Healing from postnatal depression

I shared my experience with postnatal depression in my previous blog post which you can read here. There were a number of things I did to heal. This is what I shared in a personal blog post back in 2017. Social media had helped me a lot as a new mum but it had also been a part of my postnatal depression. Comparing myself to picture perfect mums sharing their carefully curated or sponsored posts had me thinking I was not a good enough mum.

After taking a break from online groups and working on myself I have been popping my head back in and recently some mums have commented that they think they have postnatal depression. I congratulate them on having the courage to speak up and share my story and encourage them to ask for help. Motherhood is such a life changing experience that there really should be more support for the affect it has on our mental and emotional states.

According to the Edinburgh Depression Scale I no longer have postnatal depression. My last score before Christmas was 9 but part of that score was in relation to self harm which caused concern for my maternal child health nurse. So she booked me in for another check which I had yesterday with a different health nurse. When she added up my score and it was zero she asked me if I was lying! This was just one of the reasons I didn’t like this nurse and made me see why some mums don’t like seeing the health nurse. It also highlighted how far I have come this past month. You can read more about my struggle here.

I have been doing a few different things to work through my postnatal depression and a couple of weeks ago I mentioned to my hubby that I was actually enjoying Maya. Not to say I didn’t enjoy her before but the dark cloud of postnatal depression makes it hard to feel the overwhelming and unconditional joy in your heart when you are with your baby. Of course I loved her and she made me happy but it was all hidden deep inside the shell of a person I had become. And I was just so full of resentment of both my baby and my hubby that it clouded my judgement. It was this resentment that bubbled until it burst in a huge fight with my hubby that made me realise I had hit rock bottom and I finally admitted to myself that I had postnatal depression.

Here’s the 10 things that helped me work through my postnatal depression (in the order I did them)

1. Be open and honest

I opened up to family and a few close friends. I was amazed at how many other mum friends had also had it and I wish I had known to support them during this tough time.

2. Talk to someone

I rang PANDA and had a great talk which helped identify that I was in a lot of grief. Click here to read my blog post about PND from the grief angle

3. Reduce sugar

I stopped eating chocolate and lollies which had become a crazy night time binge (was strict for about a week and then it slowly crept back in)

4. Essential oils

A friend dropped off a rollerball of essential oils to help lift my mood and help me sleep. I truly believe this helped unblock some emotions and elevate me to a place where I could begin to function again (so I guess it’s no surprise that one of the main blends I used was called Elevate!)

5. Counselling

I began counselling sessions at Raphael Services. They specialise in mental health and families. My CHN made the recommendation and I got the referral from our GP. We have had 4 sessions as a family and I have already gained so much from it.

6. Asking for help

This was hard for me to do because I felt like it meant I wasn’t a good mum. And the perfectionist in me couldn’t have that! I used this help to either get some sleep, exercise or cook. Sleep (lack of) is my big trigger.

7. Exercise

I started with walks in the morning with bub and then BBG pre-training and then the Healthy Mummy 28 Day Challenge. It felt so good to get those endorphins running again and the walks were great to get fresh air and sunshine.

8. Kinesiology

A friend had suggested I try kinesiology. I had no idea what it was about but I looked into it and loved the idea of mixing eastern and western medicine. I only had one session and it helped unblock a lot of emotions and get me to a state where I can now go with the flow.

9. Dietary changes

I cut dairy from my diet on 1 December to help with Maya’s eczema. As a side effect I cut most of my sugar because I couldn’t have chocolate or ice cream or cake. I then started to feel more energised and the brain fog lifted.

10. Positive mindset

I began saying affirmations (usually when I applied my essential oils) every day. “My life is full of joy and my joy comes from serving others” is my standard affirmation. I also started practicing daily gratitude. I had been wanting to for awhile and thanks to The Gratitude Squad group I had the motivation and encouragement to do so.

Obviously now that I have trained as a kinesiologist I am an advocate for the benefits of kinesiology and how it can help you move through perinatal and postnatal depression. I’ll explain more in another post about how kinesiology can help. For now I wanted to share my first experience so I went digging through my email archives and found a summary of my session from kinesiologist.

My goal for the session was “I go with the flow and I am happy and positive about my life”. I had a negative energy field that was draining my energy. It was a projection to the outside world and taking on other people’s energy (something the people pleaser in my was very good at doing!). My flight and fight reactions were stuck on anger, frustration, blocked reward and submission. Punishment showed a number of times in my emotional modulatory circuit affecting my emotional regulation. We worked on my Sacral Chakra – dealing with issues related to relationships, with other, feelings, creativity and feeling deprived. Emotions that came up were ‘believed’, ‘security’ and ‘love is cruel’. My kinesiologist explained that while it may all have seemed like negative stuff came up, it was all about getting rid of it, releasing it and moving forward. I found an email I wrote her a month later where I told her “I am still amazed at how I just go with the flow now!”

I am still so thankful to the friend that suggested I try kinesiology. It was such a great and gentle healing experience that I just knew I had to become a kinesiologist. I also knew that my passion would be helping mums with postnatal depression.

If you think you may have postnatal depression or worried that a new mum in your life may be struggling, PANDA have a mental health checklist you can use for any stage you are at. It’s a great resource that helps you figure out the next step to take and gives you a PDF of your results to take to your chosen health professional.

Do you need help?
Call the Perinatal Anxiety and Depression Australia (PANDA) national hotline on 1300 726 306
If you’re in Perth you can call Ngala on 9368 9368
Explore the resources on the Centre of Perinatal Excellence (COPE) website for what resonates with you
Engage in Counselling
Talk to your GP or other health professional
Explore alternative modalities like homeopathy, kinesiology and naturopathy.