AnXiEtYYY!

Well, I promised that, another day, I would give you a more in-depth insight into my personal experience of anxiety and PND, and I feel that this is a topic which is still in need of so much more awareness, so here it is:

A common question I am asked when I tell people that I was diagnosed with PND/anxiety, is "Were you an anxious type of person before (having the baby)?". Good question. Really good question. It's a question I've heard a few times now, and still I am not sure what the answer is. Yes, I suppose I had some anxieties. More than normal? well, what is normal? The overwhelming sense of panic I'd feel (insert heart racing, heat rising in my face, sweaty palms) when I would email a document to the collective Upper Management group of my company, and suddenly realise I'd made an embarrassing error to which I had little choice but to own up? The way my hands would shake during (and for some time after) a confrontation with someone? My struggles to sleep when my husband was working the night shift? 

How about, for as long as I can remember, if I'm walking down the street and I hear footsteps close behind I tighten my grip, just slightly, on the handle of my handbag and casually look into the shop window next to me to see the reflection of the person who has stepped inside my comfort zone. Is this normal? I don't know... I don't think it's abnormal. I used to live in the city. I witnessed bag snatches more than once. I don't necessarily believe that every person who walks too close behind me is going to snatch my bag, but if by chance they do, I'd like to at least have a chance to hold it tight in my hand for a moment before I submit completely and let them take what they want, as long as they don't hurt me. Or touch me. Or yell at me.

Seriously, though, generally I can't say I've seen myself as an anxious sort of person, no. I don't recall ever letting anxiety stop me from doing something I really wanted. I felt I had a healthy, self-preserving level of anxiety. However, after giving birth, my anxiety levels spiked from "healthy" to something which became quite extreme. But again, what is a normal level of anxiety to have after one introduces a baby into ones home? I had no idea (and this was something I could add to the long list of everything else I suddenly had no idea about when I became a mother. How could I not be anxious?!).

It took a long time for me to work out that things were definitely not right for me. I had a preconceived idea of what depression was, and although I certainly wasn't anything resembling happy, I partially wondered if this was because I'd made a colossal mistake in thinking I wanted or could do this job, and was in way over my head. I believed that a big part of the reason I was anxious was because I was doing a terrible job (when in reality, I thought I was doing a terrible job because I was anxious). I felt that if I could just get a handle on this job, maybe I'd be ok. But I had no idea what to do. I had heard so much about "trusting my instincts" What instincts? Honestly, the only instinct I had in the early days was to grab a bag of my things and run. Run far, far, far away to a quiet, cosy, warm, safe place and never return. 

My head was a mass of confusion, and the only thing I knew with absolute certainty, was that I suddenly hated my life. I hated every moment of it. On top of this, I was convinced that I was ruining my baby with my unhappiness. We've all heard the old adage: relaxed mum = relaxed baby, but I was anything but relaxed. Surely I wasn't fooling him with this ridiculously desperate sing-song-look-at-me-I'm-so-happy-so-very-very-happy voice I put on, any more than I was fooling myself. My misery had rubbed off on this little "emotional sponge" of a creature. They 'sense' so much, surely he sensed that all I wanted was to be away from him. Failure. I'd created an environment that no baby could possibly thrive in. Oh, the pressure I was putting on myself...

We humans have the most remarkable nature in which, rather than supporting, nurturing and being kind to ourselves in our most needy moments, we kick ourselves while we are down. I am generally not the kind of person who looks back in regret and thinks about what "coulda, shoulda, woulda", but one thing I would change during this time, in hindsight, is that I would have been far kinder to myself. I was suffering, and I could have greatly helped myself through it had I reminded myself of my strengths and virtues rather than telling myself that everything I was doing was wrong. I internalised everything and was desperately unhappy. 

Physical symptoms of my depression were quite textbook: insomnia, fatigue (well, of course!), headaches, dry mouth, abdominal pain, and to add to my despair, loss of appetite. This was really just salt in the wound for someone with a passion for food like myself, I put energy, which would have been better used just getting from the start of the day to the end of the day, into trying to recapture my appetite in those early days, desperate to hang onto the love of something from "before". Nothing tasted as good as it did before. Nothing went down well any more. My favourite foods just made me feel ill. In the big picture, this seems like quite a thing to fixate on, but it seemed that even the few things which I was still able to "enjoy" as a new mum, I wasn't enjoying, and I felt I'd lost everything from my former life.

To add to my pain, I was one of the parents who, as is actually very common (and particularly in cases of high anxiety/depression), took a very long time to bond with my baby. I had heard that many parents can take time to fall in love with their babies, so I had prepared myself, to a degree. What I was not prepared for, was how painfully long it would take (especially since I was 'following the rules' and being so patient, which is not at all in my nature), and I still believed that the Lightning Bolt would hit me, someday. I tried all the bonding tips, but reminded myself that it still might take time, I talked in soft tones (when I wasn't completely freaking out) and reminded myself daily how lucky I was to have a healthy, gorgeous baby, I kissed, held, spoke to him even at times when I didn't feel like it, all there was left was to wait patiently for the lightning bolt to come and strike me. 

I tried so hard. I told myself to remain patient, but of course I wanted desperately to fall head-over-heels in love with my baby, who was, without a doubt (not a hint of bias here, of course) one incredibly cute baby. But the feeling still eluded me. Not for days, not for weeks, but months. More months than I bargained for and more than I'd ever heard about. I felt miserable, stressed and trapped and I became increasingly distressed, increasingly frustrated and increasingly pissed off. I alternated between being pissed off with myself, pissed off with people in my life, current and past, pissed off with "The Universe", just, pissed off. I felt that I'd been dealt some shit in life, but I was a good person and this was so unfair, oh but what else did I expect? of course I shouldn't have expected this to be good and easy for me. Yes, there was a pity party going on at my house and I was Guest-of-Honour and sole attendee. With my diagnosis and treatment I was relentless in searching for a "cure", but by far my biggest struggle was acceptance. But more on that another time.

I didn't cry very often (see? I don't have depression!) but I did occasionally have meltdowns, the contents of which I won't get into, as they are a little more than I'm comfortable sharing with the general public, nobody was harmed during these moments, and besides, the thoughts I had were no more helpful now than they were at the time I was having them. but I believe most people can relate to having moments where they lose rationale and perspective, I was just having them frequently, and intensely, and compared to what I am usually like, I was not able to talk a lot of sense into myself at the time.

Finally, one morning at 3am, I woke in the midst of a panic attack (my first, and only one), and the aftershocks of this episode stayed with me for days following. I was a different person in the blink of an eye. I didn't want to leave the house, I didn't want to stay home, the slightest noise made me jump out of my skin and there was a general air of feeling afraid and unsafe with no real reason. This was terrifying, and it was the moment when I realised that this problem was bigger than me and I needed help, fast. I pulled in all my resources and thank goodness I had my sister to come and stay with me during this time and provide the therapeutic combination of an ear when I needed to talk it through, a distraction when I'd had enough of thinking about the whole darn thing, and a laugh when I didn't realise how badly I needed one. In the midst of these dark moments, it is very hard to see a way out. It's hard (seemingly impossible) to believe that things are ever going to get better. But they did. Eventually, with a lot of hard work and more patience than I can remember ever exercising in my life before, things got better.

Read about the steps I took towards my recovery here.


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