Post Natal Depression - 2

[susanmt]

Here we go, this should make things easier!!

Mum2Toby,
you're back! So glad to hear it went OK with the GP ... you didn't mention medication - didn't she think you needed it? That's good if not. Afraid I've not heard of sepia as a herbal remedy. Doesn't the fact that it's all out in the open make you feel better already? I know it did for me.
Take care and good luck with the HV.

Chinchilla,
don't worry about going back onto the anti-depressants if they make you feel better. I couldn't imagine looking after dd for 10 days by myself if dh went away - it's bad enough when he's away with worh for one night! Hope you feel better all round very soon.

Hi Chinchilla - 10 days alone does sound daunting!!!
...this is just a wee set back, a trough before a peak. Hang in there. And you can speak to us twice as much while dh is away.

Thanks Cookiemonster - the GP wants me to try the Counselling and the herbal remedies first. Then if I don't feel better she'll consider prescribing medication. I do feel relieved to have it out in the open. I find I'm talking about it more and more and I've even told a couple of my friends the whole truth! They said that would explain why I've been a bit anti-social and reluctant to go places with them.

I haven't contacted the hv yet, but I promise myself I will.

I have only just found this thread and it has made me feel much better reading this, sometimes i think it is only me thinking this way, and does the world of good to realise i am not alone.
PND started when ds was born but hv didn't pick it up until ds was 8 months old, in the meantime i had the worst 8 months of my life.

Every headache was a tumor, pains in hands were ms, i actually thought i was slowly dying. crazy lady that is what i thought i was. DH was as supportive as he could be, but when someone doesn't understand its difficult.

I tried coming off anti-dep 2 times and within 6 weeks i was back on them again after having relapses.

I am not on my 3rd attempt to get off them, i have been off for 6 weeks now and i am aware of the timing. The only problems are the pills also helped with my pmt which has now come back now i do not take the pills, i am worrying is the pmt or am i getting depressed again, it is all a vicious circle.

Anyway i feel better now.

Hi breeze..
...welcome to the 'crazy ladies' thread!!
It instantly made me feel better and more importantly 'normal' when I read this thread and really motivated me to do something about it.

I'm glad to hear you're hv did EVENTUALLY realise. I didn't go to my 8 month check up and boyf took ds for his so my hv didn't stand a chance!

Isn't PMT a right b*tch!! I hope everything goes great. I'm sure it will.... everytime you feel low just write us a wee note. One thing I've noticed is there is always somebody ready to talk. Good luck!

Breeze, I am coming off my medication at the moment and am scared that I will go looney again. However, in comparison to when I began my medication 2+ years ago when I has DD I am a completley different person. Maybe we can be strong together.

When I am better, I really want to do a course which will help me to support others with PND. I received support from a talk group where I used to live. However, the village I have moved to has not progressed that far yet.

I was thinking about trying to come down the dose on my pills, but I'm afraid to do it at this time of year. I take sertraline (Lustral) and have come down from the max 200mg to 150 and am now on 100. I wanted to go down to 50, but after a relly stressful week with ghastly weather and dh doing extra hours etc I am feeling so washed out that I have decided to stay on the 100mg for a bit longer - maybe until the weather improves and the days are longer. Coming off is the scariest thing to do, though, isn't it?
Love the idea of being the 'crazy ladies' - made me smile!

Hi mum2toby
Glad to hear your GP suggested counselling, I know it helped me no end. I did not have many issues to discusse with the counsellor, but she taught me some relaxation tecniques,stress control and just generally made me realise how posative thought realy is the key.I remember telling her that I "found the Winter months realy bad", she told me how I was starting the Winter from, an already negative view point.
That was last year, I came off medication this September, and was realy dreding this Winter, but the things she taught me have realy helped. It's been a great boost to me to get through the Winter feeling so "up", and now Spring is just around the corner. It proved to be something that will be of great benefit to me in the future as well.

mum2toby and abbey, thank you for making me feel welcome, it makes me feel so much better knowing i am not alone, and abbey i am sure we can be strong together. I love the 'crazy ladies' bit too, only someone suffering can get away with saying that, imagine dh saying it....oh dear. I this time i am sucessful, because i so desperately want to get my 'old self' back. Good luck to you. The only good thing is that i have come off it before so do know the warning signs.

When people say that they are mad as a joke, I laugh and think don't even go there .
I am trying to think of my worst crazy person moment? No, sorry I appear to have blocked out that memory. Has anyone else got stories that would make me chuckle?
Oh yeah, I used to have what I called duvet days where I refused to get out of bed? Does that sound familiar or am I completely looney tunes?

I just want to plug my site again! www.unplannedpregnancies.co.uk. I know Mumsnet won't mind as it's not a business one. I suffered from severe depression during my pregnancy, but found that no-one was prepared to talk about it, it was very much a taboo subject. So because of what happened to me, and because I know it happens to hundreds of women in this country alone, I set up a website about the symptoms, causes and treatment. I have also done a lot of research on PND, it's symptoms, causes and treatment and I have links to lots of sites that promote alternative treatments to PND as I'm rather anti-pill myself. So please do take a look, and I hope it helps some of you.
Take care all. xxx

Abbey, I had my duvet days, i used to take duvet down stairs and watch daytime telly all day, about 10 minutes B4 the dh hubby came in i used to run around the house like a man women tidying up so it was half presentable when he walked in the door, and would then say 'he's been a handful today, couldn't do any housework and he needed a lot of attention' when my dh had been good all day.

Just re-read my previous posting, i rushed around like a mad women, not a man women.

Just been eavesdropping 'crazy ladies' and just thought I would let you all know that it DOES get better! You have to be gentle on yourselves ... don't be supermum ... don't over do things ... if you are not up to stuff (housework, going out and being sociable, getting dressed etc) DON'T DO IT ... just try to get better in your own time. I was lucky, I was diagnosed when DS was 8 weeks and was put on medication then but I was on Anti d's for 14 months when I came off them REALLY gradually and pretty much loopy untii DS was 20 months ... I never thought I would get better I thought I was going to be a basket case forever but I am not! DS is 3 and I am me again ... I am even desperate for another baby ...
Hang in there girls ... keep talking ... you won't be bonkers forever ...

Ta lots ghosty! It is lovely to hear someone emerging the other side. Breeze, I too used to do the half hour made dash to try and make things presentable. However, it got to the stage where I used to tell DH that he should get off his backside and clean the house if it was that important to him. I was a right bitch.
A crazy lady moment that I remembered after posting was the time that DD was having a screaming fit and DH was five minutes late (how dare he). I rang his mobile and recorded DD screaming on his voicemail. I then had a sane moment and took DD for a walk to calm her down. Unfortunately, DH thought that something bad had happened and started driving frantically around the area looking for us. For all his efforts, I just bit his head off and told him to stop overeacting? It's a good job that he was supportive otherwise I would be a divorcee crazy lady right now!!

How do our dh's put up with us?!! I have been really miserable with mine on occasions! And he's had to put up with three bouts of it since 1995!

Yes chinchilla, how do our dh put up with us, its not as if we are consistant, one day i would be moaning because he didn't do the washing up, the next day when he did the washing up, i remember screaming how he had no confidence in me to do anything. Was i the only one to say things like 'how am i suppose to get better when you......',. I remember sitting on the stairs in tears on many occasions when he was just 5 minutes late home, thinking he had been in an accident. He works over 25 miles away so it was normal to get delayed some where along the line.

I also got fed up with the people who told you to relax, have a bath and you won't be depressed anymore, i know radox were good....but not that good.

Breeze ... I often came out with 'How am I supposed to get better if you ...' And 'Do you think I WANT to be/feel like this?'...
Another thing that I used to hate was people who said, "What's the problem, you've got a lovely healthy baby ... what more could you want?" There was nothing I could say to that because it was true ... he was lovely and he was healthy (after a while!!!) but I just did not know why I felt so bad ... I just did ...
Oh and when my mum told me to pull myself together '...Nobody said it would be a walk in the park...' I really did go bananas! When my sister had her baby I told my mum NEVER EVER to say that to her because at the time it was the worst thing that anyone ever said to me ... luckily my sister didn't have PND and so far has showed everyone how it SHOULD be done ... GRRRRR ... not that I am bitter you understand!!!!

Yes ghosty, my mum used to get annoyed with me, she actually said once 'what have you got to be depressed about, your baby is lovely and good, you have a supportive caring dh, you have a lovely house, you don't work blah blah blah', i too could have screamed, my dh were due to get married the following year, but when i fell pregant we decided to get married before the birth, so in a year i fell pregnant, got married, move house, grieved for my grandad and then gave birth. Yes mum i wonder why i was a classic case for an increased chance of depression. i like you are not bitter....much.

That's just reminded me Breeze ...of another thing that my mum did that used to have me gnashing my teeth. (Don't get me wrong ... I love my mum and she really is a lovely lady ... but when I had PND she really used to get on my wick!)
I would have long chats with her and cry and wail on the phone about stuff and after a 40 minute off load session all she ever had to say was 'Poor George!' (George is my DH)
The conversation would usually end up with me in more tears shouting, 'Poor Bly George NOTHING! Who gave birth? Whose boobs are in agony? Whose body is ruined forever? Who is a total basket case? Whose life has changed beyond all recognition? Nothing has changed for him ... All he bly ever does is play cricket and go to the pub!'
Which wasn't strictly true of course ... DH was really supportive but that wasn't the point! My mum just thought he was a saint for putting up with me ... which he was of course but I was never going to admit that!

i didn't have so much poor hubby but poor daniel, she was so worried that my moods were going to have a major effect on him, she didn't realise that saying 'if you don't pull yourself together your damaging your son' yeah thanks mum, putting for pressure is EXACTLY what i needed, sometime i thought she thought it was simple as taking a asprin. Again like you i do love my mum but at time i just wanted to shake her and make her understand. I took her round a book about pnd, and she said she didn't need to read it as she knoew all she needed to know.!!!!!

Saying that my MIL was brilliant, it was poor me, she had it a bit rough and was 100% supportive, she sympathised and enchoraged me and didn't expect too much, which is all i needed.

I had a work colleague say, 'When I feel a bit fed up, I just remember the poor people that I saw when I was in Kenya. They have really hard lives, but they were always smiling'. I nearly punched him, but managed to just say, 'yes?' and smile.

The funny thing is that when you are depressed, you can't bring yourself to care about other people's problems. Either that, or you spend the whole time in tears, from watching adverts on tv!

I found it hard when my dh asked me to explain how i feel, (not that easy when you do not fully understand yourself), with my depression i get slight dizzy heads, it is like it is on your mind constantly, you are thinking about it all the time, its like everything that gets said or happens goes through your head and comes out the other side completely destorted, i twisted everything round to be far worse then they are, or make problems out of things that really are ok.

I wish i had found this web-site while i was suffering because i know it would of helped a lot (well as much as something can when your suffering) you get comfort for a short time then manage to get yourself into a state over nothing.

chinchilla, i know how you feel about that kenya comment, when you are suffering that is all you care about, i remember someone saying how come single mums living in hostels don't get in the state you are in. For everyone well meaning person out there, there is someone who doesn't understand and makes tackless comments.

Chinchilla, you havereminded me about an advert that used to make me ball my eyes out. Brace yourself! Do you remember the add for Kit-kat where a pencil drawn tortoise who was stranded on his back was told to take a break from trying to right himself? I used to cry my eyes out and tell DH that it was cruel and unfair because it might never right itself, starve and die. I mean for lordy sake it was a pencil drawing!!!
By the way, cool nickname.

Abbey - Bless! When I wanted to conceive (around the end of my last period of depression), I used to cry at ANYTHING on TV, especially Johnson & Johnson adverts. Part of the reason that I knew I had become depressed again was that it all started again. My dh used to look at me in wonder when I had a tear in my eye. The way I can tell that my pills are working at the moment is that I seem to have hardened up a bit! Still got affected enough to sign up for the NSPCC £2 a month programme. Those adverts get me every time.