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Post by gizmoracer on Jul 22, 2005 22:32:39 GMT
I have just found this site and wanted to say Hi. I think its great to be able to chat with others who feel the same. Anyway to introduce myself, I have a son of 2 1/2 and a daughter of 15 mths. I have always been a "depressed" person and suffered with PNI soon after my son was born. To cut a long story short had been through a very rough couple of months and felt like a falure with breastfeeding. I was put on anti-Ds and it started to help. I then fell pregnant again when my son was 4mths old. Had to come off the tabs, but coped. I lost the baby at 13 weeks and have never truly got over it. When my Daughter was born. My hubby and I had just moved and things were looking up yet after a couple of months I found myself feeling like a complete falure again and unable to cope with anything. I am on this site this evening as my hubby has just gone off to work after having a go at me again for the state of the place. I haven't bothered to tell him I have been back on medication for 3 months now as he just doesn't understand. I am feeling extremely low and having trouble keeping the tears back. I look at my children and feel guilty for not being able to give them my all. Would love to hear from anyone who has been here. Especially if they have come out of it. Thanks for reading my waffle.
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Post by Veritee on Jul 22, 2005 22:53:09 GMT
Hi Giz
Welcome to the forum, I am sure you will find people to chat to.
I am afraid I was just about to go offline when I saw your post and I really have to go as I get very tired.
But I read your story and will reply more tomorrow when I am n=more awake.
But I did have the thought to ask if you grieved for the lost baby - as grief is a real trigger for PNI and having another does not always have the effect of compensating for the baby that died, but reminds you of what could have been.
Just a thought - and as I am tired it could be irrelevant . But I will be on again tomorrow and I am sure others will be too
In the meantime please feel free to answer any post you want, start new threads and read the forum too
All the best
veritee
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Post by gizmoracer on Jul 22, 2005 23:09:35 GMT
Hi Veritee Thanks for replying so late. I thought I had missed everyone. There is a 17 mth gap between my children, which is what we wanted originally. In the hope that they grow up close. So far so good. The baby I lost was a complete surprise. I think I probably should have waited a while before falling pregnant again. (lost baby in April 2003 and concieved in July2003). More than anything I feel guilty that my husband said he didn't want the baby (in the shock of finding out). And I never found out if it was a boy or girl. I had also only just got used to the idea myself. The baby was due 1 week after my sons 1st birthday and I didn't have a clue how I would cope. Think I should get some sleep now to. My stepson is watching Titanic in the background. Not the best thing to be listening to in my frame of mind.
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Post by cheshire on Jul 22, 2005 23:41:20 GMT
Newbie
I read your posting and am thinking of you.
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Post by angel on Jul 23, 2005 7:45:32 GMT
Is there any way you would be able to explain to your husband how you are feeling, i know it doesn't work for everyone but it might help just having someone around that knows how you are feeling. I recently told my husband how things are for me and i had loads of great advice from here about it, if you look in the support for sufferers my thread was called first steps. I ended up just getting him to read what i had written and what the others had said as i couldn't find the right words to say it all out loud. The best thing now is that if i have had a bad day like i did yesterday i can go upstairs by myself for a while and he doesn't think I'm being strange. Yesterday my house was a mess as well but because he knows that sometimes i just can't cope he doesn't moan at me. I'm sure if your husband knew how you were feeling he would be more supportive.
I also had trouble keeping the tears back and it was getting to the stage where my three year old kept asking me why i was crying. Please don't feel guilty for not giving your children your all you are giving them so much you are not a failure i bet you children are well cared for and happy and that all that matters
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Post by gizmoracer on Jul 23, 2005 11:48:21 GMT
Thanks angel. I read your post first steps. You sound very similar to me. I also find it hard to talk to new people and have hopped from baby group to baby group, hating every moment there.
I haven't spoken to my hubby as I just don't think he would understand. He is the sort of person who doesn't seem to belive in PMT (something else I get) or any sort of hormonal stuff. He thinks it is all an excuse. I haven't had an affair and know full well it would be the end of us if I did, I just wish I could get the feelings back that we used to have when we were first together.
I have to admit to feeling a bit better this morning. The kids slept better than normal last night and hubby came home with a big bar of chocolate. Not sure if that was ment as an apology for loosing it or just fancied chocolate.
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Post by angel on Jul 23, 2005 12:50:26 GMT
its such a shame that you can't tell him how you feel is there anyone that you can talk to because i believe that everyone needs a shoulder to cry on. If there isn't then please use this forum to do this i come on here pretty much every day and I'm always willing to read anything anyone has written.
I'm so glad you are felling better this morning its amazing what the kids sleeping well can do for you and as for chocolate thats just the best. Like i said please do keep using the forum i have found it a great help.
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Post by yoyo on Jul 24, 2005 9:14:54 GMT
gizmoracer
Welcome to this amazing forum. you'll get SO much suport here and no one will look at you and wonder what on earth you're on about because many of us have felt/thought/cried/angered in very similar ways.
I just want to say I'm thinking of you and hope that very soon things take an up turn for you. One thing - look in the mirror and tell yourself you are a great mother, you are being the best mother you possibly can be in your circumstances. You will get through this - I'm sure you will find this forum invaluable in your recovery. Feel free to rant/cry/worry/shout as much as you like here. We're here for you.
xxxx
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collette
Senior Member
Jacob will be a year on the 1st September!!
Posts: 248
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Post by collette on Jul 24, 2005 19:02:20 GMT
dear gizmoracer
welcome to the forum and thank you for sharing your story with us.
i am sorry to hear that you lost your baby that must have been very difficult to cope with. i too struggled with breast feeding which contributed to my developing pni but finally i have came to accept that it just wasn't meant to be.
i am recovering from pni now and am feeling much much better than i was a few months ago. i struggled to telll my hubby about what was wrong because for a while i just did not know what was wrong with me. he could clearly see i wasn't right, crying all the time getting very violently angry etc but we hadn't seen that it was pni. now things have moved on and i have been on anti ds since feb this year and i am feeling much more level headed and enjoying life. i still get low bad days but can deal with them better now.
i have just given in to the mess in our house and do what i can when i can. comments about the state of the place just dont help do they? i found it hard to communicate to my hubby exactly how i was feeling and found that by showing him this site he could really see that this was real valid illness and not just like PMT or anything like that. maybe if he read some of the postings on this forum it would help him understand that this was a real illness? of course that is up to you. i made my hubby read a leaflet about pni which helped him understand.
you are an excellent mum remember and your kids adore you i bet. and if i know anything about mums with pni i bet you give them so much love and devotion i know i do with my wee one jacob because of the guilt i felt and that i felt i missed out in those stakes when i was in the thick of it.
is the medication helping at all?? have u been back to the gp about this as i did have to up my medication as things went a bit downhill but then the upped dose helped stabilise my moods?
anyway just to let u know we are all here for you.
all my love collette xxxx
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pohlpoggen
New Member
3 kids, 18 and 16 yr old girls and 9 yr old boy..2 cats of 15 and 4yrs old
Posts: 7
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Post by pohlpoggen on Jul 24, 2005 19:05:24 GMT
Hi Gizmoracer I hope you are feeling better today, hope you feel better than me, i have just fitted a lounge carpet!!I am sure since i had PND and the tabs they gave me, turned me into a man, as i have become fantastic at DIY...lol I understand what you are saying, i have come out the other end, but i also had a hubby who didnt understand, and i actually started to dislike him because he didnt understand me, and he couldnt communicate with me, and he felt hard done by most of the time.My husband learnt quickly though, not to criticise the state of my house!!Please do not do what i did, but i used to get so physical with him, with anyone, i became so violent at my worse that i have thrown his dinner at him, empty wine bottles, i even, and i laugh now but it was awful at the time, he went off to his work one day, and didnt come home at the usual time, so i called and he was having a drink on camp with a few mates(discussing me, and how he was going through hell etc), but, the fact he hadnt come home was getting to me, so i packed the baby up, he was 10 week old at the time and dropped him off at the barracks in the guard room and told them to deliver him to his father!!!! This was a wicked thing to do, as anything could have happened to the baby, then i got in my car with my girls and drove, i didnt go anywhere, still cant remember to this day where i went or what i did, i just know that my girls who were 7 and 9 became very protective of me.Hubby was distraught as he didnt know where i was, or even if i was coming back!! I also understand about the baby that you lost, i lost one at 5 months pregnant, and although i went on to have another baby the next year and then again 8 yrs later, i still think it played a big factor in how i felt. No one had ever acknowledged my unborn child, it was like it had never been.My hubby was so damn flippant about it, my mother said never mind you are young you can have another and the doctor was the same.that for a while i thought it was me that is strange, but 17 yrs later i still wonder what she would have looked like, what she would have been. I even a couple of years ago sent £5 to have a teddy put on a tree in London, for all the lost babies through miscarriage etc..my mum said"wow do you still think of her"..people were amazed, but it is a private thing for me now, friends and family want to talk about it now, but i am afraid i have shut them out, so much so that i wont even tell them what the sex was, they didnt want to know then, so i wont tell now.seems pretty selfish i know, but she was my baby and no one understood, so i had to deal with it all on my own, so it is a part of my life i cannot let them into.I like to think of her occasionally, but i do not get sad anymore, but i think it is something you will never forget as a mother. as for your children, they are resilient, more so than we give them credit for.They are young and they will not remember how you have been ill, what they will remeber is that you are there mum and the most important thing in their lives. I used to think i was such a bad mum, i wasnt doing anything right, but your children, bless them, love you unconditionally, warts and all, as you are their mum.You are probably a very good mum, just at times dont feel it, but dont ever think the children will hold it against you, as they wont.they will grow up into well adjusted young people, and you will look back and wonder how you got through this, but you will. I used to feel as though i was trapped, engulfed by a big blackness, like walking through black treacle and i was so weary, so tired that all i ever used to do was cry, i creid so much it became not odd to see me in the street with tears rolling down my face, in fact some times i thought i would never astop crying....and now, it is very rare to see me cry, i dont feel like it, the onlytime i do is when i go to my sons xmas plays and see him doing his thing, then all the children start to sing, this makes me cry, but it is a happy cry, as we made it, and you will to. As for your housework, it will get done one day, maybe not today or tommorow or even next week, maybe just before xmas, but it will be done.You must not beat yourself up about it, you have 2 very young children, at very demanding ages, and your boy at 2 1/2 must be a whippet as they are into everything and hard to catch, and i am sure he leaves a trail of destruction in his wake, it is hard to have a show house, but then hey, if you did your kids wouldnt be happy would they? Just do a little and often, and only if you feel like it, otherwise you will become consumed with guilt and you will drop into a never ending cycle of guilt and it is no good for you.it will just stress you even more.I know it is hard to make the husbands understand, it was impossible with mine, as mine said, his mates wives had babies and were not acting like me, and they looked lovely and went back to normal weight and they managed to do housework......if we were still together and he said that, i would hit him very hard with a frying pan, full on his head, but then, it just made me feel even more worthless and depressed, and just like i wasnt coping.....and now i say, good luck to all those wonderful women who do not have to suffer PND, but then you will come out a better person as you will have survived it, and these so called wonderful people tend to have worse problems than us. God hope i havent rambled on, and hope you can understand what i have said...god i talk for england. lots of love and take care jan xx
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Post by gizmoracer on Jul 24, 2005 22:52:55 GMT
Thanks everyone who has replied to me. It really helps to know that I'm not the only one like this. Collette - Its hard for me to say if the medication is helping or not really. I suppose its my fault for not keeping on top of it. But since I have to pay for my prescriptions I tend to put off going to the GP. He has only given me 1 months worth to see how it helped and I was supposed to go back but just didn't have the time or money. I found another months worth in the cupboard from once before and am at the end of those now, after having a few days break every so often to make them last. I remember it working before after taking them for about 3 weeks. I really must go back. Jan - You haven't rambled, its nice to know people take the time to write lengthy replies. Alot of what you said made sence to me. I thinks it's a lovely thing you did with the teddy. It gives all the lost babies the acknoledgment most of them never got. I am at the stage this week where my mind desperatly wants to get on with things (and there is sooooooo much to get on with) yet my body is physically shattered and just can't do it. One of the hardest things I have been coping with is the inability to make up my own mind. It takes me over half hour just to dress the kids in the morning because I can't decide what to put them in, yet I end up going out looking like a wreck coz I just don't care. Its like a constant battle inside my head. I can remember from very young I used to have a reaccuring dream (which I still get now) I am trying to phone home (my mum) from a phonebox and know the number just can't type it right. It really upsets me and I'm sure it is linked to how I feel in some way. Anyone out there know much about dream analaysis? Anyway I really should get some sleep before my little monkeys decide it's midnight playtime.
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pohlpoggen
New Member
3 kids, 18 and 16 yr old girls and 9 yr old boy..2 cats of 15 and 4yrs old
Posts: 7
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Post by pohlpoggen on Jul 24, 2005 23:45:25 GMT
Hi Gizmoracer, Please forgive my ignorance, but i didnt realise you had to pay for prescriptions.i think this is a bit of a liberty, especially as it is an ilness that needs treating..yet if you are a drug addict you can have free treatment, although that is self inflicted...the mind boggles!! Anyway, you said you dont always have the time to go to the doctors or can afford the rates they charge, but have you ever tried St Johns Wort? I tried it, as when i felt i was getting better i used to come of my pills, only to slump again, but most of them made me tired/zombie/ill/sick/headaches...and much worse than the PND itself..so someone suggested these. They were not all that expensive, can buy them in most chemists now, and although i didnt feel any different on them, i didnt have any side effects as such. When i did stop taking them however, i realised just how good they had been.They might be worth giving a try, but i know it depends how bad your depression is at the moment, i only started taking them once i felt i could cope and felt stronger in myself and was really battling with getting better. SIDE EFFECTS: They do not come with any instructions, so if you decide to take them speak to your chemist, as when i was on them we went to the beach, as i am fair skinned i wore my factor 40 as per normal, but the next day i was burnt and very ill!!! The doctor didnt beleive i had used sun screen, so i went to the chemist and spoke to him as i was sure it was his suncream that had gone off( i was always totally off my head at one stage, and it was always everyone else to blame)..he asked me if i was on St Johns as it causes photosensitivity, so no matter what factor suncream i would have used i would have burnt, and he advises not taking them in the summer if you burn easily.
I am with you on the so much to do, your mind wants to do it, but your body isnt willing.I still feel like this sometimes.its best just to give in to your body, it is telling you it needs to rest, it needs to recharge, i know it is hard with kids and a home to run, but if you are a physical wreck everything will stop.your needed to make things function properly. I had so much to do today, but i have done so much lately with a house move and decorating birthday parties and and being fleeced by teenage daughters i have been knackered, i also see the signs these days to, so when i feel i have done enough i go into auto shutdown.....and today, was one of them, i stayed in bed till lunchtime(mainly because i could and wanted to see what it was like..lol)....my daughter was quite worried and asked if i was getting up, so i said sometime, when i feel like it...i just feel i rebel sometimes, like i am still fighting something that isnt there, like i am fighting the stigma attached to PND..i still panic about things to.I still have some OCD left over from when i had PND, although i do not bleach walls now, but i always feel as if i have to be on the go,i never sit down much, and feel guilty if someone sees me sitting down..why?..i really dont know, i havent figured this out yet.
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Post by monica on Jul 25, 2005 19:08:29 GMT
Hello Gizmoracer
I just wanted to say welcome and I hope you find the support you need, here. This website has been a life line for me and the people here are so kind and understanding. It sounds as if you have your work cut out for you with 2 little kids. I take off my hat to you.
I can relate to much of what you're saying. I, too, had 2 misscarriages in between my two children and it is so upsetting. You have hopes, desires for these children from the moment you know you're pregnant and then they're shattered.
You are clearly a wonderful mum who cares deeply about her children. This illness can make you feel physically and emotionally drained not to mention a whole host of other feelings that you feel you shouldn't have. I can remember feeling like a complete failure as I couldn't be the supermum I wanted to be. There were many times when I couldn't look after my children adn feared the effect of this on them. However, I agree with what someone else has said that kids are resilient. Please be kind to yourself. Someone said that to me and I couldn't undersand what they meant. Try not to torture yourself over feelings of guilt (easier said than done), as you are ill, just as if you'd broken your arms and couldn't do anything. And you will get better.
My partner has been awful through this. He's not once gave me a kind word. In fact he used to tell me to pull myself together and got angry when I cried which was most of the time. I utterly despised him when I was ill as I at the time, if I could have
I would have left him. Things are better now but only as I'm much better.
Do you have anyone to support you? Maybe the health vistor? Friends family? May be you should speak to your doctor as possibly the meds aren't working as they should.
I'm thinking of you.
Monica
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tj
New Member
Posts: 11
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Post by tj on Jul 28, 2005 12:34:31 GMT
Hi Giz,
I'm a 35 year old mum of two, severe post natal depression with my first, although recovered now, memories are still painful......I really honestly think my hubby is beginning to realise now how ill I was, since he had a break down last year, sick it may sound, but helped.
Sorry not read all the threads, however it's really important you keep on with the anti-depressants, it won't be a quick fix, they build up with time, anti-depressants were my saviour, I honestly don't think I would be here now without taking them..., there must be some help with paying towards them, diabetic's get free medication. Post natal depression should be put in the same bracket....
There really is light at the end of the tunnel, I promise.
I'm really thinking of you, hugs go out god bless tj
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Post by yorkslass on Jul 28, 2005 12:46:56 GMT
I am lucky as I dont pay for my presriptions for 2 reasons
1 have a child under 1 2 we are on child tax credit
if it was not for this i would not beable to afford my tablets as i have weekly prescriptions (cause i OD ed) and i have 2 different strengths of tablets.
Why do we have to pay for anti-depression tablets
Melx
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