reply to annie

[delia]

Hello Annie, of course I do not mind you replying to my thread. I am happy to help you in any way I can. You have asked me how do I come to terms with the thoughts? They are extremely horrible, shocking and terrifying. My first step towards accepting that this was going to be a part of my illness was research. Knowledge is empowering. When they first happened I did not have a clue what was happening. I thought I was a psychopath. Of course you are not. Your mind is playing tricks and lots of women experience this. I have a member from apni call. She went through the same things and she gave me her words of wisdom. Thoughts are only thoughts, they are not real and cannot hurt anyone. Also focus on the moment and by the end of the day you will have several little moments that you will cherish. For me hearing someone else tell me their thoughts made me much better. Relief if you like that I was not unique. Cognitive therapy is helping me, a positive approach which does not focus on the past. You are right no one can take the images away but I tell myself that my brain has gone through a massive trauma and it is sparking off stupid things. You can feel you are trapped in your own mind but remain calm and tell yourself it is your mind and treat yourself with some kindness. I found dwelling on these images unhelpful. They come into my head and I let them pass with bearly a thought. you need to remember you are going against mother nature. Anxiety is the natural response and distress.I have found adopting this approach has made me advance much quicker as I quickly realised I would be stuck in the same cycle if I did not have a more proactive plan.
I am still learning but I would say I am much better. Just recently I have started to reflect because it has been a very painful and frightening experience. But I still say to myself I have done well and come so far and I will get better.
At first I said to myself I cannot live like this if I cannot be the person I was before. The fact is i will not be that same person I shall be stronger and better. This illness has made me reevaluate life . I would suggest you read a book by richard carlson. dont sweat the small stuff and it is all small stuff. he has also written one about depression which i am keen to buy because he has a good common sense writing style . it helps me alot. If you would like my personal email or phone number I would be very happy to help. If not that is fine too. Best of luck. thoughts only hurt you if you allow them to. your thoughts are intrusive and unwanted. tap into your strong personality and use it to your advantage as i try to.

[Annie]

Hi Delia
Thanks so much for your reply,I do appreciate it. I so want to follow your advice and move on but something won't let me. Just when I have a good day, it's like my brain says no no you must not be happy.I know you are right and thoughts won't hurt anyone. However I feel they have changed me and I can't get back.I've had a couple of really low days and last night I was beside myself questioning what on earth the point of going on is. I truly feel if someone doesn't help me soon I am going to reach a point at which I can't go on.
I would really appreciate being able to email you if you don't mind.I know what you mean about hearing someone elses thoughts helps, the only trouble is I haven't heard any like mine so I feel very weird. Really don't think any one can help me.

Annie xx

[Veritee]

Hi Annie

I really do feel for what you are going through at the moment.
But you can live with these thoughts - they are just thoughts and ultimately caused by you being ill with PNI and mean nothing in terms of your love and caring for your offspring.

For me to one of the worse things about the illness were the intrusive/bazaar/obsessive/terrifying thoughts.
I trust you have read my story and some of the posts I have written on this forum so you will know that I understand how it feels to experience these thoughts?

The worse thing I had to live with was that at my worse I had thoughts of killing my wonderful baby who I loved so much and that visions of my causing her death or injury, accidentally or deliberately would go through my head even as I was caring for her every need. But I also had many other thoughts apart those about my daughter those of harming myself, harming my partner, read through the forum as I have written about them at length.

It was very hard to live with then and at times even now!

But my daughter has her 15th birthday on the 31st of this month. She is beautiful, has experienced no problems growing up, making relationships, coping with school more than any other teenager and so many people tell me what a nice child she is and how I have done a god job bringing her up.

You have nothing to regret or be ashamed of just as I haven’t.

Unfortunately for some these thought are part of the PNI illness and as Delia said it helps to share these thoughts with others who have experienced them. It helps to know you are not alone and that many women with PNI have thoughts like this and it helps to talk to those who have recovered to know that they do go away.

In the meantime perhaps it will help to share these thoughts with us as we to have gone through this or are currently going through this.

Sharing how you feel is not the complete answer as you need proper and effective support too – but sharing does really help you to know you are not alone, you are not a bad mum, you are not a monster or a psychopath – just a woman experiencing this awlful illness of PNI and that actually at least one mother out of ten also experiences PNI.
It is just not talked about and this site is trying to change this.

It is about time it is realized generally that what you are going through is not unusual – that many mothers have experienced this but are scared to tell anyone about it as they feel judged.

We will not judge you here
All the best

Veritee

[delia]

Dear Annie, I agree with everything that Verity has said. You must believe that you will get better. I was exactly like you thinking I could not go on ,but as Verity has said it is possible to live with these thoughts. My quality of life is not as I would like but I still enjoy small things. My son smiling, sitting in the sun lots of things which lessen your troubles. The bad days are getting fewer and I have said to myself that these thoughts could be here for some time so I may need to carry on as I am if necessary. The medication I am on has helped a great deal. When I saw my GP I asked her to keep increasing the dose and my suggestion has paid off.Are you on medication do you have a psychotherapist. I have been seeing a psychologist and she is much more helpful than the cpn. You will find the strength if you say you are strong you will. I know how much you are hurting. Fight back, you are doing this for you and to reclaim yourself . There is an excellent quote from a film called the shawshank redemption "get busy living or get busy dying". I choose to live as I know I shall get better and you will too. My email is [e-mail].

[WileyKit]

Hi Annie,

I so feel for you. I came to this forum with a head full of what i called "scary thoughts" convinced i was going mad, and i can honestly say just reading Veritee's posts back to me about her experiences helped me enormously.

You are not alone in this. You can share with us if you feel the need to but don't if you're not ready to. But for me the thoughts felt like such a burden on me, and sharing them helped me gain some perspective. I must say that i kept some of the worst to myself, i was too ashamed to share, but just talking about some of them helped.

And when i had shared on this forum i was then able to tell others about the thoughts, my GP and partner, etc, so the good reactions from this site gave me the confidence to get it all out. And my partner said a sensible thing about how everyone has weird thoughts that they can't control...everyone! Except i know yours and mine and others' were more intrusive than most people's.

I can't remember who suggested it to me but they told me to think about what i was thinking and what was happening just before the thoughts entered my head, at first i didn't have a clue but slowly i recognised a pattern and i noticed that i would get these uncontrollable thoughts when i was scared or worried or anxious in some other way. Finding out what triggered them really helped me, as did my medication.

My APNI counsellor also said that they are a kind of escape mechanism...i didn't understand this at first as they were so awful, it didn't make sense to me. But i realised that i just couldn't cope with "real" life so my brain was kind of escaping somewhere else in a way.

I don't know if you will find any of this relevant but i just wanted to let you know that you are not alone in this. Have you talked to your GP about this in any way? They can help better if they know as much as possible.


If i could take your horrible thoughts away i would...

Janine xx

[Annie]

Thanks Delia, Janine and Veritee for your replies.Everything you say makes sense and I feel like I've been going on about this for ever.In my rational moments I do know they are only thoughts and it goes without saying that I would NEVER act on them. But it is the nature of the thoughts that have traumatised me. As well as images which appeared in my head, a sentence popped in 'I am a ........, I am a ...........,You are a ........You are a ..........Even though I absolutely know it's not true it feels like it has convinced me I am a terrible person. I feel like whatever anyone said it is never going to get better and I can never be a normal mum again now.It goes through my head what if I am not ill and this is really me and this is what I will be like forever now. Has anyone had anything similar to this at all and will I ever be the same around my kids again?

Annie xx

[yorkslass]

HI Annie


i have to go out now but i will reply soon


Melxx

[yorkslass]

HI

I too feel like I will never be a normal mum. The more and more I think about it I wounder if I had PND with my first child too as I don't know how to be a norrmal mum. It sounds so sad when i think like this but I don't remember ever being a normal mum wanting to do things, or being excited when they was born, or remembering the days when they was tiny I just don't remember and this has hit me so hard.

I want to be normal but just don't know how to go about it. I do go to parenting class but it don't seem to be working for me,but I will give it time and who knows.

I too have horible thoughts in my head like you say not sure if they are the same and unlike you I did do a silly thing, I don't regret it maybe i should as it got me help but I do not recomend others do it.


Melx