Hi Martha
Remember some of the shame is the illness, too. Probably most of it. I told myself all those same stories, particularly about my parents. A lot of it caused me to isolate myself even further from sources of support... but I think the thing to remember here is that YOU are not isolating yourself as Snapcracklepop has said, it is the illness trying to isolate you... the illness sees fault in everything, fear in everything, hopelessness in everything. Those thoughts telling you again and again that this is you, when it's not.
I am a year down the line now and I have just started an NSPCC PND group for women who have had severe depression postnatally. As someone said at a session, very few people talk about things really feel when you are in the depths of despair. If people do talk about this postnatal mental illness, it's often in a cursory "I felt awful, I couldn't get out of bed, then I took the drugs and had some counselling and now I am all better!!!" sort of way.
It's difficult because there is no common currency of how to discuss these things. Right now, the current trend is to talk about the symptoms of the illness... oh I am so ill... my thinking is irrational... disordered.. etc... and in my service, there was a lot of labelling e.g. "intrusive thoughts", "catastrophising" etc... but actually there aren't words that adequately describe what it is really like and all of these are inadequate for the task. This makes for a lot of miscommunication between women and professionals I think and it sounds like you have had some horrendous experiences to boot which will compound these feelings of not being able to trust the professionals. Bottom line is, when you are dealing with something so intimate and basically being asked to plumb the depths of your soul, it isn't pleasant to share these thoughts or feelings with people who get paid to do it and can walk away at the end of the day when you can't. That's a reality. These are the times we live in... and though it might be better than when women were locked up with milk fever, it's still not ideal. There's still limited true understanding of the pain involved and ideally we would all be loved and supported and able to share openly with people who truly love us in a way that would hold our pain... but this isn't the case for very many so the professionals are there to keep us safe and on that path to recovery even if we might resent having to have them in our lives.
The most important reality is that the most crucial thing is to get well. There is nothing more important. The illness shouts no no no no no no no don't listen to that... but sometimes the grace lies in letting go. It's shit you need to be involved with services, but you do. It's shit you are having such horrible thoughts and overwhelming feelings but you are and the best thing for your daughter is to find some stability as fast as possible and that will mean working with the meds so you can get to a place where you can handle the rest of it. Right now, you have to hold on and keep breathing, keep putting one foot in front of the other.
It is the most vital part of this, and you do it on your own in some deep sense. You could have support coming out of your eyeballs but you have to submit inwardly to letting go of the control and of the stories about who you are and who you need to be. You have to allow yourself to be supported when cruelly, this illness is screaming at you "NO!!! YOU AREN'T WORTH IT!!!"
This is where you are... in all its entirety. With a beautiful baby but also a horrendous illness and all the feelings that both experiences can bring about in you. I think every woman with severe depression at this point would do ANYTHING to make it stop. That is why we end up so vulnerable and at risk... because sometimes the illness seems stronger. Only it isn't. You may not feel it, but you have space inside you for all these feelings and thoughts. Breathe into them. Make space for them. They are here. But so are your feelings of love for your baby. Hold tight to that. It is easier to move towards what you value. Your mind will always tell you that the most important task is to move away from what hurts... again, the grace here is in letting go, not paddling upstream.
The work you are doing in each day is worth a million times anything any job could ever be. This is the work of a lifetime. My therapist used to say that in the end of the day, you are in the trenches. The bravery you need to summon up when you are truly at the depths is no more or no less than the bravery a soldier in the trenches of WW1 would have felt, rushing into the enemy firing line. It's pretty huge. You have nothing to feel shame for, though your illness will tell you that you do.
Just hold tight.
Thinking of you a lot x