Weddingbee

I think this is such an important topic to address. It brings to mind a recent article that my MOH gave me about women being depressed after the wedding. They call it “post-wedding blues”. As I am in the industry of putting on productions, I feel as though I won’t be as depressed as some of the woman I know have been after their wedding (”I have nothing to look forward to”, “I have all this time now”). But I could be wrong as I have been down on occassions throughout my planning. Any Mrs.’ out there who’ve felt this. I feel depression might not go away the day after the wedding necessarily. What do others think?

oh man oh man… do i know how you feel… this time one year ago, i was in grad school, trying to finish my thesis, scared of my advisor, and feeling stresses from wedding planning. i was also in the process of looking for a new place to live (as i was moving to a different state for my job), so yeah it was def a tough time. i always imagined that planning for my wedding would be one of the most happiest times of my life, but boyyy was i in for a rude awakening. mr. peach i have been fighting more, i find myself getting easily irritated by mama peach, and sometimes i just want it all to be over. >_

Oh man, I know how you feel. Grad school? Check. Family history of depression? Check. Feeling like there’s no time to see a therapist? Check. Etc, etc.

A couple of things have helped during the planning process. The Conscious Bride was fabulous, and making sure that I saw my therapist at least twice a month has also been really helpful. Honestly, though, I’m not sure any of this would have been possible without anti-depressants. Your mileage may vary, but it’s worth looking into, especially given a period of higher than usual stressors.

i’ve never really suffered the kind of depression that you guys are talking about but i’ve definitely had moments when i felt really, really down. luckily, it never got to a point where i had to take medication for it. i totally understand that whole grad school thing bringing you down, adding to your depression. i’m in school as well and believe me, sometimes i feel extremely depressed and just feel overwhelmed at times. you’re not alone. i hear you completely. i sincerely wish you the best of luck and i am positive that you’ll overcome this.

Wow, when I read this, I nearly did a double-take and had to ask myself “Did I email WB and not realize it?” And for me, just seeing how many commenters empathize with what you’re going through makes me feel a little better.

Wedding planning itself has been stressful, but manageable. It’s been the combination of planning plus grad school plus trying to finish up and look for a job so we can move as soon as we get back from the honeymoon, plus a very long, cold winter and lack of support from my parents and absentee MOHs, all of that has made for a difficult year. I’ve had a lot of moments of feeling lonely, other than when I’m with my FI, who has been a rock throughout everything.

I would definitely recommend getting back into therapy, especially if you found it helpful before. I see someone through my university counseling service and it has really helped me feel more able to manage things. Do whatever you can to carve out time for yourself that is peaceful and relaxing - time with your FI, a vacation - FI and I just came back from a few days in the Bahamas and it was desperately what we needed.

Hang in there.

I understand as well. When I was 18 and graduated from high school, I moved 5 provinces away to university. I wasn’t the one who got depressed; my brother was. He and I were very close and at the same time that I moved away, his girlfriend broke up with him. He’s spent the last 9 years fighting one of the worst cases of clinical depression his psychiatrist has ever seen - hasn’t found the motivation to graduate from high school (he’s 24 years old now), is insecure, sometimes takes his meds and sometimes refuses them, barely eats and spends most of his time sleeping. It’s awful. It was an education for me in what depression is really about. That was my first exposure to it.

Since then, I’ve noticed it runs in my family. My mother frequently exhibits signs of clinical depression as well, and I also have tendencies towards it but have never fallen into the abyss the way my brother did. I always seem to claw my way out before I fall “past the point of no return.” But I totally flirt with severe depression when I go through bad periods - I’ll spend three days crying in bed, taking naps rather than dealing with things, not eating and feeling totally unmotivated to do ANYTHING. Most of the time I’m okay though, these depressed periods are something I always manage to get through on my own thankfully.

The hardest thing for me related to the wedding planning has been the fact that I was totally blindsided by negative emotions following getting engaged. I had wanted to get married for about 2 years before we got engaged; I was ready before my fiance was and I was starting to get anxious about what was taking him so long. I was so certain about him being The One and was totally in love with him.

Since we got engaged, I was absolutely shocked at the questions that somehow made me doubt our relationship. I was second-guessing my decision to marry him, like, what if he’s not really the one? What if I’m settling? Now that I have these doubts, sometimes I don’t want to go near him because I’m scared. I don’t know if it’s because I’m not in love with him anymore or maybe I just am trying to protect myself until I’ve sorted through my feelings. I don’t know. I think I’ll be able to sort through this but I’m having trouble doing it on my own. I want to get some therapy if only to have someone to listen to me who knows how to handle these issues, but my medical insurance will probably only cover 2 or 3 sessions and theyr’e too expensive for me to pay for on my own.

I like the recommendations of the book; I just bought a copy of The Conscious Bride on Amazon and you can also buy a wedding planner guide by the same author that sounds like it includes more than just the typical stuff i.e. decor, dress, caterer etc. It also includes planning for the MARRIAGE, and I think that’s important, so I picked up a copy of that too. Can’t wait for the books to arrive in the mail, I hope they help me.

I don’t counsel brides, my specialty is more with children, but I do see a lot of depressed teenage girls. I think that you’ve made an important step by going back to therapy and recognizing that it’s too difficult to tolerate the depression alone any more. Sometimes though it has to get harder before it gets better. One thing you can discuss with your therapist is whether she/he thinks medication would be helpful; please ask her/him to explain side effects though, particularly if you are worried about gaining weight, losing your libido, and other potentially self-deflating results of meds. Another avenue you can try since you are I am assuming, a graduate student, your school may have depression groups. Usually these are based on some CBT model. As you appear to have recurrent major depression, I would also want to know what modality your therapist is working in; cognitive behavioral therapy as well as interpersonal therapy are particularly effective with depression because during depression, you tend to experience an abnormal amount of negative thoughts, in this case, it may revolve around your wedding and relationship. For me, wedding planning is not something I do to relieve my stress since as it seems to many of the above posters, it is stress even if it’s often positive. Instead, I make an effort to see friends, play golf, cook, and play with my puppy. In the midst of all the planning and research, perhaps you have lost sight of what used to make you happy. Have you neglected activities you used to enjoy, or better yet, enjoyed with your fiance? It is important to keep doing pleasurable activities even if you do not feel like it and to try to find positive things about your day, it could be as simple as having a nice cup of chocolate or being able to take a bath. Likewise, for me, I found that I had to take a break from planning because at a certain point, I was waiting for vendors to respond, and it was out of my control even though they were driving me crazy. The break was what I needed to focus on my schoolwork, job, and also apply for jobs post graduation. You should also not feel like you need to keep these feelings to yourself. Your fiance is going to possibly have to deal with your depression in the future. He should be your biggest support, and even if you feel guilty that you’re the depressed one, I am sure that at some point you will be giving him the necessary emotional support.