Partner denies she has post natal depression.

[Domitianus]

My partner and I have a baby girl who is almost 14 months. My partner had a major depressive episode during pregnancy that I had to nurse her through and she has other health issues.

Our relationship has become increasingly strained over the last six to nine months and I have become aware of increasing hostility, irritability and anger from her. I have done everything I possibly can to help and to be a hand-on father but have been sniped at, criticised, attacked and subjected to all sorts of passive aggression endlessly. It has had a huge effect on my mood, especially as I took over a year off work to help her with her illness and child rearing.

A number of weeks ago she behaved really bizarrely one morning and said she was so angry with me she could hardly look at me. When I asked why the reason she gave was so utterly ridiculous that I felt I had dropped down a rabbit hole, It led to a conversation in which she admitted to having experienced feelings of enormous anger towards me for quite some time since the baby was born. She said she realised it was unfair and that I didn't deserve it and that she hated feeling this way about me. This was a major reason for her decision a few months ago that we should split up and I should find a new place to live. I was absolutely gutted as I love my partner and adore our little girl.

I tried to research the causes of her extreme anger because it was utterly unjustified and so uncharacteristic of her. I came across sites that said a less known but well recognised symptom of post natal depression is huge anger, resentment and hostility towards the partner and irritability. The descriptions of the type of anger talked about seemed to match perfectly what my partner described. When I looked more carefully I saw that there were a lot of other symptoms of PND present that I hadn't really noticed before. I am pretty sure that my partner has PND and it has torn our relationship apart. The sites I have been reading talk about this, warn it is a real danger in undiagnosed PND and that if PND is suspected no major decisions should be made - especially about relationships - until the PND is treated as the conflict in relationships is often caused by the depression rather than an underlying insoluble problem in the relationship.

I have suggested to my partner that she has PND and many symptoms but she insists that she has considered this and that she is fine and resents me suggesting she is mentally unwell. I am worried that she just cannot see clearly at the moment and I know many women develop PND and don't realise how skewed their thinking and perception is. When she has been depressed in the past her perception of the past and future has been really wonky yet she couldn't see it.

I feel utterly helpless in trying to help my partner and in trying to stabilise this situation. I don't want to lose my family and am terrified that she will look back later and regret this decision hugely.

Can anyone who has had experience of PND please give me their thoughts? Does this sound familiar to you? Did you have this type of anger or hostility towards your partner? Did it work out? Did it destroy your relationship? Did you survive it?

Any feedback gratefully received.

[minipie]

Hmm I had PND for a while and I didn't feel anger towards my partner. My feelings were more of utter uselessness - I felt like I couldn't manage to do anything, even tiny things - and also anxiety and insomnia. But PND varies.

Could she just be exhausted? How much sleep is she getting? If she is very tired that would also make her very irritable. When I am very tired I do take it out on my DH.

Also - bluntly - what is she getting cross with you about, and might she have a point? How much time off do you get vs how much time off does she get? Do you have different views on parenting? If she is angry about your behaviour and you won't acknowledge any fault and put it down to PND then I can see that would make her pretty furious. Although, I see she has said that you don't deserve the anger.

Are you still living together?

[Domitianus]

Hi Minipie,

I hear what you say. I hadn't been aware of the anger angle in PND until recently but apparently it is the dominant and most distressing symptom for some women. That was an eye opener for me and it is something that just won't be picked up by common screening tools such as the Edinburgh post natal screen.

Re the sleep deprivation, that is what I had put her irritability down to for a long time and have done all I can to help her get the sleep she needs - taking the baby myself all night to let her get uninterrupted sleep etc. I stoically put up with all the grief and attacks and undermining as I realised how much my partner was struggling and I just absorbed it all without any pushback. It was only recently, however, when I became aware of the overwhelming nature of her anger through a truly absurd anger response and the conversation we had afterwards. She has been shocked and upset herself about the extent and overwhelming intensity of her anger.

Whilst I know that everyone's little idiosyncrasies become grating when folk are sleep deprived and raising a child I can honestly say that there is no rational basis for the scale of her anger. I have essentially backed off work for almost a year to be available to help with our child and there is nothing I don't do or attempt to anticipate in order to help. Of the two of us the only one who has had nights out whilst the other cares for the child is her. I haven't taken any real 'me time' since the child was born and I have never refused a request to take over to let her do what she needs or wants to do.

A female relative lived with us for a while and she was shocked at the way I was being treated and talked to. She and a number of other female friends who have seen the situation have said I have clearly given 150% and simply don't deserve what has been thrown my way.

Don't know if that helps at all?

[minipie]

Understood. If she herself is shocked at her own feelings and doesn't think they are logically justified then that does suggest something is going on.

I am not sure what you can do about it though.

Perhaps rather than try to convince her it is PND, you could try a more general approach - could you ask her to speak to someone (the GP, or a counsellor) about her anger, to assess whether there is a way she could feel less angry? Or maybe this suggestion would be better coming from one of her relatives/friends if they share your view.

[Domitianus]

Hi,

The irony is that she is seeing a therapist and has also seen her GP. She has spoken to both of them about this off her own bat as she had worried that she might have drifted back into depression. So it's not as if she hasn't had some insight into it herself. Her view was on balance that she doesn't think she has although she admitted herself this morning that she couldn't be sure. So her position on this is actually fluctuating all the time.

What worries - and, frankly, infuriates - me is that she does not seem ready to link her anger, hostility and irritability to it or see those factors as being part of the symptom profile. It means I am being cast as the bad guy who (depending on when you ask her) is either fully deserving of her rage or else I am an innocent party who feels the brunt of her anger and hostility without deserving it. There is just no consistency in what she says and I feel as if I am on shifting sands with her. If I was experiencing the type of anger she is experiencing towards someone I had previously loved and who had (by her own admission) always been there for her, and I knew it was a possible symptom of PND and I had concerns I might be in throws of such a condition, I would be taking it a lot more seriously and would not be trying to justify my behaviour towards others when it might be a result of my own illness.

I have been very badly affected by all this and it has had a serious effect on my own mood. On one occasion she will acknowledge that her anger is unjustified and that that is a major cause of the breakdown in our relationship - at others she will say that it is all caused by MY anger and the fact that I have been irritable and uncommunicative as a result of all the pressure this has put ME under. The version of events just changes from day to day and I don't know if I am going to get greeted by the kind and loving person I used to know or whether I will be greeted by a death stare as if I have a nerve even to exist.

It is an utter emotional roller-coaster and I am at my wits end with it. Believe me, I am a resilient and deeply loving person and intakes a hell of a lot to take me to the edge but this has taken me there.

Does that make sense?

[Domitianus]

What I mean, and maybe I didn't say it well, is that I feel I am entitled to have her look at this much more carefully and considerately as she acknowledges it is a possibility and, if I am right, she is causing deeply unjustified pain to others.

I feel angry that she just seems to take such a cavalier approach to it and is unwilling to consider properly the effect she is having on others round her. Even some close friends say she has changed a lot since she has had the baby. Of course parenthood changes you - it has changed me - but there comes a point where the change may be symptomatic of illness and you have a duty and responsibility to others to look at that possibility seriously rather than thinking you are entitled to use them as emotional punch-bags and lightning rods. I feel as if I have been emotionally battered and abused for almost a year now and in the last couple of months she seems to have got worse.

Many months ago, when I said how much I was struggling she said to me: "I am taking everything I can from you because I am finding things so difficult." I should have said something at that time but I let it go as I realised she was finding it tough and I didn't want to leap down her throat over a poor choice of words. But I do feel as if I am a mere shadow of who I was and there is no more for me to give. I am depressed, sleeping poorly, losing weight and having to see a counsellor through work, etc. It really galls me then to be told I am not doing enough to help (I haven't stopped!) and that I have to leave our home and only see our girl twice a week because she can't deal with her emotions and won't get help!

[minipie]

I am sorry, it sounds tough. Living with someone who has MH issues is incredibly difficult but especially when it impacts their behaviour towards you. Unfortunately I am not sure what you can do about it other than ride out the storm, remember she cannot control how she is feeling, and be as supportive as you can without being judgmental or critical.

I think it is great that she is seeing a therapist and her GP, I think beyond this there is not much you can do - and indeed I think pushing her to accept that her anger is a MH issue would be counterproductive and could come across to her as unsupportive (however unfair that may be).

In short: give her time and hope that her GP and therapist can help her and that eventually she returns.

[minipie]

Cross posted. She IS getting help though isn't she?

The thing is, you say "I feel I am entitled to have her look at this much more carefully and considerately as she acknowledges it is a possibility" but - if you are right that this is depression - she simply is not fully rational at the moment (hope that doesn't offend anyone with depression, it's how I feel I was when I had PND) so you can't expect a rational analysis of her feelings.

[Domitianus]

I agree that her thinking is likely to be very scrambled and unclear if she is depressed. Depression has the effect of causing you to remember all the crap from the past and expect crap in the future. It creates pessimism and negativity about everything.

It's just very difficult when someone who is depressed - or may be depressed - is the one who has the power to call the shots. And annoying that she is unprepared to consider that her anger and hostility may well be generated by PND, rather than being a realistic response to circumstances.

[dangermouseisace]

Hi OP when I had PND I had some issues with anger. The pattern was pretty predictive as to how much was directed towards my then DH, according to my skewed thinking. This is what I'd get cross about:

• him (in my mind) skipping off to work whilst I was left in charge of these tiny tyrants when I was in no way competent to look after them
  
• the cleaning. I had a bit of an obsession with that and had unrealistically high standards that I expected him to maintain if he said he was going to clean up in the evening etc.
  

But that was it.

A point to note would probably be that if a person had anger because of PND, then her DH would not be the only recipient of unreasonableness…the anger/whatever would be out of their control. For example in my case my parents got it, the kids got it, many, many, many household objects got it.

Also, are there any other symptoms of PND? For me, being cross at various things was a very small part of a whole caboodle of shite.

[mathanxiety]

You come across as a bit combative, and also a bit Mr Fix-it.

You also come across as a bit smug about all you have put up with and all you have done, bit of a martyr.

It can be really, really annoying to live with someone who sees things as clearly as you do, has so much perspective, has done so much research, and has set himself up as the doctor in the domestic situation - the psycho-emotional expert, especially after a baby has entered a couple's life.

Did you turn her into your project when she had her depressive episode during pregnancy?

Did you somehow give her the impression that she wasn't as competent as she believed herself to be? That she was someone whose mental state was iffy and who needed you to ride in on your white horse and manage her life?

There's a lot of 'She does X/Y/Z...' in your posts, and a lot of frustration but you don't seem to have looked very deeply into your own response to fatherhood or to her initial episode of depression. You have presented a picture of someone heroic, stoic, beyond reproach, but maybe she needed a little space to figure things out, while I am getting an impression of someone who was maybe a bit smothering.

[wrenbot]

Mathanxiety I know what you mean.

I suppose if it is PND the Gp/counsellor would have picked up on it?

The only other option is that it isn't PND and you are genuinely having relationship problems. If it isn't PND, you pressuring her about it won't help. Why not asking if you can go for couples therapy? Then you will have someone to mediate.

Hope things perk up OP.

[Somerville]

To be honest, OP, I'd be angry in her situation, too. A non-medical professional taking it upon themselves to diagnose their partner with a mental health condition? Unacceptable.

It really galls me then to be told I am not doing enough to help (I haven't stopped!) and that I have to leave our home and only see our girl twice a week because she can't deal with her emotions and won't get help!

So you've split up and left the shared family home? Or she wants you to, but you're refusing on the basis of the PND that she hasn't been diagnosed with by anyone but you?

If you really think that all this is PND then leave, be kind, wait it out, be kind, be there when she wants you back, remain kind.

[Toffeelatteplease]

You cannot fix someone else, it is very controlling to try to without their explicit consent.

She is getting help and has a diagnosis.

Either you can live with someone and their behaviour or you can't. You can only "fix" yourself.

[Domitianus]

So let me address some of these responses.

1. apparently my posts which have no combative content whatsoever are labelled 'combative' by someone who rights an extremely combative and aggressive post. I guess perception is projection.
   
2. I am 'smug'. Please point out any smug comment at all.
   
3. I am a 'Mr Fix-it' - if recognising and attempting to fix a possible metal illness is a sin, I'll happily take it. Maybe we should just leave our loved ones unwell for fear of intervening to help.
   
4. It can be annoying to live with someone who is clear sighted, has perspective and has done research. Sure. Let's all remain short-sighted and ignorant, right?
   
5. Did I turn her into my 'project' when she was depressed during her pregnancy? Maybe I did. If so, it was project called Project Take Six Months of Work to Nurse Your Partner and Stop Her Killing Herself and Her Unborn Child. Maybe I should have gone for Project Fuck It! Let Her Top Herself, I'm Off Out With My Mates?
   
6. My 'white horse' act kept her alive and she has repeatedly said that if it hadn't been for my support she would probably have committed suicide. Let me know when you have the character and guts to do something like that unsupported.
   
7. I have looked very deeply into my own experience of fatherhood. What do you want to know about it that is relevant to this thread? As for my response to her depression during pregnancy - I can honestly say it was one of the most distressing and worrying experiences of my life. Any questions about that?
   
8. GP or counsellor would have picked up OND? That must be why the research suggests at least 50% of cases of PND are undiagnosed despite post-natal screening.
   
9. It is 'unacceptable' for a non-medical person to diagnose a mental illness? Really? Not sure I 'diagnosed' it - I have strong suspicions and am concerned that proper diagnosis has not been looked into. I think you will find that with regards to just about every illness in the world it is often someone close to the sufferer who first spots the signs and attempts then to arrange medical assessment/intervention. This would be FULLY supported by the medical profession and you will read in endless sources of how the medical profession relies on friends/family to raise the alarm bell when they suspect a loved one is unwell. If this didn't happen I shudder to think of the millions of people who would remain ill or even die because some layman thought "Well, I think this person may be ill but who am I to say anything? I'll just leave be." Furthermore, someone who actually lives 24/7 with someone for years may well spot what a GP or HV can't in a 10 minute appt. You have a funny notion of caring about someone if you think you say nothing when a loved one is suffering.
   

10. I am refusing to lead the family home? Nope. Her house, if she wants me to leave I have to go.
11. It is 'despicable' to try to get someone help when they may be ill but unable to recognise it? Really??? Please don't project your own unfortunate history onto me. It is well recognised that mothers can have PND without realising it and it has often been the intervention of those close to them that has got them the help they need. Do some research and you will see that many reliable sites recommend active intervention on behalf of someone who is unwell and may be unable to help themselves. This is particularly the case with mental illnesses where someone may lack insight or depression when someone may feel unable/too helpless to seek help themselves. Huge amounts of human misery have been prevented because caring people got help for someone who couldn't help themselves.
12. If it was PND anger it would be directed at everyone. This intuitively does make initial sense but if you look at many informed sights (try Mind, for example) you will see that they specifically mention hostility directed at the partner, rather than at others. This is quite common.
13. There would likely be other symptoms too. I agree and she displays a number of other symptoms as well - insomnia (please don't say everyone loses sleep with a young baby - the key sign is inability to sleep when your child is sleeping), unexplained pain, weight gain (common after childbirth but also associated with depression), negative perception of the past, hopelessness for the future, lack of concentration, poor memory, guilt - all will appear on a comprehensive list of PND symptoms.
14. I portray myself as a 'martyr', it seems. Not really. I just anticipated comments from folk suggesting maybe I wasn't helping with the baby, housework, pulling my weight at home, or was still going out with my mates to the pub and leaving her at home, so I thought we could avoid wasting time with such suggestions by my pointing out that I have attempted to be hands on and supportive and committed to helping as best I can.

It seems that there is a sad and inevitable trap here - heads you win, tails you lose. If I dismissed or diminished the possibility of PND or its effect, I would be slated as a boor and an unsympathetic male who doesn't understand or care about the reality of the illness. On the other hand if I express my concerns that my partner might have PND (over 10% of mothers have it), has gone undiagnosed (50% of cases missed, remember), and that she might not recognise or be in denial that she is ill (again, a common occurrence) and that I am trying to find ways to help her, I am some evil controlling amateur shrink attempting to gaslight my poor partner into believing she is mentally unwell so I won't have to leave the daily home. Nice No-WIn situation there.

To those who have offered considered and sensible input, many thanks. To those who just like to stir and attack someone no matter what they do, have a nice life. I will continue to do what is necessary to help and support those I love and feel responsible for.

Oh, by the way, my younger brother had parathyroid disease. He and I - with no medical qualifications - managed to diagnose him and get him surgical treatment despite his GPs, the Endocrine Department of a major London Hospital and three of the country's leading consultant endocrine surgeons saying he showed no signs of the disease. So, sorry, I am not big on the idea that doctors can't miss diseases. That was another case of me saving a loved one's life by spotting something the doctors missed over five years and pushing until proper diagnosis and treatment was achieved.

[mathanxiety]

I would like to add, really defensive and apparently not looking for any answer that doesn't back up your own idea.

And your response shows you most certainly are combative. Is this the tone you take with your wife when she pushes back against your research and your enthusiastic diagnosis of her?

It is unacceptable - and more to your point here an activity with high potential to be a relationship breaker - to try to diagnose mental health issues, especially when your efforts come with the notion (very much in evidence here) that these issues can be addressed and fixed in a cut and dried way, and that they exist completely out of the context of the relationship and the life in general that is being led by the person who may (or may not) be suffering from them. Physical issues are by contrast easy to spot, or nobody would bother calling a doctor.

Your wife has medical help for whatever issues she may have. You cannot go around insinuating that you are right and her medical professionals are wrong.

It is well recognised that living with someone without healthy boundaries can be incredibly difficult and can lead to high levels of anger and frustration and the desire to live apart. This is an expression of a healthy sense of boundary infringement on the part of the person who is angry. There is a fine line between 'supportive' and pushing someone into the periphery of her own life or making her into a case to be solved.

Many women find it hard to sleep when a baby is sleeping. It isn't the key to PND. You sleep with one ear always peeled for the baby waking. You sleep lightly. You can be woken by a partner farting, turning over in bed, snoring, birds making a racket before dawn, etc., etc., etc.

Finally, you are not the only person in the history of the world involved with someone who has or has had depression. You are very likely to encounter people in this board who have either had PND themselves or who have had relationships with people with PND or other mental health issues.

Believe me when I say to you - and my advice is based in compassion for you despite what you may think - leaving your wife to the support of her medical professionals is the only option here. She cannot become dependent on you for her mental wellbeing. She must be able to stand on her own two feet. You must not become her 'keeper'. That is not a marriage.

[Dozer]

You took a year off work to "nurse" her?!

[Haworthiia]

What was she angry with you about? I had PND (pretty badly) and I didn't experience any anger towards my husband...

I can't quite put my finger on it but there's something in your posts that disturbs me.

Firstly, I think your insistence that she has pnd, that the doctors are missing it and that you're right and they are wrong. If she's under treatment, it doesn't really matter if she denies she has pnd - the treating team will see signs IF she has it. You're not a doctor.
Secondly there is quite a combative air to your posts - when someone has disagreed with you, you've had a long, bullet pointed diatribe back at them. Do you do that to your wife? Do you need to be right?
Do you give her space to express what she feels without trying to fix it? It can be very irritating to tell a partner you're having a bad day and them go off into 'what you should do is...' Sometimes you just need to listen and sympathise. Do you do that?
Your insistence that you're right. Let me tell you that you can't just 'sleep when the baby sleeps.' It doesn't work like that. You're on edge. The merest sparrow fart wakes you. You can't just drop off merrily when the baby does. Postnatal insomnia is much more nuanced than that.

I work in clinical research, on psychiatric trials just now. I screen patients before they enter trials. Pnd aside, there's a lot of truth in the acronym of 'SLS' - shit life syndrome for those who are depressed. As I read case histories, interviews with patients and husbands, again and again I find myself thinking 'I'm not surprised you feel crap.'

Something in your posts is triggering the same feeling. You sound very controlling, mr fix-it like, in fact, you're very 'Mr. Right.'

If you want to help your wife, stop foisting your non medical theories on her. Listen to her. Ask yourself, and be brutal, 'does she have a point ?' Stop trying to diagnose her and give her the space she needs.
It may be that your relationship has run its course, in which case you have my sympathies, but you'll need to accept that and move on, whilst maintaining a good relationship with your daughter.

[Domitianus]

I'll respond first to Dozer and then move on to the combative Mathanxiety.

I took about six months off work to nurse my partner through a major depression she had when she was pregnant and close to suicide. Let me tell you a little about what that was like. Firstly, imagine someone who has had a complete nervous breakdown and is almost incapable of doing anything for herself. Crying constantly and saying that she wishes she was dead. If not for your presence and willingness to give effectively 24/7 support to that person they would have been taken into hospital. You do almost everything for them - cook for them, help them wash, ensure they are not left alone in the beginning and later, only for short periods of time. Since they are pregnant, have always wanted a child and are close to the end of their fertility - in forties - you want to give this person every chance to keep the child if possible. You know that every day that person is thinking of killing herself and her unborn child. You spend as much time as possible with her, effectively give up work, comfort her when she wakes with panic attacks and terror night after night, arrange for fiends to arrange rota to call round regularly when you have to go away for even a day or two. That's the sort of thing I am talking about - for about six months until they have stabilised and can see a future.

Based upon that history and other health issues, I decided to be there for about the first year - again choosing not to work - to be maximally supportive and reduce the likelihood of further illness and possible relapse. That, in my mind, is commitment.

Now, to Mathanxiety - where do we even START? A long list:

1. Not remotely defensive. I have addressed and corrected various ill-founded and foolish comments.
   
2. My response was perhaps somewhat combative - entirely justifiably so in light of your own personal, ill-infome and ignorant attack. If you want to address combativeness, look in the mirror.
   
3. She is not my wife, as you would have realised if you had taken time to read carefully. But don't let the facts get in your way.
   
4. The tone I take with ignorant, arrogant online trolls is very different to the tone I take with those I care about.
   
5. Unacceptable to diagnose mental health issues??? Utter twaddle! As already pointed out (and completely ignored by you) doctors rely heavily on friends and family to help raised the alarm and seek help for those who may be suffering from entail health issues. You clearly have minimal or no understanding of this area. If you ever go to an initial meeting with a psychiatrist they ask that you go with a family member so they can cross check your perception of things with an independent source. If you are unaware that mental health issues are often first spotted and help sought by unqualified but perceptive friends and family your ignorance is of a breath-taking scope.
   
6. There is absolutely NOTHING in my posts that suggest I perceive an easy cut and dried 'fix' to PND. This is a fantasy on your part. The experts are clear, however, that PND is most effectively addressed with early diagnosis and professional help. Undiagnosed PND, if it resolves at all, takes longer and will often deteriorate and persist. Try to do some basic fact-checking with informed sources before you post.
   
7. A relationship breaker. Again, if you had done the SLIGHTEST research (we know you hate research, don't we, from your initial post) you would know that undiagnosed and untreated PND is the real relationship breaker as the stress it puts on relationships can be unbearable. Again, you won't let the facts get in your way.
   
8. Physical conditions are easy to spot? Really??? Must be why my brother's parathyroid disease (a physical condition) went undiagnosed by so-called experts for five years, eh? Must be why we hear about all those cases go undiagnosed cancer etc, right?
   
9. I can't insinuate that medical experts are wrong and I am right. Really??? If I hadn't insisted on that my younger brother would now be dead. Your trust in the medical profession (particularly in often not clear-cut conditions such as mental illness) has an alarming naivety. Even in the art few years I have personally encountered about six shocking cases of medical misdiagnosis that were picked up by friends and family. One led to a young man having his leg amputated. Another led to a long, painful death from a neurological condition.
   

10. You state: "It is well recognised that living with someone without healthy boundaries can be incredibly difficult and can lead to high levels of anger and frustration and the desire to live apart. This is an expression of a healthy sense of boundary infringement on the part of the person who is angry. There is a fine line between 'supportive' and pushing someone into the periphery of her own life or making her into a case to be solved." Your fantasy about the nature of my relationship with my partner is just that - YOUR fantasy!
11. "Many women find it hard to sleep when a baby is sleeping. It isn't the key to PND." At no point did I suggest for one moment that it is the 'key'. There is no 'key'. There are recognised symptoms and when they occur in a cluster they are highly suggestive. Tis is the very essence of diagnosis of conditions like PND. Again, even the most basic element of the research you hate so much would have revealed to you that insomnia when a mother technically COULD sleep (i.e her baby is sleeping) is one of numerous symptoms that, occurring in a cluster, can point to PND.
12. You state: "Finally, you are not the only person in the history of the world involved with someone who has or has had depression. You are very likely to encounter people in this board who have either had PND themselves or who have had relationships with people with PND or other mental health issues." Another complete straw-man argument. At no pint WHATSOEVER have I even come close to suggesting this. In fact it is crystal clear from my OP that I came to this board specifically BECAUSE I thought there would be people here could give insight from personal experience. Re-read my OP!!! Sadly, some like you have disregarded the nature of my OP and the request for EXACTLY THAT sort of personal experience and have instead made baseless and mean-spirited attacks.
13. Your purported compassion in your last paragraph stands in stark contrast to everything else you have written and has little credibility. Again, we are not married. Again, your notion that I perceive myself as being her 'keeper' is a construct of your own imagination. I am a concerned partner who is worried that my partner may have a routinely missed condition (50% PND cases undiagnosed, minimum!), that often eludes even perceptive health professionals and that it is well recognised as often being hard to diagnose and that can be devastating for the sufferer, her child and family. I came here and posted a civil post to ask for input or insights from others who might have experience of the condition personally. Your apparent need to project nefarious intentions onto my posts says a lot about you and very little about me.

Perhaps, instead of posting some inflammatory reply, you do what I have taken considerable time to do - research and educate yourself about the condition, its manifestations and effects thoroughly - before you start throwing tasteless and utterly false accusations at others who are trying to seek help and guidance for themselves and those they hold dear.

[Domitianus]

One little addition - hard to live with someone who doesn't have healthy boundaries often leading to people living apart, eh?

Funny that we lived happily together for about five or six years and had no 'boundary issues' or need to live apart.

All that started to change, of course, a few months after childbirth when my partner who was struggling in other ways started to display an alarming change of character that was noticed not only by myself but by others who know her. In your view, of course, it seems unreasonable to speculate that this might POSSIBLY be connected to PND, coming…..err…post-natally! In your view, it is all down to my lack of healthy boundaries and my cynical need to pathologise and manipulate.

Could I also point out that I kept my counsel and said nothing at all about my concerns or observations for quite some time until things deteriorated to a truly alarming point. How tardy I was in forgetting to be a controlling and manipulative monster all that time!

Oops! There I go - being 'combative' again.

Now, I have an early start so am off to bed. Not sure I will have time to check replies before I leave for work in the morning but that will be a pleasure awaiting me when I get in for dinner tomorrow evening.

[Somerville]

You have a funny notion of caring for someone if you think you say nothing when a loved one is suffering

Don't you fucking misquote me, Domitianus. I don't think that and didn't fucking say it. I called you on on diagnosing your partner. Or rather, diagnosing the mother of your child, as it doesn't sound like she wants to be in a relationship with you any more. Quelle surprise .

And I know all about caring for a suffering loved one - much more than you fucking do. At the heart of caring for someone who is suffering is making sure not to disempower them. Not to treat them like just a patient, or just a list of symptoms, or like a project or like something broken that needs fixing.

So jog on with your misquoting, ignoring sensible advice and calling people trolls. I have no more advice for you. But I wish I knew the mother of your child, so I could give her a copy of Lundy Bancroft's book.

[TheRealAdaLovelace]

I think if you were my partner I would feel angry. You sound annoying and aggressive and pedantic. I bet you are always on about 'logic'.
Also, you mentioned 'helping' your partner with the baby on several occasions. If that is how you see it, you need to change your mindset.

[LucyBabs]

When I had PND the only reason I felt anger towards my dp was when I cried to him about how unwell I was..how low I felt and he shrugged his shoulders and went out drinking from 11pm till 6 am two days after we had our ds.
I was at breaking point suicidal and again he shrugged his shoulders and left me to it.
This went on for months and only for my GP I wouldn't be here.
Ffs I do wonder why I still with my dp

[Haworthiia]

Having ploughed through your long, long petulant posts... I can see why she's angry. I'd be in total despair. You sound pedantic, controlling, petulant, aggressive emotionally and smothering. You sound far from logical - rather hysterical in fact. Flouncy. Very young. Needing to be right. That's not good. When was the last time you conceded defeat? The last time you said something like 'yeah, fair dos - you're right on that one!' ? I suspect a long time.

If she wants to leave then she doesn't need your permission. She can leave the relationship for any reason she wants, any time she wants.

can I just make one very serious point? If someone is ill enough to be suicidal, they need professional care. You may not be the best person to provide that, even with the best will in the world. Taking a year off work (did you have savings??) is a very dramatic thing to do.
You're making this all about you. Your superiority to the doctors, your rightness. Your heroic sacrifice.
She's not your possession or your pet project. You can't force her to get treatment.