An apology to a magpie

Amy Rey - 15 Mar 17

Last year, on my daily pram-push around the park, I went properly bonkers about magpies. One for sorrow; two for joy; three for a girl; four for a boy. Except I only ever saw one on her own. And I had forgotten that magpies seek out shiny things (turns out I had become extremely forgetful). I hadn’t realised yet that mummy magpie had dragged herself out of her cosy nest, leaving her husband and kids behind, to try to show me the smallest glimmer in my darkest days. I just saw her, the harbinger of ever more sorrow and I truly didn’t think I could handle it any longer.

Sorrow was the perfect word too. It was heavy and low and dark. It wearily carried me along and had become my normal. Sorrow was as good as it got. At my absolute best, I was Eeyore.

And how I wish I could forget what I was like at my worst. When anxiety spiralled and swarmed and raged out of me. The cliché says living with a toddler is like owning a blender without a lid. But I don’t think I can even come close to explaining to you the enormity or severity of what that exploding Nutribullet meant to me every time it happened (or threatened to). A missed nap, an uneaten dinner, an irrational moment and instantly all evidence and rational thought flew up in the air, smashed and slashed by rotating blades. Panic got its slimy hands around my heart and squeezed. Catastrophe beat the drums of everlasting doom. Yes, I am being melodramatic; that’s kind of the point.

So, that was what it was like to live with me. Take your pick between Eeyore and the heroine in a Greek tragedy (with PMT). But in public I covered it up pretty well… or at least I tried to. I probably came across a bit tired and grumpy, a bit short with the kids and my husband. But I covered it up. For two and a half years. I have brilliant friends and family, I am pretty well read, I knew about postnatal depression but I honestly didn’t realise I had it. I was suicidal and I genuinely thought it was normal.

I’m better now. Not 100% but on an upward (slightly turbulent) trajectory. I was incredibly lucky that the dam finally broke all over a wonderful GP (who had innocently remarked my baby had dry skin and was rewarded by a wailing harridan confessing she was the worst mother in the world), and that I was referred to a fantastic cognitive behavioural therapist. That I got help and I learned I could cope, even if the lid did come off the Nutribullet and we got avocado all up the walls. That there was no such thing as perfect and who cared anyway. That self care is just as important as looking after the kids. I have bad moments not bad months. I have a lot more moments of brilliant, blinding sunshine. I see rainbows instead of magpies.

And that’s a shame, because I owe you an apology, Mrs Magpie, for judging you by your feathers.

Amy Rey

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