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Sharing my thoughts on PND.

5 replies

Mummykindnessrachel · 21/01/2013 21:58

Hi there, I'm posting this here although I know there's a dedicated forum for this topic. I thought there might be some mums that won't necessarily look specifically at the mental health pages but might benefit from reading this.

For the past couple of weeks ours has been a sick-house. For one week DH had can?t-get-out-of-bed flu, and for the following week both kids had bugs too. This is, of course, no different to thousands of other families across the country in January. The thing is, though, is that their illnesses knock me for six. I don?t just mean that they pass their germs on to me (although I am writing this through streaming eyes with scratchy throat). What I mean is, psychologically, it takes a while for me to recover from the fact that they have been ill. The obvious reason for this would be that of course, any parent worries when their child is ill, even if it?s just a nasty cold. Having sick kids is stressful and exhausting and generally pretty horrible. As mums, our own needs are usually pretty low down on the priority list and when your children are sick, this is more apparent than ever. For me, I can live without an uninterrupted wee and deal with not getting in the shower until 2pm. Their needs are more important, particularly when they?re sick. And as soon as they?re better, in theory, things go back to normal.

Or not.

I consider myself to be ?in recovery? from my depression, in that it?s a constant work-in-process that I need to remain aware of. One day at a time. There are thought processes and strategies that I use to keep myself on the upward bounce as much as I can. But I find that in stressful times and particularly when there?s been illness in the house, I don?t get the chance to pay attention to my own emotional wellbeing and this can take me down a slippery slope.

So the purpose of this post is to have a word with myself in order to get back on track. Contradictions will follow, I?m afraid! That?s how my mind works.

When I was getting professional help with my depression and anxiety (which I highly recommend. Getting help, that is, not the depression or anxiety. That really sucks) One of the things the counsellor repeated regularly was this: ?Rachel. It is what it is.?

Let me explain?.

I struggle with overcoming the notion that I have no justification in feeling depressed; I have two beautiful children, an amazing husband and the support of my family and friends. There is a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs, food on the table and countless other blessings. What right do I have to be depressed?

I have a strong tendency to compare my circumstances with others who I feel have far more reason to feel low. I have friends who have recently suffered through bereavement, infidelity, miscarriage, divorce and serious illness. And that?s just people I know. Don?t start me on the pain and suffering out there in the wider world.

Drawing these comparisons can leave me feeling self absorbed, selfish, ungrateful and ridiculous. None of these feel good, let me tell you. So I remind myself that my own struggles are no less valid because others have suffered more. Telling yourself you can?t feel sad or upset about certain things because others have it worse is like saying you can?t be happy because others have it better than you.

Depression is chemical. My brain doesn?t produce enough serotonin to keep me on an even keel. This is simply not something I can control. (More on the subject of control on future posts). The same way that a diabetic can?t control their body?s insulin production, I can?t control the fact that primarily, the cause of my depression is chemical and physical. It ?Is What It Is?. All I can do is be aware of it, ?own? it, recognise what triggers it (like sickness in the house and letting myself get tired and run down) and use the tools at my disposal to manage it.

Luckily for me, on the whole, the good days far outweigh the bad and there is one quite simple tactic that I use which really helps me keep things in perspective, and that is practicing gratitude whenever I can. Because I really am grateful for what I?ve got.

In writing this I?m concerned that it?s going to come across as a bit sugary or cheesy. But It Is What It Is, it helps me be a happier person and maybe it?ll help someone reading this too. So I make no apologies.

Here?s an example;
A few minutes ago, I surveyed my living room. There are toy bricks EVERYWHERE. There are play-doh crumbs under the table. There are very small handprints all over the patio doors. A half-built train track lies abandoned in the kitchen waiting to trip someone over. A little pile of clothes shows me where my strip-o-gram of an eighteen month old daughter has stood and removed all of her clothes. Just because she can. She doesn?t care that it?s snowing out and she?s recovering from a nasty cold. My house looks like a bomb has hit it.

I can look at this situation in one of two ways; I can grumble and moan about the mess or I can smile, thinking of Madam?s excitement and pride at the big tower she built by herself, hence the bricks everywhere. I can be grateful for the toys we have that keep the children busy whilst I jot a few ideas down for this article. I can be grateful for the children themselves, that they?re better now. That they?re up to their usual mischief. That they?re well enough to climb the walls.

Another example, and one that I cringe a little bit about sharing, but I?m going to anyway, is the ironing. Boring subject I know. I LOATHE ironing. But at least once a week (ideally, but rarely, more often) I stand and I work through the enormous pile of ironing. I often huff and puff and complain about this. It?s categorically the dullest activity ever. But what I try to do, whilst I?m ironing, is be a tiny bit grateful. Grateful for the little ones who bring the clothes to life. Grateful for the fun times they spend wearing their clothes. Grateful for the job my husband has that requires him to wear a shirt each day. Despite the ironing it necessitates.

Similarly, when washing floors and cleaning mucky little handprints off a surprisingly varied array of surfaces, I try to be grateful for those little hands and feet. I try to remind myself that whilst raising (and especially cleaning up after) little ones is hard, one day they?ll be grown and gone. And I?ll look back on the days of smeary windows and crayon wall graffiti with nostalgia. And I?ll probably wish that I?d spent more time enjoying them and less time worrying about cleaning up after them.

And every so often, when they wake in the night, I might sit and hold them for a few extra minutes, and be grateful for them. I?ll hold them a few extra minutes after they?ve fallen back to sleep. I?ll drink in their sleepiness. I?ll try to forget and forgive myself for those dark early days and nights where I wanted to be somewhere or someone else and I?ll remind myself that they won?t remember. I?ll be grateful for the fact that I am able to be grateful. Because if I?m feeling grateful, then I?m feeling better. And now that I?ve finished writing this, I?m feeling a bit teary, but I?m feeling better. And I?m grateful for that, too.

This is from my new blog //www.mummykindness.com

Rachel x

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LackingNicknameInspiration · 21/01/2013 23:47

Lovely post, thanks - some very useful pointers there. I have 3, from 5 - 9 months and can relate to so much - the comments about looking at the mess as something other than mess, I will certainly try.

The only additional problem I have though, is a realisation that once it's passed, I will miss it - which just makes me feel even worse for not appreciating it.....

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LackingNicknameInspiration · 21/01/2013 23:48

..from 5 years - 9 months, I mean!

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thunksheadontable · 22/01/2013 11:06

Drawing these comparisons can leave me feeling self absorbed, selfish, ungrateful and ridiculous. None of these feel good, let me tell you

I don't know what sorts of things you have been doing therapeutically to support yourself, but reading this resonated with me as I'm sure it will with many others. It helps me to remember that feelings are just feelings.. as I say to my three year old, we are all [insert "negative" label here] sometimes and sometimes we are not. Mindfulness and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy strategies are the cornerstone of my recovery.

The other thing that helps me is NOT to view it as an "illness". Way back when I first got my diagnosis (perinatal OCD at 28 weeks pregnant) I said something like "it's just hormones/serotonin/my silly old brain" to a friend who is a psychiatric nurse said. She said no, it's not JUST that.. at the time that really irritated me, but as she explained and as I began to feel the fog lift I could appreciate, these things are complex and in some ways reducing the experience to a label diminishes the experience of women.

Her explanation was of the "stress-vulnerability" model, that sometimes as demands increase in your life and overlay old sadnesses or are mixed with areas you find difficult (such as, say, organisation or being alone or what have you), you can become overwhelmed. When this happens, THIS starts to alter those brain chemicals and the connections you are making (e.g. what they call selective monitoring in CBT, you feel useless and suddenly you start to view everything through that particular prism so everything loses its lustre, or you feel there's no possibility of a happy future so suddenly everything seems to be a threat).

After nearly a year of therapy NOW I can see that a lot of things happened at once that contributed to me being overwhelmed or, as I like to think of it now, losing faith in the possibility of life. I had a threatened miscarriage from 5 to 12 weeks of pregnancy, morning sickness to 22 weeks, a very stressful situation with a work colleague who had severe mh issues of her own, having to take over the caseload of another colleague, missing three weeks work because of the threatened miscarriage and having to make up the time despite really not being able to, facing a situation where I would inevitably have to meet my estranged alcoholic father who was very abusive to me in childhood (my grandmother's 90th which I didn't want to miss), some financial concerns, massive clutter in the house as I was too overwhelmed to do any tidying which just got worse and worse, fears about birth after a traumatic and difficult labour and significant perineal damage last time.. all of these things conspired to have me just hanging on a limb and the thing that tipped me over the edge was - get this - losing my pregnancy notes when I went for my gestational diabetes test!

These things, all minor enough on their own (I have been dealing with the estrangement from dad for years, so it is not really a good enough explanation) just happened together and I started to doubt that things could ever improve... and as that doubt grew, the OCD took root as a coping mechanism. By the time I had my ds2, I was in a terrible, terrible state.. and what anyone could describe as "clearly unwell"... BUT I view this as a chicken and egg situation. Not that I didn't have enough serotonin or anything immutably intrinsic to me, but the way my brain responded to ongoing stresses when I didn't have great coping skills in place because of my chaotic childhood.

Seeing it as "illness" just doesn't make sense to me, because it makes it seem like bad luck, as though you were touched by the wand of the bad fairy from Sleeping Beauty. I think for me, it was more of a spiritual crisis.. and by that I don't necessarily mean spiritual in relation to any God of any organised religion, but I just lost that faith that life had the potential to work out, I was convinced disaster and death were imminent and I felt spent with no more to offer.

When I try to explain this to the psych or CPN I think they think I am minimising.. but I am not. I will never forget the despair and helplessness I felt about birth or the strange rushing panic of the first three months of ds2's life.. I was absolutely NOT "well"... I just don't believe that happened because of the random misfiring of neurons. I believe the meds helped by dampening down the reaction of my brain to the way I was thinking based on my experiences and current situation.

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Mummykindnessrachel · 23/01/2013 11:48

Thanks for the replies! Thunksheadontable I wholeheartedly agree with every word. In my case, there are underlying reasons for what happened with me. They lie in the fact that my DH had a brain haemorrhage and tumour seven years ago, which I never really dealt with. My CBT has really helped me to understand this, although I'm not sure I'm ready to blog about it yet. It helps so much to know to source/trigger of my depression. I will say that the context for me reminding myself that it's also chemical is to remind myself that I do need to keep taking my medication and to justify to myself why "doing it on my own" may not be possible for me just yet (evidenced by huge relapse over the summer). I really appreciate your comment and if you don't mind I'd like to share it in the comments section of my blog (anonymously of course). Would you mind this? I'd really like to share your viewpoint xx

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Mummykindnessrachel · 25/01/2013 22:25

Hi there, I'm pasting below the latest post from my new blog, Mummy Kindness. It explains what I've learned since "coming out" about my PND two weeks ago and how I feel us mums can help each other by sticking together more and competing less. I'd love your feedback. You can find more from me at www.mummykindness.com

X

I think there is something about sharing your darkest secrets with the wider world that makes people trust you and feel comfortable sharing their own stories with you. As a result my head is spinning a bit. I have already learned so much in the two short weeks since I started this blog. I?ve received messages from people I?ve not seen for years, telling me about their struggles with depression, and messages of encouragement from mental health professionals congratulating me for my honesty and advocacy. This means more to me than I can articulate.

It?s been a scary, scary process so far. Two weeks ago not even my dad knew about my depression and neither did some of my very closest friends. Everyone has been incredibly supportive, but still I admit I?ve questioned myself. I have a terrible habit of reading in to things that people say and imagining hidden messages that usually aren?t there.

For example, one very dear friend asked me via text message how I felt about my story being ?out there in the wider facebook world?. Her message was of genuine concern for me, having recently found out things about me that had previously been unknown to her. She was worried that I was feeling regretful. However, my mind started racing and my imagination went in to overdrive. Does she think I?m over-sharing? Are people talking about me or criticising me for putting so much ?out there?? Does she think I?m doing the wrong thing? Am I doing the wrong thing? What have I done? This was absolutely my own self-doubt rearing it?s ugly head.

The point I?m making is this: Even though written and statistical evidence support the fact that lots of people have been helped by this blog (it?s now had over three thousand views in under two weeks), this is still a very scary thing to do. Particularly for someone prone to anxiety. I don?t take compliments well and I have a hard time in believing nice things people say about me. There is a technical term for this that I learned during my Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and it?s called Mind Reading, or assuming you know what people think without having sufficient evidence of their thoughts.

For me, it?s not enough to just share my story in the hope that other mums like me will know that they?re not alone. Reminding mums that they?re not the only ones feeling like proverbial swans on a lake, seemingly gliding along on the surface whilst underneath kicking and thrashing about to stay afloat is all well and good. There must be something I can do to encourage other mums, above and beyond sharing my own (mis)adventures in parenting.

I?ve given this a lot of thought and there will be more than one post on this topic. But first I?d like to cast my mind back four years. In my old life, I used to have a pretty high profile job negotiating advertising contracts for a national newspaper. I was responsible for bringing in tens of millions of pounds a year in revenue. It was a big responsibility. But I had a manager, she had a manger, he had a manager and his manager reported in to the City. Everyone was accountable to someone. We had regular one-to-one meetings and appraisals and knew in no uncertain terms whether or not our performance was up to scratch.

Move on four years, and I find myself doing the most important job in the world, raising two small children. But I have no boss (well, actually, my son often feels very much like the Boss of Me but that?s not the point!). I don?t have regular appraisals (I know the health visitors are there if you need them but I stopped paying attention to them when they told me to limit my son?s carbohydrate intake when he was seven months old).

As mums, we?re only really answerable to ourselves, and we?re our own worst critics.

Rightly or wrongly, other mums are the benchmark for how well I feel I?m doing as a parent. My husband or mum may tell me they think I?m doing a good job, but in my mind they?re obligated to say that. It?s in their job description. (There?s a CBT term for this, too actually. It?s called Discounting Positives, or dismissing positive things as trivial).

Now luckily for me, and as I?ve said before, I have a very supportive group of friends. We are usually pretty honest when it comes to the highs and lows of raising babies and toddlers and we don?t feel the need to compete with one another. With this in mind many of them seemed hurt that I hadn?t told them about my PND at the time I was going through it. The reason I held back wasn?t that I didn?t trust them, far from it. I didn?t tell them because I knew them well enough to know the words of comfort they would offer, I knew what they?d say and I knew they were right. It just wouldn?t have made any difference to me at that very low point in my life. I couldn?t really believe anything complimentary that my friends might have said to me. I discounted their positives without even hearing them.

My point is this: We may believe we know someone, but deep down, we never really know what?s going on behind the scenes. The mum who you think has it all together may well be falling apart at the seams and feel completely unable to discuss it with anyone. But what can we do? How can we make a difference?

The best bosses I ever had in my media career were those who asked for input from their teams and gave feedback on a job well done. And yet, the majority of comments I?ve had so far on this blogging adventure have been from mums who feel inferior to other mums, who feel in competition, who feel they are judged by their peers on every parenting choice they make.

Only this morning, one of the mums at nursery said to me ?I never really had many female friends before having children, but I thought this would change once I became a mum. In actual fact, it?s even worse. Women can be so and competitive, especially when it comes to child-rearing. I can?t be bothered with it all! Where?s the solidarity and sisterhood??

Now this? This we can do something about. This is where we can affect change.

If you see a mum who?s managed to make it out of Tesco?s with shopping done and sanity seemingly intact, what?s to stop you saying ?Nice work there, sister! Last time I tried to do the shopping with my kids in tow I aborted the mission and contemplated abandoning my children along with the shopping trolley. I take my hat off to you. Well done!? ?

Conversely, when the mama with the screaming kids in the supermarket is, for once, not you, a friendly smile or words to the effect of ?we?ve all been there, love, don?t worry? could well go such a long way in helping her to survive her ordeal. I?d argue that random words or encouragement from strangers are just as valuable as praise from those who know you well. And remember, we don?t know what?s going on under the surface of even the most immaculately made-up face.

I genuinely believe that if we were more confident in our abilities as mothers and less focussed on our insecurities we?d be able to brush off some of the more tactless comments we?re regularly bombarded with. I think it?s our lack of confidence in ourselves that cause us to find hidden meanings in otherwise harmless comments from our peers.

I think if we focus on praising our fellow mums by giving credit where it?s due we can go a long way in remembering that we?re all in this together. We?re all fighting our own individual battles and we could be lightening each other?s loads. I bet you can think of countless mums that you admire for different reasons. But do they know this? Could it be that whilst you?re comparing your insides with her outsides, she?s doing the same and finding herself to be lacking?

Here is an excerpt of an email I received from a friend after she read my blog. I?m nervous about sharing it as it feels a bit like blowing my own trumpet but I think it proves my point:

?To use the not-so-random example of you, who was never anything other than friendly and supportive to me, I enjoyed seeing you but it was always mixed with envy/insecurity that Monkey* was advanced in crawling, walking etc, that you had family close by, a routine, less night waking, a spotless child-friendly but stylish house and that you always looked great! It?s not that I was unaware you had a horrible birth experience and were upset that breast feeding hadn?t worked but in my mind, the things you could control, you excelled at. I don?t know how relevant that is but thought you might be interested to hear it.?

This whole paragraph was a revelation to me. It had never occurred to me during those early days that anyone would look at me and see anything worth looking up to. But there it is, in black and white. Who knew? I wonder if having this knowledge would have made a difference to me when depression hit two years later with the birth of my second daughter? Impossible to say.

But we?re not just talking about me here. I genuinely think that almost every mum could benefit from a bit of encouragement now and then from her peers. That by consciously making the effort to support one another with kind words, we can help culture an environment of solidarity rather than competition.

I asked an online group of mums to tell me if they?ve ever received a lovely compliment and how it made them feel:

?My autistic sons paediatrician said to me ?you clearly have a great understanding of his needs and are so in tune with him, he is lucky to have you as a Mum? she may have said that to everyone, but I don?t care! it helped.?

? A friend recently told me ?You are incredible. You?ve had so much to deal with lately and you just get on with it; you are a wonderful mum and a fantastic friend and your children are a credit to you.?

? I was on my way home from the school run with my three year old twins in the pram. A lady stopped me and asked me if I didn?t mind her telling me something!! She went on to say what lovely children I had, how they were always well dressed and polite, that my daughter was always on time for school and how calm I was all the time!! I was gobsmacked!! And I felt very emotional as I had been struggling so much. I told her how much it meant to me! It made me feel like the best mum in the world! My friends often compliment me on how well behaved my children are! I have struggled with PND since having my twins so compliments mean a lot to me.?

?An older lady stopped me in the hospital toilets to tell me that my son (age 6) was a lovely spoken, polite little boy. It feels lovely when it?s a stranger telling you rather than somebody you know (although that?s still nice too)?.

I hope you?ve got examples of lovely compliments that you?ve been paid. I hope that you?re able to accept genuine words of support and encouragement and not discount them. I hope more than anything, that in reading this article, you?re formulating a mental list of women you know who deserve a pat on the back and some recognition for the incredibly important and often hard job we?re all doing our best at. A psychological pay-rise, if you will.

So with this post I?m setting you some homework. Please go out in the world and practice some Mummy Kindness today, and come back here to the comments section to tell me and your fellow readers how it felt to make someone else?s day.

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