I’ve been meaning to write this post, a post all about PND, for a week now… I juts haven’t had the head space to write about it, to go back to somewhere that was so dark. I need so much emotional armor and resilience to go back there… I just don’t have it right now.
Anyway, I’ve blogged about it in the Before. It remains one of my ‘favorite’ posts, though ‘favorite’ feels like a weird word to use.
I will say this… I thought I was so prepared. I thought I knew my own moods, the warning signs for the on and off depression I’d waded through for years.
I was wrong. PND is different. It blitzed past me, engulfed me without me knowing it. Because it’s different. It doesn’t feel like ‘regular’ depression. If you’ve suffered from depression before, you know you are at risk of PND. But you don’t expect it to feel so totally alien, so engulfing. It catches you, unprepared. All you know is something feels different, something feels very wrong… but it can’t be ‘depression’, right, because you know what that feels like, and this isn’t it?
It’s the tiredest, coldest, loneliest place in the world. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
If you have a tiny- or even not so tiny- baby, or if you’re expecting one, if you are a dad or a mum- PND can effect anyone. It comes in all forms, all guises. And it takes you by suprise.
Reach out. Speak. You aren’t alone, I promise. And it doesn’t have to feel this way.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for showing that it's ok to talk about postnatal depression and helping PANDA spread the word that help is available now. It was lovely to spend an evening with you on Wednesday, talking PND, birthing babies in the backyard and blogging!
When I was pregnant with my second I worried about a relapse. She is seven months and I thank God every night for PND not returning. Stay strong, stay vigilant and relish in the little successess. And when in doubt use the "if this was one of my friends would I judge her as the bad mother I am calling myself. If you answer "ofcourse not!" Then THAT'S the voice you need to listen to- not the one talking you into packing it all in.
I'm sending nothing but anti PND love.
I had this nasty disease after the birth of my daughter, my first child. I'm due in Feb with her little brother or sister. I'm very scared about more PND…but I'm armed with my supports in place and know I'll get through it. I'm really bloody scared though.
I had the most vivid imagery with my baby, of picking him up by the ankles and hitting him against the wall. It took all my strength not to kill us both. More than all my strength, it went down past where strength was keeping me going and only chance kept us alive. Six of one, half a dozen of the other as to if we'd get through the day, and I didn't care either way.
But we survived. And it gets easier. And I am not as brave as you, not brave enough to risk another child. I don't know that I would make it this time, and I am so so scared of that blackness that I'm never walking back into it.
so true. I was expecting PND because of my history, but I had no idea it would be that that. Also it was different with each child.
I remember reading your post, in the before.
xx