Well, I had a bit a of a time feeling 'empathy' for Samantha Tengelitsch. If it weren't for the knowledge I acquired from my good friend who had post-partum blues so bad she chose to never have another baby; I may never have understood this mother.
First she had too many visitors which she didn't appreciate. Then she writes that she often didn't dress, yet she was craving for visitors. It would have been easy to go next door and visit with her neighbor who also had a new baby girl. But, this is one way the blues gets you down.
When she wrote about having "stretch marks in places I hadn't realized stretch marks would appear", my first thought was she cares more about her body than her baby. Yet, throughout she insists she deeply loved her child. So this is another way the blues can hit you.
Thank goodness Tengelitsch had a very supportive husband! Why the puppy brought her to a realization, I am not sure and neither may she be. Somehow that puppy made her grow up. She writes "...not as a girl....but as a woman..." she made her first decision.
"Show me motherhood as it really exists" Tengelitsch writes towards the end. Some one else commented this was a young mother. Maybe, we don't know. She apparently wasn't a very well informed mother or hadn't really witnessed other mothers.
I feel it took a lot of courage to write this story. It supports her own theory of gaining wisdom by accepting herself.
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