Post Natal depression – Part 3 – Weakness

After my first post about PND it struck me that so many women were battling with the idea that admitting they had PND was a sign of weakness.

It goes without saying having a baby is a traumatic experience no matter how easy the birth.  Your life turns up side down, you battle sleep deprivation on a daily basis and have to be responsible for this little alien that needs you to do everything for them with very little appreciation in return.  I say this so matter of fact but for me that’s how it was.

Don’t get me wrong I love my children to bits but with the best will in the world I was not and don’t think I ever would have been ready for Motherhood.   So to have PND on top of this fact only reinforced my thoughts that I was a bad mum.

At a baby yoga group I sat there watching all the other mums smiling and ga ga gooing at their little bundles of joy.  Delighting in the fact that their baby had slept for 3 hours, or laughing when telling stories about their cheeky little princess pooing as soon as they had a new nappy on.  How could I sit there and tell these strangers I hated being a MUM?

So I sat there in complete silence and didn’t say a thing!  When I look back on this I kick myself.  Now having talked about my experience I realise there are so many woman who have been through exactly the same as me.  Had I spoke out about how I felt at that baby yoga group there would have been at least one other person who had gone through it.

Weakness is a concept I really struggle to understand now.  Is illness a weakness?

Weakness was one thought that never crossed my mind once I was diagnosed.  I was relieved that I wasn’t going mad and edging my way to the padded cell with the men in white coats.

Was choosing to start a family a weakness?

Was asking for help a weakness?

Was writing a bog and letting the whole world know about my PND a weakness?

The weakness is not in standing up and shouting about how you feel.  It’s in staying silent for fear of what others may think.

Having come out of the other side I understand how important it is for me to speak out about PND and if there is one bit of advice I could give its PLEASE DON’T SUFFER IN SILENCE

There are lots of leaflets on postnatal depression and I find the information on the MIND charity website very informative.

Post Natal Depression – Part Two – The Spin Cycle

I knew when I wrote my first blog about my experience of post natal depression (PND) it was going to take a few blog posts.

I had intended the 2^nd post to be about my journey through the anti depressant years but having received so many responses on my facebook page and via personal email I feel 2 additional blogs have to be written first.

This one is going to somehow try and explain in a bit more detail what post natal depression was for me.

Ever run a marathon in your head while standing still?  No me neither but it sometimes felt like that when I had PND.  Take all those times you or your partner had ‘That time of the month’ multiply it by 1000 and add a bit of extra paranoia and a feeling of uselessness in for good measure!

The tendency to over think was unbearable at times.  A simply task like making up the babies bottle took some effort I can tell you.  Constantly thinking (out loud sometimes) is the kettle boiled?, is it going to be too hot?, what if I haven’t put enough milk powder in?, do I make 2 just in case baby needs more? ….. The list goes on.  All these questions when I write them down seem very reasonable questions that indeed any ‘normal’ ‘healthy’ parent would ask but with PND the panic was heightened and the processor in my brain seemed to be in overdrive.

That one task in itself would exhaust me! I’d have a nap and have to start the whole process over again.  Needless to say on some occasions I never got dressed, or made and effort with my appearance because it was simply too difficult to process.

My Mum was fantastic at talking through things with me on the phone.  The distance between us was really hard but I always knew she was on the other end of the phone and when I was having particularly bad days we would talk 4 or 5 times a day.

Before I got help from the doctors I asked ‘what’s wrong with me Mum?’   Her reply was ’your ill darling.  Your brain is poorly and it needs fixing.  If you had a broken leg people would see it and you would get it bandaged up.  If you have a cold you get medicine and tissues and help yourself get better.  Your brain is stuck on spin cycle and needs help to get it working properly again just like a washing machine needs fixing every now and then’.

I loved the way my Mum explained it.  It made perfect sense.  How on earth are people supposed to know you have a mental health problem when they can’t see it?

My father-in-law once told me ‘It’s all in your head’! Those words were like a red rag to a bull at the time but now I look back and say yes Postnatal Depression is all in your head and if the world were to see inside your head they would see a bandage trying to fix it and know you are ill.

Post Natal Depression – Part One

So Baby Firth arrived and life was wonderful.  She was a little bundle of joy spoilt rotten by both sets of grandparents.  The day we brought her home from hospital was overwhelming.  People would say how well I looked and then proceeded to coo over baby Firth.

It was over these first few days that it suddenly dawned on me that I was all on my own.  I say that yet I know I wasn’t but I truly felt like I was.  I had my wonderful husband, a beautiful baby girl and so many friends and family dying to come and see her but still I felt alone.

I felt angry and jealous that all these people where coming to see baby and not me.  It was a feeling I wasn’t used to and it consumed me.  I would cry uncontrollably and it got to a point where whenever people came to visit I would go to another room so as not to see the cooing over Baby F for fear of saying something nasty.

When hubby returned to work after paternity leave (yes believe it or not they did have this way back then ;-)) I was totally lost.  Left at home with this baby that needed my undivided attention.  This alien that brought with it attention and loving affection from so many people yet I couldn’t see why.

I really did feel jealous of all the attention she brought and spoke to my health visitor about it.  She said it was normal to feel this way as it’s a big life style change, but somehow this didn’t seem the right answer.

All our close friends where still going out enjoying themselves.  None of them were married or had children. We had been living in our home for 3 years and we didn’t know anyone!! It even dawned on me that we didn’t know what activities there were in my local area for new mums.  I felt lost, inadequate, and useless even.

I had read all the books on motherhood like many mothers before me but not one of them said I would feel like this.  I had gone from the confident CAD technician at a busy production office to a whimpering mess in a few short months.

I constantly told health visitors and doctors how I was feeling yet felt I wasn’t being heard.  Throughout all this I had this underlying urge to run away back up to Newcastle to my Mum.

I would spend hours on the phone with her constantly trying to comfort me and tell me I needed help.   I know that if she had been closer she would have dragged me to the doctors herself and told them to help.

I was beginning to get really distant from my husband and all the people around us.  In affect most of them where his family and no matter how much they tried to help they weren’t MY family.  I was at the end of my tether and left a message for my health visitor to ring me as I couldn’t cope any longer.

Luckily for me someone picked up my message and arranged to visit me that very afternoon.  She was lovely and explained to me that I may have had a bit more than ‘baby blues’.  She booked me in to see the doctor and spoke to some other mums in the area to see if they would take me under their wing.

I was diagnosed with post natal depression when Baby Firth was 9 months old.  9 months of my life wasted because no one had picked up the signs I was ill.  To me it was such a massive relief to finally be heard, to finally know I wasn’t going mad!  I knew I wasn’t a failure.  I knew there was nothing I could have done to change the way I was feeling.

If there is one thing I have learnt from this experience it is to trust your instincts and ask for help.  All this could have been prevented from getting so bad if I’d shouted for help at an earlier stage.  Your friends and family may not be the right people to ask but seeking help was the best thing I ever did x

 

The Alien Months ……..

Like most young people I couldn’t wait to leave home and at the first opportunity I did just that.  I’d been with my partner for a couple of years and having just been made redundant I moved down to Bradford.

Over the next few years we enjoyed building a future together, getting engaged and buying our first home.  Plans for our 2001 wedding took centre stage with 2 rather large families to accommodate.  We were so happy.

Of course after the wedding everyone started asking when we were going to start a family.  It was something we both wanted and to some extent was the natural thing to do after all that’s what most people do right?

We talked about it and decided the time was right but not at any point did we think what impact the lack of my family around me would have on this decision.

You see I had moved from my family home in Newcastle to be with my husband.  A 2 hour drive I had made for over 3 years when courting and had made several times after I moved to pop up and spend time with my parents.  But a 2 hour time difference that was going to prove very difficult .

Throughout my pregnancy I found it an ‘Alien’ process.  Strangers prodding and touching my stomach as if it was their property.  People at work would ask me if they could ‘have a feel’.  I just found it really weird.  I wanted to shout out ‘I am not your property’ and constantly got funny looks when I said no to requests for a touch.

So the pregnancy progressed and the planning and preparation for baby’s imminent arrival occurred.

Your first pregnancy is a funny old thing.  No one prepares you for what goes on, from the prodding and poking, the very intimate questions from midwives, attending courses with other expectant mums and partners and discussing birth plans!  Surely all the birth plan should say is ‘baby out now’?

Anyway we safely navigated our way through the alien months and prepared for peanuts arrival.  Well the best we could anyway.   The little alien couldn’t wait to see the big wide world and took us by surprise 4 weeks early.

I apparently bucked the trend of first time mums.  I remember it as clear as day.  My husband had been to play football and as usual needed time to unwind before he came to bed.  I could never sleep when he wasn’t home (aww young love lol) so on hearing the front door lock I fell asleep.  2 hours later hubby got into bed and no word of a lie I jumped out of bed in agony!!!!

We rang the hospital who came back with the reply ‘It’s your first baby you have a long way to go, have a bath, take some pain killers and go back to bed’ Go back to bed?  I was climbing the walls!!  I rang the hospital for a 2^nd time and having sworn at the midwife (really sorry about that) she said I should go in.

Airedale was my hospital of choice so off we trotted.  Hubby driving of course and me hmmm well you know when I said I was climbing the walls? I literally was!!! By the time we got onto the Keighley bypass I was virtually stood up holding onto the ceiling for dear life!

We got to the hospital and when the midwife came to the car door she took one look at me and told hubby to hurry up parking the car.  On the way to the delivery suite she actually apologised for not letting me come in earlier! I got on the bed, was introduced to the trainee midwife, saw hubby walk in the room and BOOM baby Firth was born.

To be continued……..