I think half the battle was actually realising or maybe admitting there was a problem. To be completely honest, I think there was a problem wayyy before Cadence was born. Maybe even before Emilie was born, but it would have just manifested itself in a different way.
There have been traumatising events in my life, even before kids, that I have never dealt with. My way of coping is to push it as far as possible to the back of my mind and try to erase it from existance without dealing with it. So of course every little thing has just piled up on top of the last until something's gotta give.
I have always had the "stiff upper lip" approach. Be grateful for the pro's and ignore the con's in life. Someone is always worse off than you. Which is true. I still feel like it is a cop out by saying that maybe everything is relative and even though I am more fortunate than 99% of the world's population, I still have good reason to be depressed or anxious? I feel like a wimp, though!
So this is how I ended up getting help: I have been feeling "not myself" for a long, long time. I didn't realise how deep I was in, until I tried to climb out. At the six week check-up for Cadence and me, I said to my obstetrician, "I am not feeling like myself, I feel strange... could I possibly have PND or PNA?" I think he could just sense it because he referred me straight away. Even then, I was still partially in denial. I thought "they will think I'm silly." But something just wasn't right. And that something had been there since Cadence was about 6 weeks gestation and I started to get very bad morning sickness. I had started to resent her even though her tiny heart had only just begun beating. I regretted getting pregnant and I wanted it to go away. I'm pretty sure I suffered from pre-natal depression/anxiety.
It feels surreal to be typing this, late at night, one-handed, while Cadence lays in my other arm and I am just beginning to enjoy her... she has no idea of what I am writing about her, I feel sad for this. She is yet to develop the concept of resentment. She is happy to smile at me and watch my face while I sit here typing my darkest feelings about her. I feel like the worst mum. Will she read this one day? How will she feel when she discovers how I felt about her?
My pregnancy with her was rocky. I started getting contractions at 19 weeks and rushed to hospital thinking the worst. Fortunately, I wasn't dilating yet, but needed 6 weeks of partial bed rest (taking it as easy as possible without being confined to bed completely). Even after I had come off bed rest, for the rest of my pregnancy, doing most day-to-day things brought on either contractions or Braxton Hicks contractions. I resented the baby inside me for not being able to do the regular things that needed to be done, especially considering we were renovating at the time and it was very frustrating not to be an extra pair of hands to get things done.
I also had placenta previa (placenta was too close to the cervix) which had caused bleeding during my pregnancy. (Fortunately it moved before the birth). By 30 weeks, I had such painful hemmorhoids, one of which had thrombosed and then ruptured, which was excruciating. I remember thinking "I just want the baby OUT. I don't care if it is sick from being premature. I just want it GONE". It was an awful feeling to have.
We made it to 38 weeks 1 day! Her birth was fantastic and a miraculous thing happened. I totally bonded with her! All of my resentment melted away. During labour I was like a lioness! I just did what my body told me to do and just after I birthed her head I reached down and caressed her. One more push and she was out. (I will post my birth story another time).
I was totally in love with her for the first few days. Then I got home. And reality hit. Even though Paul was fantastic and just did everything so that I didn't have to lift a finger, the resentment towards Cadence came creeping back. I got mastitis. My "down there" stitches got infected. She had feeding problems and breathing problems. She was ALWAYS crying. Emilie was being naughty all the time and had all of a sudden decided to drop her day sleep. Things were SHIT.
To be honest, there were underlying issues outside of the home as well, which just made me unable to cope with the rockiness at home.
Whatever start of a bond that had begun, vanished. One night Cadence was crying and crying and crying and she wouldn't latch onto my breast, my blood pressure rose to a level that I nearly hurled her across the room, but whatever maternal instinct was left inside dumped her on Paul and I ran into the bedroom bawling my eyes out.
I think that was the point at which I knew something wasn't right. I felt so guilty about feeling that way. About having the desire to hurt my own flesh and blood. A helpless baby who probably didn't know why she felt so shit either.
She felt so shit because of GORD - Gastro Oesphageal Reflux Disorder - most commonly known as reflux. Once she started on medication she slowly got better. But I didn't. I asked myself "why don't I feel better now that Cadence isn't crying all the time now? Why do I still feel stressed even though feeding times are now easier? Why do I still feel exhausted even though she is now sleeping better at night?" And that made me feel even worse because now I didn't have a "reason" why I was feeling horrible and why I still resented my baby. That is how I ended up asking my obstetrician for help.
I had the 8 week Community Health Nurse check-up and I did the PND/PNA screening test. I scored 17 (anything above 10 is positive for PND/PNA). I told the CHN that I already had a care plan in place and I had an upcoming appointment with the psychologist.
After the 4th meeting with the psychologist I had a friend post the link to the same screening test online. I decided to take the test again out of interest and I scored 21. Which is worse than my previous score.
Today I did the test again and scored 23... am I getting worse???
Along the way we have found Cadence suffers from a few other medical conidtions too which I will talk about in another post.And at my latest session with SB, we came to the realisation that I have separation anxiety from Emilie. I will talk about that in another post very soon.
It is going to be a long road to recovery. But I already have some understanding now of what is going on. Realising and admitting that something needs to change was the first step. Now I need to put some action into place. I have a few things that hopefully will help me get back to being me again.
-Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) I am learning how to do this with SB the psychologist.
-Keeping a journal of my everyday anxiety visions and leaving a space underneath so I can "alter" my thought patterns - have been putting this off but I really should get started.
-Writing this blog
-Physical excersise every day to burn off the extra adrenaline.
-Spending time away from my kids to help me get over my separation anxiety from them... hmmm this is going to be the hardest one.
-Trying to get as much sleep as possible (this one will be hard too!)
No comments:
Post a Comment