Post by betternow on Aug 18, 2013 10:11:31 GMT
Hi there.
My youngest daughter is nine now (was nine in June)but I had postnatal depression after giving birth to her. What shocked me the most was the fact that her birth had been such a beautiful experience and a contrast to the birth of her sister, which had been in hospital with forceps. I thought I had overcome the trauma of the first birth by having a happy home birth, but within weeks of having felt elated, I came crashing down and went through some incredibly dark times where I felt no one truly understood or could help me. I recall a terrible sunny afternoon in a family pub garden, having gone for a celebratory drink on my daughter's birthday (whilst the eldest, then four) played on the climbing frame. It was such a sunny day but I felt it was all such a lie, this happy family picture, and I lay down on the grass and wept and screamed. It was a glorious day weather-wise, but was one of the lowest points in my entire life.
That birthday was a turning point, and I remember finding this website soon afterwards and having a wonderful volunteer who I talked to on the phone; a volunteer who helped me immensely on what I called 'the black days'.
Unfortunately, when my daughter was eighteen months, my relationship broke down entirely. My partner, who was (somewhat ironically, a mental health outreach worker) could not really cope with me and my incredible mood swings and I pushed him away in a variety of ways.
Life has 'moved on' /changed and I have a 'new' partner (of four years) and my ex has a step-family and a three year old child with his fiancee. My daughters are happy, thriving and settled - they spend half of their time with their dad and half their time with me - and I adore them more than ever.
However, their father ( my ex partner - we never married) is due to get married in a couple of weeks time (the girls are bridesmaids). Having felt that I am a strong survivor of pnd, I am quite disturbed to find myself dwelling on that time of my life all over again. The impending wedding is throwing up tough memories and incredible sadness about the break up of our family seven years ago. I feel really angry that I suffered so much at the time, and obviously still feel some anger that my ex let me push him away and didn't fight to keep us together. I realise that I should probably see a counsellor about this, but I am just wondering if any one else on here has gone through similar feelings? That pnd robbed them of certain things, and turned their life upside down, making it more complicated in the future?
On a more positive note, I was listening to a song on the new John Grant album yesterday and he sings a song about surviving difficult experiences, using a metaphor of the pain moving through you like a glacier, leaving a fantastic, rich landscape in its wake. I can relate to that, because something like pnd does deepen you and makes you more empathetic. I am not the person I was before pnd, but I think (I hope) that it has made me wiser and kinder.
What I suppose I am still deeply angry about, ultimately, is not my ex, but the abiding social stigma of mental illness and the utter obsession with being the perfect mother and belonging to the perfect family that still exists in our culture/society and which it makes it so difficult for women to admit to not feeling unadulterated joy at becoming a mum. And (quite frequently) to get the help we truly need from professionals.
Thank God for sites like this! I'd welcome any comments or anecdotes about how people feel about the legacy of their pnd, as I am obviously struggling with mine at the moment.....
My youngest daughter is nine now (was nine in June)but I had postnatal depression after giving birth to her. What shocked me the most was the fact that her birth had been such a beautiful experience and a contrast to the birth of her sister, which had been in hospital with forceps. I thought I had overcome the trauma of the first birth by having a happy home birth, but within weeks of having felt elated, I came crashing down and went through some incredibly dark times where I felt no one truly understood or could help me. I recall a terrible sunny afternoon in a family pub garden, having gone for a celebratory drink on my daughter's birthday (whilst the eldest, then four) played on the climbing frame. It was such a sunny day but I felt it was all such a lie, this happy family picture, and I lay down on the grass and wept and screamed. It was a glorious day weather-wise, but was one of the lowest points in my entire life.
That birthday was a turning point, and I remember finding this website soon afterwards and having a wonderful volunteer who I talked to on the phone; a volunteer who helped me immensely on what I called 'the black days'.
Unfortunately, when my daughter was eighteen months, my relationship broke down entirely. My partner, who was (somewhat ironically, a mental health outreach worker) could not really cope with me and my incredible mood swings and I pushed him away in a variety of ways.
Life has 'moved on' /changed and I have a 'new' partner (of four years) and my ex has a step-family and a three year old child with his fiancee. My daughters are happy, thriving and settled - they spend half of their time with their dad and half their time with me - and I adore them more than ever.
However, their father ( my ex partner - we never married) is due to get married in a couple of weeks time (the girls are bridesmaids). Having felt that I am a strong survivor of pnd, I am quite disturbed to find myself dwelling on that time of my life all over again. The impending wedding is throwing up tough memories and incredible sadness about the break up of our family seven years ago. I feel really angry that I suffered so much at the time, and obviously still feel some anger that my ex let me push him away and didn't fight to keep us together. I realise that I should probably see a counsellor about this, but I am just wondering if any one else on here has gone through similar feelings? That pnd robbed them of certain things, and turned their life upside down, making it more complicated in the future?
On a more positive note, I was listening to a song on the new John Grant album yesterday and he sings a song about surviving difficult experiences, using a metaphor of the pain moving through you like a glacier, leaving a fantastic, rich landscape in its wake. I can relate to that, because something like pnd does deepen you and makes you more empathetic. I am not the person I was before pnd, but I think (I hope) that it has made me wiser and kinder.
What I suppose I am still deeply angry about, ultimately, is not my ex, but the abiding social stigma of mental illness and the utter obsession with being the perfect mother and belonging to the perfect family that still exists in our culture/society and which it makes it so difficult for women to admit to not feeling unadulterated joy at becoming a mum. And (quite frequently) to get the help we truly need from professionals.
Thank God for sites like this! I'd welcome any comments or anecdotes about how people feel about the legacy of their pnd, as I am obviously struggling with mine at the moment.....