Have you ever heard of postpartum rage? Most new parents are unaware of this postpartum (and also new parent) complication, but when they find out what it sounds like and looks like, they realize they’ve actually been through it without knowing there’s a name to it!
Postpartum rage can sounds like:
- “WTF is wrong with everyone?”
- “I can’t take this anymore!”
- “I’m sorry I’m so angry all the time…”
- “Leave me alone!”
- “I hate my life!”
- “Why is everything so hard?!”
- “$%&)*@!!!!”
- “You’re so lucky that…!”
- “No one gets it!”
It can also look like:
- Yelling
- Screaming
- Throwing things
- Growling or vocalizing anger
- A “constant” bad mood
- Punching things
- Pulling out your hair
- Digging your nails into your skin
- Hitting things
These are not comprehensive lists but they may give you an idea of the wide ranging ways postpartum rage can show up.
You may not be in a bad mood all the time but something happens and you snap and you just lose it. Maybe you surprise yourself with how angry you sound, and, what’s worse, you wonder what’s wrong with you for feeling this way.
What is postpartum rage?
Postpartum rage is a very real complication that occurs after you bring your baby home. It may show up soon after delivery, whether you go home together or your baby is in the NICU, or it may show up after your baby’s homecoming.
There’s very little data on postpartum rage but we do know it’s a symptom of postpartum depression OR postpartum anxiety (two of the most common complications of childbirth, even more so than hemorrhage and hypertension). If you experienced a high-risk pregnancy or birth trauma, your risk of PPD and PPA is significantly higher than if you had a low risk pregnancy, no-trauma delivery.
Postpartum rage is a whole body
While it can show up with mental health symptoms, and is often diagnosed by mental health providers as a manifestation of postpartum anxiety or depression, it is often mistaken as a mental health condition when there are full body implications for its etiology.
First, postpartum rage—like postpartum depression and anxiety—can stem from changes to the sensory system, a branch of the nervous system. A dysregulated sensory system often can lead to a hypersensitivity of light, sound or tactile stimulation, which can result in experiences and expressions of rage. This dysregulated sensory system can stem from:
- incomplete threat cycles from your pregnancy or birth experience (yes, even if you delivered at term and had a “perfect” birth on paper)
- incomplete threat cycles from developmental trauma from your childhood
- normal changes to your endocrine system that follow birth, lactation, sleep deprivation
- increased inflammation due to immune dysregulation that may be tied to nervous system dysregulation, endocrine dysregulation, sleep deprivation, or incomplete threat cycles
Can you see how your entire body is involved in the experience of rage after you’ve had a baby? This can be true for non-birthing parents as well. Even if you did not birth your child, the changers to your neuro-endo-immune systems due to the pressures of parenting, lack of support, stress of your child’s health, sleep deprivation, etc, can result in rageful experiences after the birth as well. This rage can continue for 2-3 years after birth as well.
Taking a different approach
One of the basic tenets of true trauma-informed somatic approaches to health is curiosity over pathology. Put on your detective hat and consider postpartum rage as a sign or clue instead of as a symptom of something that’s wrong that needs to be fixed. From this perspective, what are these clues telling you about what your body needs more or less of?
Another basic tenet of true trauma-informed somatic approaches to health is finding patterns, which also function as clues about what’s happening in your body. Take some time to find the patterns for your rage.
Here are some sample questions to think about:
- How is it tied to your basic needs (hunger, thirst, sleep, emptying your bladder, feeling connected and supported)?
- How is it tied to your sensory needs?
- What time of day is it better or worse?
- What days of the week is it better or worse?
- What happens right before your rage goes from 0-60?
These questions are not comprehensive, but a good place to start to help you start thinking about your rage in a trauma-sensitive, somatic way.
This rage is not here to stay
If we think about your rage as clues to a puzzle your body needs you to solve, that means there is hope that once the puzzle is solved, and you can give your body what it needs, this rage will melt away. Pop psychology, outdated methodologies, and armchair experts will tell you to focus on your thoughts and offer cognitive and behavioral tools to help you combat your rage.
However, we know that rage has physiological roots that are not addressed by cognitive or behavioral approaches. Somatic approaches, especially ones that are sensory or sensorimotor in nature have been shown to be far more effective in the long run for supporting your whole body to shift so that rage is no longer part of your regular parenting experience.
This is our speciality at Ruvelle. Click the button below to find resources for you to take your journey deeper. We recommend the Body Language Journal as well as A Modern Approach Grief and Trauma Recovery workbook, which you can find in the Journeying Through Life section of our shop.
