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View as: GRID LIST

Thank You Postnatal Depression

1
 

I’ve been thinking for a while about how I’m going to start sharing my story with everybody that comes to my classes or follows me on a social media platform, who reads my blog post or just comes into contact with me on a day-to-day basis. I’ve stayed away from telling my real story to lots of people for reasons I don’t really understand and I can’t really explain. Perhaps I used to feel embarrassed or worried that you might think me self-centred but I’ve come to realise that sharing helps you to get me. I also think that it might

SelfishMother.com
2
help other mums if I share where I came from and how I ended up here with Blossom and how happy it’s made me in the process.

Grace, my eldest daughter, is 15, nearly 16 years old now and I am a very, very different mum now to the one I thought I would be or the mum I was when she was a tiny baby. During my pregnancy, I had all these visions of being my image of an earth mother who wore long maxi dresses, looked very glamorous, cruised through pregnancy and childbirth and was going to spend hours ages walking through the parks, going for coffee and

SelfishMother.com
3
having lunches with her beautiful baby, snuggled close to her or sleeping peacefully in her pushchair.
Boy! My experience of motherhood wasn’t like that one bit. When Grace arrived, my world completely changed. Every rug was pulled from under my feet and I felt that I had nothing solid to stand on. The shift from feeling like “me” was immediate. I’d had a great pregnancy. I had a wonderful birth experience. I wasn’t overly struggling physically. I came home from hospital the day after Grace was born and it hit me.

I remember sitting in a

SelfishMother.com
4
chair at home whilst my family and friends came to visit and I felt like I was having some kind of out of body experience. It was almost as if I was looking down on myself sitting in this chair and just observing as the real me sat there empty, just watching people come and go. It wasn’t any of my family or my friends’ fault. They were desperate to see Grace and I think I was happy to welcome them but I felt lost. This was less 24 hours after Grace had been born.

I don’t think I anticipated how much having a baby would worry me. I was paranoid

SelfishMother.com
5
about everything. I started to read books. I hadn’t read many parenting or pregnancy books during my pregnancy as I felt comfortable and quite confident in my body, my ability to give birth and to be a mum.

But once Grace arrived, I doubted absolutely everything and I mean everything. Was she feeding right? Was she hungry? Was she thirsty? Was the health visitor going to say that she wasn’t putting on weight? Grace did everything that she should have done. There were no issues, no complications, no problems. I healed very quickly after her delivery

SelfishMother.com
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but nothing made me feel any better. I couldn’t rationalise anything. This didn’t change. My hubby did all the right things. He was there for me; caring and reassuring but I still felt lost and frightened. I can’t think of any other words to describe it.

Sadly for me, Grace then developed really bad eczema and that tipped me into this empty space even further. I withdrew. I didn’t go out much. I remember going up to Kwik Save in Moseley and a lady looked into the pushchair at Grace and turned to me and said ”Oh, what’s wrong with your baby?” I

SelfishMother.com
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was absolutely mortified. I can’t even remember what I did other than bursting into tears. I don’t know whether I paid for my food or whether I just left. I’m sure that lady didn’t mean any harm but I was absolutely devastated by the comment that she made. Things like this caused me to withdraw even further.

I felt isolated. None of my friends who lived close-by had children when I had Grace. My parents were extremely busy and weren’t there when I really needed them and my in-laws lived nearly three hours away. Keri had a crazy busy job, which

SelfishMother.com
8
involved him travelling to Madrid for a few days each week when Grace was very little so I spent most of my time on my own with her.
Some of my most vivid and heart-breaking memories are what I call my fish pie moments. I used to buy a Findus fish pie for 99p from Kwik Save. I’d go home, stick it in the oven, take it out, slump down in the kitchen and eat it straight out of the tray (often in tears). I’d stopped looking after myself in every way; physically and mentally. It was just awful. It was a really, really sad time for me.

I remember

SelfishMother.com
9
wanting to be ill, wanting to harm myself so that someone would come and look after me. I had thoughts about wanting to be taken into hospital so that I could just step off the planet for a while and have all the mothering responsibilities taken away from me. It really did get that bad.

The reason I’m telling you this is so that you can understand where my journey into motherhood started and why working with expectant and new mums is so important to me. If I can do anything to stop another mum feeling the way I did then I will. If it’s just one

SelfishMother.com
10
thing that I said or read out to them that makes the difference then I am singing my way out of that yoga space. If it’s meeting other mums and sharing experiences that brings her out of her dark place, then I have done my job. I am happy and I thank my postnatal depression for bringing me here.

I also want you all to know that it’s not unusual to feel like this once you’ve had a baby. I know lots of other mums feel this way. I’m now older and wiser and I know that I was a good mum and I know that I did all the right things to care for Grace but

SelfishMother.com
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I know that I did nothing to care for me. I almost gave up on myself. I was anxious, frightened, overwhelmed and depressed. We all feel like this sometimes but it’s not right if you feel like it every day. You need to share how you are feeling and talk to someone. Reach out.

I can tell you that I and all the other amazing mums out there are here for you, every step of the way; singing your praises, holding your hand and raising you up to where you deserve to be.

SelfishMother.com

By

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- 7 Jun 18

 

I’ve been thinking for a while about how I’m going to start sharing my story with everybody that comes to my classes or follows me on a social media platform, who reads my blog post or just comes into contact with me on a day-to-day basis. I’ve stayed away from telling my real story to lots of people for reasons I don’t really understand and I can’t really explain. Perhaps I used to feel embarrassed or worried that you might think me self-centred but I’ve come to realise that sharing helps you to get me. I also think that it might help other mums if I share where I came from and how I ended up here with Blossom and how happy it’s made me in the process.

Grace, my eldest daughter, is 15, nearly 16 years old now and I am a very, very different mum now to the one I thought I would be or the mum I was when she was a tiny baby. During my pregnancy, I had all these visions of being my image of an earth mother who wore long maxi dresses, looked very glamorous, cruised through pregnancy and childbirth and was going to spend hours ages walking through the parks, going for coffee and having lunches with her beautiful baby, snuggled close to her or sleeping peacefully in her pushchair.
Boy! My experience of motherhood wasn’t like that one bit. When Grace arrived, my world completely changed. Every rug was pulled from under my feet and I felt that I had nothing solid to stand on. The shift from feeling like “me” was immediate. I’d had a great pregnancy. I had a wonderful birth experience. I wasn’t overly struggling physically. I came home from hospital the day after Grace was born and it hit me.

I remember sitting in a chair at home whilst my family and friends came to visit and I felt like I was having some kind of out of body experience. It was almost as if I was looking down on myself sitting in this chair and just observing as the real me sat there empty, just watching people come and go. It wasn’t any of my family or my friends’ fault. They were desperate to see Grace and I think I was happy to welcome them but I felt lost. This was less 24 hours after Grace had been born.

I don’t think I anticipated how much having a baby would worry me. I was paranoid about everything. I started to read books. I hadn’t read many parenting or pregnancy books during my pregnancy as I felt comfortable and quite confident in my body, my ability to give birth and to be a mum.

But once Grace arrived, I doubted absolutely everything and I mean everything. Was she feeding right? Was she hungry? Was she thirsty? Was the health visitor going to say that she wasn’t putting on weight? Grace did everything that she should have done. There were no issues, no complications, no problems. I healed very quickly after her delivery but nothing made me feel any better. I couldn’t rationalise anything. This didn’t change. My hubby did all the right things. He was there for me; caring and reassuring but I still felt lost and frightened. I can’t think of any other words to describe it.

Sadly for me, Grace then developed really bad eczema and that tipped me into this empty space even further. I withdrew. I didn’t go out much. I remember going up to Kwik Save in Moseley and a lady looked into the pushchair at Grace and turned to me and said “Oh, what’s wrong with your baby?” I was absolutely mortified. I can’t even remember what I did other than bursting into tears. I don’t know whether I paid for my food or whether I just left. I’m sure that lady didn’t mean any harm but I was absolutely devastated by the comment that she made. Things like this caused me to withdraw even further.

I felt isolated. None of my friends who lived close-by had children when I had Grace. My parents were extremely busy and weren’t there when I really needed them and my in-laws lived nearly three hours away. Keri had a crazy busy job, which involved him travelling to Madrid for a few days each week when Grace was very little so I spent most of my time on my own with her.
Some of my most vivid and heart-breaking memories are what I call my fish pie moments. I used to buy a Findus fish pie for 99p from Kwik Save. I’d go home, stick it in the oven, take it out, slump down in the kitchen and eat it straight out of the tray (often in tears). I’d stopped looking after myself in every way; physically and mentally. It was just awful. It was a really, really sad time for me.

I remember wanting to be ill, wanting to harm myself so that someone would come and look after me. I had thoughts about wanting to be taken into hospital so that I could just step off the planet for a while and have all the mothering responsibilities taken away from me. It really did get that bad.

The reason I’m telling you this is so that you can understand where my journey into motherhood started and why working with expectant and new mums is so important to me. If I can do anything to stop another mum feeling the way I did then I will. If it’s just one thing that I said or read out to them that makes the difference then I am singing my way out of that yoga space. If it’s meeting other mums and sharing experiences that brings her out of her dark place, then I have done my job. I am happy and I thank my postnatal depression for bringing me here.

I also want you all to know that it’s not unusual to feel like this once you’ve had a baby. I know lots of other mums feel this way. I’m now older and wiser and I know that I was a good mum and I know that I did all the right things to care for Grace but I know that I did nothing to care for me. I almost gave up on myself. I was anxious, frightened, overwhelmed and depressed. We all feel like this sometimes but it’s not right if you feel like it every day. You need to share how you are feeling and talk to someone. Reach out.

I can tell you that I and all the other amazing mums out there are here for you, every step of the way; singing your praises, holding your hand and raising you up to where you deserve to be.

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