Morning,
I really just want to vent here - I don't really feel like I can talk to anyone who knows us and can't call the doctor or health visitor on a Sunday.
I think - and actually kind of hope - my wife has PND. We had our DD nine months ago and everything was great until about July when my wife started having, what I thought were, extreme mood swings. I originally thought this was PMDD, but after keeping a diary they don't line up with her cycle. I'd been suspecting for a few weeks that it's PND but she said things last night that made me think "f* I really need help here".
Since July things have been getting gradually worse (albeit with a few good weeks). She used to go out to all sorts of mother and baby groups, but has stopped all those; she's not been sleeping well (despite DD regularly sleeping through and me getting up when she doesn't); she's told me she ends up crying to herself a few times a week; thinking she's a bad mum (she's not, she's amazing) and getting very, very anxious about DD.
And such a short fuse!
She does at least still have a great bond with DD, though often says she needs a break - which I do my best to give her, but on her bad days she doesn't want to go out and will keep taking DD back off me.
I'm doing everything I can to help, but it's never enough. I work from home most of the time and spend a lot of my day on housework and preparing things so her life is as easy as possible.
I ask her what would make her life easier - she usually comes up with a couple of things and I make it my mission to make sure they're always done. Then a couple of weeks later she says I'm not being helpful again (usually during an argument about something really silly) and we go through the same cycle.
But last night it took a new turn. A really stupid argument about me taking too long to do one of these things "probably because I was playing on my phone instead of actually doing it" (we were in different rooms, so this was purely an assumption. And if I took longer than usual it was 6 minutes instead of 5).
That really got me because it was assuming the worst of me and that's a common theme on her bad days. Whatever I do - suggesting doing something we used to enjoy together, or doing something I think will make her life easier - I must have the worst possible motivation.
This leaves me basically waiting for her next outburst with no idea what will cause it, and feeling helpless and like I'm walking on eggshells.
And this spoils her good days - particularly just after a bad day - as I'm on edge and expecting something bad to happen. It's shit.
I said at the top that I hope it's PND because it feels like she's not the person I married and am looking for a (curable) reason.
I'm really hoping that, whatever it is, we can get a diagnosis and course of treatment. She deserves to be the happy, outgoing person she was a year ago!
Vent over.