Post by walkingwords on Oct 12, 2013 8:51:45 GMT 12
Hi there 
I love the idea of this forum. Not only does it supply information about what is what, but it also is a way of putting fellow PNI mothers/fathers in touch under the veil of anonymity. Personally I found it a huge hurdle just admitting to my husband (whom, as you guessed, didn't quite understand the seriousness of this confession) and midwife that I thought I may be suffering from PND, and the excruciating process thereafter of having to face complete strangers of the CATT in hospital, and Maternal Health with three different people + my psychiatrist doing home visits every week, and the compulsory visits to my GP every three months....
I still get anxious when I see familiar faces but can't place where I know them from, in case it's someone who knows about my illness. This is why I prefer being anonymous. It took me nearly a year to mention to my mum that I'm a sufferer (and this is after I received help), and I still don't talk about it with my very close friends/family either. It's not that I'm ashamed of my illness. In a lot of ways, I think it has made me stronger. That, and I've posted about my illness time and again on my FB, so it's not like I'm trying to hide the fact. I just don't want to talk about it in person, nor do I want anyone to offer their opinion on the matter.
Everyone is different and suffers on a different scale for different reasons. I'd rather offer suggestions on strategies to cope with things that I have personally been through, rather than project my opinion on something I haven't experienced myself.
Anyway - tragic anxiety aside, here's my life biography in summary:
Depression runs in our family; my mum was a little girl, visiting her gran, when said gran overdosed on sleeping pills. I think if it hadn't been for that, I probably never would have realised that what I, and two of my cousins on mum's side, experience is actually depression (my mum only discussed this incident with me after I graduated college). I remember depression taking hold of me when I was 9. The changeover in Year and friends was different, and I ended up being bullied by this one girl and her friend until the last school term of that year. My parents use authoritarian parenting (this is basically demanding and ordering without listening or being responsive to the child), which didn't help the situation much. (Of course, I didn't know these things when I was a kid, I just thought that's what life was meant to be like).
I also think there's some mental issues on my dad's side of the family, though nothing has been diagnosed, I still think I got 'my crazy' from his side. It's a bad combo, either way, since I seem to have some kind of bi-polar disorder. The term was very briefly brought up during one of the Mental Health team visits but no one elaborated nor explained it to me, so I did some research of my own and it's (pardon the pun) insane how the condition itself explains what I'm like in a nutshell. I don't know what it's like to feel normal - this fact has bugged me for well over three years now. My moods range between three settings: I'm either euphoric and can't sleep because of it (not that I mind when I'm in the phase), or I'm really really low where I'm carrying a lump in my throat 24/7 (even if I had an otherwise wonderful day) and I sometimes do get suicidal (and I sleep a lot, too, when I'm in a low mood), or I'm in-between (which I've come to call 'Limbo') where I'm neither happy nor sad, just numb. Disconnected. Like I'm literally just existing like a drone. I haven't made mention of the bi-polar disorder to hubby yet. I think he still struggles just to understand the post-natal depression, and whenever I mention my psychosis I do believe it goes right over his head.
Which brings me to the post-natal psychosis. I suffered a psychotic(?) episode before I fell pregnant the first time due to emotional distress. I started having more psychotic episodes after the birth of my first baby where I had hallucinations and delusions that someone next door in our apartment block was into the occult and had brought bad spirits into the building. Getting down to the garage was creepy as hell, the elevators made me feel uneasy, and I had several bouts of sleep paralysis in that apartment. It was terrifying. I also seem to have fake memories of my past. Like the memory of my hubby sitting me down and breaking off our engagement just before my parents came to visit us for Christmas. He has no recollection of this at all. I also get easily confused - I often find myself thinking I'm back home, in a completely different country, because some roads here have similarities to roads I drove often back home, and then suddenly a bend appears in the road that shouldn't be there, and I'm disoriented for a few minutes until I remember where I am and that the bend has always been there. If you know what I'm saying?
Oh, and, funny, my memory is horrendous. A couple of days ago, I used the bathroom. Now our bathroom has a very noisy fan that comes on when the lights come on, and it takes several minutes to shut off even after the light has been turned off. So I used the bathroom, went downstairs to the kitchen to grab an icecream from the freezer, headed back upstairs and upon passing the bathroom door, I heard the fan and thought 'I wonder if somebody just used the bathroom?' I didn't click that I'd just been in there myself until I opened the door to check if the light was off. I mean. REALLY. That's the cherry on the cake, if you ask me.
I have three little monkeys (6, 4, 2), I married their daddy in 2011 although we've been together for just over 13 years now. I used to badger him about marriage (mostly because my mum was badgering me about it) until I eventually gave up on the idea. He's the one who started talking about marriage after that, and during the arrangements for our wedding, he kept saying "I hope you know what you're marrying into". Ironically (and sadly) that's what I keep thinking lately: had he known what HE was marrying into, I doubt we would have married at all. This is just my opinion. He may say differently. He can be nice like that sometimes
Anyway so that's pretty much me. If anyone can relate, please feel free to PM me.
I love the idea of this forum. Not only does it supply information about what is what, but it also is a way of putting fellow PNI mothers/fathers in touch under the veil of anonymity. Personally I found it a huge hurdle just admitting to my husband (whom, as you guessed, didn't quite understand the seriousness of this confession) and midwife that I thought I may be suffering from PND, and the excruciating process thereafter of having to face complete strangers of the CATT in hospital, and Maternal Health with three different people + my psychiatrist doing home visits every week, and the compulsory visits to my GP every three months....
I still get anxious when I see familiar faces but can't place where I know them from, in case it's someone who knows about my illness. This is why I prefer being anonymous. It took me nearly a year to mention to my mum that I'm a sufferer (and this is after I received help), and I still don't talk about it with my very close friends/family either. It's not that I'm ashamed of my illness. In a lot of ways, I think it has made me stronger. That, and I've posted about my illness time and again on my FB, so it's not like I'm trying to hide the fact. I just don't want to talk about it in person, nor do I want anyone to offer their opinion on the matter.
Everyone is different and suffers on a different scale for different reasons. I'd rather offer suggestions on strategies to cope with things that I have personally been through, rather than project my opinion on something I haven't experienced myself.
Anyway - tragic anxiety aside, here's my life biography in summary:
Depression runs in our family; my mum was a little girl, visiting her gran, when said gran overdosed on sleeping pills. I think if it hadn't been for that, I probably never would have realised that what I, and two of my cousins on mum's side, experience is actually depression (my mum only discussed this incident with me after I graduated college). I remember depression taking hold of me when I was 9. The changeover in Year and friends was different, and I ended up being bullied by this one girl and her friend until the last school term of that year. My parents use authoritarian parenting (this is basically demanding and ordering without listening or being responsive to the child), which didn't help the situation much. (Of course, I didn't know these things when I was a kid, I just thought that's what life was meant to be like).
I also think there's some mental issues on my dad's side of the family, though nothing has been diagnosed, I still think I got 'my crazy' from his side. It's a bad combo, either way, since I seem to have some kind of bi-polar disorder. The term was very briefly brought up during one of the Mental Health team visits but no one elaborated nor explained it to me, so I did some research of my own and it's (pardon the pun) insane how the condition itself explains what I'm like in a nutshell. I don't know what it's like to feel normal - this fact has bugged me for well over three years now. My moods range between three settings: I'm either euphoric and can't sleep because of it (not that I mind when I'm in the phase), or I'm really really low where I'm carrying a lump in my throat 24/7 (even if I had an otherwise wonderful day) and I sometimes do get suicidal (and I sleep a lot, too, when I'm in a low mood), or I'm in-between (which I've come to call 'Limbo') where I'm neither happy nor sad, just numb. Disconnected. Like I'm literally just existing like a drone. I haven't made mention of the bi-polar disorder to hubby yet. I think he still struggles just to understand the post-natal depression, and whenever I mention my psychosis I do believe it goes right over his head.
Which brings me to the post-natal psychosis. I suffered a psychotic(?) episode before I fell pregnant the first time due to emotional distress. I started having more psychotic episodes after the birth of my first baby where I had hallucinations and delusions that someone next door in our apartment block was into the occult and had brought bad spirits into the building. Getting down to the garage was creepy as hell, the elevators made me feel uneasy, and I had several bouts of sleep paralysis in that apartment. It was terrifying. I also seem to have fake memories of my past. Like the memory of my hubby sitting me down and breaking off our engagement just before my parents came to visit us for Christmas. He has no recollection of this at all. I also get easily confused - I often find myself thinking I'm back home, in a completely different country, because some roads here have similarities to roads I drove often back home, and then suddenly a bend appears in the road that shouldn't be there, and I'm disoriented for a few minutes until I remember where I am and that the bend has always been there. If you know what I'm saying?
Oh, and, funny, my memory is horrendous. A couple of days ago, I used the bathroom. Now our bathroom has a very noisy fan that comes on when the lights come on, and it takes several minutes to shut off even after the light has been turned off. So I used the bathroom, went downstairs to the kitchen to grab an icecream from the freezer, headed back upstairs and upon passing the bathroom door, I heard the fan and thought 'I wonder if somebody just used the bathroom?' I didn't click that I'd just been in there myself until I opened the door to check if the light was off. I mean. REALLY. That's the cherry on the cake, if you ask me.
I have three little monkeys (6, 4, 2), I married their daddy in 2011 although we've been together for just over 13 years now. I used to badger him about marriage (mostly because my mum was badgering me about it) until I eventually gave up on the idea. He's the one who started talking about marriage after that, and during the arrangements for our wedding, he kept saying "I hope you know what you're marrying into". Ironically (and sadly) that's what I keep thinking lately: had he known what HE was marrying into, I doubt we would have married at all. This is just my opinion. He may say differently. He can be nice like that sometimes
Anyway so that's pretty much me. If anyone can relate, please feel free to PM me.
