Kipilicious

You said it

Course, when it comes to depression and new motherhood the killer blow is this: when you need your sleep the most you're denied it the most. Mother Nature, I'd just like to say thanks a fucking lot. 
It's all chicken and egg, whether it's the exhausting whipping out of your tits out four times a night that sets off the depression or whether it's the depression itself that worsens a pressurised situation until there's a deafening crack. Frankly, I don't give a shit which comes first. All that's important is the frigging mess it leaves you in. 
By the time depression had me by the throat I was knackered enough to forget my own identity. Seriously, I responded to requests for my name in the same way most people respond when they're asked the capital of Togo. Fucking clueless.
That's when sleep became an even greater priority than my own offspring. Not through choice but because I honestly thought that if I didn't sleep I would die. My breakdown was so severe that things like birdsong or more than one item on a table would cause a mental overload that resulted in yet another gobful of diazepam. Sleep and the chance for my brain to heal was my only method of survival.
That's when I told my psychiatric counsellors that I would never recover until Kraken Junior was removed from the house. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it sounds horrific but that's because I was one fuck of a desperate woman. I'd spend mornings asleep just to recover from the trials of the night and afternoons asleep just to gather enough energy for the post-creche chaos. That meant there was never enough sleep for my brain to mend itself.
You know this celeb malarchy, where A-listers get depressed and disappear into rehab in the desert for three months? Well, that's what I needed although that sure as shit isn't what I got. My family took on the lion's share of the strain and let me kip as much as I could but even then I felt as if tiredness was turning me to stone, crawling unceasingly from my toes up. Jesus, no wonder I was loop-the-loop.
And that's why juggling babies and depression is such a complete and utter fucker. Just like the process of heaving a newborn from your vag, the demands of your baby and the demands of your ailing brain leave you feeling torn in half. 
And that's one reason why I chucked in my career. So I could sleep. I now spend the 9 - 5 working on getting better and, believe me, recovery is a full time job. Fuck knows if I'll ever get a promotion back into the real world but at least I'm getting some shut-eye and right now that's all that I can do.