i feel empty

[st]

This is really a fantastic website (thank you Veritee). I look several times a day and, sorry to say this, I'm comforted by others experiencing the same loneliness.

The medication I was taking didn't seem to lift me at all so the doctor changed Imiprimine to Fluoxetine in December and has just increased the dosage this week but I feel like I'm falling back down the slide.

Lying in bed last night, wide awake (as every night!), looking at my husband and I felt nothing. Before, if I woke in the middle of the night, I'd always want a cuddle, but not now. It's been creeping up over the last couple of days, this funny feeling of no emotion - I feel empty, no love, no anger, no nothing, like I'm on autopilot and I'm just functioning to get through the day. I felt this before when I first started taking anti-depressants but nothing this intense - if you could call it intense as I feel so empty.

Both my 22 month and 4 month old sons have bad coughs/colds and I have used up any energy I had left in looking after them. You know when they just constantly winge and nothing you do satisfies their need for more than a minute - both of them have been like this since the weekend. I was looking at them today with thoughts I can only describe as indifference. It wasn't hatred, well, not strong or anger and it wasn't love, I really feel nothing and I'm very very scared because the black thoughts keep coming back - I can't even be bothered to cry.

I've stopped going out again and restarted drinking which is gradually increasing each day - I've lost all willpower. Every morning I wake up and say I'll not drink tonight, and yet every night, I feel like I really need a couple of glasses of wine (not so good when you're taking tablets). Maybe that's it, it's not going to help and maybe I've run out of steam completely and have to wait until the higher dose of medication kicks in??

I feel such a failure (though I haven't got the oompf to get upset about it!) does anyone know what I mean? Please can someone tell me if they've gone through this and come out the other side.



I've just come back to this after an hour away. After reading through it, I still feel the same, though I feel I've told you all too much (only my doctor and husband know about whole thing) - oh to be anoymous!

[Lainey]

Hi St

So sorry to hear how awful you are feeling. I can honestly say, hand on heart, that this time last year I was feeling exactly the same. I know exactly what you mean about the emptiness you feel. As you say you seem to have no emotion and just get through each day like a robot. I had an awful spell just before Christmas 2002 when I so wanted to cry but the tears just wouldn't come. I hated myself, felt dreadful guilt that I felt nothing for my boyfriend and felt my daughter was just a huge chore!

You cannot help the way you are feeling and must not blame yourself. You sound like you are also suffering terrible guilt over the way you feel and this just proves how much your family mean to you. You so want to get back to normal but it just seems so far away doesn't it?

I know you have probably heard this a thousand times, but you just have to take each day at a time and try not to be so hard on yourself, you are ill after all. PND is an illness but cause you just have to get on with things people don't appreciate how much you are suffering.

Do you have a baby and toddler group in your area. I was very reluctant to go, but was amazed at how much I enjoyed it and found the company of other made me feel very 'secure'. You so need company when you have PND as when you are on your own your little old mind just goes into overdrive and as you say the 'black thoughts' raise their ugly head.

You have made a great start by contacting this site and yes it is comforting to know that other women are also feeling lonely and suffering this wicked illness. Be proud of what you have done and had the courage to express how you feel.

Do you think the drinking in the evening is a way for you to relax, why not run a luxurious bath instead and pamper yourself. It is extremely tiring looking after two young babes and you must be exhausted each night. You need some quality time.

Well I've waffled on enough, but just wanted you to know that a year on, I almost feel like the old me again. It is a tough time and I really understand how dreadful you are feeling. But you will get better - give yourself time and be easy on yourself. This website is fantastic and you know if you ever feel lonely, scared or in need of some girlie chit chat, there will always be a supportive reply waiting for you.

I really hope you start to feel better soon, hopefully those tablets will start to kick-in soon.

Take care

Love
Elaine

[MEL]

Hi there

I've felt exactly the same and i also started having a couple of glasses of wine in the evening - its my treat but it doesn't help me sleep at all - if anything it makes me more awake and i just lie there thinking about why i'm such a failure.

The emptiness you describe is exactly how i feel - i don't
feel my old self and i wonder if i ever will again. This time last year when my daughter was just a couple of months old, I just managed to get through each and I remember thinking "this time next year I'll be back to normal" - GUESS WHAT? I'M NOT!!!! I get good days where I think that i've beaten it and then out of the blue i'll get a day where i just can't summon up the energy to to anything except look after my baby. Having a shower, doing the housework, putting my make up on - god , I just can't be bothered some days.

I've gone back to work two days a week and, although I was upset about it in the beginning, I actually think it does me good. It gets me out the house, I have two days where its not all baby talk and I find myself making the most of the other days which i spend with my baby.

I think the best thing though is to talk with other women who have had it or are going through it now. It just helps to know you're not the only one. You sound like a determined lady and i hope you feel the way you want to some day.

Hope to hear from you soon - sorry if i've gone on about me too much but i only found this site today and i feel so much better already knowing that i'm not going insane (not yet anyway!)

Take careXX

[st]

Elaine and Mel - thank you both for your kind words, they're comforting, if not the magical wand I'd want you to wave to make it all go away!

The one disappointing thing after reading everyone's messages here is that they all talk about months and years and not recovery within weeks. Some have mentioned never really getting over it - doesn't give much hope for the future. Mel, you sound like you think that too?

Being happy, bubbly and confident seems like so long ago. I was down before getting pregnant with my first son. I'm having counselling now and I've been told I've had a previous depression that wasn't treated properly in the past, which doesn't help. And don't you just hate that word 'depressed'. It's used in everyday conversations that it doesn't mean much which makes me feel like all this is brought upon myself, that I'm not 'ill' and that I should 'snap out of it'.

I've got one screwed up head eh! I'm really slipping - I can't see the end, even with a psychatrist visiting me every week to talk about it. Don't they make you feel better, yet worse, all at the same time!

Trouble is, I don't want to talk about the really bad things that have happened to me in the past and I know he's going to come back to them, everytime he veers away from the subject, it's raised subtly again. I don't know how to make it all go away. I want to fall back in love with my husband and my children. If I don't, there's no point in being here, someone else could offer them so much more.

Sorry, I've waffled on and on about me ....................... I guess it helps to put things down in writing?

[claire]

So sorry to read how you are feeling.

Like lainey, reading your thoughts, honestly it is like reading my own. i too was horrified at the thought of it taking months rather than weeks to recover - i felt so bad it was like each day was an endurance test, each minute even. i couldn't bare the thought of feeling the way i did for that amount of time. i felt empty, felt like they would be better off without me, that they wouldn'tmiss me really and my daughter was young enugh not even to remember me so what did it matter?

But i've now got the benefit of hindsight - which you will have - i didn't feel as bad as all that every day from then until now - the turning point for me was deciding to start anti-depressants after trying for 15 months to deal with it by myself. i can see now that i had all those thoughts and the hollow empty loveless feelings because i was so so ill, but i got better. yes it takes time, but it is worth it. and now i am so grateful that i didn't act on any of those feelings of "going away" and never waking up again, just wanting everything to stop. your feelings for your husband and children will come back - at the time i remember being curled up on the front room floor, crying, saying i felt like i was "dead inside" - i look back at that and feel sad, as it shows just how ill i was, but it also proves that i have got so much better. Please stick with it- don't be hard on yourself, battle on, see your GP, talk to your health visitor, are you on medication? i really reccomend it, it puts all the chemicals back which are missing, which is why you feel so awful. they were the start of my recovery.

let me know how you are getting on,

claire.

[Lainey]

I so agree with Claire about the anti-depressants. I was really unsure about taking them - there is such a stigma with depression and medication - but I did and I am so glad for taking them. There is so much hype about them being addictive and having to stay on them for years. They get such a bad press, but I really believe they help. I admit they do make you feel a bit sicky for about a week, but once they start to kick in - you really do feel the depression lifting and you can start to see a light at the end of the tunnel. Of course I am not saying it is an instant thing but as Claire said they help to balance the missing chemicals in your brain and I'm sure they make recovery quicker (my opinion).

Don't ever apologise for waffling on - you need to get it out of your system and the best way is to let it all out. Everyone here knows what you are going through so you carry on as much as you like.

Take care.

Elaine
x