The beginning of PND

The next few weeks after the appointment I was really struggling emotionally. I felt like I could cry most of the time, I felt on edge as if something bad was going to happen, I was struggling at social gatherings and I was also easily annoyed. What was wrong with me? I’ve just had a baby, I should be happy!

It was 10pm a few days after Christmas that I hit breaking point. Anyone who knows me knows how I love Christmas. My tree goes up on the 1st December and is left up until 6th January. However this year was different. Having just had a baby we obviously received a lot of presents which we were so grateful for, but this led to stuff everywhere and for some reason I suddenly couldn’t cope with it. I frantically started tidying, getting rid of any boxes and told my husband I wanted to take the tree and decorations down right now. That was the moment he sat me down and we talked about how I hadn’t been myself recently. I figured it was a hormonal thing and decided to call a Doctor the next day to request another pill.

I made the call, told the doctor how I had been feeling and that I thought it was down to being back on the pill after a long time so could I have a different one please. To which the doctor replied, “the pill can not be blamed for this” and went on to say that she believed it to be postnatal depression. It shows a true lack of understanding of the condition on my behalf as I immediately panicked and told the doctor “but I love my baby”. She was really lovely as she reassured me that that wasn’t what she was implying and went on to ask some questions around my pregnancy and birth. She quite quickly explained that she believed that those difficulties would have contributed to how I was feeling. She said that at that point she didn’t feel medication was necessary but suggested that some counselling might help and I could do a self-referral through the local IAPT service. I got off the phone feeling stunned. My husband was at work so couldn’t talk to him about it. I rang my Mum in tears. I didn’t mention earlier that it was New Years Eve...not the start to a New Year I would ever expect.

I had to wait until the day after New Years to phone the IAPT service. It wasn’t an easy thing to do. The feeling of failure and weakness was overwhelming. It took me until the afternoon to pick up the phone. It was explained to me that I would have an initial assessment and then be referred for the appropriate therapy, however there was an eight week wait for an appointment. At that point, eight weeks felt like years away.

I quickly felt myself sinking deeper. I rang my Health Visitor to ask for some advice on how I could help myself whilst I waited for my appointment. She was so supportive and offered me what they call a ‘listening visit’ where they come to your home and just give you the opportunity to talk and they’ll offer what support they can. Within a few minutes of me talking to her at the visit she gently suggested I should call the doctor back and request some medication.

I can still remember the low emotions of that time. Constant tears, anxiety, sadness, anger, guilt, worry. I told my husband that I felt like I had fallen into a deep hole and couldn’t climb out. To which he replied that I would one day get out, because he was my ladder. I honestly couldn’t have got through any of this without him.

There’s a photo of the three of us at the beach. I uploaded it to Facebook and family and friends commented on what a lovely photo it was. To me, yes we had a lovely day but it was the day before I started taking antidepressants. I was a bag of mixed emotions that day. I knew it was the right thing to do to get the medication but it also felt like a sign of complete failure. I hadn’t been able to cope on my own and needed medication to help me through it. When I look at that picture I see the struggles in my eyes and smile as I tried to put on a brave face.

I finally had my initial assessment appointment. It was really tough as it was the first time I was going through everything and it brought back a lot of painful memories. I don’t really know what I was expecting from the appointment as it was all new to me but, what I was NOT expecting was to be referred for high intensity therapy for PTSD! Again...a lack of understanding on my part as I thought, the guy is clearly mistaken...I haven’t been in a serious car crash or attacked or in the army...how could I have PTSD??

It would only be a few weeks until my therapy would start, and I soon found this was just the beginning of tough times to come.