Give New Mums a Break, not Mind-Altering Drugs!
I’ve had Post Natal Depression (PND) twice. Apparently.
The first time I only realised in retrospect (at the time I just thought I was a bad mum as it didn’t seem as easy for me as other women) and it passed without me doing anything about it. The second time I went to the doctors. The conversation went something like this:
Me: I’m exhausted, unhappy, I can’t see any joy in anything, I feel like crying every minute of the day, I don’t think I can take any more.
Doctor: How old is your baby?
Me: 3 months. And my eldest is two years old.
Doctor: Here, take these antidepressants. You’ll be fine.
So that’s it, is it? Just give me mind-altering drugs instead of ask me WHY I feel so low? Why not ask if I’m sleeping enough (with a toddler and a baby, I wasn’t), ask about my relationship (virtually in tatters), any extra help I am getting (non-existent) or recommend I see a councilor (maybe I just needed to get it out of my system and have a bit of a rant)? Nope. Forget the root cause eh, Mr Doc, just get me to block it all out with a visit to La-la Land. Cheers!
In fact that useless doctor (and I’m sure not all are like that) did me a favour. Because clutching my packet of happy pills I was able to say to my husband ‘Look! I’m clinically depressed and not some ungrateful whinging wife. Look!!’ And then I ignored the tablets – because my husband had finally realised how bad I felt and helped out as much as he could, I also went easy on myself and I didn’t beat myself up. So eventually I sorted my own postpartum head out – for the second time – without medication. Therefore, I reasoned, if I was able to do it alone then it evidently wasn’t PND, maybe I was just bat-shit crazy TIRED.
Now, I know many women can’t ignore their doctor’s prescription, because many women do have severe PND and need medical help and guidance. BUT. And it’s a HUGE ‘But’. How many other women like me, who are overwhelmed, and tired, and not seeking the right support, and completely and utterly at the end of their tether and are able to help themselves, are just taking the drugs that are chucked over the counter at them and getting dependent on pills? Do the medical profession even care… or is it more money for the pharmaceutical companies?
When you compare the effects of sleep deprivation and PND they are scarily similar. Maybe the rise of Post Natal Depression is just a result of women complaining that they are beyond shattered and being added to the ever-increasing pile of mentally ill mothers? Maybe. Why don’t we take take sleep-deprivation more seriously – help mothers combat exhaustion naturally – and stop telling them it’s a chemical thing?
Have you been feeling like this lately? If so, let’s look at the symptoms of PND properly and see if maybe there may be other causes for you feeling the way you do…before your doctor zombies you up?
- A persistent feeling of sadness and low mood
That’s right, you are feeling low. Maybe because you’ve just pushed a baby out of a small orifice, you haven’t had (and probably won’t have) sex for months, your bits are sore, your boobs are leaking, you haven’t an effing clue what you are doing, everything you read and everything everyone tells you goes along the lines of ‘oh motherhood comes naturally, enjoy every second of it’ and you feel and look like a dirty old used rag. Having a perfectly healthy baby is a wonderful thing, but it doesn’t mean you are going to spend the next few years grinning 24/7. Oh, and hormones. Those bastards are on overdrive.
- Loss of interest in the world around you and no longer enjoying things that used to give pleasure
Pleasure? What? Like drinking wine and going clubbing and staying up late chatting to friends and dancing and eating in nice restaurants and having wild sex with wild men and having a lie in and buying sexy new outfits? That will be because YOU CAN’T anymore! Not for a while anyway. And it’s the realisation of just how much your life has changed that makes you have a loss of interest in the world around you, because the world around you is full of day time TV, poop, baby talk and mummy friends telling you how fulfilled they feel and how their child is meeting all the milestones. They are lying, they feel like shit too…
- Lack of energy and feeling tired all the time
That will be because you haven’t slept in three months. Here’s an experiment – make a woman who has never had a child spend a day and night working out excessively (labour burns 1,000 calories per hour) and then immediately dress her in an old dressing gown, don’t let her sleep more than 4 hours a night in 45 minute intervals for 9o days, don’t talk to her about anything of any interest, make her get up every time she tries to sit down, have people calling and knocking on her door every three hours expectantly, and throughout all of this make her solely in charge of a demanding and uncooperative little person – THEN ask her how alive and full of energy she feels. She hasn’t got kids, so it can’t be PND, so maybe she’s just REALLY TIRED!
- Disturbed sleep, such as having trouble sleeping during the night and then being sleepy during the day
That will be the extra new human being in the house that screams during the night and sleeps in the day when you have a house full of visitors and housework to do.
- Difficulties with concentration and making decisions
Because you are TIRED! And you can’t catch up with three months of lack of sleep with a two hour power nap one random afternoon that Grandma took the baby away.
- Low self-confidence
That’s probably because you look like death warmed-up because you are sooooo TIRED.
- Poor appetite or an increase in appetite
Don’t eat a lot or eat too much? Make your mind up. Hormones can affect both, as can being tired (you eat for energy or you feel so rough you don’t want to eat) or maybe it’s because your new child is running you ragged. Either way, this isn’t a symptom of anything but life.
- Feeling very agitated or, alternatively, very apathetic
Agitated because: Hormones. Screaming child. TIRED!
Apathetic because: Hormones. No point doing anything with a screaming child. TIRED!
- Feelings of guilt and self-blame
Because you have thought of all the above and hate yourself, believe you are a shit mother and can’t believe you have failed at motherhood before you have even started.
So far, so normal. If you have all of these symptoms it doesn’t instantly mean you have PND. It can just mean you are an absolutely exhausted mother trying her best. So give yourself a break, accept it won’t last forever and you are not a failure or ill… just really really tired. And believe me, tiredness is no small thing – it is dangerous and mind-altering in its own right (just ask the victims of torture chambers)!
But this ISN’T normal…
- Thinking about suicide and self-harming
I don’t believe there isn’t a woman in the world who hasn’t envisaged caving in her husband’s snoring head while he sleeps peacefully beside her during the only two hours possible sleep she could get between her baby’s cries. Or a woman who hasn’t wanted to fling herself off a balcony when her toddler is fighting with his brother and the baby is crying. Or a woman who hasn’t looked at the squabbling kids and wanted to bang their heads together to shut them up. But we don’t actually DO it. We don’t even come close. It’s just a mental relief.
But I have known women who have seriously contemplated doing something dangerous to themselves or their kids. Women who can’t see a way out and sit for hours thinking how they could possibly finish their existence quickly and painlessly and with as little fuss as possible. Women who can’t physically pick their heads up off the pillow. Women who don’t want to even look at their baby, let alone hold or nurse them. These are women who have not spoken about feeling any of the above and have taken it to the point of no return…
So trust yourself – don’t put on a brave face, speak to someone, but also don’t instantly think it’s PND either. Just tell anyone who will listen that you’re not waving… you are drowning.
Every mother in the land will take you seriously when you tell them how you are feeling, because nearly all of us have felt just like you and made it to the other side. These emotions don’t make you instantly mentally ill, or a failure, or anything to be ashamed of… it just means you have finally reached your limit because you are trying to be the best mum you can.
So give yourself a break, find something to keep you going (even if it’s just a new Netflix series to watch when you are forced to breastfeed at 3am), go at your own pace and do what you have to do to feel sane. Feeling like this is NORMAL and it gets better. I promise.
And if it doesn’t get any better then don’t wait until you want out – just give in and take the happy pills. In fact you can have mine if you want. They are still sitting in the medicine cabinet (just in case)…
