Post by Kia on Oct 12, 2013 14:34:01 GMT 12
Are you sitting comfortably? 
Well here we go, it starts out right here in sunny beautiful New Zealand. My hubby and I initially moved here in 2008 in search of adventure… better lifestyle… basicially chasing dreams. And apart from the odd burst of homesickness (read people sickness) we were really loving it. I got pregnant, we bought a house and were looking forward to starting our family. My beautiful daughter arrived in Dec 2010. It was a long labour followed by an emergency c-section, which I recovered from well and reasonably quickly. I do still wonder now whether this reasonably traumatic start also played a part in the subsequent PNI (difficult labour/emergency section is on the list of possible triggers). I also had quite a bit of trouble breast feeding due to an extremely fast let down. Feeding times were angst ridden screaming matches, and eventually I stopped at seven weeks and started to bottle feed. Yes I felt the usual ton of mummy guilt about that then… I don’t now. It was the right decision for me and my daughter, but I struggled with it at the time. Anyways, apart from the general exhaustion that comes about with a newborn I would say the first 3/4 months all went pretty well. I had some lovely supportive new mums round me and my sister close by. Of course I missed my own mum but we Skyped nearly every day. Other than that I was busy, getting out and about and coping very well with the whirlwind of new motherhood I think.
Then somewhere after the 4month mark (and certainly by 6months) I had taken a real nosedive, my emotions really seemed to spiral out of control quite quickly. Although I had suffered depression throughout my teens, that was an extended and low intensity episode, and I came out of it under my own steam. This however, was totally different. I had fits of crying and didn’t know why. I also remember feeling oddly detached a lot of the time, the lights were on but, emotionally speaking, nobody was home. I was excessively irritable with my husband and feeling useless as a mum (again without explanation). My levels of anxiety went through the roof. I had crippling fears where I convinced myself that something terrible would happen… That I would somehow die, or my husband would die, or that when the baby didn’t wake when I expected, that she had died. Of course she was just able to sleep for longer stretches, and plenty other mums described having that fear. Indeed some of this stuff isn’t unusual. And so I convinced myself it was just new mum feelings. I know better now… I doubt many of those mums did anything other than jump up and run through to check. I wonder how many lay in bed awake for an hour or more, too terrified to look. How many occasionally had a little obtrusive whisper mention that maybe baby was a mistake anyway, and if baby wasn’t here life might go back to normal? Trying to distinguish between normal new mum feelings and PNI involves a lot of blurred edges, but ultimately it boils down to the severity and persistence of symptoms.
Unfortunately for me, at this point PNI as an explanation was totally off my radar… I’m not sure why. Partly maybe because people seem to be on the lookout for it shortly after the birth i.e. first three months. Indeed that’s what happened to a good friend of mine in NZ. And she got treatment and support quickly. I just put it down to new mum feelings and homesickness and left it at that, trying to cope. But I just got worse, and to cut a long story short I got so desperate thinking I was badly homesick that we packed up and moved back to the UK in March 2012. Against the wishes of my poor, bemused and frustrated hubby, whose patience and love for me were tested to near breaking point. I believe I somehow expected him to understand by osmosis how I felt, and when he didn’t, I just got more angry. But how could I expect him or anyone to get it? I didn’t even understand it myself.
I felt slightly better on moving back to the UK, for a short while. But nothing like back to my ‘normal’ self ever. Then I slowly started getting worse again. I couldn’t really put a timescale on it. When you enter the fog it’s only a light mist, before you know it though it can be so thick it suffocates, or worse, it turns to absolute black. Suffice to say I had completely relapsed by November/December 2012. I really had to take a good hard look at what was going on. One thing was clear to me however, that it certainly wasn’t just homesickness! I somehow stumbled across this website one day around that time…
www.mind.org.uk/help/diagnoses_and_conditions/post-natal_depression
Reading through the signs, well so many symptoms on the list applied to me… and somewhere in the back of my head a tiny lightbulb went on. Wow. So, that’s the beast that has been stalking me then… I told my husband and sister almost right away. I made an appointment to see the doctor who confirmed PNI, and went back the next week after looking through treatment information to see what might be best for me. I finally felt hopeful that there was a way out. I felt like I had wasted so much of the last 18months of what should have been a really happy time for our little family. But I just had to keep reminding myself, ‘This an illness, and I didn’t invite it in’.
The difference at this stage was I finally accepted I was ill. I finally had a name for it… Post Natal Illness. Not crazy. It was still a bit scary and overwhelming, but I was so determined to do something about it. I read a lot of brave and saddening and uplifting stories, blogs etc And devoured almost any information I could find. I discovered early in my recovery that sharing does help. I used the PNI.org.uk forum for a while. It was the one arena I truly felt safe to say exactly how I felt without any fear of judgement. Believe me, when PNI (in whatever form) has you in its clutches, the last thing you need is criticism, or even well meant words of advice from family or friends who just really don’t get it. Not that I blame them. It’s such a tricky one to diagnose sometimes. Take it from someone who took two years to realise what was going on!
Yes, my daughter turned two the day I started taking antidepressants. I found it hard because I have never liked taking medication for anything. I was just so determined, almost desperate at this point, to do whatever it took to get better. Most of the advice out there recommends a combination of medication and one of the talking therapies (counselling, CBT, group therapy etc) as the most effective route to recovery. So ADs it was and a waiting list for CBT. These next few months were tough, mentally and emotionally. I just wanted to get better. But as anyone who has been through that tunnel will tell you, it just cannot be rushed. And you most certainly don’t just pop a pill and feel better. Medication is not the easy option here. It took a good 4/6 weeks for me to feel any benefit, and though I do believe they gave my hormonal system the kick start it needed, I decided to come off them again within the first three months. All I can say is that after a useful burst, I felt them becoming counter productive. So I stopped, and I managed my recovery slowly but surely from then on. Some self help strategies that involved turning negative thoughts off and positive affirmations on, relaxation techniques for the anxiety and other holistic remedies including homeopathy and herbalism no doubt helped enormously ( more on those in a post for another day). And I must admit I unashamedly took ‘time out’ for myself to recover, I took offers of help wherever they came from. Unfortunately I only just got an appointment for CBT counselling through last week. If I was still in the UK I would probably still take it up even though I am recovered. It is a shame that the official sources of support are so scarcely resourced, but that’s a whole other post! Recovery takes time. Recovery is about learning to take care of yourself as well as baby (or others for that matter!).
After the experience of slowly sinking into PNI, I found myself kicking hard for the surface, knowing the fresh air and sun was waiting. I got there. I survived post natal illness. But I feel that this is not the end of my story. I have so much more to say on this subject. Whilst there are still women out there suffering in silence, and while there is so much stigma, misinformation and myth about it, I will talk about it. There are so many others who need to know, like I needed to know, they are not alone. They too will get better. But I will tell you one more thing, I came out fighting hard for everything I hold dearest. Because beating PNI is a battle… in my case a particularly long drawn out one.
So this is my personal story... I would just like to add it is just one experience... There are so many different ways that sufferers experience it... Varying symptoms to varying degrees, and the reason I say this, is because I wouldn't want anyone to read this and think 'oh that can't be me then'... Like I did at the start and went on struggling for SO long.
Post your own stories on your own threads if you like... No matter where you are in your journey. We are in it together every step of the way.
Take care of yourselves
Kia x
Well here we go, it starts out right here in sunny beautiful New Zealand. My hubby and I initially moved here in 2008 in search of adventure… better lifestyle… basicially chasing dreams. And apart from the odd burst of homesickness (read people sickness) we were really loving it. I got pregnant, we bought a house and were looking forward to starting our family. My beautiful daughter arrived in Dec 2010. It was a long labour followed by an emergency c-section, which I recovered from well and reasonably quickly. I do still wonder now whether this reasonably traumatic start also played a part in the subsequent PNI (difficult labour/emergency section is on the list of possible triggers). I also had quite a bit of trouble breast feeding due to an extremely fast let down. Feeding times were angst ridden screaming matches, and eventually I stopped at seven weeks and started to bottle feed. Yes I felt the usual ton of mummy guilt about that then… I don’t now. It was the right decision for me and my daughter, but I struggled with it at the time. Anyways, apart from the general exhaustion that comes about with a newborn I would say the first 3/4 months all went pretty well. I had some lovely supportive new mums round me and my sister close by. Of course I missed my own mum but we Skyped nearly every day. Other than that I was busy, getting out and about and coping very well with the whirlwind of new motherhood I think.
Then somewhere after the 4month mark (and certainly by 6months) I had taken a real nosedive, my emotions really seemed to spiral out of control quite quickly. Although I had suffered depression throughout my teens, that was an extended and low intensity episode, and I came out of it under my own steam. This however, was totally different. I had fits of crying and didn’t know why. I also remember feeling oddly detached a lot of the time, the lights were on but, emotionally speaking, nobody was home. I was excessively irritable with my husband and feeling useless as a mum (again without explanation). My levels of anxiety went through the roof. I had crippling fears where I convinced myself that something terrible would happen… That I would somehow die, or my husband would die, or that when the baby didn’t wake when I expected, that she had died. Of course she was just able to sleep for longer stretches, and plenty other mums described having that fear. Indeed some of this stuff isn’t unusual. And so I convinced myself it was just new mum feelings. I know better now… I doubt many of those mums did anything other than jump up and run through to check. I wonder how many lay in bed awake for an hour or more, too terrified to look. How many occasionally had a little obtrusive whisper mention that maybe baby was a mistake anyway, and if baby wasn’t here life might go back to normal? Trying to distinguish between normal new mum feelings and PNI involves a lot of blurred edges, but ultimately it boils down to the severity and persistence of symptoms.
Unfortunately for me, at this point PNI as an explanation was totally off my radar… I’m not sure why. Partly maybe because people seem to be on the lookout for it shortly after the birth i.e. first three months. Indeed that’s what happened to a good friend of mine in NZ. And she got treatment and support quickly. I just put it down to new mum feelings and homesickness and left it at that, trying to cope. But I just got worse, and to cut a long story short I got so desperate thinking I was badly homesick that we packed up and moved back to the UK in March 2012. Against the wishes of my poor, bemused and frustrated hubby, whose patience and love for me were tested to near breaking point. I believe I somehow expected him to understand by osmosis how I felt, and when he didn’t, I just got more angry. But how could I expect him or anyone to get it? I didn’t even understand it myself.
I felt slightly better on moving back to the UK, for a short while. But nothing like back to my ‘normal’ self ever. Then I slowly started getting worse again. I couldn’t really put a timescale on it. When you enter the fog it’s only a light mist, before you know it though it can be so thick it suffocates, or worse, it turns to absolute black. Suffice to say I had completely relapsed by November/December 2012. I really had to take a good hard look at what was going on. One thing was clear to me however, that it certainly wasn’t just homesickness! I somehow stumbled across this website one day around that time…
www.mind.org.uk/help/diagnoses_and_conditions/post-natal_depression
Reading through the signs, well so many symptoms on the list applied to me… and somewhere in the back of my head a tiny lightbulb went on. Wow. So, that’s the beast that has been stalking me then… I told my husband and sister almost right away. I made an appointment to see the doctor who confirmed PNI, and went back the next week after looking through treatment information to see what might be best for me. I finally felt hopeful that there was a way out. I felt like I had wasted so much of the last 18months of what should have been a really happy time for our little family. But I just had to keep reminding myself, ‘This an illness, and I didn’t invite it in’.
The difference at this stage was I finally accepted I was ill. I finally had a name for it… Post Natal Illness. Not crazy. It was still a bit scary and overwhelming, but I was so determined to do something about it. I read a lot of brave and saddening and uplifting stories, blogs etc And devoured almost any information I could find. I discovered early in my recovery that sharing does help. I used the PNI.org.uk forum for a while. It was the one arena I truly felt safe to say exactly how I felt without any fear of judgement. Believe me, when PNI (in whatever form) has you in its clutches, the last thing you need is criticism, or even well meant words of advice from family or friends who just really don’t get it. Not that I blame them. It’s such a tricky one to diagnose sometimes. Take it from someone who took two years to realise what was going on!
Yes, my daughter turned two the day I started taking antidepressants. I found it hard because I have never liked taking medication for anything. I was just so determined, almost desperate at this point, to do whatever it took to get better. Most of the advice out there recommends a combination of medication and one of the talking therapies (counselling, CBT, group therapy etc) as the most effective route to recovery. So ADs it was and a waiting list for CBT. These next few months were tough, mentally and emotionally. I just wanted to get better. But as anyone who has been through that tunnel will tell you, it just cannot be rushed. And you most certainly don’t just pop a pill and feel better. Medication is not the easy option here. It took a good 4/6 weeks for me to feel any benefit, and though I do believe they gave my hormonal system the kick start it needed, I decided to come off them again within the first three months. All I can say is that after a useful burst, I felt them becoming counter productive. So I stopped, and I managed my recovery slowly but surely from then on. Some self help strategies that involved turning negative thoughts off and positive affirmations on, relaxation techniques for the anxiety and other holistic remedies including homeopathy and herbalism no doubt helped enormously ( more on those in a post for another day). And I must admit I unashamedly took ‘time out’ for myself to recover, I took offers of help wherever they came from. Unfortunately I only just got an appointment for CBT counselling through last week. If I was still in the UK I would probably still take it up even though I am recovered. It is a shame that the official sources of support are so scarcely resourced, but that’s a whole other post! Recovery takes time. Recovery is about learning to take care of yourself as well as baby (or others for that matter!).
After the experience of slowly sinking into PNI, I found myself kicking hard for the surface, knowing the fresh air and sun was waiting. I got there. I survived post natal illness. But I feel that this is not the end of my story. I have so much more to say on this subject. Whilst there are still women out there suffering in silence, and while there is so much stigma, misinformation and myth about it, I will talk about it. There are so many others who need to know, like I needed to know, they are not alone. They too will get better. But I will tell you one more thing, I came out fighting hard for everything I hold dearest. Because beating PNI is a battle… in my case a particularly long drawn out one.
So this is my personal story... I would just like to add it is just one experience... There are so many different ways that sufferers experience it... Varying symptoms to varying degrees, and the reason I say this, is because I wouldn't want anyone to read this and think 'oh that can't be me then'... Like I did at the start and went on struggling for SO long.
Post your own stories on your own threads if you like... No matter where you are in your journey. We are in it together every step of the way.
Take care of yourselves
Kia x