To want to give you a heads up about this? *mental health, poss trigger*

[QueenNefertitty]

This isn't something controversial I hope- I've just seen lots of posts on MN recently from parents who worry that they're "failing" as parents, or have what read to me as excessive fears and anxieties. And in some cases it feels horribly familiar.

Backstory- I had antenatal depression while I was pregnant, so counted myself hugely lucky to avoid postnatal depression (I was classed as high risk, and had lots of contact with the Midwife service). What I didn't know about was post-natal anxiety. It's a very different illness, and lots of health professionals misdiagnose it as PPD because SOME of the traits are the same. It isn't the same thing- and it's more likely to strike if (like me) you've suffered OCD or "pure O" OCD in the past.

It's not really talked about in the same way as PPD, but IMO it needs to be- because it nearly destroyed me. It came
on at around 4/5 months after my DS was. born, and manifested first as health anxiety about him, and then spiralled into intrusive thoughts. I've been working with a therapist for months, and finally coming out the other side. For me, the main symptom was those things I just mentioned called "intrusive thoughts". I won't list them here as possibly triggering, but if you google "postpartum anxiety intrusive thoughts" some good resources come up. I have to say- if you are suffering from these, please please do NOT be ashamed to share them with a trusted healthcare worker. You're not mad, and you're not a bad person. Nobody will think you are.

Here's some info on the symptoms but please please, if you think you might have Postnatal anxiety, try and speak to someone- it gets better, honestly, but only once you've told someone what's going on.

Here are the symptoms

feelings of fear and worry which begin to ‘take over’ your thinking

feeling irritable, restless, tense or constantly ‘on edge’

racing heart/strong palpitations - sometimes panic attacks

reoccurring worrying thoughts such as that you are not doing things right and/or that something terrible will happen

unable to sleep – even when you have the opportunity

avoiding situations for fear something bad will happen.

Hopefully this will help some of you- I wish I'd known about PPA before I got to the low point I did- it might have saved me months of pain and fear.

Bumping.

Thanks @ladyballs

oh come on, surely some of you can find SOMETHING to give me a flaming for in this, to push it up the boards?

My grammars terrible ... you could start there

Bumping I'm currently getting treatment for post natal anxiety it was awful I once spent 3 hours on Google thinking I'd bounced the baby too hard and given her shaken baby syndrome dh came home to find me in tears

@glitter

Unmumsnetty hugs for you.

Been there my love- it's hard. I realised the other day it had been a few weeks since I done what I call the "mad googling" - and as soon as I realised it... BAM- started the thought spirals again.

Only lasted a few hours but it reminded
me that it's a long slog, recovery. We'll get there though!

Thanks for this post OP. I'm pretty anxious in my pregnancy as I had a second trimester miscarriage last year and I'm finding it very difficult to relax this time. It does make me wonder whether this raises my risk of PND.

My intrusive thoughts are quite difficult to control some days, but I feel like they are based on my previous experience of losing our first DD.. once you've experienced a trauma like that you can't really "un-experience" it, and it makes it really difficult to close that new part of your brain off, if that makes sense. Sorry, rambling a bit now.

But thanks for this post, it's helpful to me. Do you mind sharing what type of therapy you found to work? I'm really pleased you feel you're coming out of the other side now.

@queennefertitty

An unmumsnetty hug back to you

Yes it's such a long slog but we will get there!

@fairy - what a lot you've been through. I'm so sorry for your loss but congratulations on this pregnancy. I hope you're finding moments of joy amongst the anxiety.

I tried self help CBT workbooks (there is one on Amazon just for new mums) but I was so caught up in my own head, I mistrusted myself (if you see what I mean) - even when what I read in the book made sense, I was so anxious, I even doubted my own sanity, so reading the books wasn't so helpful- I needed someone "outside" to tell me that the intrusive thoughts weren't real.

In the end i settled in psychotherapy. There's not much evidence that it works for PPA, but I've had CBT with a therapist before and felt like I needed something else- and for me, the psychotherapy has worked. My therapist is brilliant. I've struck lucky with her.

Have to say, I'm paying for it privately, as NHS mental health in such a mess, my GP said i could be waiting months for a referral- and I didn't want to "lose" any more time to this awful illness.

Please PM me if you'd like to chat to someone "in the process" (as my therapist calls our work on my recovery). I did genuinely find that sharing my thoughts with people I trusted, lessened the fear.

Did you ever feel anxious about going out with the baby?

@blueberry

Not personally- I actually liked being out because it meant I was distracted from my thought spirals. When I was very unwell I thought that being in public - especially a busy place - that meant that if something happened to the baby, there would be people there to help faster...

But everyone is different and the focus of the anxiety is different for everyone. One mum friend of mine was obsessed with the idea of a large seagull snatching her baby from the pram. She laughs about it now, but at the time she was genuinely very afraid.

if you're going through this. You're not alone.

Thanks for this. I've become a real worry wart since having children-this was never an issue before. I used to have mild intrusive thoughts but they're gone now. Unfortunately I have become extremely snarky though. I assumed that my past problems were purely a temporary thing resulting from hormonal changes and that the rest, trouble sleeping, constantly feeling stressed, feeling of heart discomfort etc were just a result of the typical anxiety one feels through life, particularly with young children. Now I am wondering whether they aren't? Like I said the intrusive thoughts went away fairly quickly but I am only getting more stressed-am I getting worse? Does anyone else havea similar experience?

I do get very worried about having a car accident. And the thought of getting the baby ready and out of the house can be too much to be worth it if you see what I mean? I didn't leave the house with him on my own until he was 3 or 4 months old because it seemed overwhelming. I've always suffered from intrusive thoughts/anxiety which has mostly been under control, but it's difficult to tell when it's past the 'easily managed' stage.

I had horribly intrusive thoughts when dd was a week or old. I was terribly sleep deprived and completely failing at breast feeding, not a true ppa. I never told anyone what they were. I was lucky it disappeared when I was rested again (started ff at week 5).

Thanks for this OP.
I have a DD1 (4yo) and DD2 (22months).
With DD1, I didn't leave house on my own with her till she was 17 weeks. I was so frightened. I was also scared to fall asleep in case I don't hear her crying, I was scared of leaving her napping on her own in case of cot death, I was scared she is hungry all the time as she was EBF. I was constantly on edge about something.
I tried talking to DH and my DM about my feelings but all was dismissed.
To this day, I am still on edge. Yesterday, I left DDs with my mum just for couple of hours as my DH and I had to drop something off 30 miles for us, and when I was kissing them goodbye, I just got this thought in my head that we will have a car crash, that I will never see them again.
I never got any help for which as I am too embarrassed to admit this to anyone IRL.

My DD had post-natal anxiety. I really felt for her, it took away a lot of the good things about having a baby. It lasted until around 18 months.

She hasn't had it this time round and can't believe the difference in how she feels/is handling everything. Like a lot of MH conditions, it is so cruel.

People I have talked to really don't understand either. My MIL in particular has been a really cow recently and has just exacerbated it by constantly accusing me or behaving badly. Do you know anyone who has suffered from anxiety themselves? They may be better able to sympathise. To people who haven't experienced it it seems all quite irrational. My husband still doesn't understand why I can't just take a nap on the odd occasion that he offers to take care of (I.e. Neglect in my overtired, over anxious eyes) our children.

@blueberry

Do you feel like the intrusive thoughts are impacting on how you interact/live with your baby? If so, and i mean this nicely, it might be time to try and get some help IRL.

For me, the point at which I realised I needed some professional support was when I had intrusive thoughts which made me not want to be alone with my baby- hugely stressful given my exDP was back at work and we lived hundreds of miles from my family.

do you think that you could talk to someone you trust?

@Dina I hear you and understand. My exDP found my condition very very difficult to understand. I couldn't really talk to him about it, as it worried him so much, and he said (unwittingly) the very things that made me feel worse. I did contribute to our separation I feel

Luckily my mum- who sounds a lot like @birds - was very sympathetic and actually confessed to experiencing the same thing after she gave birth to my sister. It made me feel much less alone knowing that I could talk to someone who knew I wasn't "crazy" and how much I was suffering.

@Dina - I also struggle(d) to trust anyone but my DM to care for DS in my absence. But.... I'm actually starting him at nursery next week so I can go back to work!!! I wouldn't have been able to stand even the thought of that a few months back, so recovery is possible! Keep talking here- we hear you

I'm currently having a panic because we had a BBQ on our street and the smoke kept coming over me and my 12 mo old so I'm worried he's now going to die of SIDS tonight
.
I have several times worried I've bounced the babu too hard. Last month I worried I'd given my 3yo shaken baby syndrome or brain damage by pushing her in her tricycle over a bumpy path.
Thought I'd poisoned us all last week with contaminated sausages.
Scared to eatour home grown veg.

Ffs. I'm sick of hearing myself. It's shit.

@walking - I know it feels shameful, I felt that way too. But it really isn't, and it's so so so common. There's a book called Dropping the Baby and Other Scary Thoughts you can buy on Kindle. The statistics in there (percentage of mothers who experience this) are incredible- it's so common- just poorly understood in general.

Also- the car thing is a very very common anxiety I understand. I know a lady who runs antenatal classes who struggles with it massively, a year PP.

@bambury - you sound a lot like me!

As I understand it, the real trouble with the PPA is that it takes things that you're right to CONSIDER and magnifies them hugely until they become a massive inevitable danger. All your mum senses are in overdrive, and you anticipate a definite danger where in reality there is very little chance of the "bad thing" happening.

And it doesn't matter how many times "nothing bad happens" there's always "next time" or "the next thing"- am I right?

I know how you feel. Please please be assured lots of other parents experience this too- maybe you could consider talking to someone IRL if you feel like it's impacting your life and enjoyment of motherhood?

Great post.

I think I had this but was misdiagnosed with PND. It was years ago but god it was horrid.

So am I panicking over nothing about BBQ smoke right now - was sat about 2m from the BBQ and got the thick of it for about 1 minute until I moved...

@Banbury... I'm no doctor.. but DS is one year did live in a house with an open fire as the only heat source, for the first 6 months of his life. And I "smoked him" quite strongly this afternoon when he was sat in the kitchen and I burnt his lunch (he flapped his arms and gave me SUCH a scowl!)

I think the sids and smoke risk is about long term exposure, not a single minute by a BBQ... think of how many bbqs we all went to as babies, and we're here to tell the tale!

If your baby looks normal and is acting normal- then I think you can assume they are really really fine- that's always been what doctors etc have told me- for everything from viruses to nasty knocks on the head.

Please don't google too much! I imagine you are and it doesn't really help... I know this is all easy for me to say- but honestly, honestly, I'm a HUGE worrier (see above!!) and I wouldn't be worried about that if the baby was behaving normally.