PND The truth is so scary, why do so many suffer in silence when so many experience the same emotions?

The nights were long as I would always be on watch as he was often sick in his sleep and I’d be forever checking he wasn’t choking, changing the bedding and cleaning sick out of his blonde curls. I was stuck daily in my flat with SPD (Symphis Pubis Disorder) a pelvic disorder common in pregnancy . The hospital had provided me with a hip brace and crutches and a long list of exercises to try and reduce the pain. This wasn’t exactly realistic with a 13 month old child to look after.

The depression was at an all time high but I could never acknowledge my emotions because of the stress I was under. Stress is a strange emotion, I found myself on auto pilot constantly. Single handedley surviving  whilst my fiance’e at the time would leave me all weekend in my flat on my own, whilst he went out and got off his head on drugs at house parties.

Coffee and Cigarettes where how I survived or my ‘go to’ they were a coping mechanism to fight back the tears of loneliness and isolation. The thoughts remained, my mood swings were fierce and tough like a wave charging towards the shoreline. I’d lost so much of myself when I crashed on an evening it was like hitting a cliff wall. Numbness was where I was at by the time he got given a consultant at the LGI for the vomiting. He was now approaching 14 months old and my pregnancy was in full force. Unbeknown to me we were to endure 3 years of various medication trials before resulting in key hole surgery in 5 places in his abdomen.

One thing I learnt from persevering with medical professionals was that a mothers instinct is always right!

At 36 weeks pregnant his sister was birthed 4 weeks early. Stress most likely played a role in this happening and after a traumatic, long, frightening delivery a tiny, blue, vernix covered 5.6lb baby girl was born called Faith!

Whipped away from me and incubated, tube fed formula and separated for the best part of 3 hours I’d lost all my control again. Scared and missing Jacob back at home I spent 7 days in hospital with her until I was allowed to be discharged from the neonatal unit.

Greeted by too many visitors back at home, feeling guilty over formula feeding and my son not recognising me when I returned I felt the PND worsen. How do I tell anyone how I feel? Iv’e two beautiful healthy children, why am I so unhappy? Who would understand? Where do I start to open up?

Alcohol was the answer, formula feeding meant I could leave her and her brother with her father an go out. I found myself counting down the hours until their bedtime until I could escape and feel slightly human again. It was the freedom I felt when I danced that I needed. For me it was escapism and a sense of letting go when the music hit me. I didn’t feel as much pain and the beat of the song made me feel safer. Contradictory to that the hangovers made my mood worse and I found myself feeling emotionally unstable and the weight started to drop off me. I continued to draw a smile on my face and tick the boxes of the forms all over again. I lied out of fear, fear for my self, fear for my children and the lack of trust I had in the health professionals.

Three months had passed and I found myself trapped in a toxic domestic violence court case, again I swallowed back the emotion but this time my physical health was to take the strain. I was hospitalised with ‘eyeritus’. Hooked up to drips and on various forms of medication as I had lost all my vision in one eye and had horrendous headaches and swelling to accompany the site loss. Looking back part of me believes this was a symbolic message. I couldn’t bare to face the depression, I couldn’t ‘see’ a future with myself init and I couldn’t find a way to voice my internal pain so instead by body came out with external illness.

Two months passed with relentless treatment and hospital stays because as one eye healed I started to get it in the other eye. I was still frightened to speak out and I’d been suffering with PND now for nearly 16 months.

Reflecting back on my mental health back then I realised that PND is like an invasive bully that know one else can see. It was in the spring of 2009 that the depression had won. I couldn’t envision a way out other than to end my life. My relationships were dysfunctional my friends were not always real and they didn’t see past my smile or realise that my state of mind was fractured when they visited me for coffee.

One spring afternoon whilst the toddlers napped I decided that today I could no longer continue the way I felt. I had started to take tablets and drink alcohol, with each tablet I felt nothing but a tear roll from my cheek on to the box of co-codomol. With each swig of alcohol tear droplets became faster and faster and I sobbed silently as the drowsiness began to take effect. An hour passed and realisation that the children may wake to find me unconscious kicked in. I texted a close friend to say that I felt very unwell and that the children urgently needed looking after.

It was already to late and without going into too much graphic detail I ended up in hospital over night and seeing a psychiatrist. Thankfully they were able to undo the damage I had tried to do physically and I was discharged with a long term prescription of antidepressants and a CBT therapist referral.

The PND didn’t dissolve there sadly I had to continue to battle with it after I had a 3rd and 4th Child to my future husband. The only positive was that when I started to suffer again I was able to ask for help a lot sooner. CBT therapy was great at calming my irrational thought pattern but the long term effects of PND never really disintegrated fully.

During my journey of becoming a mother and having experienced PND it concerned me that there is probably thousands of women out their that experience the same emotions as I around pregnancy, labour and postnatal parenting. Becoming a mother is such a huge change that it is no wonder that so many women suffer in silence like I did.

I hope that with sharing some snippets of what mentally happened to me I can encourage others feeling similar emotions to seek support. You are not ALONE, you are not CRAZY and you are not a FAILURE! You most certainly are not a BAD MOTHER and your feelings are NOT STUPID. It is most definitely OK to not be OK!

Written by Francesca Shaw on the 2nd July 2018