I experienced postnatal depression after the birth of my first daughter. This is what I wrote about it back in 2016 on my old personal blog.
Motherhood is hard. It is amazing and you never realised how much you could love someone until you hold your baby in your arms. But it is also so damned hard. And that is something that isn’t spoken about often. And the same goes for perinatal and postnatal depression.
There is such a stigma attached to all mental health issues and so many suffer in silence. This is a societal problem but in my experience with postnatal depression, it’s also an internal struggle of not wanting to admit you’re not coping.
It wasn’t until 14 weeks post partum that I finally hit my rock bottom and there was no more denying it. I had postnatal depression. Looking back the signs had been there from the beginning. I had chronic stress pre and during pregnancy. My husband struggled with his depression during pregnancy. I had pregnancy insomnia in the third trimester and then 2 days of zero sleep before Maya was born. So of course there was no way I was going to cope with the sleep deprivation after she arrived. Throw in a difficult labour, being separated from Maya for 3 days and difficulty breastfeeding due to tongue and lip ties and you’ve got a recipe for post partum depression.
When I was on the phone with an PANDA counsellor she helped me realise I was in grief. I was grieving the birth I had planned for and grieving the ideas I had had about having a baby – post labour, coming home, breastfeeding and motherhood in general. I had no idea motherhood was going to be this hard.
When I got off the phone I thought more about my expectations of motherhood and this grief I was experiencing. I had also thought grief was just when you lost someone. I didn’t know you could grieve an idea. And so I started looking at my post natal depression through the stages of grief.
Denial
I was in denial and didn’t want to admit that I was struggling. I would struggle for a couple of days and open up to my hubby saying we had to keep an eye on me and then I would be fine again. Everything I had read about PND said if you showing signs for 2 weeks then you needed help. I wish I hadn’t read that and had asked for help a lot sooner. But when things were good they were good. The highs were high and the lows were so very low.
Anger
I soon learnt that sleep was my biggest trigger. My sleep pattern revolved around Maya as a breastfeeding baby and with her tongue and lip tie issues it was only recently that she was drinking expressed breast milk from the bottle. So the nights were long and lonely for me and my sanity suffered from the little sleep I was actually getting. It was easy to see why sleep deprivation was used as a form of torture!
I was stuck in a viscous cycle. I wanted to breastfeed but I would start to resent my baby when she woke me up crying for a feed. Sometimes it had felt like my head had just literally hit the pillow when she would wake up! I would feel anger build up and then hate myself for being angry with her because she is just a baby. And then I would look over to my sleeping husband and the anger would boil over. And then I would get angry with myself again.
Bargaining
By 12 weeks I started looking at things we may have done wrong and how they may have contributed to the struggles we were having with Maya. Not getting her tongue and lip ties lasered. Letting her sleep on us instead of in her bassinet. Not picking up on her sleep cues quick enough. And during my real low points thinking about how much better my life would be if it weren’t for this situation.
Bargaining is an important stage of grief but it is also tricky because of all the added guilt it can bring. I love being a mum to Maya but on my low days I would run out of patience and wish for a different life. And then I would feel shame and guilt for even thinking that because she is my world and I wouldn’t change that for a second.
Depression
The depression would come in waves. I would be in tears one day and totally fine the next. I slowly lost my positive outlook on life and struggling making even the smallest decisions. The only reason I got out of bed some days was because of my baby and some days I couldn’t bear the thought of stepping outside the house. I developed social anxiety and I even had a panic attack.
Acceptance
That was when I hit rock bottom and admitted I had postnatal depression. It was hard at first but I reached out to family and friends and was grateful for all the love and support I received. I was surprised at how many of my friends had experienced postnatal depression themselves.
Opening up about my PND made such a difference for me. It was like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I had given my pain a voice. And with this acceptance and the support I felt around me I know I will recover.
I wish there wasn’t such a stigma attached to postnatal depression (or any mental health issue) and there was more community support. The age old saying ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ is true and I wish we could find a way to bring this old wisdom into our modern lives where we are so connected yet so isolated at the very same time.
Postnatal depression is scary and unfortunately puts a dark cloud over such a joyous time in life. But it doesn’t have to. Notice the symptoms, open up to people you trust, be kind to yourself and ask for help. Asking for help has been really hard for me to do but I have slowly made some progress in this department.
After my experience I became passionate about helping break the stigma around mental health issues in motherhood. I became a PANDA Community Champion to help share their resources and open up communication. I feel like my experience may have been different if I had been more aware of the many faces of 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.
This. I can totally relate and that was me too. Thank you so much for sharing this.
You’re welcome. Thank you for sharing that this was you too. I hope you had the right support to move through it all xx