Lessons

So nearly a month has passed since I started this blog, and what have I learned?
Rather more than I expected, actually.
First of all, there are so many more people out there who feel like I do, even if they are not ready to stand up publicly yet and admit to their experiences of depression or other "mental health issues" ( I still hate that phrase!).
Secondly, I could write four blog posts every day and still not get everything out I want to say - for a girl who was frequently told off at school for not contributing and being too quiet this is an interesting experience.
Also, and this has been one of the hardest lessons, although at times this blog feels like a diary it isn't because real people - people I know - are reading and inwardly digesting what I write. Which is of course the point, but it's something I need to remember more in the future because sometimes inadvertently it impacts on them. And there's no need for us all to be miserable just cos I am!
I've learnt a lot about myself as well - when I think I'm fine I'm often not, and in fact it's those times when I protest loudly about being completely in control that I'm usually desperately floundering.
I've also learnt that an awful lot scares me still. Not just things like spiders - including the extra-massive one who decided to join me in the shower this morning - but proper big things like how I will tell Tasha about all of this when she's older.
I always thought it would be great to show her this and let her read it for herself, and I still think it would be, but not without a proper introduction to the subject first.
I'm terrified she will read it and think I didn't try hard enough, or failed her in some important way.
And beyond that is still this fear that I did something wrong in the beginning for all this to happen to me. I've read and heard so many other stories of people with PND and almost all of them have some base or cause they can point to - a traumatic birth, severe health problems, relationship breakdowns, serious life stresses....what do I have? A supportive and long-suffering partner, text-book water birth, and an angel baby from heaven.
Plus of course the crippling guilt that I missed so much of her early life and the numbing terror that it could all come back at any time.
But anyway! What started off as a reflective, vaguely optimistic post has as usual got distracted...so maybe a bit of self-editing would be another useful skill to acquire.
x