| Postnatal depression
<< continued from page 1 'Life is enjoyable once again.'Babyworld member Helen Batchelor shares her experience of postnatal depression and how she came through it.
It's hard to say when I started feeling down, I think it was a very gradual thing. I had terrible trouble breastfeeding - my son didn't seem to latch on properly - and when I got him home and realised I was on my own with this problem, I was completely overwhelmed. The midwives weren't able to tell me put him on the bottle so I struggled on. One morning at 4am I went back into hospital because I was in such a state - constantly crying - I felt I wasn't giving Samuel enough milk. After four days my mum made up a couple of bottles for me and, after that, life got better. I didn't make many friends with children as I was the only one going back to work. I felt very lonely. Also leaving my son hit me hard even though I was leaving him with family. I felt resentful that I had to go back to work when no one else seemed to be. I kept struggling on but my problems really started coming to a head when Samuel went through his 'clingy' phase. He would scream when taken away from my mum (who was caring for him). In fairness, he did the same when I left him in the morning but I didn't see this. I was spending more and more time with my mum outside of work as well as I was low and struggling with parenthood. Just after Samuel turned one, I found that I wasn't coping with work and I was constantly crying at stupid things. One morning, I just couldn't get out of bed. My mum came up and found me. She took me in hand there and then. I saw my health visitor, who was lovely and very supportive. I went to see my doctor who wasn't that supportive and prescribed anti-depressants. My mum was against these and, as I was leaning heavily on her, I didn't take them. We found a herbalist and got some St John's Wort. Talking to the herbalist helped me a lot and so did the St John's Wort. Thinking back, I probably had some panic attacks as well but didn't realise at the time exactly what they were. Life went on and although it wasn't brilliant, I was better. The year 2000 was a bad year for me. My marriage broke up, then my dad was diagnosed with cancer and I had a major car accident. Unsurprisingly, one night, I had a bad panic attack. I started thinking all sorts of irrational thoughts like I couldn't look after Samuel and I became frightened that he would wake at night in case I had a panic attack and couldn't look after him. The very next day after the panic attack, I got in touch with my health visitor and she came straight over. She talked to me and got me an appointment at the doctor's, where I was prescribed antidepressants. As my mum was, understandably, wrapped up with my dad's illness I took them this time, as the idea of reoccurring panic attacks was unbearable. I started to feel better once I'd started taking the tablets. I just felt like I was taking control again. My health visitor supported me though all of this. After two weeks I'd stopped having the obsessive thoughts and the panic attacks were less but not gone completely. I started to cope with life again. The following June, I moved out of my flat into my parent's house and I started to get panic attacks again. This time it was when I left the house rather than being in it. My doctor switched me to a more 'modern' antidepressant - Seroxat - and things have just got better. No panic attacks and life is enjoyable once again. The best thing the doctor gave me was a leaflet for my family and friends to read which explained that I couldn't just 'snap out of it' and that depression is a medical condition. If you are suffering don't be scared to take antidepressants. They have such bad press but no one has really documented how much difference they make to life when you are feeling like you can't climb out of the dark pit. I often wonder if things would have got so bad in 2000 if I'd taken them in the first place. And talk to people - especially your health visitor. If you find she isn't that sympathetic, ask to see someone else. I found it helpful to have someone with me when seeing the doctor as they could describe what was going on better than I could as I was in such a state. Depression is a medical condition and we should never be ashamed of it or feel like we are bad mothers. It isn't the case. To share your feelings with others and realise you are not alone, why not visit babyworld's feeling down discussion forum. page 2 of 2 back to main page |
