This blog first appeared on my sister website – www.aijayufomadu.com.
I was 5 months pregnant, well beyond the drama and throes of the first trimester when I noticed that for some reason, I was having unusual mood swings.
Now I’m a mix of choleric, sanguine and melancholy, according to Tim Lahaye’s temperament description, most probably a 40:35:25 combo and that basically means that based on that assessment, I am slightly more choleric and sanguine than I am melancholic which also means that most of the time, I’m the serious minded yet upbeat merry-go-round kinda girl. I used to get depressed but I had learnt to manage it. I can be determined but I also love to have fun. I love my personal time too but sometimes I could get moody over something that is absolutely well… nothing. It had to be so because when I look back on it later, I wonder what it was in it that stole my joy initially. But basically, I am more fun than I get moody.
So when I hit 5 months in pregnancy and started getting angry, upset and moody over little or nothing, I knew it wasn’t normal. I mean stuff that I know shouldn’t get me down was now looking like a mountain hill, almost impossible to climb emotionally, with my already protruding belly. It was a previously familiar experience, one that I believed I had overcome.
Initially I took it as a phase and thought to wait it out but when I started making terrible emotional decisions, I knew I had to look into it seriously. Because my feelings could make me make some bad decisions but only me would get to suffer the consequences of those decisions. My feelings won’t help me. If anything, they’ll join me in the pity party, in the most condemning way possible.
So with a definite decision to find a solution, I stormed the internet. Now in pregnancy, internet research should come third, prayer should come first and your doctor’s advice and recommendation should come second and so even though I had some ‘experience’ handling depression, I first prayed though to be honest, I initially was leaning towards getting answers from the doctor than from God. I should have known better to place my priorities well.
Anyhoo, I sought my doctor’s advice on how I was feeling, hoping to get some cool tips on how to manage it. Dude just looked at me and said “it’s normal” And that he hopes I am not shouting at my husband. I looked at him, admittedly nodding because I was already at that point.
Thankfully, I married an amazing man who is deeply understanding and knows how to make me laugh even when I’m very angry.
Well, since it seemed I wasn’t going to get any solution tips from my doctor(bless his heart, he’s still the most amazing doctor ever) and I knew I couldn’t spend the rest of my pregnancy acting up, my journey was still far. In any case, even if it was two more weeks to delivery date, I’d still find a solution, I took to praying more seriously and stormed the internet with a heart eager to learn and determined to put an end to depression and it’s generation, in my life and anyone else’s, I could help, and that was when I realized that this menace affects a WHOLE lot of pregnant women and no thanks to the popular myths of pregnancy and it’s woes, women have come to accept them as part of the journey. Worse still, for some, it starts out really early in pregnancy and these women get to literally live with it till they put to bed.
No. That’s not good at all.
Pregnancy is a blessing and if you are a Christian, you have a greater chance of really enjoying the journey. It all depends on the disposition you take and what you choose to do.
Thank God for women like Jackie Mize ( she wrote supernatural childbirth) whose confessions show us how we can control a lot of things in pregnancy, including our emotions.
One of the lines in her confessions I love so much is – ‘ I will not be subject to my emotions but they are subject to God (supernatural childbirth page 114 paragraph 3). To that I added ‘ The Peace and Joy of The Lord guards and garrisons my heart in Christ Jesus’.
Ok. So we will take a look at what I found out that can really help but first, let’s take a little look at this depression thingy.
What Exactly is Depression?
According to the American Psychiatric Association; Depression (major depressive disorder) is a common and serious medical illness that negatively affects how you feel, the way you think and how you act. Fortunately, it is also treatable.
Depression causes feelings of sadness and/or a loss of interest in activities once enjoyed. It can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems and can decrease a person’s ability to function at work and at home.
Depression symptoms can vary from mild to severe and can include:
♦Feeling sad or having a depressed mood ♦Loss of interest or pleasure in activities once enjoyed.
♦Changes in appetite — weight loss or gain unrelated to dieting
♦Trouble sleeping or sleeping too much ♦Loss of energy or increased fatigue.
♦Increase in purposeless physical activity (e.g., hand-wringing or pacing) or slowed movements and speech (actions observable by others) ♦Feeling worthless or guilty
♦Difficulty thinking, concentrating or making decisions
♦Thoughts of death or suicide
Now, let’s take it closer home:
“Depression during pregnancy, or antepartum depression, is a mood disorder just like clinical depression. Mood disorders are biological illnesses that involve changes in brain chemistry.
During pregnancy, hormone changes can affect the chemicals in your brain, which are directly related to depression and anxiety. These can be
exacerbated by difficult life situations, which can result in depression during pregnancy.
What are the signs of depression?
Women with depression usually experience some of the following symptoms for 2 weeks or more:
♦Persistent sadness
♦Difficulty concentrating
♦Sleeping too little or too much
♦Loss of interest in activities that you usually enjoy
♦Recurring thoughts of death, suicide, or hopelessness
♦Anxiety
♦Feelings of guilt or worthlessness
♦Change in eating habits
Source -www.americanpregnancy.org
What can trigger depression? The list is almost inexhaustible because emotional challenges are not typically the same for everyone. But some examples include a negative self image rooted in how you are possibly feeling or how you think you look, work issues, money issues, disillusions, challenges in relationships excabated by moody feelings etc. So if any of these hit home or feel like an experience you’ve had a lot lately or you know a preggy mama who’s had them, any of these below could help. But like I first said, pray and get your doctor’s consent first.
What helped?
The knowledge I’ll be sharing here is a combination of the things God taught me to do and what I learnt through research. And in all my research, I ensured I prayed about every single thing and any thing that didn’t sit well with my spirit, I discarded. If my quest to manage my emotions was going to be successful, I knew I had to lean into God’s leading and that basically means if it doesn’t sit well, I pray about it and if it still doesn’t, I discard it.
Now, before I continue, I want to issue a disclaimer. This is NOT IN ANY WAY intended to replace your doctor’s advice or recommendations.
Not at all.
These are stuff I learnt that helped me and can help you too but I strongly suggest that you pass them by your doctor, especially if you’re having a complicated pregnancy or any health related issues, before you do any one of them, except of course, the confessions. Confessions will work in any and every situation, and at any time. So besides the confessions, please pass every tip shared in this book, by your doctor.
Most of them are harmless in pregnancy and relatively easy to do but people are different, and so asides the confessions, most of the others should be tailored to suit you and the stage and/or type of pregnancy you are at/ have, and it’s your doctor that will adequately help you with that. Ok?
Nicee. Let’s shoot
1) Get in The Word and Ramp up your Confessions
I guess this would pretty much be the first, especially if you are a child of God who KNOWS the enemy shouldn’t be messing with your mind. For me, I didn’t grab a whole lot of scriptures basically because I believe in the quality of a scripture deeply rooted in you than in the quantity of scriptures you know off heart but have no real effect in your life because well.. you haven’t driven them in (Priscilla Shirer taught me this).
So the six scriptures below did it for me. I spent time with them till they literally became part of me.
I always ask God to make His word so much a part of me that it becomes like salt mixed into food – inseparable.
♦This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. (Psalms 118:24 NLT). This scripture reminds me that everyday is a
gift from God so I’m not going to share it with anger, defeat thoughts or sadness because that would be taking God’s gift and sharing it with the enemy, wholeheartedly.
♦And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful. (Colossians 3:15 NLT)This second scripture taught me that I have been called to live in peace so anything trying to steal my peace is definitely not sent by God. If it makes me lose my mind, it’s not from God so I’ll have to take my peace back over that situation or circumstance.
♦Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6-7 NLT).
This third scripture taught me not to worry about anything before and after I pray about it. I learnt that if it was enough to bother me, it was enough to talk to God about and no matter how small it seemed, I would discuss it with God till my peace would come back. This discussion could take various forms and happen in different ways – while praying, whilst driving or commuting, while doing anything else even through journaling. The most important thing is that I’m speaking with God in my heart and no one else needs to know I’m having a conversation. It’s just God and I.
♦Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice! (Philippians 4:4 NLT)
I received this fourth verse as an instruction I was not willing to disobey or discard, because it IS an instruction. A simple one. REJOICE! So I can break into a dance and have a praise party all by myself no matter how I feel. Not because my emotions aren’t weighing me down but because emotions and feelings are bad leaders but good followers. If I dance long enough, my emotions and feelings will swing to support me.
♦You will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of your presence and the pleasures of living with you forever. (Psalms 16:11 NLT).
This verse taught me that God will always sort me out and show me the path to take that will bring life(solution) and give me joy (because I will have results), so no need getting worked up and overwhelmed. I collected that one and I kept it very well inside my heart especially for those times when the enemy would come with his stupid rhetorical questions that aren’t necessarily meant for you to answer, just for you to think and start to fear. Questions like – what will you do now? How will this happen? Who will you go to? Questions that God’s word has already sorted out.
♦You will live in joy and peace. (Isaiah 55:12a NLT)This last scripture I took as a prophetic injunction telling me that God has ordained me to livein joy and peace. Any other feeling is counterfeit and except I wanted to play low, my joy and peace was literally in my hands.
With these scriptures, I built a list of confessions, something simple but deeply rooted. What I did first was to let the Word take root in my heart. You might not need to spend time at first digesting the word before you start to confess but doing that makes the results faster. In the long run, the power is in the consistency, whether you digest it first or not, just keep saying it. By digesting a Scripture, I mean, sit down and think about that scripture, personalize the scripture by inserting your name, close your eyes andthink about them, forming clear pictures of what the scripture says, in your heart. For example, in the last Scripture above, imagine yourself being at peace and filled with joy Hope you get the idea.
You also do not have to use these scriptures exactly. There are a million and one scripture verses you can use, words that will speak personally to you. You can download the Bible app on your phone and type joy and peace in the search box and a whole lot of scriptures will come up.
2) Worship!
You cannot focus on the BIG God and notice inconsequential things at the same time. That’s what worshipping God does. When you worship, it’s not really about what God has done, it’s mostly about WHO God is, so as you worship, your focus shifts. What seemed to loom so large suddenly becomes so small you might not feel or take notice of it anymore. Now, because worship involves your heart, your emotions and of course your feelings, the music will affect the way you feel. The feelings that seemed to overwhelm you a while back now turn back to lift God up.
3) Praise and Thanksgiving
When it comes to extolling God, I really do not like to differentiate between praise and Worship because I strongly believe they are both semantics.
But for the purpose of this text, let’s take Praise and Thanksgiving as thanking God for WHAT He has done while worship would be about adoring God for WHO He is. So while you praise and give thanks, you mention specific things that He has done, situations He came through for you, casting your mind back as far as you can remember. This makes you acknowledge the greatness of God and His blessings over your life. As you do that, Joy will fill your heart and your challenges will become nothing. This will both build your faith and change your perspective. A lot of times, your praises can get you so high that you start dancing and that will literally shake off the beast of depression. But be conscious while you dance, remember, you’re still pregnant.
Choose Christian songs in genres and languages that minister to you. Go to YouTube and invest time searching out those songs that speak to you or if you don’t have all that data or time, get someone to help you download them.
Build a playlist or a couple of playlists. Don’t wait till you’re in the blues to start searching. Praise and dance the depression away. Sadness can never stay where joy is; like light and darkness, the two can never meet. Darkness will always flee in the presence of light.
4)Talk to God
Tell Him how you feel. God is more real than your bestie and even your husband and you see, all those things you’re feeling that you can’t seem to put into words, God understands them. God totally gets them and you can trust Him with how you feel because He won’t judge you at all. He’s caring like that. A caring Papa. So talk to God.. You don’t have to wait till prayer time, whenever you start to feel funny, start talking to God.
5)Speak to your Emotions
Yes, speak to your emotions because they can hear you. They have no right messing you up that way. Speak some sense into your emotions the way Jesus spoke to the storm and commanded them to be still.
Do that as soon as you feel the slightest strange emotion. As you speak to God telling Him how you feel, face those emotions and speak to them and back it up with your confessions.
6) Go for a walk/ get some exercise
Get some fresh air. Remember depression symptoms are sometimes chemical build-ups on our inside and getting in some fresh air can help. So get out that door and do some
natural things that can help and a walk has been proven to be a really good anti-depressant.
You can also get in some form of mild exercise. Exercise releases some hormones that are anti-depressant in nature.
7) Pamper yourself
Take yourself out often. Depression can make you feel like no one cares about you, well someone does- God. And someone else too- You. Self love and self leadership are powerful. Love up on you and spoil yourself often, especially in pregnancy. It’s not easy to carry a baby for nine months. You can’t even drop the load. Mehn! It’s just God who helps us. So go on a date night with God and your spouse if possible and spoil yourself. You deserve it please. A note though, do not overindulge, especially on unhealthy food and spending too much money. Try to pamper yourself at places that will give you more healthy options especially in food and drinks and also go to other fun places such as parks, the beach, spa etcetera. Try not to overindulge so you don’t go on a guilt trip.
8) Take some ice cream
Honestly, Ice cream is a major booster for me, physically speaking. Nothing like cold creamy sweetness going down your throat on those days when you feel like giving punches. It helps. Trust me it does. But do the healthy ones. Because Ice cream can typically contain some stuff unhealthy for your baby, I usually make sure I ask about the ingredients. Also I’d say you start taking ice cream from your second trimester but please ask your doctor first.
9) Cry if you have to
Yes please. Crying is not wrong in itself and it’s okay not to feel okay. Only ensure that you do not stay ‘not okay’ for long. Your feelings are important and should be acknowledged. Crying is okay. It’s the way we cry that can be wrong. Cry to release your emotions and not like someone who’s lost hope. Crying can help you feel better but you have to be intentional about it. You just let it all out- the feelings, the overwhelm and everything. And after crying, clean your face and put your smile on and some makeup if you will, put the cry behind you and move on. There are greater things ahead. Again, it’s not wrong to cry, it’s only wrong to cry like you don’t have hope. Cry to release your emotions and let it all out and after that, you’ll feel better.
10) Do some journaling
Writing is very therapeutic. It would amaze you how better you would feel just by penning down your thoughts and unburdening your heart on paper. Personally I prefer physical journal and pen for journaling while I use note taking apps for notes but feel free to use what works for you. If you are the aesthetic kids girl like me, get a pretty journal and own. It will add to the beauty. If you’re not sure what to journal about, first ask yourself how you feel and why you think you feel that way and why why why. Guidance and answers will come. If there is a tendency for you to journal very private stuff, ensure you keep your journal at a safe place especially if you live in a typical African household with some extended family
11) Catch some sleep
You could actually just be tired and exhausted so try to get in a good nap.
12) Appraise the situation
Depression has a way of making you make a mountain out of a molehill. Things are as rarely as they appear, so sit down, pray about it and ask God to show you the truth about the situation and then look at the situation critically and in all honesty, ask yourself what exactly is making you sad in it. Why are you losing your joy over the matter? Is it worth it? Is it something you can change or is it something you have to face nonetheless? so that the earlier you start out the better? Or is it something you cannot do anything about? What exactly is the issue? Sit down and examine it and you might be surprised to find out that what you think is making you unhappy is just on the surface. The real problem lies beneath all the turmoil you feel. When you discover that, you are better empowered to address the situation at the root and avoid repeated future occurrences masked as depression.
13) Reassess your circle
This one is key though I strongly suggest that you do not do it in the depth of depression because you just might be making a critical decision, emotionally. Your circle of relationships affects you as a person and we are all relational beings. Anything relational is emotional because we have relationships from our hearts. So if you constantly feel depressed, reassess your relationships and make adjustments if need be but do it after you’re out of the bouts of depression, before another one tries to hit you. And please do so prayerfully.
In Summary
All of these tips are intended to shorten and stop the cycle of depression from repeating itself and they are mostly dependent on you for a reason. You have control over you alone.
You can count on two people to be there for you – God and yourself. The best of men at their very best are still men so you don’t want your results dependent on any one.
That said, if you have someone you can count on, especially your spouse, please do involve them as often as you can. But even for those whose spouses are not physically present, you can still rock your pregnancy. I know pregnancy can be hard if you’re alone but then you are not alone, you have God and I believe, your husband, even if you have him on the same table less often than you desire or he is not present with you. That’s why most of the ideas point to you..and God.
Now, there are a couple of things you should never do especially when having bouts of depression. They are listed below:
♦Don’t overindulge on anything, like I said earlier. Except of course The Word of God which does not have an overdose
♦Don’t over analyse, trying to understand everything especially by yourself.
Don’t seek unhealthy dependence on anyman. Don’t make your joy dependent on anyone being around or helping you, not even your spouse. Your spouse should be there but no one can take God’s place in your heart.
♦ Don’t play blame games. Not on you. Not on anyone. Blames never solved a problem. If there are relationships you need to reassess, by all means prayerfully reassess them but don’t blame anyone for the way you feel. Blaming takes the power to make changes, away from you. So take responsibility and make your life work.
Yup! That’s it. Remember to first pass the indicated points by your doctor before implementing. And don’t worry, you’ll be fine.
Lots of love, light and laughter
Ijeoma
