So anxious - do I have PND?

[glittermama]

I have 17 week old DD who I love so much it is actually painful. We tried for a long time to conceive, then I had a MC, then DD - I spent the whole pregnancy terrified by every twinge.

This has carried on into her life, I feel like I just "know" something bad is going to happen to her. I find myself thinking thoughts like, I need to enjoy my time with her as she's not going to be here for long. I am utterly terrified and anxious.

At night I lie awake thinking of all the bad things that could happen to her.I think someone is going to steal her.

I hate other people holding her, pushing her pram etc. I hate seeing my in laws because once my husband's dad took her pram and went away with it and I was nearly sick and crying with fear that he would drop her, she would fall out, etc. When people ask to hold her I make excuses or am just so agitated looking for an excuse to take her back. I have a sling for her and I won't even let my husband wear her in it as I'm afraid he'll fall.

I am BFing and have not been out once since she was born, the thought is so horrendous to me.People offer to babysit but there is no way I would let them - I wouldn't enjoy myself if I went anywhere.

She's been putting on weight very slowly recently though HV is happy with her and has declared her thriving (she's gone from 91st to between 9th and 25th centile) and I convinced myself she had leukemeia or something. Now she has a little birthmark on her face that has got swollen over the last couple of days. My sister's husband is a doctor and said it is nothing serious but to see my GP and ask for a referral to a paeditrician, I feel he secretly knows she has something seriously wrong and already am visualising us in a dr's office being told she has cancer.

I have two other children and though I don't love them any less I didn't feel this way with them when they were babies.

I am not depressed, I feel happy most of the time and look forward to things, I just exist in a permanent state of anxiety about her.

I am going back to work in October and leaving her in a nursery, already I am plagued by visions of her lying in a cot crying or being taken to the park and stolen. I have to go back to work, we can't afford for me to stay at home unfortunately.

It might be worth heading to the GP or speaking to your HV, you are obviously very anxious and it's affecting everything in your life.

I've suffered from the hell that is PND and it is a long road that you can't get down alone, if that is actually the cause of your anxieties then you really should get some help.
If it turns out not to be PND it would still be worth getting a referral for some sort of counselling to deal with those anxieties and give you some support.

Please keep posting, remember you're amongst friends and so definitely not alone in feeling like that. Hang in there.

Don't know if it is PND but you are clearly v anxious. It is awful to live in constant fear as you are doing, I really feel for you. It is completely treatable though so please do seek help.

I have a very vivid imagination and was plagued by awful thoughts when DS was little. I was terrified to look into his cot because I was convinced he was going to die in his sleep. I imagined tripping on the stairs and crushing him, the roof caving in on him, and various random, grisly things happening to him.

I was expecting to get PND because I'd previously been depressed but it was the anxiety that was the killer. I'd been anxious most of my life too but never on this gut-wrenching scale. I didn't feel like I had the energy for 'talking' therapies/ CBT- I wanted to be 'fixed' by someone IYSWIM- so I tried a hypnotherapist.

It's been like a miracle cure for me. I'm not anxious AT ALL any more. One technique in particular did it for me, where the therapist told me that every time an anxiety causing thought was starting, I would see a big, red stop sign, count to 3 and the thought would disappear. I found this so much more effective than trying to reason with myself etc.

It's not for everyone, and I'm not sure if you could get it on the NHS but it has done it for me so I would highly recommend it. Talking therapies and CBT are excellent too BTW, just not what I wanted to do this time. Anit-depressants can also be a wonderful thing, I took them for 5 years whilst I needed to and wouldn't change that for a minute.

Sorry to blah on,just want you to know that you have lots of options. Speak to your GP, there is help available for you.

I also used to use Bach's Rescue Remedy and Aconite when feeling anxious. Not everyone's cup of tea but I did find they helped.

Best of luck to you.

hairy, you put it all so much better than me that's a lovely post.
WRT the Bach rescue remedy, I have a tin of the pastilles in my handbag permanently, just because I don't carry the bottle thing out of the house. And when I'm out is when it's much more likely to be needed!

I think that having a mc after you have had other children is so much worse, because you know what you've lost iyswim, that little person that might have been - don't underestimate the effect that it's had on you. Having 'lost' one child, there is the completely understandable fear that you will lose this little one too. (also had mcs, which I do honestly think is a massive contributor to PND- all my friends and I who have suffered from pnd have also had a mc or stillborn child)

Please do get some help, don't panic that AD's will make you addicted/feel out of control/whatever, they just straighten out an imbalance if that is what the doctors think you need. Be kind to yourself too. Not easy with three dc, but have a go. take care!

PND is a label that covers lots of things, symptoms, reactions etc following birth and since I've been diagnosed with 'mild' PND I've learnt a lot about it from meeting other people with PND, mumsnet, etc.

Like you I have three children and I had an MC 18 months before my lovely DS3 arrived. I wasn't anxious about him in the same way you describe with your DD, I was just generally anxious all the time and couldn't relax at night and had insomnia which was just awful.

I have found personally the best things have been:
Talking, more talking, and more talking (to family, DH, and a group I went to run by health visitors called Transition into Motherhood - this was fantastic)
Rescue Remedy is brilliant stuff
Some basic CBT techniques I've picked up infromally for anxiety
Hypnotherapy to help me sleep at night (just on my ipod)
Hypnotherapy sessions from my mum (I'm lucky as she is a hypnotherapist). This was for the anxiety and it worked absolute wonders for me. Like HM it was great for me. When I feel anxious I visualise my anxieties floating into a rowing boat on the sea and the boat then floats slowly away over the horizon. It works.

I didn't take ADs beacuse I was prescribed them and the ones I took didn't agree with me at all and at the time I thought that was the only option. This was months ago, if I'd have more knowledge about ADs I might have gone back to GP and asked for something different but now I am much better so fingers crossed I'm on the way up now. I feel more educated about ADs now and know the benefit of them.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do, I think just sharing your feelings helps hugely.

I've felt similar levels of anxiety in the past and like other posters have suggested, hypnotherapy helped a huge amount.

Also, I think you'd feel better if you could gradually find ways of getting out. Do you have a supportive friend who could take you and DD (in the sling, if it helps you feel safe) to a cafe or the park, even if only for a half hour?

Go to your GP.

It does sound as though you have PND. It sounds absolutely miserable for you and it really does not need to be.

Anti-depressants and CBT are both proven to work, better in combination than individually. Nothing else has been shown to work.

Depression is a treatable illness. It will get better. Get help.