How do you deal with the aftermath of PND?

[The3rdWatermelon]

My daughter is about to turn 2. After she was born, PND hit me like a train. I had a difficult birth, and when I was handed my baby I didn’t feel the “rush of love” or anything like it. I felt absolutely terrified and scared that I’d made a terrible mistake, and everyone seemed to want me to be happy so I felt like I couldn’t ask for help. I didn’t feel a bond with her, and I struggled with breastfeeding for four weeks before giving up. In that time I had mastitis that went septic twice. The lowest point was attempting to breastfeed for 13 hours without a break, with baby crying every time she came away from my breast, while I sat on my hospital bed trying to work out how I could get the window open enough to jump out. Whenever I asked for help (and I was back in hospital 5 times in the first 5 weeks, so I asked a lot) I was told her latch was great and everything was fine. I ended up being under perinatal mental health for 12 months. I’m still taking the antidepressants.

I’m absolutely in love with her now. Completely and utterly. But how do you deal with the guilt? I feel like I missed out on the first 6 months of her life, and all the joy of tiny babyhood, because it felt like I was trapped in a deep dark hole. I feel such regret and so so guilty that I didn’t love her when she was so tiny and she needed me.

And then there’s the anger at my body. I was 33 when I had my daughter. I thought I knew who I was. I had a sense of myself as a strong person, someone who didn’t make a fuss, someone who could do mind over matter when it came to physical pain and tiredness. I grew up on a farm, I thought I was realistic about the facts of life, and that somehow my experience with animal births and young stock would help me with birth and motherhood. After three days of stop start contractions, I stuck at 5cm dilated, had to have an induction drip, begged for an epidural, and gave birth on the operating table with forceps while being prepped for an emergency c section because she was stuck. Then I haemorrhaged just under 2litres of blood. I pushed so hard I damaged my ear drum. I felt like my eyeballs were going to burst. But I didn’t feel my baby be born. I feel like my failure to progress, failure to dilate, failure to push hard enough up until that point, failure to breastfeed, failure to love my new baby has all just dismantled who and what I thought I was. It turned out I was weak, my body didn’t know what to do, and I couldn’t deal with the pain and tiredness. And then I couldn’t even heal properly. I bled fresh red blood for a full 9 months after the birth, and was in pain every day (the hospital didn’t give a shit). So I didn’t get chance to get back into exercise and now I’m fat, unfit, and physically weak. I feel like I don’t know my body any more.

I can’t have any more children, I can’t have a do over or another chance to do it right. I wanted so badly to labour in a position where gravity would help me, but every time I got off my back I started throwing up.

I’ve posted about this all before. But it’s coming up to my daughter’s 2nd birthday and it’s weighing on me a lot. Will this guilt and regret ever go away?

It sounds like you're an amazing mum, who went through such a traumatic time.. none of which was your fault at all.
Have you had birth trauma counselling?
I completely get where you're coming from. I had horrific PND and didn't feel any sort of connection with my daughter until she was 3.
She's 7 now and is my absolute world, I love her more than I thought possible. But those 2st 3 years were just as you described. I often thought about ways to leave and how I'd made a huge mistake having her.
I still feel guilty sometimes and Im not sure if it sounds silly but I feel grief that I missed out on any enjoyment in those first years. Birth trauma counselling helped me (I had a c section and it was a horrible experience which I think contributed) I do also think it gets easier with time, as most things do.
I don't know if any of these links might help you xx

https://www.birthtraumaassociation.org

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/postnatal-depression-and-perinatal-mental-health/ptsd-and-birth-trauma/

https://pandasfoundation.org.uk/what-is-pnd/birth-trauma/

You did everything right, you did everything you could, because you gave birth to a healthy baby. There’s such pressure on women to have the ‘perfect’ birth, but there’s no such thing really. We all give birth differently. What matters is you gave life to your baby and you love her.

Don't look back. Live now and look forward. You love your daughter and she will feel it with all her being. She won’t remember anything else. I have 3 dcs, they’re 17, 15, 9. 3 bouts of PND. they don’t remember any of that at all. They have the odd early memory of soft play / trips away / birthday cakes / Christmas … their real memories start from when they were around 5 years old or so. Earlier memories tend to be things I’ve told them about a lot, and they’ve developed them into ‘ memories’

I had postpartum psychosis with my eldest.
You aren't alone. A lot of women experience pnd. I know exactly about the guilt and shame.
With my eldest I did things like screamed at him to 'fkn shut up' when he was a few days old. I carried him to the clifftops by the sea at 3am with the intention of jumping in with him. I put a pillow over his face.. not hard and just for a second, but I thought about that every time I looked at him for years. Sometimes I'd wake up in the night and cry remembering that.
It's horrific. The guilt is horrific.
I've since had two more children and not had pnd with either of them. Had the rush of love etc. I absolutely cannot fathom ever doing or thinking anything like that towards them and after the birth of my second I spent a couple of years really grieving the first year of my sons life and how ill I was. The guilt was overwhelming when I compared it to how I felt about my daughter the minute she was placed in my arms.
However my son is 9 now and he's the sweetest boy. I love him very very much and I feel we have a close bond.
I've had lots of counselling and with all subsequent pregnancies had mental health support even tho I was never effected by pnd again. Through that I have come to terms with how ill I was after my sons birth. The sympathy of the mental health professionals encouraged me to be sympathetic to myself. I was ill. That's all it is. I'm not evil. I love my son and I'm a good mother. Well I try my best and I think I do OK at it. I did those horrible things because I was ill at the time. But I got better.
You wouldn't feel guilty for having a broken leg.. I know its not quite the same.. but it's not you, it's an illness that temporarily affected your ability to parent. And you got through it. You engaged with the help, you did the work to get better.
It's not your fault..
Be kind to yourself. It won't make you a better parent to be eaten up by guilt for the rest of your life.

I had vig therapy when I had pnd which worked on my bond with my daughter. I had it from 7 -24 month with a 3 month gap whilst I was in a mother and baby unit. When my daughter was 3.5 I had a series of counselling sessions with her HV helping me process our first year as we both had health issues and that really helped, I had one session with MH partner there too and that helped us feel able to ttc number 2. I had treatment resistant pnd and psychosis.

Thank you so much for the kind replies. It’s good not to feel alone with this.

Like a PP, i also had postpartum psychosis with my eldest. She's 31 now and i totally missed the first 18 months really with her. I went on to have 4 more kids and never suffered any reoccurence. My relationship with her is different to the others, though i don't think she feels any less loved and she's certainly a very mentally stable and well-adjusted woman.

The difference with her was that, even when i was 'over' the PP, i wasn't parenting from the heart for a long time - i was able to enjoy her and enjoy doing lots with her but nothing came naturally - i was always reading books to see what i should be doing!

So she had an awful lot of educational type activities rather than cuddles and that warm melty heart kind of love. I loved her but it was maybe a bit conditional so she probably did turn out so well adjusted as my parenting was very consistant.

Whereas with my others, i felt a strong bond and, even when they were a bit cheeky, sometimes i was really trying hard not to laugh. I was kind of blinded by love for them.

Your guilt will most likely go away. Recovering from psychosis (i had to have ect and came home from hosp like a shell) was one of the hardest things i have ever done and i actually am in admiration of my own resilience!

And so should you be! You can't go back but your little one is so very young - you have literally years to do so much together!

And that's the key - even if you're not feeling it's coming naturally, be sure to DO things together - go out and kick leaves, jump in puddles, visit the petting zoo, bake, draw, sing songs. Honestly, she will feel properly loved.

My DD1 really does not notice any difference in how i think of her to her sibs. She never mentioned it, ever. And nothing in her behaviour ever indicated she felt less loved or left out. She was not less loved, just loved in a less heartfelt way maybe - but i really don't think she felt that at all.

It does sound like you need to chat this over with a counceller - if you can afford a few private sessions, that could be well worth it.

I was very lucky in that my hv found 2 people for me that had also had psychosis - but we were all so chatty about our own experience, i don't think we really listened to each other much!! It helped me though and then i had councelling to prepare me for susequent pgs as psychosis carries a 50% recurrence rate. It helps, for sure.

Regarding the physical - i was horrified by the amount of blood pouring out of me when i stood up after having DD1 - it was quite traumatic. I think it is very normal to feel traumatised about how labour and all the changes after.

I really do think getting together with other mums who are going through similar in rl will help. Have you an HV who could put you in touch? You'll maybe make new friends for yourself and your DD as a bonus - give you confidence to get back in shape and out and about enjoying your community again.