Suffering in silence.....

So my post this morning had me thinking on the drive home after surving the baby shower. Post natal depression. What a label. What a stigma. I never thought it would happen to me. Oh how I struggled to accept that I need help. Especially because little jay is my second child. Shouldn't it be easier to cope. Shouldn't everything just fall into place. Rather than feeling like I was drowning and going to break in an instant. If I have learnt anything over the last few months it's amazing the amount of mothers that suffer in silence, alone & feeling unsupported by other mothers. I am lucky to have a few people close to me that support me and are just there for me. But then there are days like today when I'm so far outside my comfort zone I can't think and the anxiety takes over. I'm sure these other women thought I was just rude. But the reality is, just being there feels like a massive achievement. An achievement in fight against this demon that takes over my mind & attempts to control my thoughts.

I suffered alone and in silence for 3 months. My wonderful husband couldn't understand what was happening to his wife. My mother couldn't understand what was happening to her daughter. My children witnessed a side of their mother than no child should ever have too. I will admit I yelled at my infant. At my toddler. At myself. There were days when getting out of bed and pretending to function where my greatest achievement. I was failing my children, my husband, my family and most of all myself. You see I'm a perfectionist and anything less is unacceptable. So when you have a child that doesn't sleep and constantly screams. Where doctors can't tell you what's wrong. When you are so exhausted and riddled with sleep deprivation that your body physically aches. You see that perfection slipping away. You pretend to smile and hope that those feelings of lack of self worth go away, but sometimes, just sometimes you need to hit rock bottom and accept that you aren't perfect and that you need help. That acceptance of help has to come from inside you. You need to see that things aren't ok, but that it is ok to need help.

I stil vividly remember my rock bottom moment. It was a Saturday and as normal DaddaG was at work. I was living my worst nightmare. I was at home with both boys. Riddled with fear and unable to cope. Those constant times of crying when I'm alone had become to much. I would sit on the couch with the boys and just cry. I didn't know how else to cope. I feared for my safety. Never my boys safety. I would never do anything to them. But I needed to escape. I didn't care how. I never actually did anything, but those thoughts of blame and needing to escape where always at the from of my mind. I woke feeling that way and went to bed feeling that way. I couldn't escape my own thoughts. They were consuming my life.

Now this particular Saturday, DaddaG & I were talking via messages and I can't remember what started it but I let it all out. I told him I couldn't cope, I needed to escape, that I constantly cried and lived in my own world of failure and fear. After that moment, after that rock bottom moment a wave of relief came over me. I couldn't believe I had been hiding these feelings from him. I had broken our team. I was braking our family. That next week I took myself of to the doctor and started to get the help I needed, but I still live in the solitude of my family. I live with the stigma. I am a sufferer. I admit I need help. 

Did you know 1 in 7 or 10% of all mothers suffer from post natal depression and that doesn't take into account the mothers that don't get help. How can we have statistics that like that, but yet we make it so unacceptable for a mother to admit that sometimes they just need a bit of help. That there is nothing they have done, that they have not failed but just need support to get through that tough entry into motherhood. We as women and mothers should stand up and fight the stigma and fight against the silence we live in. Because I would hate for someones wife, sister, daughter and friend to experience what I did and be to afraid of the stigma that they lose a silent battle against an illness that is treatable. 

For all those mothers that read this that think they might just need help, I plead with you please talk to your partner, a friend, a family, your doctor or contact Beyond Blue or PANDA. There are people to help and you are never alone!

http://www.panda.org.au 

http://www.beyondblue.org.au