to think this is normal motherhood?

[foreverastudent]

AIBU to think that feeling tired, moody, irritable, tearful, lonely, guilty, sore, tense, unable to cope, overwhelmed and trapped, along with having difficulty eating, sleeping, getting out, concentrating, motivating yourself and not wanting as much sex as before is

normal motherhood

and should be conquered by having better support systems in place, either provided by family, friends, community or the state

not

by boosting the profits of a company that made $5.49 billion in the 1st quarter of 2010.

Sadly antidepressants can be addictive, I am the living evidence for this, I had PND 11 years ago and long story short struggled to get off prozac ever since, I am coming off very slowly now (will take me 4 years) and doctors in my experience are woefully misinformed about the potential addictive nature of antidepressants. I've done all my research on prozac myself after losing faith in my surgery on the issue.
I do however recognise that they got me out of a deep black hole 11 years ago but I can't help wondering if I'd been better off without the prozac and a lot more support systems in place.

Well OP I felt most of those things intermittently after both children and did think, and still do, that those were normal responses to a major upheaval in life. And par for the course to an extent when bfing in the first few days, which can be quite hellish. So I don't think YABCU in suggesting that, or that there is a lot of pressure on mums.
However, had I felt them all constantly and for a number of days then that's different and I don't think a pot of casserole on the doorstep would have helped!
People seem to have very funny attitudes to ADs, which are most unhelpful to those who are depressed, and will respond to ADS and be able to function again who then feel they shouldn't be taking them when they certainly should.
If you've ever suffered from genuine chemical, clinical depression then you will not give a monkeys that the drug companies are making money, you'll just be overjoyed to function as a normal human being again, so for suggesting there is something wrong or immoral with ADs, or that PND is not a serious illness as opposed to a failure of perspective, YANBU

OP. Have YOU (not a study you read?) ever felt all the things in your post? All at once? For more than a week? And still think it's normal?

also, I can only speak for myself, but I am 100 % sure , that the right meds in teh right dose had a massive positive effect on me, and quickly too

i think a far better thing would be more access to psychaitrists early on, who can give the right meds in teh right doses

my Gps gave prozac et al in doses up to 60 mg. made me feel worse

consultant psych gave me effexor 175 mg, within 3 days i felt a difference.

that would save the nHS money in the long run surely? the right meds at the right dose?

RE: "Do you have a go at someone for using crutches if they have a broken leg?

Do you have a go at someone with diabetes using insulin?

Do you have a go at someone with two broken arms asking for help?"

would you just give someone with a broken leg/arm a painkiller and not reset the bone or put a cast on?

would you just give a diabetic insulin but offer no dietic advice?

BTW a lot of Mums dont 'ask' for help- the edinburgh scale test is routinely given to all new mums at 6-8 weeks, tick the right (or wrong) boxes and it's an automatic prescription. Unlike a broken bone, where you would be seen/operated on by an orthopaedic doctor, Mums are 'diagnosed' with PND without ever having a full consultation with a psychiatrist. Hence why a lot who actually have PTSD are mis-diagnosed. And , of course that has nothing to do with the huge legal bill the NHS would face if all the Mums with PTSD from botched childbirths sued.

"In other cultures/societies, where mothers are properly supported, they don't get any of these symptoms in the first place"

What utter bollocks...

have you ever seen at first hand any details of other cultures that are supposedly more supportive.... yeah thought NOT....

In very few countries outside of the 'First World' nations are mental health issues tolerated at all.

Where I lived for the last 3 years for example, they still subscribe to the Bedlam system, and women who had PND, or who argued against their husbands were just locked up, indefinitely. Unmarried mothers are at risk of being killed, and certainly banished from the family, and it's not just that country that would subscribe to that way of doing things.

Pressures to conform, compete and literally bounce back, both professionally and physically, to be blissfully happy when there may be real chemical reasons why they won't be all conspire to challenge the most confident of new mums.

Ignorant navel gazing and pointing of fingers doesn't help much either.

OP your posting name is apt... thinking the way you appear to, you WILL be forever a student and unlikely to graduate....

gawd

please not handsful of links that we have to wade through

precis please

TVM

Most people on here who have been diagnosed with PND will have probably resisted going to the doctor about it for ages because 'it's just normal'. Many will have had to have been persuaded to go by someone else.

Once you feel better you realise that it most definitely is not bloody normal.

Would you just offer them the advice and put the cast on then? Not actually do anything to help with the pain?

I see you oh so wonderfully missed the second part of my post about what it is actually like on a day to day basis.

You're really making me upset and angry right now, so I'm backing out. I've just restarted myself on my ADs after finding myself thinking about standing in the middle of the road. So thank you so much for making me feel like a failure.

I hope to Christ you never have to deal with what I and so many other people do on a daily basis in their minds. You're a fool if you think it can all be fixed by talking, and you're an arse to judge those who choose tablets in the way you are.

I'm reluctant to engage with you because at best you're misguided bu well-meaning and at worst you're a vindicative bitch who wants to get a reaction. However ...

You talk about support systems. What about those who have no immaediate family near (or indeed no immediate family at all)? Our friends cannot be at our beck and call - they have lives, families and problems too.

The state - hmm, just what mothers needs, more interference from the 'state' because we all know that governments know best, don't we?

You mentioned France. I've given birth in France and can categorically state that French women have PND too and - horror of horrors - they sometimes need anti-depressants to help them recover. Yes, the French state does provide home helps, but you need health insurance to pay for it or stump up some of the costs yourself.

Can I just add that you're an idiot? Good. Now go away.

in reposnse to your OP
do you think it is normal motherhood ? how long should the feelings last? how long should you put up with them?

YABU some of the things you describe could be attributed sometimes to normal motherhood, transient feelings of being overwhelmed for example.

PND is awful and not normal.

The reasons I know you are talking s**t comes from 11 years experience of being a mental health nurse and 1 personal horrible years experience of having PND.

I love the way types such as you bang on about the virtues of counselling, I'm CBT trained and the majority of CBT therapists would cite the evidence both scientific and anecdotal that the best way to treat moderate to major depression is with a 2 pronged approach using medication to lift the mood and then CBT to work on the negative thoughts/schema/beliefs combined with behavioural activation.

Obviously more support for new mums would be great but the way you talk is living in a dream world. You also talking shite about different cultures, one of the most horrific cases i've nursed was a muslim woman with puerperal psychosis. Many many people of different cultures access mental health services and have some truly awful stories to tell.

It's not "pill popping" ADs can save peoples lives.

I have never felt the need to be rude to anyone here before but OP please Fuckety fuck the fuck off. You clearly have no knowledge of depression and have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

I had plenty of support following the birth of DD1.....from relatives, close friends, HV etc, This support did not stop me from becoming suicidally depressed......at my lowest I was actually rooting through the bathroom cabinet doing a stock take of available overdose possibilities. Without Prozac I would be dead, my beautiful 2 year old would have no mummy, and my gorgeous 7 month old would never have been born.

I repeat....FUCK OFF.

I aced the Edinburgh scale at 6-8 weeks. I scored very low at 5 months. For me it was a helpful measure of how my mental health had deteriorated over that time.

I was sleep deprived, tense, etc etc at 6-8 weeks but I scored high because at that stage I was experiencing things as difficult but normally difficult. At 5 months I was in a black hole.

What little miss hissy fit said.

My friend was told to stop taking her ADs by a 'friend' who took a similar stance to the OP. That ADs were ineffective, revenue streams for big pharma, that a change of attitude, a bit of support, bucking up her ideas and reading would be the cure-all. That sent in her into a downward spiral which ended when she took her own life.

sapphireblue - your post has mad me simultaneously sad and happy.

I had clinical depression when ds was about 2. I took Prozac and I stopped sitting at the table crying all day, and began to function again. I had no family around as they all lived 3.5 hours away, and dh had a busy and demanding job which was also 5 hours away.

The prozac saved my sanity and I came of it and haven't in 12 years had a recurrence. I also got some counselling. However, if I hadn't had the prozac, I wouldn't have got out of the house to have the counselling.

YABU OP whether it's PND you are talking about, or other depression. The meds work and nothing else would have done for me. They sorted the serotonin imbalance and helped me function again.

scaryteacher - that's a good point. Sometimes the meds need to be a sort of jump start in order to avail yourself of other support.

I think the op is saying that it wouldn't happen in the first place if there was a different social set up, but I just can't accept that in my own case.

I'm not sure I would have actually ended my life, though I often thought about it as a way out of the mental pain. I'm sure people in 'other cultures' where PND isn't 'seen as an illness' but as 'normal' just have to put up and shut up for a long period of time till they feel better. Personally, I feel why put myself or my family through that awful period?

Of course, in some cases, ignoring PND as normal may have fatal consequences, as above.

tondelayo I'm so sorry to hear that, that's so sad .

It's and I'm sorry to say it like this misguided, up their own arse idiots like this who usually have more than a streak of narcissm who cause so much bloody damage. Unpeeling all the good work that's been done by therapists, nurses, families the patients themselves.

I think the OP has badly phrased her post. I also think a lot of posters are misunderstanding or misrepresenting the OP.
I resisted admitting to my own PND for a long time as I knew somehow that what I needed was support, not ADs. I accept this means I had a reactive-type depression and not a chemical one. Many people do need and benefit from ADs and should obviously get them.
I received counselling and have benefitted enormously from that.
I read the (badly-worded) OP as meaning that ADs (as an easy, profit-making solution) are given to some women who would benefit more from a different, more time-consuming approach.
But, not all.

In other cultures schizophrenia and other psychotic illnesses are seen as the patient being possessed by an evil spirit.

the remedy for this is thought to be to beat the spirit out of them. lets just leave them to it shall we ?

OP

Exactly which family members should provide the support. Let's face it many grandmothers work - having fought hard to win the right to a career etc.

And friends - ditto, probably have their own kids and families to support or are working to keep afloat.

Are you proposing we return to the 1950s where we all lived around the corner from our families and none of the women worked once they got married....

Anyway many of the symptoms you describe are symptoms of a recognised condition needing proper medical help.

If i could find the courage to speak to my midwife or doctor about the feelings and thoughts im having at the moment and they could give me a pill to take away all the misery and pain im feeling then i`d bite their hands off.

Im not even due to give birth for another few months, im terrified this misery is going to escalate after i do have the baby.

I do know talking about how im feeling right now doesnt do any good, although i try not to talk about just how bad things are, im good at pretending im coping, ive got a good family and great friends, even if i did tell them how bad things are, what can they do? What can a counsellor actually do for me, tell me it will get better, tell me im not the only one that feels this bad? I feel like a different person and right now a pill to get me through another day is very appealing, i just googled the Edinburgh Scale, took the quick test and scored 24, apparently anything above 10 means you need to see a professional, but i cant find the courage to do that.

Im fairly new to this site, only been here a few weeks but am using another name cos i dont want anyone to know who i am

Agree minx. I don't think people who understand the complexity of mental illness and the sheer frustration of having to live with it (I speak as someone who has never had mental illness but many people close to me have) understand how there is no solution, no easy solution or that how a long-term patten of behaviour that, in isolated stages, is a continuum of 'normal' (the OP's phrase) is emphatically not normal and cannot be dealt as such.