PND

Some of you may or may not know that I have suffered from Postnatal Depression (PND) on and off for about 10yrs. It is not something that I tell everyone - but i guess i am now. Its not that I'm ashamed of it at all, just that it doesn't come up in everyday conversations.

I was first diagnosed when Mr K was about 7 months old. I was on my own at the time, trying to do the right thing by us both. We were living on our own, about a 20min drive away from my parents and younger sister, who were my support people.

At the time I was finding it very hard to juggle the demands of a newborn, as well as living on my own and trying to support the both of us on a single parents pension. I can remember phoning my mum numerous times during the middle of the night to come and help me as Mr K would not sleep, or feed etc and i didn't know what to do. I felt like a huge failure and believed that i was useless. I knew when i fell pregnant with Mr K that the man concerned didn't want a child and if i went ahead with the pregnancy i would be doing it alone. As harsh as it seems, I knew what i was getting myself into and for awhile all i wanted was to be a mother. I believe that being a mother is the greatest job in the world and I still do.


Mr K was not the easiest of babies. He suffered with colic, and was a difficult feeder, I felt that everything i did for him was never the right thing for him. I tried all different formulas, bottles, teats and colic medicine but nothing seemed to help, so as a result we were both not getting alot of sleep. No sleep = an exhausted mum as we all know. I told myself as he gets older everything will get better, right - wrong. Things got worse for me. I found a great Child Health Nurse who recommended that i do a questionnaire and it was this questionnaire that opened my eyes to the way i was feeling. I didn't want to admit that I needed help, I had choosen this path and I had to deal with it. I then went to see my GP who diagnosed me with PND and told me of my options in dealing with it.

I started anti-depressants and also started counselling and joined a group with other mums who met once a week for 3 months. We all discussed how our week had been and how we had dealt with the problems we came across. Nothing was off limits and there was a rule that what was talked about was to never leave the room. It was great finding other Mums that had the same problems as me but they all had partners, some offering different amounts of support. I felt like I was on my own at times and also felt that as I was a single parent of course I was going to struggle and developed PND. Not long after the group finished I met Shane and I believe he also helped me overcome PND with his support.

I also developed PND again after the birth of both my daughters, and I think the worse was with Miss S. I was paranoid about it all happening again and tried to deal with things on my own for awhile. I didn't want to go on anti depressants again so I tried counselling again but this time with another group of ladies and our partners were welcomed as well. While the counselling worked for awhile, I realised that i also needed the help of some medication. I was also getting extremely anxious about stupid stuff that could happen eg Miss S could get sick etc and would work myself up into a mess, which was not good for anyone.

So there you go, this is my experience with PND, and how i dealt with it. This was very hard for me to write and opened up alot of emotions but at the same time I feel like a weight has been lifted. Maybe I should have wrote about this before now as part of therapy?