Barely Weaning and Already Depressed

Its been too long since I’ve posted, but I’ve been going through some stuff so I’m going to use that as an excuse.
Many women get the baby blues, some women get Postpartum Depression and a percentage of those women get postpartum psychosis a much more serious condition. 
Apparently there is another type of depression that I’m just learning about and it doesn’t event have a name yet, not something you’d recognize anyway.
Weaning Depression, seems to affect many women as their children are either weaned because of supply isssues or because the mother wants to stop breastfeeding.  Because typically that happens in the first three months depression symptoms linked to potentially ceasing breastfeeding are many times counted as simply postpartum depression.  For those women who do continue breastfeeding many times we are 7, 8, 9 months postpartum and all of a sudden are experiencing depression symptoms and don’t really understand why.  At this age babies typically begin to take in more solid food and begin breastfeeding less.  Typically they are sleeping through the night so the times that a women is feeding her child can go from 8 – 10 to 4 -5 in a matter of a few weeks.  That sudden drop in milk production can trigger feelings of depression, loss, anxiety and sadness. 
It only took a 30 minute googling session to figure out that was almost exactly what I had been going through.  Don’t get me wrong I’ve been wound a little tight since the kid has been born anyway.  Stress levels are through the roof. You know what I need from the President, now the election is over? I need him to add about 5 hours to the day and find a way to make human adults require less sleep.  I think I could handle my life if that happened … but in all seriousness I went from a relatively stressed out and frazzled new mom to a tearful emotional, had to leave Target before I lost my shit completely and melted down in aisle 4 kind of mom.  I cried at least three times in 10 days and almost cried double that.  I was a mess and I told my husband as such.  His recommendation?   Maybe you need to call the Dr. 
That only increased my anxiety, maybe the Dr. is going to tell me I’m nuts, or need to be on medication, I can handle it I told myself over and over again that night.
I’ve got to tell you the phone call to the Dr’s office was the most liberating thing I had done in weeks.  First question the nurse asks me?  “Are you still breastfeeding”
Response: “Yes”
“Has the baby begun eating more solids and nursing less”
“Yes”
“Does this seem to be when you started to feel this way”
“Yes!”
“It happens to a lot of women, don’t worry I’ll talk to the Dr. and see what she wants to do”
An hour later I had a referral in hand to go speak to someone and was told that typically as my body adjusts to the new nursing schedule so will my mood.
So I’m not crazy, bonus and I know that what I’m experiencing isn’t just a compilation of stressors that 7 months in are finally beginning to break me down.  This is actually a thing, a thing that I can identify and name and will go away.  It will probably get worse as the baby continues to wean himself over the next few months, but I’m going to be armed with my referral and now that I know what it is I feel like I can handle it.
Don’t let yourself go through this type of thing alone, regardless of if you are 8 months postpartdum or 8 days.  You are supposed to be stressed out and anxious, you are supposed to feel everything just a little bit differently.  You are not supposed to cry at the drop of a hat if you didn’t before and you aren’t supposed to have meltdowns where you just can’t handle the everyday.
No one should go through this alone and if you feel like this or even if you are concerned, call you Dr.  Even if its just for an appointment to talk about how you have been feeling lately.  They see this hundreds of times a year, they know what they are doing and many times will make you feel validated for feeling the way you do. 
Ahh children … will the affect they have on us ever stop?