your baby may even become addicted to drugs because it's present in your breast milk.
One of the most critical issues with postpartum psychosis is harming your baby physically. You may hallucinate harming your child or act upon urges to do so. Because many drugs create hallucinations, such as LSD and marijuana, your dangerous thoughts increase.
Your marriage or relationships with close relatives can suffer, especially if you deny that you have problems or refuse to get help. Your spouse may feel hopeless about your declining physical, mental and emotional health, which creates hostility in the relationship. But if you take steps now to get through your problems, you can save your marriage and protect your child.
What Can You Do to Overcome Your Problems?
Your postpartum psychosis and drug addiction won't go away on their own. The only way to get through them is to realize that you have problems in the first place.
One of the things you can do is listen to what your spouse says to you. If your spouse voices their concerns about how you react to the baby, them and life in general, don't ignore them. Your spouse's concerns means that they care and don't want to lose you to your addiction or postpartum psychosis.
If you still have thoughts of harming your baby, ask your spouse to leave the baby in the care of another adult, such as a sibling or aunt, who can care for them until you recover. The time alone gives you a chance to focus on your health needs without the worry of harming your child.
In most cases, you can obtain dual diagnosis treatment. Dual diagnosis refers to having an addiction problem and mental illness at the same time. Dual diagnosis treatment is the most effective way to beat both problems because is addresses them at the same time.
For instance, your medical doctor prescribes antidepressants to control the symptoms of your postpartum psychosis, while the drug treatment center provides counseling and rehabilitation services. The center may work very closely with your doctor during your care and make adjustments to your treatments as you overcome your issues.
Your spouse can participate in your treatment by taking you to your appointments. Additionally, you may wish to add family counseling to your treatment plan. Many marriages end in divorce when one spouse abuses drugs. Counseling gives you an opportunity to discuss any overwhelming expectations placed on you by your spouse's family or others, as well as why you turned to drugs as a coping mechanism instead of your spouse.
If you need additional information about drug rehab and dual diagnosis treatment to help you get through postpartum psychosis, contact a treatment center soon. You can also click here to find more info.
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