to think that the concept of post natal depression is overused?

[moondog]

HOW COME WOMEN HAVE TO HAVE A LABEL (sorry) for so many things?

PMS
AND
PND
Menopausal
OCD
Passive/Aggressive

It seems that the concept of being low/cross/nasty/bitchy/tired/worn out is positively old fashined.

do you know what moondog, you sound like a very bitter person - when i first encountered you, you were very helpful to me with regards to my worries re DDs speech. So when you appeared on my threads when i was depressed, all you ever said to me was "have you got a job yet" and pretty much made me feel like shit - i thought it was me, but no it just seems that you have a problem with "weakness" and do seem very prejudiced about mental health issues. The days when women just had to suck it up and get over it are long gone, you need to get with the times and the issues of the society we live in.

I do remember my doctor saying to me that i shouldn't think of my problem as PND, i was recently bereaved had the weight of the world on my shoulders and i cracked up but i still believe that PND played a big part, i had dealt with bigger issues in the past and I am actually a very strong person. But throw in hormones to an already stressful life and i was laid open to it - i didn't just feel bad, i wasn't sad or angry - i was ILL - i was completely irrational in my though processes and things taht i did.

But you will be pleased to know that i have "pulled myself together now" and no, i dont have a job - because i finally realised that i dont have to cow tow to pressures making me do something i dont want to do - it was that realisation that i dont have to be fucking superwoman that helped me "get over myself" Now my DD is at school and yes, im looking for a job, i have interviews lined up, clever me - but it is at a time that is right for me, not everyone else!

LEM well dopne, sounds like you are doing well now.

I don't think work status matters; I do think doing something ordered and routine helps enormously. I know a job would help me but is another thing to beat myself up about so have put aside and focussing on what I can do. What's the point of staring at lists of things you'd like to do but can't? far better to find other things delivering the same properties- ATM it's a mix of study and helping at school, that may change over the years.

One size fits all doesn't work becuase people who advocate it often look at their interpretation of that only- routine doesn't have to be a schedule, or a job, it can be many things. Likewise social contact- which is where MN properly used is a good thing.

hey peachy, good to see you are still about - i think study is so empowering and helping at the school will be brilliant because of it - so well done straight back at ya!

Peachy..sorry I missed you, had to take a phone call. .(wanted to bore you about something political, so you've had a lucky escape)

I personally think that PND is an over-used term. Life with a baby is just horrific for the first year, and I think it should be seen to be normal to feel overwhelmed and exhausted.

I think it paints a rose-tinted picture of what people think life with a baby will be like and you feel a failure if you admit the reality.

When I had DS1 overseas, they refused to use the Edinburgh questionnaire as they maintained it confused the normal feelings of being overwhelmed with true PND.

DP I think you have my email don't you?

Highlander if you read the DSM criteria I pasted below it does try to define a difference between normal and not; however given that we have purperal psychosis as a very severe condition indeed it does seem realistic to assume that there is something between goodness this is shit and psychotic illness needing hospitalisationj (and being very rare).

I actually adored being with the babies, and now like having a toddler at home, I just never felt that feeling of overwhelming arrgghh. INdeed, becuase I was so well in hospital (why wouldn't I be happy? I'd been in and out for months, had fits, we'd both survived labour OK...) a MW told me it would get a lot worse. It never did. In fact I feel most depressive about my life not for now when I have ds4 as something concrete at home to focus on, but when he is at school but I am still battling SNU times and the knowledge that caring for a person with SN doesn't go at 12 or 18 or whenever, but when you die, and this Is It.

Highlander - with the greatest of respect but unless you have suffered PND then you simply don't understand. It goes beyond exhausted and overwhelmed - I had awful PND but i was the perfect mother, i relished every moment with my DD and it never felt like hard work - it was everything else, the thought that every day would be her last, that i would die and leave her and that she would never manage without me because no one could look after her as well as i did. Every time my DP went out the door i was convinced he was leaving me - i would follow him and spy on him at work FFS, one day i couldnt find my dogs lead and i threw everything, EVERYTHING onto the floor - the house look like it had been burgled. I tried to scald my DP in the shower, i threatened him with a knife and some of the texts i sent him send shivvers down my spine - but through all of this, i was pretty much the perfect mother. I was losing my mind, i wasn't tired!

Lucyellensmumma is right, Highlander - there is so much more to PND than you seem to think. I wasn't as bad as LEM, but PND made my life almost unliveable. I had suicidal thoughts, believed dh and the dc would be better off without me, couldn't cope with anything, became somewhat reclusive (still am) and could see nothing positive in anything.

Please have sufficient sensitivity for those who are suffering/have suffered this not to write off their very real condition as just being tired and overwhelmed.

Peachy...Just messaged you on a thread, should be in active-convos now...

It's the BNP one ...

My active convo's only shows SN, Camping and April 08 LOL- you'll have to let me know which toppic

Hope you ahven't used my name and BNP in the same sentence in a thread title?

I've got a label for the OP. Twatface

As in, you are a twatface. A misogynistic throwback twatface.

Own that label, OP.

tatty im so glad things were better for you the second time xxx