Post-Partum Depression
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Tuesday, March 14th, 2006The babe and I had our eight week post-natal check yesterday. I’m tired but I have enjoyed the last eight weeks, enjoyed getting to know my new baby. I’m definitely in love.
So it was something of a surprise when the health visitor assessed my Edinburgh Test and declared me on the borderline of suffering from post-natal depression.
Since yesterday I have been wondering about this. I can come to only one conclusion and that is that I am always suffering from mild depression. I think I have always suspected this but it depresses me! to have it confirmed.
So I am going to spend some time over the next few days seeing whether there are steps I can take to make myself happier, to improve my underlying happiness. I don’t know what this will entail and I don’t know who or what can help me find some answers. I am not spiritual but I feel I need something in life which provides a cornerstone for how I feel, what I believe in. I have a sense of community but not really a sense of identity (particularly now as a mother). I need to take more exercise. I want to lose more pregnancy weight than I have (those Mars Bars have taken their toll on my self-esteem). I need more close relationships and a wider circle of like-minded friends (I’ve been working on this one in the last few weeks). I want to listen to more music, loudly.
What makes the average person happy aside from family and friends? And I mean long-term happiness, not the things that bring instant, short-lived gratification. Is it work? Hobbies? Or something less tangible? Or does short-term gratification oft-repeated bring about underlying happiness and satisfaction with life?
Tell me, because the Health Visitor has threatened to come a-calling. And I can think of better ways to spend next Monday morning than discussing my mental health with a stranger.
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Posted in Post-Partum Depression
Postpartum depression
Wednesday, February 15th, 2006Yesterday I admitted to a friend something that I have not really admitted to anyone out loud: that when I was suffering depression after second son, William, was born there were times when I contemplated suicide.
Ironically the only thing that saved me was the same thing that led me to think such thoughts: my children. Of course it was not my children per se that made me so unhappy but the depression that arose from the day to day grind of looking after the children which was almost certainly made worse by the hormones or whatever it is that causes post-partum depression, because not many of us really love the constant grind of rearing children anymore than we would really love any dreary, repetitive job where the boss whined, threw tantrums and woke us up during the night whenever he or she felt like it but that doesn’t mean that we would suffer such awful depression: something else has to be at work chemically in the brain or hormonally.
William was at least six months old before I really realised something was wrong and he was nearly a year old before I sought help. By this stage there were times when I would be driving back from town and thought about driving my car into a tree. It would only be on a particular stretch of road that I would consider doing it, as if any other tree wouldn’t do. It sounds ridiculous when I type it out like that. I don’t know whether I really thought I wanted to end it all or whether I just wanted someone, anyone, to notice how I was feeling. But I remember feeling very clearly that it would be so easy to swerve off the road at speed into the tree and then someone would have to do something about me. I’m not quite sure why I didn’t just feel able to go the doctor and tell him how I was feeling. In the end a friend asked me if I thought I might have post-partum depression as she had suffered it in the past. It’s possible that her actions prevented me doing something really unbelievably stupid and leaving my children without a mother because after that conversation I looked up post-natal depression on the internet, cried with relief when I read the symptoms and then made an immediate appointment with the doctor.
Several months later after counselling and getting some help and support with the children I finally felt like I was starting to feel better. Now I regret that so much of William’s first months were spent feeling like I could barely get through the day, I regret that so much of Harry’s toddlerhood was spent crying and shouting and screaming at the kids because I couldn’t cope, couldn’t take a minute more.
Before Ben was born I worried endlessly whether I would get depression again. Ben is five weeks old and so far I am coping fine, happy with life - albeit tired - and wondering how I could have found it so hard last time. But when William was five weeks old we moved house. I was recovering from a C-section and still unable to drive. I moved away from all the friends I had made when my first son Harry was born. I had repeated chronic mastitis. Nor was I doing anything professionally. Both Matthew and I were chronically tired and snapping at each other. I had no help from anyone. All day and every day (and night) I was in charge of a one year old and a newborn. No-one else ever fed them, bathed them or took them off my hands for more than a few minutes.
No wonder I was depressed.
This time I have made sure that things are different. I was able to prepare for the baby and have everything organised (very important for such an anally-retentive person like me). I have lots of friends and family and other help. I have a few projects to occupy the space in my head that isn’t taken up by baby thoughts. Matthew is away quite a bit at the moment, ostensibly on business but more likely getting a good night’s sleep in a quiet hotel. This time, when I am tired and snappy, I know that he will understand rather than shout back at me.
I hope that I never experience such depths of despair again. But if I do I know that others are looking out for me now and that I don’t need to drive my car into a tree to try and tell those close to me that I can’t cope. And maybe being able now to admit to myself and others out loud that I struggled with really dark thoughts at a time when I should have been enjoying being with my children is another step in the right direction.
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Posted in Post-Partum Depression
Isolated parenting
Wednesday, October 26th, 2005On Monday I watched a programme called “Having a Baby Ruined my Life“. I would normally avoid programmes like this because having a baby didn’t ruin my life - although it made it bloody hard at times - and any programme broadcast on Channel Five is generally rubbish. But as I watched I found myself more and more engrossed. There were all these mothers saying all these things that I had felt when I was suffering from post-natal depression: how they missed their former lives, how the relentless routine made them want to jump off a bridge (not literally), how getting out of the house for even a newspaper became a military operation so that they stopped bothering, how the sleep deprivation made them feel like zombies and how their relationships with their partners suffered. Some found the process so harrowing that they couldn’t bring themselves to have another child. It would have made for fairly depressing viewing for most, especially if you were at the stage in life where you were thinking you might have a baby, but I sat there wishing I had seen this three years ago because the worst thing about being stuck at home with small children and hating it, is feeling like you’re the only one. I didn’t feel like there was anyone I could confide in, even my husband, although I tried to drop him not-so-subtle hints when he got home about how awful each day had been. Other mothers seemed to exude this glow of not only coping, but loving every minute of it aswell, and I felt like something must be wrong with me to be feeling differently. Looking back I probably seemed to other mothers that I was not only coping but also loving every minute of it because I felt like there was this myth that I had to live up to and to be anything less would be failing. Yet at home I was falling apart.
Some of the problem may stem from the fact that many of us had careers before children and to be defeated by a small infant in your own home seems unthinkable for us. We no longer see children being brought up in society as so much of the parenting that used to take place communally is now done behind closed doors. This means that many of us have little or no experience of babies before we have our own and it also means that many of us have little or no support from other mothers. There is no break for many of us from childcare and we can grow increasingly isolated, sleep-deprived and miserable, often without anyone really realising. Husbands and partners frequently don’t understand how boring and tiring being at home all day with small children can be and they can have their own worries about being the sole breadwinner and coping with tiredness when they have to work all day.
Of course being able to read other people’s experiences via their blogs has made me understand that my experiences of motherhood are more common than I realised. But I have been a parent for nearly four years and watching this programme was the first thing I have seen in the mainstream media (in this country) about the difficulties of parenting. One mother summed up my feelings when she said “I love my daughter more than anything but I hate motherhood.”
Our health visitor has stopped doing post-partum depression questionnaires at the six week check after the baby is born because every new mother is tired, depressed and often tearful (I hope they find a more useful way of picking up those mothers who are depressed). But I also wonder how many mothers expect to feel crap at six weeks but then who feel depressed a few months later when the reality of 24/7 parenting has really sunk in and the lack of support in bringing up children really begins to show. I wish there were some easy solution. We live isolated lives, physically shut away from friends, relatives and other parents. There is little support or recognition for stay at home parents. Other mothers often don’t want to talk about their ambivalent feelings towards motherhood when they go to coffee mornings and toddler groups for fear of being seen as a failure or as weird. At the same time, when you’re expecting your first child you don’t want to be told that becoming a parent is hard, really hard. Perhaps we should all be sent home from the hospital with a video showing us how to care for a baby which includes some other parents telling us about their experiences. Or perhaps we should all just support each other a little more and understand that some of us will love motherhood and some won’t. We all love our children, it’s just that some of us might be counting the days until they become just a bit more independent.
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Posted in The Politics of Motherhood, Post-Partum Depression
Thirteen weeks pregnant: ante-natal and post-natal depression
Monday, June 27th, 2005Today I was called in to see my doctor for a “chat”. This is not a usual thing.
It turned out he wanted to assess me for ante-partum depression and the possibility that I might succumb to post-natal depression after the baby is born. It didn’t go well.
Doctor L: “How are you? Are you feeling at all depressed?”
Me: “Well, let’s see. I’m throwing up between two and six times a day, every day and have been doing so for eight weeks now. I have no appetite and cannot really eat anything. I feel sick if I don’t eat but I also feel sick from eating all the time. My pee is cloudy so I fear another urinary tract infection, I’m dehydrated, my mouth is dry yet I drool the minute my head is not completely upright and my eyes water so it looks like I’m crying. My tongue is covered in ulcers, my throat hurts from so much throwing up and my jaw aches from the same. I’m becoming anaemic, I’m tired and have no energy. On top of that I have a hacking cough and sore throat and really, doctor, I have pretty much lost the will to live.”
Doctor L: “Oh well, I’m glad to see that you’re managing.”
Me: (I’m managing? Dear God. Breathing deeply.)
Doctor L: Looks blankly at me. “So, do you think you might get depression after the baby is born?”
Me, sighing - I mean what’s the right answer to a stupid question like that?: “I don’t know.”
Doctor L: “Okay, well, glad to see that you’re staying positive. I’m sure you will be blooming in the next few weeks.”
I wanted to stay and see what he wrote in my notes: this woman is deranged and should be monitored weekly for being completely strange, not to mention the inability to answer a question without being sarcastic.
I don’t think the doctor and I are friends.
[SEE THE SPROGGING CATEGORY FOR MORE PREGNANCY POSTS]
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Posted in Pregnancy, Post-Partum Depression
Helping myself
Tuesday, April 12th, 2005There are, I have decided, three things contributing to my ongoing depression. One is the fact that because we have decided to try for another baby (no news yet, before you ask) I cannot/do not want to take any medication. So I feel rather out on a limb because I know that I have to help myself through this. Second, because we are trying for another baby, I go through periods when I cannot drink alcohol (which makes me sound like an alcoholic), but I look foward to my gin and tonic at the end of each day with inordinate joy. The fact that I miss it so much when I cannot have it will tell you more about how much I look forward to it than anything I could write! The third is my worry that I no longer have post-partum depression, which to me is an acceptable face of depression, and instead I have Depression, which to me is way less acceptable. I mean, my younger son, William, is nearly two and I don’t think that I can ascribe this depression to his birth anymore. I’m sure however I can ascribe it to being stuck at home with small children. Quite why I struggle with this now, when I didn’t initially, still remains a question in my head. As I’ve said before perhaps it is the cumulative lack of tiredness or adult conversation, or the fact that daily life with two small children is very much harder than with one small child. But most likely it is that I’m tired of being simply someone else’s mother and wife. Which begs the question, would the children be better off being looked after by someone else while I go back to work. And with another baby planned, is there any point? If I were working now, I feel fairly certain that I would not be experiencing these feelings of depression. I think. However I still feel the children are better off being looked after by me, even if I am not at my happiest doing so, for although I am terribly depressed I don’t know that it rubs off on them that much. The depression is mostly internal, perhaps becoming more obvious if I am tired, but mostly it is how I am feeling inside. I don’t lay in bed all day, because I can’t. I don’t crawl into a little ball and disappear when the boys are playing or when they need feeding, because I can’t.Not having another baby is not an option. Going on medication is not an option. Snapping out of this depression (which by the way New Mum at toddler group last week referring to how you overcame your own ‘depression’ is THE LEAST HELPFUL THING you can ever say to someone who is depressed) is not an option. Getting rest, food, trying to find small joys in each day are options. Learning to accept that life at home with two small children is not everything I thought it would be, but I can still make the most of it, is an option. Finding things to call my own is an option: step one, get my own personal blog space; step two, time away now and again from the family without any emotional guilt being laid on me (my plans to get away to London last week on my own didn’t quite work out the way I had intended them); step three, a regular day off which I can look forward to. I am slowly suffocating here and that is not good for me or my family. They are going to have to learn to deal with a new me and frankly I don’t know why it’s taken me so long.
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Posted in Post-Partum Depression
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