PND Support Thread

[bumpsmum]

hey chick good to hear from you (but sorry your back here iykwim) x

Med free for a while between weaning from one onto another and feel good so not taking anything for a week or so, see how I go. Back to work 4th Jan and actually looking forward to some normalcy and routine x

 

[debbie2911]

hello i only managed to read a few pages as there is so many but i just wanted to say i suffered pnd for a year iv been ok for 5 months now but i suffered different to what you hear, my health visitor diagnosed me when i told her i was sad. i couldnt understand how i had pnd, as i loved my baby so much but that was just it i loved her so much i thought people would hurt her, i wouldnt let anyone look after her and i told my dh not to change her nappy infront of men, it was the worst year of my life some days i would wake up really happy and looking forward to the day and other days i didnt want to look after my daughter, or socialise, i feel like iv forgotten the first 4 months of her life and that breaks my heart. i never had medication as 2 wks after being told i had it i went back and had the test and they said i was fine, i was having a good day, i no now that i should of seeked help and gone to my gp, im lucking i dont feel sad anymore but im worried about my sister in law, she told me shes depressed and some days feels like running away and leaving her son, i dont no how to help her, every time she talks about it she says she will go to gp or widwives but she never does her oh dont no how she feels, i told her to research on net but no hope there, if anyone has any useful tips on helping please message me, i no iv been through this but for some reason i just cant seem to help her.
sorry for such long message but it makes me feel better talking abut it im just glad now that i finally feel like myself again.
please seek help if you feel sad and it does gets easier with time

 

[carolyn_s]

bumpsmum, thats sounds promising. I was looking forward to going back to work too but obv that has been postponed again lol. I was a bit sceptical about being pregnant to start with but im all excited now! i like being fussed over hehe.
hhow did christmas go for you? xx

 

[Cattia]

Hello everyone,

I am not sure whether I am posting this in the right place, but I am a bit worried about the fact that I am not feeling too good. My baby is only 11 days old so I don't know if this could still be baby blues or if it is something more? I feel very low and feel like crying at the slightest thing. I am very scared about my OH going back to work on Wednesday and it makes me feel full of panic to think about it! I love my daughter so much,she is wonderful and I don't feel I have had problems so far bonding with her, but I do feel that I am sooooo anxious all the time about her and never feel sure that she is OK, I feel like I want constant reassurance that she is doing OK and that I am doing the right thing. I am worried thart these feelings will not go away or willget worse. I have suffered from depression in the past and have been on prozac which I have always found has worked great for me and treated my depression really well so I would not mind too much if I had to go back on it, I am just worried about the way I am feeling and I don't know if it is normal or not. I don't want my daughter to suffer, I want to be able to enjpy her and enjoy life as a family and I feel bad that the way I am feeling is stopping me from making the most of my time with her. I am also worried that if I don't start to feel better, this might start to affect my relationship with my OH as well. Sorry for the long post ladies, just wanted some advice.

 

[carolyn_s]

Hey Cattia,
sorry your feeling rotten. Having had depression in the past does make you more prone to getting PND but it is early days yet.
You described a lot of things that i suffered from before i saught help. If you have a health visitor you can trust you should confide in her, my one regret is that i didnt speak up before i did. I suffered in silence for months and it was horrible.
Perhaps mentioning it to your OH too? i couldnt do that at the time but after i was diagnosed i would leave him little notes to tell him how i felt because i couldnt face talking about it.
If it gets worse go to your GP or phone you HV and ask to be seen straight away its not worth delaying treatment.
In the meantime try keeping a diary? score your mood daily out of 10 and its a good way of emptying all the thoughts out your head. It helps me sleep if i can stop all the negative thougths whirring around in my head!

hope i have been of some use lol.

oh and congratulations...no matter what just try to enjoy your little bundle and get "me" time whereever possible..
we are all here whenever you need us xxx

 

[Cattia]

Thank you Carolyn! It is good to know that there is some support here! I miss all the support from third tri, all the ladies there were together since first tri and now that our babies are born people seem to have gone their separate ways. I also had a good relationship with my midwife but I was discharged yesterday so I am not going to see her any more and I have not met the health visitor yet but she is coming on Tuesday so I will meet her then. If she seems OK then I will try to disucss my concerns with her as you are right, it is better to act sooner rather than let things get any worse. Thanks again for your reply.

 

[carolyn_s]

No problem, there is always someone here that will listen to you rant! believe me ive done it enough times!
If your not keen on speaking to your HV im sure if you rang your midwife you could speak to her and she would pass on your concerns, if its to daunting to tell someone new.
let us know how you get on... and remember we are always here xx

 

[AP]

Hope you girls are ok! Hope you all had a good xmas and new year!

i have my counselling session a week 2mro, i think i will be cancelling, I am not comfortable with this group counselling idea!

 

[carolyn_s]

SB22 hope you had a fab xmas and new year.

im not sure if its the same thing but i went (was dragged more like) to a pnd group session weekly. I really didnt want to go but ended up really enjoying it. Im not a very open but we all ended up gossiping more than anything and there was a creche for LO's so it gave us an hour to drink tea, munch biscuits and natter!!

might not be like you expect it to be - might be worth giving it a bash just once, if you dont like it you dont have to stay and you certainly dont have to go back.

take care hun xx

 

[StinkyMonkey]

I'm new to this site and posting from my blackberry so I hope I'm doing it right! I had my son October 15 by unplanned c-section. At first I thought I had the baby blues but when they didn't go away I just knew it was PND. My biggest issue was I was not "falling in love" with my baby. He wouldn't latch and when I would try to feed him I would get panic attacks. I would just leave the room and make my bf feed him. I talked to my Dr and started meds and councilling. I'm starting to feel a lot better and really falling in love with my little guy but this evening I had a set back. I was pumping and my bf brought our son in with me and left the room to warm up a bottle. While he was in the kitchen my son started to cry and I couldn't calm him and I went into a full blown panic attack. I'm feeling pretty low cause I thought it was getting a lot better. Is this normal to go back and forth while on medication? I just want to be better again. I hate that my son is bonding with his father more then me cause I'm hiding away worried to have a panic attack and because I'm scared of my own baby. Sorry ladies if this just turned into a rammble. Once I started typing this I couldn't stop. I feel better now! Thanks for listening to me!

 

[Cattia]

Hi,

I have not been diagnosed with PND but have suffered depression in the past and been on medication, my experience with it was always that it will come and go for a while before going altogether and it is normal to get setbacks. It also might mean that your meds need to be upped slightly, I am sorry I can'tbe more specific about PND as I am not currently on medication but I do know that from my experience things never quite go in a 'straight line' with meds and it is normal to be up and down on them for a while. How long have you been taking them?

 

[RobenR]

I haven't been diagnosed with PND but my husband swears I have the baby blues. I have been treated with Celexa since our miscarriage earlier this year and they kept me on it through the pregnancy and have increased my dosage since the birth of our son 3 weeks ago.

I have an appointment next week to see if I do have it. I stare at my newborn baby and have no joy. All I want to do is cry and I fantasize about leaving my family convinced they would be better of without me. I don't want to hold my baby and haven't felt connected to him. I feed him and look at him and wonder what have I done? My husband feels guilty and starts apologizing if he misses a cue that I need some time away from the baby and makes me feel so horrible and guilty that I think I am no better than some abusive spouse and all my husband can do is say he's sorry. What kind of person am I?

After a week of almost non-stop fussing, of mother and in-laws calling constantly and feeling like the world is my baby and I no longer matter I just needed some time off the clock. I want to escape. I don't know what to do.

All I want to do is cry.

 

[StinkyMonkey]

Roben I feel the exact same way as you! I talked to my Dr about it and she put me on ciprelex and that has been helping a lot! I did have a set back last night as you can read just above. Even after that post I was trying to figure out where I can move and how I can do it cause I also thought everyone would be better off if I moved out. I have a psych appointment tomorrow and I'm going to see if I can increase my meds. I'm glad you are seeing your Dr. Soon about how you are feeling. Ask her abour cipralex maybe it will help you more then the one you are on now. I hope you feel better and if you need to chat send me a message!

 

[StinkyMonkey]

Roben I feel the exact same way as you! I talked to my Dr about it and she put me on ciprelex and that has been helping a lot! I did have a set back last night as you can read just above. Even after that post I was trying to figure out where I can move and how I can do it cause I also thought everyone would be better off if I moved out. I have a psych appointment tomorrow and I'm going to see if I can increase my meds. I'm glad you are seeing your Dr. Soon about how you are feeling. Ask her abour cipralex maybe it will help you more then the one you are on now. I hope you feel better and if you need to chat send me a message!

 

[Lottie86]

Hi everyone.

I have never been given this questionnaire you all mention so I haven't been diagnosed with anything so I hope it is ok me posting in this thread.

I braved speaking to my gp about how I felt in the summer however he wasn't exactly helpful and his solution to the nightmares and flashbacks regarding Findlay's birth and the week leading up to it was sleeping tablets (which I didn't take as I am expressing) The GP decided that as I was under so much stress with all Findlay's health problems and hospital stays that there was no point referring me to speak to anyone until that was all sorted!!!
Findlay is at last going in the right direction but it's going to be a long road and we are unsure at the mo of any long term problems he may have so the GP could be waiting a long time.

My OH told me yesterday he thinks I should go back and see a different gp who might be more sympathetic as I was in a foul mood the other day and actually walked out of the house (OH was looking after Findlay- I'd never leave Findlay on his own) as Findlay was screeching in pain and nothing at all would calm him down and he'd been like this for hours and all my friends were posting on Facebook about how they couldn't imagine their lives without their baby and how their babies are reaching all their milestones etc and I was sitting here thinking that that is not how I feel (I don't feel this 'love' that everyone else seems to for their babies which makes me feel bad as I know I should) and Findlay is 8.5 months old and can't even roll over yet.

It just gets me so stressed and upset when everyone else seems to be having trips out with their babies and due to all his hospital stays we have never had a family day out yet, we just seem to spend our time going from hospital appt to hospital appt what with the dietician, the physio, the occupational therapist, the speech therapist, the development consultant, gastro consultant etc. My family and friends all live about 12 hrs away so I've got no support network at all so whilst my OH is at work I am on my own all day every day with Findlay and he can be an awful lot of work if he spends the whole day crying (although he's thankfully much less work than he was prior to his surgeries).

There are lots of times when I feel he'd be so much better off with a different Mummy as I have been rubbish since I got pregnant with all sorts of things happening with the pregnancy resulting in me spending half the pregnancy on bed rest and him being 5 weeks prem (I couldn't even manage to be any good at being pregnant!) which then caused other issues. I get so upset when he is in pain and nothing will comfort him as I just take it as a sign that I am not any good at being a Mummy and that he doesn't like me

My OH is really good and usually really patient with me but he has his moments when he loses his rag a bit with me if I'm having a bad day and muttering about how Findlay would have been better off and my life would be easier if I'd had him adopted when he was born (he was totally unplanned and I'd never wanted kids so it's taken me a hell of a long time to try and get my head around being a mum)

My OH's parents ad to my stress as they are utterly obsessed with Findlay (they ring at least once a day) and want to see him every single week and every time they see us they pass him round like pass the parcel and take loads of pics and it gets me so worked up but I'm not actually sure why.

Ok you are prob all thinking I'm a bit mad now so I'll stop typing now.

 

[AP]

Lottie, you said a lot there I could really relate to (obviously)

I know the feeling about the waiting game not sure what the future holds for our LO's. It's like everything is on hold til they get bigger, and right now I feel trapped a lot more than I'm guessing a 'normal' full term mum would with a baby. It's hard enough to get out and about but when your baby has appointments to attend and you constantly run the risk of infections etc it runs you down.

Facebook is a shitter for me too, I see mums all the time gushing in their status about how they "love being a mummy" and how "being a mummy is the best job in the world". And I often sit there and go "is it fuck!". That feeling goes away and comes back throughout the day. I have my good days and my bad days. And I'm sure these Facebook mums have just as much of a rough time of it, they just put on that front.

As for "not being able to do pregnancy right", if thats the case then I am bloody hopeless Who said pregnancy had to last nine months?!?! Lets face it, at least we were't waddling around!

It sounds like you need to speak to someone and vent it all out. My HV sent me to a counsellor and having it out with her did help me to understand why I felt this way, and allowed me to deal with it better. I hated the idea, but I went, and I'm glad I did.

How is your HV, is she nice? You could speak to her too - they see PND and similar all the time and its sod all to be ashamed about - nobody said this was easy hun! They've been through training and know the signs! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

[bumpsmum]

morning ladies,

Sorry not posted in a while here went back to work this week so been hectic. Im pleased to say im FINALLY starting to feel better my medication was changed just before xmas and I feel alot calmer, less anxious and sleeping so much easier. Still have the odd blip but its managable. For me going back to work was a major step and while psychiatrist didnt think it was a good idea just being in adult company, having something to focus on and having more structure and routine has been what I have needed.

How is everyone getting on? xx

 

[carolyn_s]

bumpsmum, im so happy for you!! thats so good!

since my pregnancy hormone kicked in im like you and have only had minor blips. Im no naive enough to think this will be the end of it but at least after number 2 i will know what to look out for!!

hope work doesnt get too stressful!! have fun and take care xx

 

[kmh2009]

anyone around

 

[stephwiggy]

i have posted this in the GS but it was suggested i posted in here

My wee man is 4 now and i had pnd and a bout of depression, and today we have found out that my husband is going to have to work away for min 4.5 months, maybe quite abit longer.

tbh there has been a lingering feeling for a while that somethings not quite right..

I know i shoudl see the doc but before then is there anything i can do ?


our doc is a military doc and is really hard to get an appt at especially as OH is working crappy shifts before he goes at the end of the month and i dont have anyone to look after LO at all i mean i literally dont know anyone here.


serioulsy i feel like shite - my back is really bad my knees hurt (my current house has no adaptions)

LO has no playschool or friends and the local play group doesnt have space and i cant get him anywhere else!!!


i am serioulsy at my witts end