Feminist help/persepectives on 'PND'

[evenfishbreathe]

I have namechanged for this.

When my DS was about 5 months old I finally spoke to the HV about what I thought was PND partly out of a sense of desperation and partly in the hope she could help. The set questions she had to ask made little sense to me in the sense that I did not see how I could provide an accurate answer to them. But the HV thought that I would benefit from some help. I refused from the outset to go down the 'GP route' - that is bascially, to see the doctor who would probably provide anti-depressents. The HV was quite lovely about it all and said she would just come and see me once a week for a talk. I was grateful that she tried to respond to my needs and respect my wishes and, more out of a desire to be polite rather than anything else, I went ahead and saw her for an hour for a week for some weeks until I pretended I felt better.

The thing is that I am miserable in my life at this time. I don't really enjoy any of it. I have a young - pre verbal non-potty trained - child who demands my full attention every second of the day he is awake and with me. My partner works away all week. I do put my child into nursery two days a week whilst I work but would love to relinquish some of that grinding relentless responsibility for getting up/getting dressed/cleaning/playing/cooking/washing etc. etc. I have no relatives any where near me and the only friends I really feel comforatable to ask to babysit are already busy with their own kids. The whole thing is grindingly, mind numbingly relentless, and unthanking. On the plus side, I only had to go through six months of severe sleep deprivation [grim smile emoticon].

I think that my reaction to this situation is entirely sane. Yes, it may also be linked to chemical/hormonal changes but, to me at least, I do not think that makes my reaction any less sensible - for want of a better word. If you put a cat in a bucket of cold water for half an hour and it caught a cold, the cold itself is a real illness. But it was caused by putting the cat in a bucket of cold water (I do hope this bit makes sense).

I am beginning to suspect that my feminism might be my 'problem'. I do want to feel more positive about my life. After all, this too shall pass. It is only a stage etc etc. But I am highly reluctnat to think that I am wrong or abnormal because my situation has made me feel a certain way. In fact, I seem incapable of accepting that. It simply doesn't feel true to me.

I would love to hear what you feMNists think. Any suggestions, comments etc would be great.

evenfishbreathe

So sorry you are having a hard time. I had PND after my first DD. It came as an awful shock because I had been bouncy, happy and healthy during pregnancy. I don't know whether it was the response to hormonal 'let down', the result of a horrible birth experience, the shock of being a SAHM after a fascinating career or what. I confess I used to wander the streets with little one in the pram aimlessly and endlessly walking in a grey fog of "is this it then?"

This was many years ago in the days when PND was not really acknowledged and little help was available. Take all the help you can get. You are not wrong or abnormal I promise you.

You have already said the most important things when you said "After all, this too shall pass". But getting support/counselling/friends (whatever works for you) will help it to pass quicker. And work can be a lifeline.

You may be a bit like me - not an earth mother type in the early stages, not best with babies etc. Not all women, contrary to what is believed are good with babies, or even like them much.

If it is any comfort people like us often come into our own with toddlers and older children. I clearly remember when my DD turned round to me as a toddler, stamped her foot and said "No". I felt "hallo little person - at last".

I reiterate, there is nothing wrong with you, don't be hard on yourself get support. It will pass

I had Pre- natal and PND I was an unmarried teen mother and had to keep my ever expanding bump secret for like 7 months from my very relig. family

they did accept
than had a an induction the machine was put up too high so I could breathe properly,
had 4 degree tearing and haemorraghed and was expected to visit everybody rather than visit.
so I had no time to recover, them went on the implant which made me bleed every single day for months on end without a pill, which brings me up to present day having spent the first 2 years of my sons life very ill, I just wish I could turn the clock back.

I can relate to sports fanatic with the 'is this it?' feeling.

you are not alone and certainly not odd.

OP, firstly sorry to hear you're feeling that way.

I don't have children yet - although I do have depression in my close family - but from an outside (and OK feminist) perspective I would say that yes, it seems totally logical that the set of circumstances you describe could lead to you feeling utterly miserable. Your cat in a bucket analogy does make sense to me - I can imagine very easily feeling like you as a person have disappeared as a result of having to key all your behaviour to servicing the needs of someone else who's not outwardly grateful for it! Doing it all on your own much of the time must surely add to the psychological load.

It seems a little bit from your post like you are conflicted about whether it's OK to be depressed. But deciding whether it's a 'logical' response or not is really by-the-by. What you need to focus on is what can you change to make your situation better, more liveable? For what reasons have you written off ADs? They can be really useful for bumping you out of a very bleak hole by all accounts. Just because your situation is difficult doesn't mean you should reject what medicine has to offer to help you cope with it, if that makes sense.

Can you think tangentially about how you might get some more support with caring for your DS, whether that's from your partner, friends, nursery, a childminder - maybe just a few more hours to yourself every week would start to give you a bit of relief and headspace?

Hope you feel better about things soon.

I've written and re-written this. First off, of course PND exists, and it's not something to be dismissed, and you shouldn't write it off out of hand. But I have a friend who sounds very similar to you, OP, and while something is definitely up that needs addressing, she really doesn't feel like PND is it, doesn't require anti-depressants, doesn't 'fit' the questions that she was asked by the GP, etc.

My friend is not feeling great about motherhood. She loves her child beyond measure, and she has the moments of great joy and intimacy that everyone expects. She has the fun times. But she is also doing a lot of the day-to-day stuff (her husband works long hours) and this obviously impacts on her sleep. She's just coming out of a very demanding period in which her extremely vocal baby was very reluctant to be anywhere but on her. This is her first baby, so all the worries are magnified. Day-to-day verbal interaction with a young baby has come as a hell of a shock (and don't get her started on the baby classes she goes to to give herself a bit of a social life). Etc, etc.

She confided all this to me, and I just can't see it as anything other than a perfectly normal reaction to a set of circumstances that will change (and she knows that she will get through this, she knows this is just something for now). My friend has been averaging four hours of sleep a night for MONTHS, and then feeling incredibly guilty about feeling crap. But surely feeling tired, listless, and not at your best is inevitable on such little sleep? I'm not talking about depression here, I'm talking about how every hard-working human would be on no sleep. I'm not sure how to put this, but I think there's a space between PND/no-PND that isn't acknowledged and needs to be.

I suspect it's not at all unusual to take no joy from not sleeping, feeling isolated from your previous life, and doing what is bloody hard work with no handbook! With regard to my friend, a lot of the first-time mums she knows are starting, about six months in, to tentatively edge towards frank conversations in which they all admit that actually, life with a baby isn't like the adverts for fabric conditioner at ALL, and that it's ok to feel like that.

I hope this doesn't come across as minimising PND here because that's not my intention.

you sound perfectly normal to me. looking after young children is mind numbing and relentless. and an enormous shock to the system for a female who has an unconscious belief in her own equality.

i think what will help though, if you feel that feminism is your 'problem' is to read some books on feminist mothering, and work out how to adapt your own mothering to fit in with a more feminist model? is that what you mean? you just feel as though you have slipped back in time/ role and suddenly have to conform to a 'mother' stereotype that doesn't quite fit?

mirci (through demeter press here) publish lots of stuff you might be interested in, which might make you feel less out of kilter.

but that said, i've been through some really dissociative moments which could easily have been pnd, too. so keep an open mind and don't rule it out.

(i should also add, i have 3 now. my youngest is 8, and i would have another baby in a heartbeat you just have to find you in the new role you've found yourself in. i am the least maternal person on the planet. )

Hope you feel better soon and being so isolated from your family and your DH during the week can grind you down. The shorter days won't be helping either.
DD once weaned, settled into a 6.30pm bedtime and the night was my own. My ex worked away not long after she was born and to keep myself sane (I was a SAHM), I took to making and doing stuff. Apart from the sewing and knitting phases I did my own decorating (4 rooms completed a year), some electrics, built myself a pond and a pergola, tried my hand a tiling ..., in fact tried to learn as many skills as possible and got a feeling of safisfaction from achieving my little goals.
Some of the skills came in useful over the years and ended up with a bit of a cottage industry going, selling things I made, or decorating friends' homes.

Your partner working away all week sounds like something very difficult to deal with.

Is there any hope of change in that area?

I think theres far too much media rubbish about how motherhood is dreamy and idyllic , it really isnt its hard and makes you harrassed, I think false images have alot to answer for.

"I'm not sure how to put this, but I think there's a space between PND/no-PND that isn't acknowledged and needs to be."

Really thought-provoking and well expressed post VictorGollanz

EFB, I can totally identify with what you're saying. My mental health is crap and I feel almost paralysed with indecision on what to do about it, because - like you - it feels like a rational response to reality, not an abnormality or illness. And I think I get what you're saying about feminism feeling like a 'problem', if by that you mean that raising your feminist consciousness leads to a sharpened awareness of injustice, of the shitness of the world. It becomes impossible (or bloody difficult anyway) to buy into the usual explanations and remedies on offer when your perception of the problem is so at odds with the way we're encouraged to understand our situations (i.e. in terms of individual pathology). But at the same time, feminism offers solutions and succour in the form of solidarity and understanding with other women, and a way of understanding our own situations and feelings in a way that puts the 'blame' where it belongs. There's a measure of relief in realising that your feeling - that you're not wrong or abnormal to be feeling the way you feel - is correct.

Like you, I've resisted the GP route. I have tried it and yes, they give you anti-depressants (which may or may not help) and maybe some counselling (which may or may not help), but - for me - none of these remedies feel like they hit the mark because they're based in such a different (i.e. wrong!) understanding of 'the problem'.

Sorry for the lack of constructive suggestions in this post. I just wanted to say "I hear ya".

You have a point! - my background first: When my DD was 5 months old I remember sitting in a sunny garden with older son and a friend og mine, all children playing and happy. And desperately, desperately wishing I was anywhere else and that eveything would go away. That and relentless tears and feeling of desperation made me go the doctor. And yes the pills did work and help me feel as if I could cope again. I came off and went back on them again, and came off again. Last year (DD was 5 by then) all the feeling started to come back and this time I didn't want the pill route - I felt OK enough to sort it out and I started seeing a counsellor, which went on for an expensive 10 months.

A lot of what we talked about was about my concerns over where 'it all fitted'. I had happily given up work as I wanted to be with the children. yet it felt very unrewarding at times; boring, frustrating, endless. I didn't want to go back to work, yet sometimes I did, and felt I should. Ultimately alot of it was about where motherhood fitted in the modern world, and how you make sense of that with your value judgements vs. your deeper instincts. Now I'm sure that hormones et all play a part in PND and I'm certain that a lot of it is forced by circumstance (responsibility, exhaustion etc) yet I also think a lot can be down to your conscious / subconsious trying to resolve your 'woman's place' in the world. What was the point of all that education? What does that mean for my daughter's future education? How do we, as a partnership, resolve that I WANT to be at home, yet also resent that my career has stopped.... none of it is easy stuff.

I do feel now that I have kind of made my peace with that. My children are now nearly 7 and just 10 and there is more time for me to develop. Ihope it won't take you that long to fell better but I do think you are right that there is a huge cognitive struggle about it all.

Thank you all so much. Just reading your replies makes me feel better. (Proleseworth, I just need to say how much instantly better it made me feel that you totally totally got it).
There is loads of constructive, helpful stuff there. I really relate to the idea that there is a sort of space between PND and no-PND.

I hope that i will write a longer reply when I get the time this weekend - even if nobody's reading, I think it will help. Butterflyeffect, I will try and answer your question too -the one about does being a feminist make me fell isolated.

I think, considering the way Western society is set up it is amazing that more women don't develop PND. We are social animals but we have a society where mothers are left for 12hrs+ each day to care for their children alone. Their main support system (generally) happens to be the dad of the children who works out of the home. It is incredibly lonely being a mum nowadays - 100 yrs ago most women lived near their mum/MIL/aunts/sisters etc and had a ready made network of support.

Moreover, often the first new born baby a woman holds is often her own! 100yrs a go a new mum would have had plenty of practical practice.

Furthermore, I do think that there is a space between no PND and PND. We live in a society where the prevailing message from the media is "yummy mummy", "I just love being a mommy"etc. well sometimes, it is crap being a mum - when an 8 month old has just vomited all over your hair and bed at 4am (resulting in a change of bedding and shower) I defy anyone to enjoy that moment.

Totally relate to this, and am probably in the PND / non PND in-between zone. Two DDs, 3 and a half and one, work part-time. The sleep deprivation is a massive issue (DD1 didn't sleep til she was two, DD2 similar) - when DH does a night or a couple of nights and I catch up I feel a million times better.

I am angry about the inequality in my relationship and in society. Of course I love my children and would never go back, the issue is that my DH's life has simply not changed to anywhere near the same extent and he, and lots of other people, just don't get that. As a woman, I am meant to embrace the drudgery, loss of career progression, exhaustion etc, lose the baby weight, "make an effort" and so on. Think my DH thinks less of me because I won't do all this.

Things that help me include spending time with other women (except Stepford-wives-it's-all-great types!), work (most of the time, anyway), sleep, reading beginner's feminist stuff.

NOT reading women's magazines, going on diets, beating myself up about how I feel (since as others have said it's a rational reaction to the situation).

But am still struggling.

On the feminism thing, it can be isolating because lots of women (let alone men) don't want to even consider the possibility that things are anything other than OK.

Dozer This:

I am angry about the inequality in my relationship and in society. Of course I love my children and would never go back, the issue is that my DH's life has simply not changed to anywhere near the same extent and he, and lots of other people, just don't get that. As a woman, I am meant to embrace the drudgery, loss of career progression, exhaustion etc, lose the baby weight, "make an effort" and so on. Think my DH thinks less of me because I won't do all this.

Things that help me include spending time with other women (except Stepford-wives-it's-all-great types!), work (most of the time, anyway), sleep, reading beginner's feminist stuff.

NOT reading women's magazines, going on diets, beating myself up about how I feel (since as others have said it's a rational reaction to the situation).

But am still struggling

I could have written this myself. I am so angry and disgruntled with the circumstances I find myself in. There is no way to change these circumstances without making life more difficult for myself and my family but I constantly feel caged. DH works incredibly long hours and travels an awful lot at extremely short notice, so the responsibility for DS/DD and the house falls firmly on my shoulders. I spend huge amounts of time on my own, am still getting up at night with DS and am finding all the bullshit I have to deal with really bloody pointless. I want to be at home with my children but I don't want to feel completely responsible for them or feel like I should be skipping around in an apron, knitting with my ears, with a broom shoved up my arse and a huge smile on my face, whilst one child wipes his snot on my shoulder and the other one has to be persuaded to take her bloody worm tablets. But no-one else seems to be struggling with this and society tells us that this is fun and rewarding, so fun that we don't need recognition or time off or anything that makes us feel human again.

The only things that do make me feel like me are spending time on my own, although these opportunities are few and far between, talking to two likeminded feminist friends I met in the playground and reading/writing.

Being a feminist makes me feel so much more angry, its like being winched up above the warm pool of water you have been happily soaking in, looking down and seeing all the other people still bubbling away without looking down at the mud at the bottom. They are happy, so why shouldn't we be too, it would be so easy sometimes to slip back in the water and stop dangling in the cold.

ahem that was more of a rant than I was expecting.

Matronalia, am glad am not the only one, but also not glad IYSWIM?

LOTS of women feel like this and are struggling, and admit it. And still more probably feel like this but hide it. In some ways, perhaps it's healthier to feel aggrieved and upset, try to identify why and do something about it (if anything can be done) than to be in denial or keep it all in, or direct it into trying to be a perfect parent / housewife / lover or whatever.

LOL "with a broom shoved up my arse and a huge smile on my face"

This is such an interesting discussion, such thought-provoking perspectives about the situation a lot of mothers find themselves in being essentially lonely, isolating, exhausting etc.

I'd be really interested in hearing from those of you who feel like this, if a magic wand could be waved and things changed to make things practically better for you, what changes would you like to see brought about? In other words, what tangible goals and aims could us feminists be fighting towards to try to erase that gap between Pnd and non-Pnd?
I hope that doesn't sound naive or presumptuous but I'd genuinely like to know how, on a personal and on a political level, both as a friend of several new mothers and as an active feminist, I could be affecting change - is there anything to be done?

I absolutely know that for me, my 'PND' wasn't hormonal. It was a response to the absolute shock of becoming a mother.

I really like your analogy about the cat in the bucket. I was diagnosed and treated for PND, and looking back, it seems like an entirely rational reaction to my circumstances (DD did not sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time, till she was two, was uber clingy and collicky, I'd just moved to a new city where I knew noone and had no support network). The anxiety was paralysing, and ADs did help with that.

The biggest thing that could have helped me was better maternity care such that I was not subjected to bullying from abusive hospital staff, and did not leave hospital exhausted and traumatised.

Having some time and space to myself, to think my own thoughts and come to terms with things would also have helped - I wish someone had encouraged me to take up some kind of exercise class, so that even just once a week, I had a break from my demanding baby, and time to think. Is this an option for you, OP?

Quodlibet, that's a constructive way to look at it.

A lot of it is the standard stuff.

Sharing the nights - sadly, breastfeeding makes this difficult, and once you're in a pattern of doing 100% of the nights it's hard to break. It's my biggest problem with b/f (I am still feeding DD2, and even though have cut night feeds still do 90% of the nights even now am working).

Places for women to meet - after DD1 I was really, really isolated. We moved house before DD2 and I met everyone I know at the local children's centre. The best thing about it was that it was staffed, they would keep an eye on kids and cuddle babies / make drinks, so we could just relax and chat.

Equal pay / career opportunities - often, the woman is the one to give up work / go part-time because the man earns more before children arrive. Of course, this is exacerbated after the DC arrive.

Flexible work for men and women - there is a genuine fear among some men that they will lose their job / not be promoted if they arrive late / leave early to drop off / pick up children. The refrain of "I can't possibly work because my DH works long hours / travels" is often heard on MN.

Good childcare. Good healthcare - we have an all-female GP practice, they are great on women's health.

Sharing of domestic and child-related tasks.

Fair share of child-free / leisure time for both partners. This relates to the work thing too (Most of the women I know can't commit to anything in the evenings 'cos of their husbands' working hours, whereas the men can go out at lunchtime or after work)

Brilliant thread, although OP i'm really sorry you're suffering enough to have started it.

When I had DD, I had no car. Public transport involved walking along a road with no pavement and blind corners, to catch an infrequent bus to the nearest village, where I knew no-one. To get to an actual friend would have been two buses minimum, probably an hour's journey in each direction.

My husband, who is a lovely, supportive, feminist ally of a man, had the car. To get to work would have taken him an hour and a half each way by bus, whereas pre-DD I worked on the direct bus line so we only ever needed one car. So it was logical for him to keep using it.

But. I say 'work'. He was a PhD student who did a little bit of paid work on the side. He had a scholarship, which is what we lived on (plus my savings, since I was the higher earner at the time) so this wasn't about money.

He knew I was miserable. I knew I was miserable. At no point did I put my foot down and say - you need to arrange to work from home sometimes so I can have the car and leave the house. At no point did he offer that - he was new at the 'job' and wanted to be seen every day. I just dealt with it. But i was lonely, and isolated, and miserable as hell.

DD got older, I went back to work part time, I made local friends and it helped. I had a routine going whereby he dropped DD and I at a park in town in the morning, and we spent the whole morning at various kid-friendly things, and went home, and it helped. But I was still reliant on him.

Fast forward to this pregnancy. I now work part-time, and on the two days I'm at home with DD, I have said: I cannot push a stroller up these steep hills (in late pregnancy), the buses are unrealistic, you need to work from home BOTH of the days I am with her. He said yes. I have said we are getting a second car. He said yes. He said but can it wait until a month post-partum when we'll have more savings, I said sure but then it is your problem to work out how to get to work during that month, I have first dibs on the car. He said yes.

I am not leading up to "we just need to stand up for ourselves". I am leading to, it took me years to feel that I had the right to demand an accommodation from him that represented basic autonomy, and I was already a feminist, but I had absorbed a number of things about being a Good Mother that I didn't realise I'd absorbed.

Being free is not just a legal status. If you don't have the money, the emotional support or the physical ability to exercise that freedom, I don't think you're free. There's freedom from, and freedom to, and when you have a baby you lose freedom to.

And when we live in a society which doesn't provide basic child-care facilities in public, which frowns on children being children in publilc spaces, which doesn't encourage us to help each other or provide respite for those in dire need but instead judges how perfect we can be by how little we complain, I'm not sure we've got freedom of movement. If childcare is unaffordable and employers (of male or female parents) refuse to be flexible and male partners won't even consider taking a flexible or part time position to compensate, I'm not sure we have economic freedom. If we're all so busy being perfect mothers and keeping the house pristine in the wake of our absent husbands, too busy to get together or to babysit for one another and isolated from our families, as the OP said, do we have freedom of association?

And, having had our freedoms to taken away, isn't depression a fairly logical, sane response?

Various studies have shown depressed people to have a more realistic view of the world than "normal" people, and I think this does link in with the feminist viewpoint that women and housewives in particular have traditionally been medicated out of a true appreciation of their circumstances.

OTOH ongoing depression robs you of everything that makes life worth living, and disables you from making positive changes in your life. Maybe the answer at a personal level is to use whatever tools are available to recover but to use the insights you've gained. At a societal level - I'm not sure what the moral is.

Excellent post tortoise

My DH was the sole earner when my DD was born, and in my exhaustion I found myself taking responsibility for all household chores - doing his ironing, cooking everything from scratch etc. He continued to play football twice a week, and went to the gym every other day. He had nights out about once a week, as I was breastfeeding he never ever had to do the night feeds. He continued to work late, as he always had. Not much really changed in his way of life.

He is a lovely, supportive man, but we both started adopting stereotypical roles that we had somehow absorbed. I was desperate to be a Good Mother, a Good Wife. He would have been more than happy to pull his weight, I just felt that everything was now my job. When he tried to do housework, it uspset me, and I felt it was a criticism of me. Yes, even ironing his own shirts.

I wish that, prior to becoming parents, we both had more of an understanding of how exhausted, traumatised and vulnerable I might become. So we could have planned what to do. Because when you are actually overwhelmed, you can't think clearly, but can and do try to live out motherhood as you had intended - with all the unnecessary extra work that is involved.