About Me

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

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.

5 comments:

Kate said...

Hello!
Just wanted to say hi so you know I am here and reading (and digesting) your thoughts.

me-again said...

Me too - what Kate says. Well done for saying the hard things.

Sarah Jane said...

Liz, I have many days where I feel like this about my whole life. Wondering why I didn't make so many different choices, learn to listen to what I really wanted, learn to say what I really wanted. But while it's easy to think that another path would have been better, in reality you can never know that. You've done the best you could at the time, and there's no-one on earth who can manage more than that. What would doing things 'better' have changed? You have two wonderful children. If you'd done things differently then they wouldn't be the wonderful people they're becoming, just as neither you nor I would be exactly who we are if our parents hadn't done the things they did, both right and wrong. And neither of us should ever be wishing to be other than we are. As for 'admitting' that things don't get better ... I know exactly how you feel. I crack joke after joke about my OCD, I let everyone know about it, and yet I'm so ashamed to show or tell anyone how bad it can sometimes be. No-one has a right to expect you to be any 'better' just because they have tried to help and no-one does. We all love you for who you are, and that includes the fact that you have experienced and continue to experience post-natal depression. No-one expects any improvement in return for their help. It's just what friends do for each other.

Sarah Jane said...

Sorry, there should be a comma before 'and no-one does'.

Liz said...

Thanks girls x