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A new mum’s mantra: be kind, be heard, be well

1
It’s Maternal Mental Health Matters Awareness week.

Like many people, I’ve pretty much always used writing to get my thoughts in order. I kept diaries when I was younger and I wrote poems, songs and letters (that were never sent) to and about the people and issues in my life. It was cathartic.

But as I got older and ‘real’ life took over, I began to write for me less and less. In fact, my job was writing about other people and sometimes their stories were so harrowing my own troubles paled into insignificance. I’d found a passion for

SelfishMother.com
2
searching out and telling other people’s tales and my ability to put my own feelings down on paper slowly fell by the wayside. What could I possibly have to say, anyway? My life as a twenty-something was relatively carefree and, to be honest, even when I went through a rough patch, resulting in me developing mild anxiety, I was too scared to put anything on paper because it made it seem more real. Then, as time went on and I grew older, life got in the way and the last thing I wanted to do – after a day at a computer, typing and writing – was come
SelfishMother.com
3
home and type some more.

Then something huge happened. I had a baby and my life changed beyond compare. You can’t really be carefree when you’re responsible for another being. Your own life takes on a whole new meaning and with it a whole new, never-before-experienced world of worries and joys. Having a baby brings ultimate highs and crushing lows, sometimes within seconds of each other. And I struggled. I struggled with the massive adjustment to everything I’d ever known. I struggled with not being in control of my body, my emotions, my day. I

SelfishMother.com
4
struggled with never knowing what I was doing; if I was doing it right; why I was even doing it. I struggled with feeling like I’d failed as a mum before I’d even really begun to be one and some days I just struggled for no reason at all.

The mundanity of life with a baby has quite literally brought me to tears on more than one occasion and even now if I stop and think for too long about the responsibility I’ve taken on, I can feel my old anxiety resurfacing. Even now, one year in, I sometimes lay in bed at night and run through all the horrible

SelfishMother.com
5
things that could possibly happen to me and/or my little boy and I have to fight the temptation to wail out loud. I’m terrified of losing him but I’m more terrified of leaving him. I live with that feeling every day – as do a lot of parents.

Is this PND? No, I don’t think so. I don’t think what I feel even comes close to what some mums experience. I’m just on the slightly dodgy end of the normal range of emotions you go through when you’ve had a baby. But it’s still important to acknowledge it. It’s ok not to feel ok. You don’t

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have to love every second. And you’re allowed to be frightened.

I’m lucky to have some incredible support. Imagine feeling this way (and then some) and not being able to talk about it, to anyone. When I woke up one morning feeling like I’d made a terrible mistake, I promptly called my mum who came straight over and listened to me cry, telling me it was all normal and I was doing an incredible job. We need more mums to do that for other mums. We need to let parents everywhere know that it’s ok to have bad days and that you can talk about it,

SelfishMother.com
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openly and honestly, and without fear of judgement. We’re here for each other.

After the initial shock of having a baby wore off and I started to find my way in my new life as a mum, I found I needed that cathartic outlet again. I began to type some of my random thoughts into (semi) coherent pieces of writing, at first, to simply make sense of things in my own mind. Some of it made its way on to my Facebook page and friends started reacting to it in a positive way. It reassured me that what I was feeling was perfectly normal, that I wasn’t alone.

SelfishMother.com
8
I never intended to become a ‘mummy blogger’ but here I am putting a post on a blog site, about being a mum. I’ve found that getting it all out, writing it all down has helped me to work through some of the challenges I’ve faced as a first-time mum and, I hope, will one day help others too.

So keep talking, mums (and dads). Talk to each other, to family, to anonymous usernames on an internet forum. Reach out for help if you can’t cope and if someone reaches out to you, take their hand and hold it tight. Let them know you’re there for them.

SelfishMother.com
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We can’t all be perfect all of the time, but we can be kind – to ourselves and to others. Be kind, be heard, be well.
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- 3 May 17

It’s Maternal Mental Health Matters Awareness week.

Like many people, I’ve pretty much always used writing to get my thoughts in order. I kept diaries when I was younger and I wrote poems, songs and letters (that were never sent) to and about the people and issues in my life. It was cathartic.

But as I got older and ‘real’ life took over, I began to write for me less and less. In fact, my job was writing about other people and sometimes their stories were so harrowing my own troubles paled into insignificance. I’d found a passion for searching out and telling other people’s tales and my ability to put my own feelings down on paper slowly fell by the wayside. What could I possibly have to say, anyway? My life as a twenty-something was relatively carefree and, to be honest, even when I went through a rough patch, resulting in me developing mild anxiety, I was too scared to put anything on paper because it made it seem more real. Then, as time went on and I grew older, life got in the way and the last thing I wanted to do – after a day at a computer, typing and writing – was come home and type some more.

Then something huge happened. I had a baby and my life changed beyond compare. You can’t really be carefree when you’re responsible for another being. Your own life takes on a whole new meaning and with it a whole new, never-before-experienced world of worries and joys. Having a baby brings ultimate highs and crushing lows, sometimes within seconds of each other. And I struggled. I struggled with the massive adjustment to everything I’d ever known. I struggled with not being in control of my body, my emotions, my day. I struggled with never knowing what I was doing; if I was doing it right; why I was even doing it. I struggled with feeling like I’d failed as a mum before I’d even really begun to be one and some days I just struggled for no reason at all.

The mundanity of life with a baby has quite literally brought me to tears on more than one occasion and even now if I stop and think for too long about the responsibility I’ve taken on, I can feel my old anxiety resurfacing. Even now, one year in, I sometimes lay in bed at night and run through all the horrible things that could possibly happen to me and/or my little boy and I have to fight the temptation to wail out loud. I’m terrified of losing him but I’m more terrified of leaving him. I live with that feeling every day – as do a lot of parents.

Is this PND? No, I don’t think so. I don’t think what I feel even comes close to what some mums experience. I’m just on the slightly dodgy end of the normal range of emotions you go through when you’ve had a baby. But it’s still important to acknowledge it. It’s ok not to feel ok. You don’t have to love every second. And you’re allowed to be frightened.

I’m lucky to have some incredible support. Imagine feeling this way (and then some) and not being able to talk about it, to anyone. When I woke up one morning feeling like I’d made a terrible mistake, I promptly called my mum who came straight over and listened to me cry, telling me it was all normal and I was doing an incredible job. We need more mums to do that for other mums. We need to let parents everywhere know that it’s ok to have bad days and that you can talk about it, openly and honestly, and without fear of judgement. We’re here for each other.

After the initial shock of having a baby wore off and I started to find my way in my new life as a mum, I found I needed that cathartic outlet again. I began to type some of my random thoughts into (semi) coherent pieces of writing, at first, to simply make sense of things in my own mind. Some of it made its way on to my Facebook page and friends started reacting to it in a positive way. It reassured me that what I was feeling was perfectly normal, that I wasn’t alone. I never intended to become a ‘mummy blogger’ but here I am putting a post on a blog site, about being a mum. I’ve found that getting it all out, writing it all down has helped me to work through some of the challenges I’ve faced as a first-time mum and, I hope, will one day help others too.

So keep talking, mums (and dads). Talk to each other, to family, to anonymous usernames on an internet forum. Reach out for help if you can’t cope and if someone reaches out to you, take their hand and hold it tight. Let them know you’re there for them. We can’t all be perfect all of the time, but we can be kind – to ourselves and to others. Be kind, be heard, be well.

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Mum to one and step-mum to another, working and living in the Midlands. I used to write about other people, now I'm trying my hand at writing about myself. Pretty much only had a baby so I could dress someone up in a costume at least once a week...

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