PND, is this it?

[adrift]

My 2nd child is a month old. Looking back, I fell apart after the birth of my 1st child but struggled on, thinking everyone felt this low, until we got to a year at which time things seemed to ease. Talking to friends, it became clear that some people actually find the first few months immensely enjoyable, a really happy time. This seemed seems -- unbelievable to me.
This time around, we're all coping pretty well and I have got a great support network. However for the last 10 days or so, I have started to feel that familiar feeling of awful bleakness, as if a dark cloud is weighing me down, and most of the time I have no enthusiasm or energy. I did the Edinburgh test on the internet and scored pretty high (though i have no violent impulses) which spurred me on to ring my Health Visitor. She wants me to go and see a GP and has booked me in to see a counsellor next week.
It's going to be so embarrassing. I feel like a fraud. I have so much, this great supportive family around me, and yet I still can't cope or find a way to be happy at this time.What is wrong with me?
From your experience, is there a way out of this bleakness? Or is what i am feeling quite normal in the first few months of a baby's life? What can a counsellor do for me (i have told my family how i feel and they're good listeners, very concerned and helpful, I can't imagine why talking to a stranger will help, especially since I'm so sure it's my body chemistry which is causing all the upset, rather than Issues that Need to be Addressed)?

adrift, haven't really anything to add but to say as someone who has suffered PND I have noticed that it is only when I broach the subject and admit to having suffered it that other mothers (in "real" life) admit to having suffered it. There is a terrible taboo about PND but there shouldn't be. Please don't be too hard on yourself. I hope you get the help you need Winnie xx

After that terribly bleak Friday afternoon, I've just had a fairly OK weekend. Haven't cried that much, and I seem to be able to think my way around problems again, rather than just being crushed and panicked by them. I feel more like me again. It's partly because DH has made me be braver, he has got me out of the house a bit, and has also has been very hands-on with the baby which has given me some space, and some proper time with my first child.

So this black cloud can shift, and has moved away a little for now. Assuming I'm better for the next few days too (fingers crossed, it's a big thing to assume) should I stick to the appts with the GP/counsellor? I am full of hope that the ten days of misery might have been a blip. Or is it common to have good and bad patches with PND?

I had good and bad patches - from a few days to a few moments of bliss. I'd keep the appointments. Sorry, but I feel like PND really robs mums of some of the best moments of theirs and their childs lives if it's left untreated. That's so unfair, b/c you and your family deserve better.

Have felt fine since Fri afternoon, but just crashed into that awful bleakness again at lunchtime, triggered (i guess) by a poorish night and baby crying and not settling. I just fell apart. Rang HV in a panic, she has got me an appt to see the nice GP I saw last night when I was feeling fine and rational. HV says she thinks, in light of my history, that medication could really help. GP mentioned prozac yesterday: a 6 month course, which sounds awful.
My sister has just come round and suggested that perhaps it's not PND, just the usual. (She doesn't have children by the way.) Perhaps she's right. I don't know what IS normal in the first few months of a new baby's life. Perhaps I'm just failing to cope and trying to blame it on sometihng other than my own inadequacies as a mother. How do I/we know it's PND, rather than something else less serious that might just blow over in a little while?
Also, any Prozac experiences would be useful.

adrift, I think it's hard for people without children to imagine how it feels, or for anyone for that matter, as I haven't experienced what you describe which does sound scary. i'm not sure how you could exclude "normal" things other than PND, but you're certainly going the right way about finding out, x

Adrift, you are coping. You are not inadequate. I honestly don't know at what point the awfulness of a new baby becomes PND - because, like you, I can't imagine it being blissful - but as Bundle says, you're doing the right things. Depression is horrible. Thinking of you. xxxx

Sorry, that came out wrong and sounded bracing, it wasn't meant to - I meant that no you're not inadequate, yes this bit is hell, but also that once it's as hellish as you're finding it you are doing the right thing in winching in extra help.

adrift, your sister can't possibly get it (unless she's been tortured via sleep deprivation, has she?!), do see the nice GP and see what he/she says. If they think Prozac might help, try it.

I took Prozac for PND, adrift. I was on a six-month course (although I wound up on ad's for a year). It changed my life! I'm so glad I had help. I had no side effects. I know some do, but for me, being suicidal was a far more serious side effect of PND.

I think it's worth a try. What you are feeling sounds like classic, textbook PND. It's not normal. I know that now. And it doesn't have to be like that! I've been there, adrift, I know that darkness and bleakness. Believe me, once you get out of that hole, you won't want to go back there again.

You can always try the Prozac and if it doesn't work, as for more help.

Wishing you well. You're not alone.

I had PND after the birth of ds2, but was very wary of taking AD's at first.
I eventually realised that I could not go on the way I was any longer & took them.
I did not get any side effects at all & the tablets, along with some counselling helped me through the worst of it.
Speak to your HV or GP about how you have been feeling & hopefully they will be able to give you the help you need.

Hi Adrift, sorry to hear that you are feeling low at the moment. Although a lack of money/support/a traumatic birth experience can make PND more likely, the demons of depression can affect anyone, anytime, no matter how "perfect" their life might be on the outside. I think you realise yourself that difficult as life with a new baby can be, a constant feeling of bleakness is very different. The phrase you used in a recent post about "inadequacies as a mother" screams the sort of feelings of valuelenss common to depression very loudly to me.

glad to hear that your GP has been a bit more useful. the reason that your GP was a bit reticent about prescribing ADs may have been that a few months ago the Dept of Health changed the guidance for dealing with depression/anxiety disorders as they felt that ADs were being overprescribed, and that more people should have counselling. You have probably been told that you would be taking Prozac for six months, as if you take the Prozac for a short time, even if you felt fine after a few months, you would be more at risk of a relapse if you stopped the Prozac there and then, rather than carrying it on - I was told that I should take ADs for 18-24 months after I felt fine(!).

I was prescribed Prozac during PG (had to see a psych for that) for OCD/Depression, and am still on it atm (tho tough wood 95% better than I was at my worst). I haven't had much problems with side effects - a slightly runny tummy the first couple of weeks, but nothing incapacitating, and that was about it. I was actually encouraged to BF by the psychiatrist - as I was taking it during PG, he felt that there would be less risk of the baby having withdrawal effects after the birth if I BFed him. I was also told that there has been research done on BFing and Prozac that showed that a tiny amount of Prozac went thru into the breast milk, but that it had no effect on the baby.

agree completely that your sis will have no idea whatsoever as to what having a baby is like.

expat, blueteddy, www, bundle, thankyou for your experiences/support.
The thing is, motherinferoir, that actually that this bit is in real terms not too hellish. I have loads of support, more confidence with the baby, and I'm somehow scaping together much more sleep than i did with my first child. Yes there are awful patches when the baby cries, but I know (in my sane moments) that's fine, to be expected. What is hellish is just the sudden setting in of this blackness. When that happens, I cannot cope with anything.
I went in a state to see the GP (not the awful one on the phone) and she told me it's definitely PND and that I need to give my family a pep talk, and tell them that I need them to back me up when it comes to the medication (which I've done, and they're behind me at last). She put me on Lustral, which is related to/derived from Prozac, and OK for breastfeeding. I took the first one last night and haven't felt sick or weird so far, maybe a bit foggy. Today was OK though. It would have been, after that blowup yesterday. I feel as if I go through stages when something (chemical, hormonal) builds up and up, and I feel worse and worse, and then there's meltdown, and after that it's as if I change gear for a bit, and it's all fine in the aftermath. Then the cycle starts again.
I can't believe this has happened to me, really.

MummytoSteven, posts crossed. Yes, I did see a counsellor today but felt it really wasn't covering any new ground, she didn't point out any coping mechanisms I (and my parents, bless them) hadn't already worked out. I've felt quite strongly all along that this is purely a chemical/hormonal thing and the GP agreed. So I won't be going back to see the counsellor unless I have a change of heart.
My mum thinks that, putting various bits of the jigsaw together, her mother probably had PND when she was born. A cousin from the maternal side of the family had it too, recently.

It can happen to anyone adrift, honestly. I'm glad your gp is being supportive.

help, anyone. I've been taking lustral since wednesday and i'm feeling worse. now i'm having difficulty sleeping whichis making the depression in the days much worse. plus my appetite has shrunk so i'm weak, and i'mhaving awful panicky moments which i think are anxiety attacks. all these things are mentioned as side effects of the drug, and the leaflet says they will wear off soon, but how long is soon? will it pass? it's unbearable.

side effects can last up to two weeks, I am afraid, and should hopefully go away after two weeks. As you do seem to be finding the side-effects unbearable, I think it would be a good idea to go to the GPs to talk about it anyway. When my appetite was zilch I found the best thing to eat to keep my energy up was very simple stuff like bread and cheese.

adrift, no experience but you could start a thread asking about Lustral, you might get a better response. It may be that you need a different AD and that this one doesn't agree with you. I had a friend who didn't get on with Seroxat at all but was much better on Prozac so I think it can take time to find the right one for you. Hope someone else sees this.

Just wanted to update this, and the Lustral thread, for everyone who offered kindly words and support. After having a terrible reaction to the Lustral, which made everything even worse and more frightening for four days, I very VERY hesitantly started a course of a tricyclic, dosulepin. Since then, things have been slowly and steadily improving, less due to the drug than to talking about how I was feeling to my mum, to my GP and HV and also working out ways of taking the pressure off a little (so I'm mixed-feeding which allows me to spend more time with my older child, which makes us both ; and also gives me more chance to rest/delegate to DH/my mum). I no longer wake up thinking: oh god, not another day of this.
And yes, of course I feel sad about packing in the exclusive BFing, but far less sad than I was.
I'm on my seventh consecutive OK day now. Here's hoping.