Social anxiety Help!

[superchicken]

Hello, just wondering if anyone has any tips for dealing with anxiety as a new mum. I have always had anxiety pre baby and it got considerably worse while I was pregnant due to being really sick the entire 9 months so not being able to leave the house apart from the hospital when I was really bad. Since I've had my baby I am at home on maternity leave and along with all the normal stresses of a new baby (and all the good stuff) my anxiety is now so bad I am actually scared to leave the house without my husband. I have been to the doctor and am awaiting CBT but I just wondered if anyone has any tips to help get out the house or even things to do at home to help. Thanks

My daughter sees a therapist for social anxiety. She has had some sessions of CBT and has also been recommended to start doing mindfulness.

There is an app on your phone called headspace that is highly recommended.

There are also plenty of books that you can buy so that you can start understanding your anxiety, making friends with it and working through it.

Hi, I am in a similar position, I've always had anxiety problems which restrict my ability to leave my house, but I'm often ok in familiar surroundings so not completely house-bound but I do understand the struggles. So far this week I made it out on Tuesday evening to a post-natal exercise class to the hospital - first time going and I nearly vomited with the anxiety of it but I managed somehow - and then on Wednesday I went to the shops round the corner and to my mum's but that was with my sister accompanying me.

Anyways, it's great you've spoke to GP and are getting some therapy, I've never had CBT so can't comment on it. I find diazepam helpful for when I really really need to be somewhere and otherwise wouldn't be able to go but it's something you can only take occasionally otherwise you get addicted and most GPs are very reticent to prescribe it (understandably so). Other medication that could be useful are anti-depressants, they've not helped me in the past but they could maybe help you, might be worth speaking to GP about medication, alternatively beta-blockers which DH finds helpful when he has odd bouts of severe anxiety. If you're BF there might be restrictions on medications you can take but I'm sure some people BF and take anti-Ds?

Have you spoke to your HV about how bad your anxiety is? My HV said they could provide me with support to attend baby groups at children's centres like someone could take me there the first time or whatever until I feel comfortable. I have moved back to the area where I grew up in a few weeks ago and the children's centre here is actually in the road where my DM lives, and in my old primary school so that helped me manage to go to the baby group there even though I felt sick and was shaking with the anxiety but if I couldn't have managed it I would have phoned my HV and asked about support to go. Also a few years ago in a different city I used to have a social worker for my anxiety and depression, and she got me a support worker who saw me once a week to help me go out and about as that was at my worst and I was mostly house-bound without friends/family accompanying me places. So you could call (or get someone else to) your local social services department and see if they could offer something like that. I know it's grim, makes me feel so lonely especially as I don't have many friends as it is and the friends I do have in this city, none of them have children or anything so it is very isolating.