About Me

Kent, United Kingdom
I have the perfect family but still struggle to find the light in the darkness of post-natal depression.

Monday 5 September 2011

A maze of praise

Someone said something nice about me the other day. In public. In fact, on Twitter.
Now, don't get me wrong - although it may sometimes feel like it, I don't in fact spend my days defending myself from verbal brickbats and people are often perfectly pleasant.
But when I read this comment, which was about my supportive nature, my immediate reaction was "That's nice, but they don't know me very well at all."
It's an interesting reaction, for me, at least. Partly because in fact I pride myself on being supportive and kind and on my empathy. It's one of the facets of my personality that I genuinely like. Yet I couldn't accept that someone else could recognise that in me.
It's one of the things I am working on. Like recognising the positives - including the fact that today was tough, workwise, but I'm proud of how I dealt with it.
I am determined to keep working on it, and everything else. I see my lovely therapist on Saturday for the first time in ages, and I'm desperate to make it into a positive session of strategies rather than an update on all the woe.
There is still plenty of woe. There are still those moments where I think I'm going to get swept over by the force of it, where I find myself fighting for breath in the maelstrom of self-loathing. But I haven't given into it for a while. So rather than beating myself up on the times that I have lost balance in the midst of the storm, I'm concentrating on the times I've clung on.
I know I said it in my last post, and I'm reassured by the response, but I'm so ready to move on from this. I don't want any more days when the thought of being at home makes me throat constrict.
I want to get better. I want my life back. And I will get there, one small step at a time.

Thursday 1 September 2011

September blues

I can't believe it's September. And that in a little over a week, my beautiful little girl will be starting school. Where did the time go?
I'm trying desperately to see this as a positive and to look at all we've achieved. She's a clever, funny, determined little thing and I know she's more than ready for the next step. The school she will attend is lovely, and she will have a great time and I will love seeing her learn new things.
But I'm also finding it hard that she is moving on and growing up. That I have no more time to "get it right".
I know much of this is normal, and I know of course starting school is not the same as moving out, and we will still have plenty of quality time together to enjoy. But I'm still struggling.
It doesn't help that the end of the summer means little baby D is also getting bigger. In a few short months he will be one - the first year of his life gone. I can't even contemplate that milestone at the moment, but its impending arrival prompts mixed feelings; relief that we have got this far and will never have to do those awful newborn days again, and sadness that so much of his first months have been blighted by woe. Actually, it would be more accurate to say my first months with him were blighted. I worry less that he was affected than I did about Miss T.
I feel bad for feeling like this. That's hard for me to say. And it makes me angry, at myself.
I know this is not my fault. I know this is part of the PND. I know I will get over it. I know that knowing other people have heart-breaking things to deal with does not make my own feelings, when on the face of it I seem to have everything I could ever want, any less valid.
But some people find it harder to see that way, and unfortunately I am finding it hard to ignore them as I usually would. I know it's their problem more than mine but when every fibre of my being screams out to try to make them understand it's hard to accept that some people will never understand, no matter how eloquently (or not!) I try to explain it. But their ignorance makes an already difficult time much tougher.
Others, of course, are fantastic. But I find it harder and harder to reach out as time goes on. To answer the question "How's things?" with the truth, and confess that despite the hours and hours we have spent talking - the hours and hours they have given up for me - that "things" are actually no better.
I think part of that is that more and more reminders of things I'd rather forget are popping up. But maybe that's just my wonky brain again. I see others in situations I have been in and I can't help wondering if their life path will mirror mine. In my head I know it is different - they are different people, they will make different choices, but it still fills me with an overwhelming sadness, and regret that I didn't make different choices when I had the chance.
I'm making the choice now to stop wallowing so you are spared more woe. Tomorrow is another day....and here's hoping for a good one.