Could you talk to me about PND? might I have it?

[Pavlov]

I have never been one to admit I struggle with anything. certainly not my emotions. I am in charge. End of. I was when I dealt with my mum' diagnosis of cancer. I dealt with my emotions when she died, when DD was 6 months. I dealt with the death of my dad 4 months later. And my wedding. Dr said at that point perhaps I had some elements of PTSD as I had insomnia. But I was like 'nooo, I am fine' and i really was. So i thought.

So, second baby. pregnancy a fucking hard slog. I had hyperemisis. I had a cock of a pretend builder ruin my house while I was pg. Dh lost his job.

And my newborn was the best, the most handsome, happy little boy in the whole entire world. And he did not sleep. Fed hourly. DD plays up a bit, but nothing major. Not really, nothing I would not expect from her age, with a new brother. She loves him. She loves me. She loves daddy but argues a lot with him (or him her?).

I have started to acknowledge that perhaps my behaviour/my coping is not so great.

DH and I argue. Normal for lots. Normal for us. But we argue about everything. He says I am quick to temper. I am. He says I am up and down. I am. I am bloody knackered, what does he expect?!! But, he says I am oversensitive, where i used to not be. I get shouty a lot. I took that for granted with two kids!

But. what I am feeling. I flit from very happy to very tearful. I flit from the world being wonderful and my family being wonderful to it all being so fucking hard and it seems to be all falling apart. I flit from seeing my DH as a man who loves me and is trying his hardest and who is a great dad to a man who won't help me fix the mess i feel i am in. I sometimes want to laugh so loudly I burst, and that makes me feel tearful. I then feel so bloody down i want to cry. And I do. I feel like I bitch and nag and moan. I hate the way I look. I am short tempered with DD, and even when I am doing it, I am saying to myself 'stop that, she is just a little girl, she is not doing it on purpose, but I want to blame her almost, for that little thing she is doing, that is making me feel like punching a wall, buts its not her. It is something, and then I hug her and I say sorry and I feel terrible.

DD asks me sometimes 'what is the matter mama? why is your face like that? do you have a happy face to show me? Show me the face I like (i say that to her when she is upset)

I have insomnia. I blame DS bad sleep pattern, but even when he sleeps now, i don't. I don't like seeing people. I hate the phone ringing, it makes me want to hide. I force myself to leave the house.

Is this PND? Really? Or just normal overtired mummy. I can't tell any more. It is harder this time. Much much harder, Not the kids, not my cub, not my princess. but me. everything else feels harder.

No-one sees this though. On the outside all is fine and dandy, except I look like shit.

Sorry, i poured my soul out a bit there .

oh god i talk too much don't i? . I guess, in a nutshell. What i feel, the up and down of it all, seems a bit out of proportion with the reality of my life. They don't seem connected.

Anyone want a chat about it? I know fridays are not great for serious stuff, but they are good for me to talk as wine has helped me write stuff I would not write well normally.

Yes, you sound over tired. Insomnia is making your life impossible.

You've had a lot to contend with no wonder you feel like you do. You probably feel as though you want to up and go...but you'll never do it.

I wouldnt be too sure you have PND more general depression as all these things happened before the baby.

I would address the problems individually ie babys sleep patterns. I would assume you dont have a strict routine???? Believe me as a anxiety and past depression suffer it paid off (also not good at coping - shaking and flakey). So can you get a few books and follow some ideas with hubby backing you up 100%. Then address each problem - is it a problem or are you dramatising it?

What was your personality pre-children?

I'm not a fan of popping the pills if cognative therapy is more available. Pills mask the problem and I found that they made my anxiety worse.

Could you afford to pay for taking therapy??? or is it available through your GP - you'll be surprised if you ask. Cognative therapy helped me control my thoughts and write things down, go back to enjoying simple things in life.

Yes, I have to force myself to leave the house and socialise but once I'm out I actually injoy my inner-self x

in fact scrap that now, i just realised the time. I am going to go to bed. DS will be up some time between the next 5 mins and the next 2.5 hours for a feed.

bacon - thanks for responding. My life before babies? parties and late nights. Then, the last year, winding down into being a grown up and loving it. I never really was a wild child, just sort of got caught up in it. All the stuff before babies though, the traumatic stuff, i felt fine with it all. Now I don't.

Routine, well, have a reasonable routine. DH hates routine though. For example this evening, I said to him when DS woke up during our meal 'can you put it in the oven' and he was like 'let him cry' but I can't as I was trying to do the NCSS way of not letting him cry, but offer boob immediately as that is what he wants, then take it away as soon as he stops suckling, it has worked the last few nights, he has even put himself to sleep a few times, and he has done that at night time too, woken then gone back to sleep without too much fuss or intervention. DH said 'who gives a shit about the book, i dont i just want us to eat tea together!' so we are both wanting different approaches. And with him out of a job, he i guess has as much say on how it is all done as me, as we are both here together.

probably and it had a direct correlation with no sleep. i had counselling as didn't want to take meds. as for no sleep thing, i know how you feel, ds terrible sleeper and i just got out of habit of sleeping AT ALL.

tried everything but only thing that worked was no caffeine and also taking calcium and magnesium supplements.

oh and I get up and go a million times a day! In my head! I could never leave the children, and in reality, whereever i see myself headed on my own, the kids come with me anway . I have these wild notions of paradise, then a simple 'do they have travel cots' pop into my head too

kalo do not tell me no caffeine! I would not survive! I am a caffeine addict. Ah, i hear you cry that is why you cannot sleep. Except it has always been so! But less now than before as I am breastfeeding.

When Dr suggested I had PTSD, he prescribed me some drugs to help sleep (low dose amyltriptiline sp) but I could not take them for more than a few days as I was worried about taking something that might stop me waking up for the children, or affecting me in some way, or losing some kind of 'control'.

So, you reckon it is just tiredness?

oh you asked about personality pre-children - bit manic. always on the go. always starting things, dododododo type person. Not always successful, and I have always prefered my own company. It bothers DH as I always put myself out there, pushed my boundaries. Now, I am quite happy to be on my own when he is not here. For days. Just me and the kids, that is fine. And when he is here. us as a family. Go out and do family things. I hate people intruding nowadays.

anyway, i am wallowing now so best go to bed, thanks for replying ladies, have a good rest of your evening.

Pavlov it sounds like things have simply caught up with you.

Dealt with them? Maybe not? Maybe in the way i dealt with my list of things that should not have happened in my life (which is long too) - by carrying on. Until traumatic delivery, helpless labour, ds in NICU and special needs and crash!! PTSD, years of cr*p coming out.

Does that mean you are depressed? Can't rule it out from your post. Exhausted surely.

Counselling sounds good idea.

will how did you deal with it? did you have counselling?I don;t want counselling. I do cognitive skills as part of my job, i don't want someone pretending to give a shit because they had a crap meeting with their manager and they have too much paperwork to do sit and listen to me pour my heart out. And I don't want someone to sit there going 'mmmm really? oh thats not good, oh you poor thing, what do you think about it all?' at me, ala CRUSE.

I just want to feel ok again. I want to stop taking my shit out on those i love. It is crap, because we have such good times too, then I ruin it with something narky. Or take a comment the wrong way, then I fall into a pit of despair and hide under the duvet.

I have never been depressed before. When I spoke with Dr last (2 years ago) as I was not sure if i was depressed or something else. He said 'no, you are not depressed, you appear to cope pretty well with the shit you have been dealt with, you are suffering from stress' and then after i broke down when something went wrong with wedding plan after my dad died, he said 'ptsd'. I just sort of went 'PAH' and carried on.

ok definitely sleep. The cub is due to wake any time, lets hope I get 2 hours!

How do I deal with it. Yes counselling, and incredibly fantastic friends (and fab hubby but I have ptsd and he is depressed so we cannot always support each other).

I have a strong older brother-friend who is my safety valve. I bottle and bottle and bottle and he knows when to give a little push and be there to catch the mess. And a wonderful gf who does fab late night phone coversations when I can't see the way out.

Dealing with it is relative, as in I'm in the process of dealing with it.

DS's birth brought back memories of sexual abuse and working through that made me realise I'd coped with it by pushing all feelings and emotions down so I coped with the death of my best friend at 15, my mum's illness at 13 and death just before my wedding, all quite easily by not feeling it.

But the walls are gone now, the shutters no longer fit well and I'm having to learn to feel and deal with feelings.

Maybe have the counselling and say what you think, say what you really feel. You may be surprised at what happens. I could explain more about how counselling is changing things for me but that get long, boring and too private. Can cat if you want.

no i don't think its just tiredness, but that is a defo factor. ok how about no caffeine after 7pm. and defo get calcium magnesium supplements they are proven to help sleep. also i had acupuncture which helped too.

also eat rice , and also lettuce it makes you calm

Pav big, big, big hug. I'm still here trying to cope and like you I have days when I think I am fine and great and coping and running around like a mad thing. And at the moment I'm in the well of insomnia, anxiety, down moods, catastrophising and it's just yuck.

The calcium magnesium are great. I do find they help me sleep most of the time. Definitely worth a try. I've been dithering about asking for anti-depressants that don't have insomnia as a side effect, trying St Johns Wort, other herbal stuff, for months now. I'm even nervous about taking kalms!

Hey bbl i did not want to post on the postnatal thread, bring everyone down as I moan all the time there.

willsurvivethis i am so sorry you have gone through such trauma in your life. Some of what you talk about, about coping through not feeling, that rings true for the death of my parents. I have told myself my fathers death does not matter to me as I did not really know him/his own fault etc and that is that. Seems very callous to me but its just how I feel. My mum's death on the other hand mattered very very much, and like you she died before my wedding. She died 2 weeks before my brothers wedding and 8 months before mine, and 6 months after the birth of my first baby. In the process I also lost my sister, in that we fell out and i no longer speak to her. I consider it a significant but unavoidable loss. The 'not feeling' as a coping mechanism is such a good way of explaining it. Mainly, i have only recently started crying about stuff mum related and usually music. I do not like to think of my loss at all and when I do its like a barrier is there. So i feel. But she is in my thoughts all the time now, there, i push her away.

Perhaps that is coming out now. I don't now. I just feel so un-me-like. And I can't see how that would be mum related if not before. But maybe it is. She is Not sure if it sounds silly, but i don't want to unleash my feelings. I don't want to feel them. Those bad things. I do have several very very wonderful friends who I can talk to. One them too is male, who lost his mother to cancer a couple of years before me, the only one who has any clue really other than DH. But I can't talk to them. i can't.

I actually slept much better last night. So did the bear cup. He woke as soon as I got into bed so i fed immediately, then he slept til 3am. Then 5am then 6:45am. So better. And DD who normally gets up at 6:15am these days got up at 7am.

Thanks for listening everyone. I am not sure what to do really. But I guess writing it all down is a start

do the magnesium stuff allow you to wake when baby wakes?

bbl did you/do you find your moods change change hourly? I think that is what is bothering me the most, the unpredictability of how I feel. Like now, i feel good, i feel happy, have a cuppa, DD is happily entertaining her baby brother who adores her, up in her bedroom, i am on the spare bed, DH is having a lie-in, and although my bones ache with tired I feel good. But I also feel on the bring of tearful, just there in the background. Also know that it will only take a slight comment from DH that I take the wrong way, or for DD to not do something minor that I ask for the third time and I will feel like I am on a downward spiral and it takes a while to get out it again. Then, before I know it, I am happy again. But have pissed DH off!

The sun is out today, very bright already, so I am going to get the kids ready to go out, make lunch to take with us, and at 9am, wake DH up with a cuppa and toast, then we shall go out for the whole day in the sun on a beach. Nothing like a good dose of sea air to fix our moods. I might even take the wetsuit.

oh and kalo had lots of rice yesterday, wonder if that helped?!

Pav my mood changes hourly too. I'm knackered today but somehow feel quite cheerful at the mo. An hour ago lying in bed I felt awful and wanted to go to the GP and beg for help. The downward spiral thing is true for me too. I can think myself into a really bad place very easily and quickly. I can be in floods of tears one minute and happy playing with the DSs the next. It is hormonal, I am convinced of it. That's why I have been reluctant to just take ADs.

The magnesium stuff isn't a sleeping pill it just seems to help with sleep somehow I guess by helping the body release sleepy chemicals or something, I'm not sure. I also feel much healthier now even when I don't sleep well. You will still wake up easily. I have been sleeping much better but the last few days having a bad time again but that is anxiety related (and I am ovulating and my sleep problems are much worse when I have PMT or I am ovulating for some reason).

A day at the seaside sounds great Have a good time. Glad you slept well too.

Pavlov at the risk of psychologising more than I'm capable of I do wonder if you have quite a lot of emotions and feelings frozen inside.

Thinking this because of the way you expressed yourself in your post. Like when you said 'I consider it a significant but unavoidable loss'.

Sound like you are, like me, very good at processing things with your head. But that's only half the story. You can't live life to the full with frozen feleings. You miss the true joy and the true sadness.

I don't find life easy with all these unsafe feelings, but I do see many more colours now.

But hey that's my POV, ignore as desired

Hugs from me, too, Pav. I think I understand why your doc mentioned PTSD. You have quite a few of the symptoms. The clinical diagnosis of PTSD is related to a major, horrific life event, but there are several other variants that come from long-term stress, bottling up feelings and so forth.

I'm linking to a page at BullyOnLine, simply because I knew where this page was. I'm not suggesting you're being bullied, but all the same you might be interested in the info about how stress builds up over time.

It is potentially very serious. Left untreated, it can actually cause physical disorders up to and including multiple organ failure ... most people will have a breakdown before then, so treatment will be given eventually (I'm speaking from experience!)

So what to do? As others have noted, it looks quite likely that your method of 'dealing' with your feelings doesn't quite involve 'processing' them. There may be quite a lot of leftover sadness squashed away inside you - also anger, as rage is part of the grieving process. To deal with it all thoroughly, counselling is definitely the way to go. Ask your GP.

While you're talking to your doc, also tell him you'd like to reconsider antidepressants. As you will find out when you read about the effects of stress, modern ADs actually help your body to rebuild its systems - and to recreate the brain cells that have been damaged by the stress. People often forget the meds aren't all about mood - it goes much further than that.

The doctor's also likely to offer you some fact sheets about stress management. As a practical sort of chick, you might think some of the ideas look a bit flaky. Try them anyway!

You sound like a great person, very well balanced, so I'm sure you will respond very quickly to treatment. All the best.

thank you everyone. will you speak some sense. I think I probably do deal with things with my head, not my heart so to speak. I do tend to try not to feel the immense sadness of the passing of both my parents for example, in particular my father. His passing was, in fact, horrific. So was my mothers, in another way. I do not want to dwell on that though as if I do, it could eat me up. And I do not feel it constructive. I do feel like its all very 'matter of fact' when i deal with things, right that is sorted, done, on to the next.

itsgraceagain you talk about anger as part of grief. It is one of the strongest feelings I had after mum died, and it has subsided now, and has left i guess some kinds of resentments. I felt let down by those close to me, and now accept the reasons for people metaphorically crossing the street, but the 'damage' to those relationships as been done, and I guess that damage is more about me holding on to that anger. I do get angry quickly now. I never used to. Not real bad anger, but short fuse blowing up then all ok again.

I had a moment the other day though. I had not really thought about it since. But I spoke to a friend of mine, my close male friend, while bringing the canoe back in from the sea, the long walk from sea to the others. And the outcome of it is I have, surprisingly come to terms with one thing relating to my mothers passing, and I felt at one with myself and the world for a moment. Just a moment. And he told me to hang on to that moment and when I feel stressed, meditate and remember that moment, try to go back to it (he is a very spiritual man). He helped me see it is not all bad. That and a paddle on the sea.

I do know that I don't want to feel so lost. And I guess i thought it was perhaps PND as it has hit me hard since my baby was born. But i don't want anti-depressants, I don't want anything to cloud my thoughts. I want to deal with them somehow. I am also breastfeeding, so don't want anything to get to baby.

grace i think he spoke of PTSD because of a large number of significant events happening at once. I had a grievance at work going on due to serious work related issues, had a baby, lost both parents within a few months and was getting married. This was all within a year and he felt it was too much for my brain to cope, and while on the surface it was all fine, it manifested itself through sleep/lack of sleep. I did feel fine in the day time, if perhaps a little more detached from people, but took that for granted with a PFB! But at night, i woke for hours, like you BBL. It has come and gone ever since.