Tag: Mummy Stuff

Facebook reminded me this morning that I “came out” a year ago today. When I say “came out” I mean that I revealed to the world, via this blog, that I’d been suffering from PND and anxiety since having my little girl.

I don’t know where that year has gone but I know how much has changed. I know that reading that blog post now almost feels like reading somebody else’s words. Yet somehow it still feels like yesterday.

I also don’t think I’d realised just how far I’ve come in a year until I looked back at the blog post. It got me thinking about what had got me to the much healthier place I am in now – not so I can preach a miracle cure or pretend I have all the answers. I don’t. I just know what helped me get to a place where I finally feel some contentment and strength and most importantly a place where I can really enjoy every moment with my little lady. Ok, so I didn’t enjoy kneeling in a suspicious wet patch during potty training or dealing with the mother of all tantrums in a very public place – but you know what I mean!

My husband has been amazing – I genuinely don’t know where I would have been without his support. I’m seriously lucky. I’m trying to persuade him to write a post for partners who are supporting someone with PND or anxiety.

I’ve also really begun to notice the difference eating the right food makes to me. I’m not on a rabbit food diet, I still stuff my face with chocolate here and there, I don’t deprive myself all the time. But I try and have a decent fruit and veg smoothie everyday if I can. I try and eat less sugar and less junk. I don’t have great willpower, sometimes I have a fat-filled burger and chips…but I try and eat well when I can.

Somebody told me that magnesium is awesome for a lot of things. I think hormones play a massive part in poking the PND bear for me and I think I’ve heard that it helps with imbalances in that field. I think I read it can help with anxiety too. Don’t quote me on that…it doesn’t seem to have helped my memory! I take a magnesium supplement and it may or may not have contributed to me getting better.  I’m not a doctor, this isn’t proper advice but I believe it’s helped me.

If you can find the time, doing something you enjoy, even just for a short while, is brilliant. One of the things that was a big cloud for me was the feeling that the old me had disappeared. I didn’t feel at all attractive, I wasn’t performing anymore, I couldn’t find time to really concentrate on anything I enjoyed for any length of time. I felt like everything that made me feel worthwhile was gone. Crazy when you think about it – what could be more worthwhile than motherhood? But feeling like you’re a shitty mother stops you seeing it that way.

Slowly though, and with support from my hubby giving me an hour or two alone here and there, I slowly began to fill those precious minutes with something I enjoy. Sometimes it was drawing the bridal designs, sometimes searching for miniature inspiration or treating myself to a 12th scale purchase. Sometimes it was half an hour to scan a guitar tab site for something with easy chords I could play to make myself feel a sense of achievement.

But sometimes, it was just to wallow a bit. To sit and cry, or curl up under a blanket and watch rubbish TV. Wallowing is fine. Letting it happen, acknowledging how pants it is and just stop fighting against it for a while was so good. I was lucky my husband started to see the signs that I was having a tough day. But sometimes I could just tell him “I’m having a grey day today”. He learned not to ask why – he knew I didn’t have an answer. Sometimes he’d ask what he could do to help, mostly he knew just giving me space if he could was the best thing. He knew suggesting taking little one out for a while would fill me with guilt if I agreed to it – what kind of mother am I if I say yes, take her out? He’d just do it, take her on an adventure, or to Tesco.

So what’s the point of all this? Other than a self-indulgent look back on how far I’ve come. I guess so that anyone who needs to hear “it gets better” can see it does too.

A couple of weeks ago, after a being let down by someone kicked me back by miles, I finally found the courage to advertise on Facebook for a new band. I had replies in minutes and we start rehearsing next week. And I’m genuinely excited to be getting a big piece of me back. I never thought I would and I certainly didn’t have the courage to try.

My friend Woody – pic by Matt Searle

My friend Jack – pic by Matt Searl

My friend…Tit?! Pic by Matt Searle

We moved house in the summer – we finally have a garden and I’ve discovered the joy of twitching (well, watching the birds in the garden). I’ve kind of become Crazy Bird Lady, engaging the waiting Jackdaws in daily conversation as I put the seed out in the morning (“now you guys make sure you leave some for the little birds ok?”).

I got guinea pigs. I used to have them and sadly lost my last two girls while I was pregnant. It was another slightly quirky step towards feeling like me again. I should add that of the 2 beautiful boys I was assured I’d purchased from the breeder, one is now very much pregnant, so I may have slightly more piggies than I’d bargained for very shortly!

I finally have enough room in my heart to utterly absorb myself in motherhood – every change, every new phrase, every giggle, every endless request for the same YouTube video over and over. Of course I lose my shit sometimes, I get tired, frustrated, I worry about so many little (and big) things. That’s because we all do – it’s part of the territory. But I do that without that dark cloud filling the space and sapping my strength. Mostly.

I wouldn’t say I’m 100% out of the woods…maybe I’ve reached 90%…but that feels significantly better than the 80% and the 52%. Yesterday I felt gloomy for no reason and I couldn’t decide whether it was the PND, general depression or just one of those days we all get sometimes. But I went with it and it passed and I feel more positive today.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is that if you’re reading this and you’re in the throes of that dark place and can’t see a light ahead, well here I am shining a little torch in your direction, hoping that maybe my words will help just a little. I was there once and now I’m here – and you will be too one day. It’s ok to be where you are. It’s ok to feel what you feel. It’s ok to keep on your journey because one day you can be ok again.

NB. Pics of my feathered friends are by my very talented hubby and thus I have to say they are copyright of Matt Searle.

Well, having said this wasn’t going to be another “Mummy” blog…I’m in the frame of mind for writing a little post in that direction. I’ve been mulling over whether or not to write something on this subject for months – in the form of a blog post, or a piece for an organisation or something else.

What has stopped me is the potential reaction. People perceive you in certain ways and, whatever their current perception might be, this post is bound to change that – hopefully for the better but, for some, inevitably for the worse.

I mentioned in the About page that after having my daughter I suffered from PND. There are a lot of posts and articles on the subject and a lot of media attention around it too at the moment. Sharing it from my perspective may, I hope, help me in some way but hopefully help other people in similar situations to think “it’s ok…I don’t need to be ashamed of this or hide it away like some dirty secret. It’s not my fault and it does get better”.

My little one was born a day early, via emergency c-section after an initially productive labour which became less so as time went on. She was born on the Wednesday. By Thursday I was a hopeless emotional wreck. I didn’t want to see anyone, I didn’t want anyone near my baby and the tears just wouldn’t stop.

We all put it down to the trauma of the birth, lack of sleep, hormones, baby blues. But weeks later, the tears were still coming. And so was the shame. I continually tried to convince myself it was birth trauma, the health care assistant who’d been mean to me in hospital, the sleep deprivation. I told myself it was anything but PND. I even lied on the Edinburgh Scale (the questionnaire they give you to check if you’re depressed or not) because I couldn’t deal with the thought of being under mental health care, of having to see our lovely, but somewhat vacuous health visitor anymore. I wonder how many other women do that?

In some ways I think I was lucky as I never, ever felt anger or negativity towards my little girl. I feel so much for the Mums who do as part of their PND. My anger and negativity was all focused on me. Minor complications after surgery left me unable to do as much as I wanted for my baby and this just compounded the feelings I had of being utterly useless. So many times I felt I didn’t deserve such a wonderful little baby. I felt that I could do nothing right, that I was the worst mother in the world and that she would be better off without me.

I would lock myself in the bathroom…sometimes for a couple of hours, just to be away. One day my father-in-law came to visit and I couldn’t face having to see someone that wasn’t my husband or baby. So I said I was having a bath and just sat on the bathroom floor sobbing for the whole time he was there.

I wanted to run away from everything because I couldn’t see how I was ever going to be able to be the Mum I thought I should be. I was even angry at my husband. It seems so unfair because he has got me through this and could not have been more supportive or understanding. But all I could think at the time was “this isn’t fair. He knew nothing about babies before ours was born, yet now he’s bloody super Dad and I am the worst mother in the world”.

I thought every other Mum was so much more together than me and looking at me as if they could tell I wasn’t coping, that I was failing, and judging me for it. If Munch cried while I was out I could feel the panic rise in me and my brain telling me “this is because you’re useless. You can’t cope with this”.

Going to meet other Mums was to me like facing a firing squad. Which seems crazy now because my Mummy friends are the loveliest bunch of ladies, awesome Mummies and almost certainly would have been enormously supportive.

Being left on my own when my husband had to work felt like I’d been locked in a dark cell with no way out. It terrified me…not because I was scared of harming Munch, but because I was scared I wasn’t capable. And it made me feel so unbelievably lonely, that my support network was gone and there was no way out of the darkness.

And the anxiety? Wow, that was and at times still is, through the roof. I just couldn’t let go of anything. I would worry about the tiniest detail. Going on a day trip anywhere required a million lists, 3 weeks planning and 5 panic attacks! I still need my lists now but slightly less planning time! I would avoid going anywhere, I would cancel plans, or I’d get my husband to do it for me! He was certainly my strength when I was at my weakest, doing endless things for me that I couldn’t face and never needing to question why.

I couldn’t face the world, I was permanently exhausted and at times the feeling of not coping was so great that I just wanted to walk, and keep walking. There was a permanent grey cloud surrounding my brain that I couldn’t shake away.

It’s been such a long journey to get to a place where I feel almost normal again. This week has been tough as Munch hasn’t been sleeping and work has been stressful. It’s times like this when I can feel myself slipping a bit. But the difference is that now I can feel it happen so I can find ways to counteract it. Like drawing, or blogging!! Just finding time to do something for me…even if it’s just a few minutes. I definitely feel better when I eat well, exercise and go out and get fresh air with Munch, but occasionally what makes me feel better is to curl up on the sofa with a box of chocolates and some rubbish TV and just indulge in it for a minute. And that’s ok too. There are still rough days, but they are fewer now, and shorter and the rough isn’t so rough.

I do feel angry now at times. I feel angry because I feel the PND stole my joy at a time when I should have been on cloud nine. It stole moments from me when I could have been bonding with my little girl more. And I feel angry because it is a massive factor in my decision about any future sibling for Munch. I can’t look past it to make the decision clearly. Right now, I can’t face the thought of having to go through PND again.

But mostly, I think I have such an amazing little girl, a little girl who has a magic smile that has pulled me through the last 2 years and the strength of my love for her has pushed me to fight and recover so that I can be the Mummy she deserves. I don’t want to miss another moment of her, with her.

There’s so much more I could say about this whole thing but I think I’ve gone on long enough! Just hope that sticking my neck out by posting this (if it doesn’t end up just living in my drafts folder!) it might help somebody, somewhere, just a little. If you’re reading this and you are going through something similar, there is light at the end of what may seem like an endless tunnel right now. And it doesn’t matter how long it takes. Never think “I should be over this by now”. There’s nothing finite, there’s no set time limit. But it will happen and you will feel like you again.

Two organisations I’ve found to be exceptionally supportive:

www.pandasfoundation.org.uk

www.birthtraumaassociation.org.uk