Worried Sick

Helen Chandler - 3 May 17

Why is it such a big deal to write, or talk, about mental health? When I broke my foot or had tonsillitis I blogged about it and moaned to friends about my woes without a second thought. But there is still a stigma attached to mental health problems. I worry that I will be judged, that I am over-sharing, or that I will make others unhappy, but this is Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week, and I am sharing my story because I want other mums suffering to know they are not alone.

My youngest daughter is now two, and after her birth I was aware of not feeling ‘right’, often in ways I couldn’t define even to myself. I checked the symptoms of post-natal depression a couple of times, but that didn’t really fit with how I was feeling. So, I dismissed it, pushed it to the back of my mind, resolutely ignored it. There were times when I felt absolutely fine, and during those times I could convince myself that the panic attacks, flash-backs, waves of utterly overwhelming and incapacitating guilt, terror or despair which literally stopped me in my tracks when they occurred had been a temporary aberration and were now behind me. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case, and they kept coming back.

I hadn’t told anyone at all. I felt ashamed and guilty that I wasn’t totally happy. I had everything anyone could want, my wonderful husband, adored eldest daughter and now a beautiful baby girl to complete my perfect family. With several good friends who are having ongoing struggles to conceive I felt an especially strong compulsion to be happy and grateful for my astonishing good luck.

Then one evening this time last year, a chance remark of my husband’s led to a particularly intense flashback. I cried. And cried. And cried. Then cried some more. Then hyper-ventilated. Then cried again. And finally told him some of what I had been experiencing. Saying it for the first time was the most difficult, but after telling him I also felt able to talk to my parents a week or two later. Husband and parents were incredibly supportive. They didn’t think I was making a fuss about nothing, which was what I had been telling myself, and they encouraged me to get proper professional help.

That was another big step, but with their support I managed it. I was diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and anxiety, caused by my youngest daughter’s very difficult birth, which came after an intensely stressful high-risk pregnancy, and a series of miscarriages.

Basically, my mind had got locked into danger-alert and I just couldn’t relax out of it. I didn’t think I would ever have a second child. I had been told that I only had a 40% chance of having a healthy, full-term baby – and my previous ratio of pregnancy:live birth indicated that was accurate. I worried every single minute of every single day of my pregnancy that she was going to die. For the first half of my labour I was terrified she wouldn’t make it, for the second half, when the epidural stopped working half way through my c-section leaving me able to feel everything, and then the morphine they gave me impeded my breathing, I was worried I was.

We didn’t die. But that didn’t stop my anxiety. Instead, those feelings of panic, inability to breathe properly, crushing, immobilising fear, increased.

I saw risk and danger everywhere. Stairs. Roads. Cars. Illnesses. Sleep. Falls. Accidents. I had become fixated on the idea that I didn’t deserve to have my daughter, I was simply too lucky, and that the universe would punish me by separating us through my death or hers. Sounds pretty bloody irrational when I write it down, but makes some sort of twisted sense in my head. Sometimes my anxiety expands to include panics about the health of my husband or eldest daughter or parents, but mainly it is about me and my youngest. All those times when my body failed me and the babies I wanted so much slipped away, those nine months of obsessively monitoring every twinge, cramp, spot, and kick left me with a profound mistrust of my own body and an unshakeable conviction of my little girl’s fragility.

I couldn’t talk about this at all for 17 months after her birth. I still can’t easily talk about it in real life, although I did write a version of this post on my personal blog a few months ago. I have spoken to family and close friends now, and I saw a fantastic psychologist who helped me a lot, but talking about it is still hard. Partly because it makes it feel more real, and makes me cry. Partly because I worry that others will judge me, think of me as a fusspot, a hypochondriac, ungrateful, undeserving, emotionally incontinent, weak. All of which are accusations I’ve thrown at myself over the last couple of years, but not ones I’m ready to hear from others.

But if I can’t talk, I can write. I can use every opportunity to say loud and clear that mental illness is incredibly common and nothing to be ashamed of. That having a baby may be the happiest thing that ever happens to you, but that it is also a cataclysmic event that turns your world upside down, and the cocktail of wild hormonal changes, sleep deprivation and overwhelming responsibility can cause, or contribute to, illnesses like depression, anxiety, and PTSD. Suffering from them doesn’t mean that you’re not happy to be a mother, or that you don’t love your baby, it just means that pregnancy and childbirth can leave scars and stretch marks on your mind as well as your body.

I am getting there, I hope. Proper professional help has been invaluable, as has the love and support (and patience) of my husband and parents and the friends I’ve told. I’m trying to take care of myself, and not see occasional long hot baths, lie-ins, naps while my daughter naps, a lunch with an old friend or a child-free weekend afternoon as selfish indulgences but more necessities for staying sane. I have noticed the tireder I get, the longer I have gone without a break, the more likely I am to have a total meltdown which stops me functioning at all. I feel that the stage I am at now is maybe comparable to someone who broke their leg very badly and has now healed, but still limps if they overdo it, or has some pain after too long on their feet. I am doing okay, but it still doesn’t take much to send me spiralling back into that nauseous, panicky cycle where everything is a threat.

However, here are many more days when the sunshine isn’t obliterated by clouds of anxiety, and many more moments when I can allow myself to enjoy and be present in the present without worrying about the future.

Helen Chandler

I'm author of novels 'Two For Joy' and 'To Have and to Hold' and mum to two daughters aged twelve and six. As well as writing, and my children, I love reading, cooking, eating and exploring London (and further afield when I get the chance). I was born and brought up in Liverpool, studied English at Oxford University, and now live in East London with my husband, daughters and cat.

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