The range of emotions that a woman can feel postpartum is so wide and vast. We expect women to be exhausted, tearful, a bit more emotionally fragile, and more edgy than typical. However, one of the symptom that is often overlooked is anger. Even irritability is often overlooked as a symptom that is link to depression. In my practice, I see many women who are relieved to find out that increased irritability is a symptom associated to postpartum depression and is something we can work on targeting in our treatment. However, for some women irritability just scratches the surface. Anger doesn’t even do it just to describe what they are feeling. RAGE. So many women find themselves where they feel so out of control with their anger, it becomes rage. The rage scares them. This rage is not just getting mad, it often elicits reactions that are so out of character. Yelling, swearing, throwing things. These women find themselves feeling completely overwhelmed and scared that they do not have complete control of the intensity of the anger they feel.
Postpartum rage many times brings along feelings of shame. Many women feel so out of control and they look back at their responses with feelings of disappointment, disgust, and even embarrassment. Shame has a way of keeping people silent and isolated to themselves. When shame is present women started to identify their worth and value in relation to their behavior that they are struggling with. Instead of just saying I don’t like my behavior they start to say I don’t like who I am. This shame can become very destructive and cause women to feel hopeless in that they begin to feel they themselves have changed, afraid that they will never be the person they were before the rage took over.
One of the best ways to look at postpartum rage is to allow the rage or anger to be an informant. The presence of postpartum rage is a warning sign that there are needs that are not being met. When a woman who experiences rage she can start to learn that the presence of the rage is letting her know that she needs to figure out what need she has that is being missed. This is also good for spouses to be aware of. It does not mean that she is just over reacting and that she is just hormonal, although a chemical imbalance and hormonal changes can play a part in symptoms of postpartum mood and anxiety disorders but rage often comes in addition to the typical symptoms. When we start to see it as an indicator that is alerting us of a need, it gives us a better understanding of what we can do in response. One thing that can become very helpful is to track your mood and track what the situation was surrounding your rage. The purpose of tracking is to allow us to get a peek into whether there is a pattern or something in particular keeps triggering episodes of rage. The presence of rage my indicate that more sleep may be need, that they are too exhausted, it may indicate that they are overwhelmed with the responsibilities and expectations that are placed on them. It may be expectations that they place on themselves or expectations that are placed on them by someone else. It may reveal feelings of a perceived failure on their part, a lack of support system, a feeling of loss of how they use to identify themselves as, it may indicate a big change in their social supports and relationships. There are so many things that the rage can indicate. Once we can pinpoint what the need is that is not being met we can begin to address the specific needs instead of just focusing on anger management alone. Anger management may be helpful but if we do not get to the root than we still have women who are suffering experiencing intense emotional pain. Getting to to the needs coupled with anger management skills allows for much better chances at quicker improvement in symptoms and help her heal.