PND?

I like to be open about my shit. I don’t hide much from the world & for me, putting things out there, even if just in cyber-space, is how I cope; sometimes how I heal.

2016 marks my 8^th year dealing with major anxiety & depression. No one can describe the helplessness, the illogical thoughts & emotions. No one can tell you why or how or what. The symptoms are mostly universal but the reasons are not. Help can come in the form of a mental health professional, a drug, mental & physical exercises, friends & family. The same thing doesn’t work for everyone.

Because these disorders aren’t visible people like me are often given a hard time; stereotyped as unstable, lazy or incompetent. It took me a too long to realise that most of those people don’t have the empathy or intelligence to comprehend such a thing. No longer is my energy wasted on such small minds & closed hearts.

Before getting pregnant I had debated if I could ever even be a parent. There were days when I didn’t go to work; days where I simply didn’t look after myself. Days when I cried as my then-boyfriend hugged me through the tears & pain with no idea why I was crying. How could such a person ever raise a happy & healthy child? Would they inherit this shitty disorder? If so, was it entirely cruel to inflict that on another person?

After just 6 months of a previously untried regime for my mental & emotional health, I was the best I had been in the previous 7 years. Steady, happy with only minor dips that were few and far between. I realised that I wanted a baby & discussed it with my by-then fiancée. We decided to start trying later in the year when we had moved into a better house & there wasn’t so much going on. Falling happened faster than expected & with it came a sudden dread.

Pre & Post Natal Depression hadn’t been on my radar when thinking about bringing a tiny human into the world. Finances, planning for care, a new car, providing everything a baby would need, that was easy. But when that second pink line appeared on my pregnancy test a whole box of unthought-of variables & challenges raised their ugly heads.

I do admin work for a team that receives the discharge summaries of all mothers who give birth at our local hospitals. Going on 5 years now, I know when I see the indicative words/tick boxes that a mother has had previous anxiety or depression; they are more likely to have PND. So I planned for the absolute worst. I planned to have issues connecting with & loving my baby. I planned to need emotional support. I planned to need help tending to my baby. When I went to the doctors to see a psychologist about an unrelated matter, I didn’t use all of the sessions available to me, banking enough to get me through to at least the end of the year. I made appointments with the psychologist & social worker in my own workplace to put in place strategies that would help me cope. I discussed it with all manner of people from my Husband to complete strangers if the conversation had turned that direction.

Towards the end of my pregnancy, I was an emotional & mental wreck. I hated being pregnant. The magical moments of baby kicks, ultrasounds & that absolutely breath-taking  heartbeat of something growing inside me… Those moments were tiny pinpricks in an otherwise endless cycle of nausea, cramps, spewing on the side of the road, hospital visits, more spewing - this time in a freshly run bath, no sleep, feeling weak & useless from the combination of all the above. By the end I loathed it & in turn hated myself. So many women I knew would be so thrilled to be harbouring a healthy little bubba in their womb. So many women I had heard of had been hospitalised for so much of their pregnancy in a worse condition than I was ever in. Then there were the pregnancy unicorns. The women who had no idea such things happened in pregnancy & floated through their 9 months like majestic angels with their amazingly capable baby-carrying bodies & minds. Those bitches could piss right off from about my 30 week mark.

In my last 9 weeks of Charli-baking, I went downhill. My Husband watch me cry, complain, get frustrated, sob, eat chocolate for comfort, throw said chocolate up & then start all over again. We sat through countless nights of talking out how I was feeling & one weekend even ended up at the hospital as my anxiety had amped up so much & my depression had set in as not to budge; a combination a lot of people don’t believe is possible but I can vouch for it being very real & consuming. Thankfully, Doctor Matt was on duty that day. Everyone remember Dr Matt from my birth post? He was the one who delivered Charli. This particular weekend he sat on the edge of my hospital bed, rubbed my leg & told me that I was doing an outstanding job. He told me growing a tiny human was exhausting & took so much physical, mental & emotional energy that I needed to stop beating myself up for feeling crappy. He spoke to Jake who told him I was not sleeping & all of the details of the threatened pre-term labour that had been on & off since 27 weeks. Dr Matt looked me square on & stated I was going to take some pain relief, some sleeping tablets (all perfectly fine for bub of course) & I was going to stay in the hospital until I got a proper sleep. Then I was going to eat a hot meal & take my time going home. Yes, Dr Matt.

Finally, Charli arrived. That had been my light at the end of the tunnel. I had been waiting for the moment when my nausea would stop, when I wouldn’t need to carry around that little red bucket & “Chuckies” in my handbag just in case… I would build up strength again. I would be sleeping better, able to get comfortable at least (everyone laughed at me on this one, but I was right).

But I could not tend to my little girl at all on her first night. On so many drugs I wouldn’t have trusted myself to hold her alone & I certainly couldn’t pick her up while standing – I could barely stand myself until the next day. So as always, Jake was there when he was needed the most; looking after our daughter on his own without even blinking on his very first night as a parent.

After what felt like failing that first night because I was incapable of caring for Charli, I was keen for the second night. Jake was getting a good night’s rest at home, Charli & I were still in hospital. Exhaustion was inevitable & unlike the night before where she woke every 2-3 hours for a bum change & a feed, she DID NOT SLEEP. I could buzz the nurses any time I needed to but I was her mother for Christ’s sake, I needed to be able to do this! My very favourite midwife from my night prior to Charli’s birth (the tucker-inerer) was on duty. She noticed at about 12am that Charli & I hadn’t slept AT ALL. I asked if Charli could take a dummy at this stage – I of course hadn’t thought to pack one. Tucker-inerer swiped us a dummy that she was not supposed to give out… I told her I had no idea where it came from.

By 2am when the dummy still hadn’t worked she came back & stole Charli. “You can’t see to her when you can barely keep your eyes open!! Let me take her for an hour & feed her. Go to sleep.” She came back with a wrapped, sleeping bub which lasted all of 20 minutes. I think I got an absolute total of an hours sleep, broken over that night. I had messaged my Husband at some point in the wee hours of the morning “Get here as soon as you can please, bring her dummies!” & then I waited. My second failure as a mother in as many days as she had been in the world? I wasn’t cut out for this & started to wonder what happened when a mother couldn’t even take care of her own child. Would someone take her off me? Would Jake & I have to swap roles so I could work while he cared for her? He was obviously better at it than I was.

I waited until it was late enough for people who didn’t have a newborn to be awake… 6:45am I text my Mum, trying not to raise her ‘My Daughter is having a meltdown Alarm, I subtlety asked what she was doing that day:

Then I called her & had my first major Mummy melt-down. Why did she cry all night – I couldn’t stop her crying!?! I changed her, I fed her, I hugged her, I gave in & tried her on a dummy. Jesus Christ! I can’t do this. How was I supposed to take care of her if we both didn’t sleep? My Mum, amazing as always when she knows what’s what told me I was doing fine, she reassured me in all ways possible & said the golden words – she would be coming to the hospital for a visit that day. Relief flooded all of me.

When Jake came I explained to him about my night. He helped me shower & then we both took care of Charli. We both ate… Visitors came & went & then the sun started to go down & with it my confidence. As the stars started to twinkle in the twilight so did my anxiety. What if it was a repeat of the night before? I got myself in a right state – twisted myself in knots to the point of a full blown panic attack from which there was no escape. I needed to calm down. I asked the nurse for a sleeping tablet. I wasn’t allowed. I had a baby to care for; I couldn’t be sleepy or disoriented. And so, my amazing Husband came to my rescue AGAIN. I was allowed to take a sleeping tablet if Jake stayed until I was capable of caring for Charli alone. I can’t remember how much sleep I was able to get but I remember that when I woke, I was much more level-headed. Jake headed home & I stayed with Charli in the hospital again. We had a good night.

The next day, weary & more than ready to go home there was no hint that only the previous day, I had been an anxious mother who had had a major meltdown. I had this covered! And there it began – the pattern of what would be my next 3 months. Over that time I encountered quite a few post-partum medical issues that called for all sorts of medication; one of which was to stop excessive bleeding. It was basically a concentrated contraceptive pill that screwed with my hormones… Shit hit the fan in a big way. One day Jake got home, I handed Charli to him said I needed to go & then left the house for something like 3 hours. Messy doesn’t begin to cover how things were that week. I didn’t know that I would come out the other side. I honestly had done enough to keep Charli & I alive. I avoided leaving the house, I didn’t answer the phone. I wanted so bad to just give up. I was a terrible mother. Look at my disgusting house! No ironing done, no dinners cooked. I began to hate myself even more. It killed me that nothing was getting done & it was my own fault; but at exactly the same time, I didn’t give a rat’s ass.

To this very day the cycle continues. I have days where I kill it. I get out of the house, have a coffee with Mum, do some early Christmas shopping, have 3 loads of washing done & away in one day, dinner is ready, I’ve exercised, dogs are fed & cleaned up after, the grass is watered, maybe a spot of ironing. In the 3 times “Crazy Stupid Love” played I caught all of it. Charli was fed & changed; tummy time & bumbo time were achieved. I remembered to take my vitamins.

Then there are just as many days that I sit on my lounge room floor & cry. I put the TV on for background noise & take in none of it. I feed Charli & change her. I eat crap food to fill the void that seems to be consuming me. I stress about finances & the cleanliness of the house to a ridiculous point. I avoid talking to anyone; I look at the ironing pile & wonder what the point is. I get frustrated when Charli cries & instead of talking to her & soothing her as I normally would, I just cry with her. It’s a pretty miserable existence on those days.

I don’t actually know if I what I am experiencing would be classified as Post Natal Depression/Anxiety. It makes sense that it would be, I was doing a lot better prior to the end of the pregnancy. Beyond that I have reverted (mind you, not nearly as badly) to the thoughts/feelings/actions of the person I was before I found my perfect balance. Whether just a circumstantial increase to those somewhat dormant parts of myself or an entirely new thing I am experiencing, it’s happening. Symptom wise, I’ve been here before, been to what was for me the depths of hell. Up & down. I have no real control over it at times & in a way I suppose I am used to it.

The scary difference now is Charli.

The bad days currently don’t have much effect on her, she probably feels my anxiousness but not to the point of being upset by it. She is looked after & cared for & loved on the worst of my days. But what I fear is the future. I cannot let her see me like this, especially if she is doomed to the same mental & emotional health problems. I need her to see a strong, independent, happy female role model. I need to show her how to deal with it. So that is what I am striving towards every day. I honestly believe I will be able to find that healthy balance again in the not too distant future.

I hope that anyone who has ever felt this way in ANY circumstance, parent or not, who is dealing with these things. I hope you find your way. Sometimes it's overcome, sometimes it's for life. Find your own balance & keep going. <3