Fiancee with post natal depression

[dwaff]

Hi. I wrote about this in a different section but was directed here. I'm new to mumsnet but my fiancee has been coming here since our baby was born. I'm feeling like I don't know where to turn with this situation.

She has been up and down like a rollercoaster since our daughter was born (she's almost 6 months). The the first couple of months she was very ill, had a lot of pregnancy and childbirth complications which caused a lot of health problems, so she assured me she was fine and just struggling with her health. When she started recovering, she came back to life and for a while and she seemed to be going back to normal, but it very quickly started going back downhill again and for the past month or two she's become increasingly more depressed and it's really beginning to worry me.

When I come home from work, she's very quick to hand our baby over to me and sign off parenting duty for the rest of the night, she doesn't seem to be getting any pleasure from being a mum at all. At the weekend I feel like I'm doing all the parenting and she spends most of the weekend in bed. She isn't sleeping much and hasn't got any appetite, she's very quiet and she cries all the time. She can be really short-tempered with me and snaps a lot at tiny things and then either tries to argue with me all night or ignores me.

I told her I think she has post natal depression and she agreed she might have a problem but she's refusing to talk to me about it. The problem is she's very intelligent and this has made her stubborn - she thinks if she can't help herself, no one can - so she says things like "there's nothing you can say that I haven't thought about myself". She's refusing to go and see a doctor or call the health visitor.

It's just getting worse and worse and there's nothing I can do about it. I really want her to get help as I really miss her and want her to go back to her old self. What can I do to encourage her to speak to someone?

Poor you, that is so hard for everyone. You sound really great, supportive and understanding. The only way is really for her to see her GP or talk to health visitor as she needs proper help - it is curable but she won't be able to do it alone. There are probabaly so many threads on here about PND, do a search and maybe see if she will read some as you can't all go on like this. Good luck

Wow what a lovely partner you are - and all that while you are adjusting to being a dad too - she's lucky to have you!!

First of all you are helping her by taking pressure of her when you can and not taking her anger too personally, that is a lot and maybe more than you realise.

I would advise you as someone who's been in a bad place myself (in a different way) to put your foot down, make an appointment with either gp or health visitor and go with her. Do the talking if necessary.

She needs help and not just for her, but for your little one too.

And please try to get some rest and relaxation for you too, you need it to keep going. You may just have to go out an evening a week (or a weekend afternoon), meet a friend, have a drink, go to the gym. She will cope, like she does when you are at work. It honestly is not optional.

i would also like to add would she write down her feelings, that may help her to see them in black and white, i know its helped me (not pnd though) and then with the list gp or health visitor would be easier??

would you be able to contact health visitor and raise your concerns and ask if she might visit "as shes just passing" and see how things are and if she can talk to her? also what about homestart for support to help her get the everyday things done and a bit of support to go to a baby group or something?! homestart helped me immensely

you sound like a great partner and dad, yure doing a great job

Thank you for the replies, and the compliments! I'm trying as best I can to hold it all together, which has been difficult. I have hated watching her change right in front of my eyes. Unfortunately its hard to get her to do anything right now, let alone go to a doctor. She's convinced she can handle this on her own. She seems to think it will just get better as time passes... Is that ever the case?

She's really against anti-depressants and counselling, which is the reason she won't see the doctor or a health visitor. She's convinced the only thing that would come from admitting her problem would be "having her name put on a list" and "being harrassed by the health visitor all the time".

It doesn't help she had a long hospital stay after the birth, and so is sick to the back teeth of medical professionals.

West Midlands. I think you're right, it does sound like she's going through the same you did. It makes me so sad because all she has ever wanted is to be a mum, but the pregnancy was unplanned and she had to put a lot of her plans to one side to focus on having the baby. Maybe she's resentful that some things she wanted for her future have been taken away from her? I keep trying to tell her she can do all those things as soon as she's ready, she doesn't need to feel like her life has been stolen from her, but I can't promise certain things will happen for her - she had to turn down an offer from a top university, for example. Who knows if the place will be there for her again?

I would feel very bad going behind her back to make an arrangement for her to see the health visitor so I think I'll have one last shot tonight at convincing her to let me call. If that doesn't work, I guess I'll have no choice.

She said she needs a holiday, so I said she could go to a spa for a couple of days while I stay home with the baby as a Christmas present. But I'm scared when she goes she won't come back!

If you are anywhere near Birmingham try Acacia - I have a friend who works there. It is a really good place and they do telephone support.

I've had a look at Acacia, that looks really good. I think she'd probably prefer to talk to someone on the phone than in person, hopefully they won't ask too many personal details though as her biggest fear seems to be having her name put on a list mums who may pose some sort of danger towards their babies. Someone in her family was put on a register for having post natal depression about twenty years ago, and I don't know if it's changed since but that seems to scare her a lot.

Thank you for offering some links. I got a text from her about an hour ago saying she's having a rough day with the baby and "can't handle it anymore". This happens at least once a week. So it is becoming quite desperate. I can't stand the thought of coming home to find her saying she's going to leave.

dwaff you can ring Acacia too - you need support for yourself too. You can ring them for yourself.

Acacia Dads is a free support service for dads and other family members who feel they may need some extra help and support after the birth of a child or help in finding ways to support their partner who may be experiencing Postnatal depression.

You can call our Acacia Dad's Project Coordinator on 07928 486144 or email [email protected]. Our team of befrienders offer a flexible support service that aims to fit in with family life. Meetings can be arranged during evenings and/or weekends.

I have a few days off work so I'm hoping my being here gives us a proper chance to talk. I tried approaching the subject last night but she wasn't interested. She said she thinks it is anxiety related (she's suffered horrible anxiety on-off since she was a young teen) and says on Monday she is going for the results of a scan she went for, and if the results are good she'll feel a lot better in herself and will stop worrying. I would believe her, but she forgets there will always be something else. She worried about a lump and when it started to go away, she noticed an unusual pain in her chest and etc etc.

The problem is her anxiety is getting in the way of her life now, she's not communicating with others, she doesn't even get dressed in the morning and she's not bonding with her baby, or enjoying being a mum. I've known her for a long time and have never seen her anxiety be this bad. She would have a very occasional panic attack or get nervous before certain things but she's always been a strong person and I'd say she was the one who nurtured me when we got together, not the other way around. This is on a whole new level which is why I think it's post-natal depression and not just the anxiety she suffers.

My concern is they will try and put her on anti-depressants. She will refuse them because she's scared of them. She won't put anything into her body unless she's 100% sure about it, and she's heard a lot of bad about them (I admit when we first got together, I told her I'd previously taken anti-depressants and had found the experience unbarable). But from what I've been reading, counselling and anti-depressants are the only thing a doctor can offer?

So what is the problem with counselling? I'm on my way out of complex post traumatic stress without anti-depressants but with good counselling. It can really help.

As can anti=depressants. My dh is on a very low dose (10mg of citalopram) and it has just been enough for him.

I think you are right in your assessment of the situation, if something is amiss sometimes the brain will just latch on to one specific worry and then on to the next to stop you focusing on what is really going on.

But if she really doesn't want to see doc, see if she will engage with Acacia - certainly on the telephone she should not have to give many details.

I shouldn't go into too many details, but something happened to her when she was younger and she's had a few failed attempts at counselling since. I obviously met her a long time after all this happened, but it has been a part of our relationship of course, a few times she has had a trigger and slumped into a bad way for a couple of weeks. Before our baby was born, I mentioned counselling and she was very against the idea. When the baby was born, it was definitely a trigger for her too. She never had a good experience of counselling. She always felt like the counsellors were patronising and not very smart.

I know I probably don't paint her in a very good light but she is an amazing partner and was always the one who kept morale going when we went through hard times because of redundancy, almost losing our home, and my own depression. She's just over intelligent, which makes her stubborn, but can also make her a bit arrogant - if she can't fix it, no one can - So she just won't accept help at all, even when she knows she has a problem. I also think the fact she recovered from the trauma she experienced when she was younger on her own has given her the idea shes better off dealing with things alone. Which perhaps was fine when it was just her going through it, she could take the risk of going alone and letting time fix it. But now shes part of a family, and me and our daughter really need her.

I want her to write down her feelings, either in an email to someone who can help, or on a forum like this, to hear people tell her she needs to get help, to accept that even clever people have to lean on others sometimes.

I'm taking her out tonight, hopefully it might cheer her up a bit.

your wife is lucky to have such a supportive and caring partner

I just wanted to reply and say that your description of your wife's current situation is identical to my situation 3 years ago. I had PND after the birth of DD1 and had exactly the same symptoms.

Can you contact her health visitor and ask her to visit? My DH did this and it was what made me accept what was happening and get myself to my GP.

As for anti-depressants, prozac saved my life. Literally. I also had counselling. A lot of people don't like the idea of anti-depressants, but for the majority they do work.

I'm also in the midlands (birmingham), so if there's anything I can do please send me a message. Maybe it would help your wife to speak to someone who has been there etc etc.

I honestly believe that the best thing you could do would be to force her hand when it comes to getting help. Call her health visitor, or make her a doctor's appointment and go with her. I was suicidally depressed and I hate to think of anyone else going through that.......just tell her that you accept that she doesn't want help , but to please just talk to the doctor and see what they have to say.......she doesn't need to committ to anything.

Thanks bonfireblue. :) I'm beginning to think it might be best to force her hand, but I just have this instinctive feeling that she would never, ever forgive me. I know lots of people say their husbands forced them into getting help and that in the long run they realised it was the right thing, but she is so stubborn I really don't know if she would ever realise it was the right thing. But I'm starting to think it may be for the best, even if I risk losing her trust it might be better than losing her sanity, or even her life. Earlier I told her I'd spoken to people and they suggested I should force her to speak to a health visitor or doctor and she just laughed slightly and said it would be the worst thing I could possibly do.

We had such a good night last night and such a nice day today, went away and stayed in a hotel and she seemed almost like her old self, she even said it was good to feel human again and not like a parent... but the second we got home, I saw her disappear right before my eyes, she has refused to talk to me all night, got out of bed and has just sat in the garden smoking and (I assume) texting or using facebook on her phone for the last half an hour. I keep asking her to tell me what's wrong but she just shakes her head and I'm just wondering how much more either of us can take before our relationship explodes into a ball of flames.

I miss her so much :(