Real Blue Mummies

I thought it would be nice for other pnd sufferers to share their experiences on the site.  Others can read it and realise that others are describing exactly how they are feeling thus reassuring that you are NOT GOING MAD!!!!!!  Plus it helps the sufferer to write and get her feeling off her chest.

If you would like to write a piece then e-mail it and photos if you wish to : info@mummysblue.co.uk

I would like to thank Nina McKerlie who has to sons Marco 5 and Freddy 13weeks for the first real blue mummy story.  She too is suffering PND for the 2nd time and wrote pieces for her local NCT newsletter.  Nina's pieces are titled DARK CLOUDS AND RAINY DAYS written in January 2002 and the second is titled MORE DARK CLOUDS AND RAINY DAYS written in May 2003.

Dark Clouds & Rainy Days

Sitting in my office at work looking out over a very wet and exceptionally windy field, inspired by the rather dreary weather I decided it was time to write something for the Newsletter.

Firstly, a question, How many of you have felt at some point in your life that the whole world felt like it was closing in around you, no-one understood anything you said, and your head felt like a really bad hangover and filled with cotton wool?

If you have ever had any of these feelings, when did you experience them?

For me, my head is frequently full of cotton wool, and I often feel that when I speak I’m talking nonsense – and my husband agrees with me on this one.

Back in the summer of 2001, we decided to go on our first family holiday, so we packed up the car hooked up the boat and set off for a 3 week camping holiday in the Italian lakes (we always go to the same place, but this was the first time with Marco).
The journey was great – we drove through the night and Marco slept. When we arrived the weather was good, and we were having a fantastic time – so why did I end up in the tent every afternoon in floods of tears?
I felt so utterly out of control, as if the world was closing in around me - a bit like in the video for Jamiroquai virtual insanity. I lost my appetite – very unusual for me, especially as I was walking distance from the best Gelateria in Europe. I couldn’t sleep – nothing to do with the airbed in the tent either. I couldn’t settle and sit still, but my get up and go had got up and gone.
Curtis thought he’d upset me, but he hadn’t, but didn’t understand that I couldn’t explain the reason for my irrational, highly emotional behaviour.

When we returned home, I decided to do a home pregnancy test, convinced that I was pregnant, as that’s the only time in my entire life that I’ve ever gone off of ice cream and food in general. It came up negative, but unconvinced, I took myself off one lunchtime to see the Practice Nurse at our Surgery. I told her how I was feeling, and asked her to do another test for me, she said that she doubted that it would be positive, but I insisted – quite abruptly as I remember it. Again it came up negative, by this time I was in tears, it had to be positive – it was the only explanation that I could fine for the whole barrage of unexplainable symptoms that I was suffering. Having handed me a wad of tissues, Jane asked “how would you feel if I told you I thought you were suffering from Post-natal depression?”. My reply. “I don’t know, but I can’t be as Marco is 15 months old, surely it’s too late”.
Having composed myself enough to leave the surgery, I made an appointment to see my GP the following day.
I went along the following day, Jane had very kindly explained everything to my GP prior to my appointment, so that I didn’t have to go through it all again. After a bit of a chat, my GP suggested that I try a course of anti-depressant tablets, to see how I got on and come back in a fortnight. Her parting words were “this is very common, and the most important thing is not to feel a failure – because you are not”.
This is a bit like saying don’t think of Pink elephants – that’s all you think for the next 5 minutes. Well in my case it was imprinted in my cotton wool forever, Niagara Falls began again, and I left thinking to myself “I’m a failure, I’m a rubbish mother”.
I went back to work, wallowed in my office, feeling as though I had just suffered bereavement. It was Friday, and I was glad if the weekend, but I spent the entire weekend crying, shouting, and just lying in bed.
They had a name, these symptoms that I was suffering, and they were real, so why did I feel so awful. Was I insane?, would they take my son away from me?. All these things went through my head, and I still hadn’t been to collect my prescription from the pharmacy. Curtis made me snap out of my hysteria in the end, by suggesting that he told my mum – no way was I going to tell any one that I was mad (OK, I know now that I’m not mad, well not in the clinical sense of the term), especially not my mum. So I got up and went to get my tablets.

Two weeks later, I returned to my GP. I was feeling a bit more in control, but was having really major highs and lows, it felt like being on an out of control roller coaster. Gradually I noticed that the feelings began to subside, the highs were not quite so high, and the lows were not quite so high, perhaps the tablets were doing the trick?
Five months have gone by since then, and the roller coaster has changed into a nice steady pleasure train, I’m calm, I sleep, I eat for England – hence I’m a stone heavier but best of all I’m enjoying being a mother.

It hasn’t just been a case of ‘keep taking the tablets’, I have met up with my Health visit for discussions, and tried to find the trigger for the Post natal depression, it seems that it was always there waiting to rear its rather horrid head, but going away from familiar surroundings, let it escape.

With the support of Curtis (my husband), Dr Ball (my GP) and Lizzie (my HV), I’m well on the journey back to normality (I think Curtis may question if normal is a term that I can use when I describe myself) I’ve also learnt that hindsight is a wonderful thing – and wish that I had talked to someone sooner, and as such would like to see more support groups set up for working mums, who haven’t got access to baby clinics.

I am very lucky as I have had the support that I needed, and still need. Post-natal depression is very common, if as you’ve read this article, its triggered a response with in you, please think about discussing it with your health visitor, your GP or someone close to you – you’ll be surprised by how much they’ve already noticed.

The one thing that I do want to say to everyone who is suffering, has ever suffered, or may suffer in the future from PND is “You are not a failure by admitting to suffering, but you will fail yourself if you don’t”.

Nina McKerlie
January 2002

More Dark clouds & Rainy days…

Some of you may know me, most of you will probably not. Some of you may have read the article entitled ‘Dark Clouds & Rainy Days’ that I wrote in the March-April 2002 Newsletter, most of you will probably not.
So let me introduce myself. My name is Nina McKerlie and I used to be the membership secretary for the Bracknell branch, I am currently mum to Marco aged 3, Wife to Curtis aged 31, and only daughter of Coral aged 61 & Robin (with Brain tumour) aged 64.
Lastly, but no less importantly I am me – a slightly crazy, vibrant, bubbly person who has just re-learnt what life is really about. Its not a rehearsal, it’s the real thing, and I really need to enjoy it, as I’m not going to get a second chance.

Now cast your mind back to January 29th 2003, can you recall what you were doing? Probably not, there wasn’t anything particularly amazing about that day, the following day it snowed and Bracknell ground to a halt, but not much really happened to most people that day. A lot happened to me though. Looking back I can see the signs, I can see myself getting more & more stressed, more out of control and sinking into a pit of darkness with no way out. I wasn’t sleeping, I wasn’t eating, I had no go, life was one long trudge and some one had switched the light at the end of the tunnel off. A lot of the things that happened to me that Wednesday are a bit sketchy, but I do remember falling apart into a flood of uncontrollable tears and trying to hide under a table at work in a vain attempt to avoid anyone seeing me. I had reached crisis point, my depression had returned, and I couldn’t see how on earth I could get through it again.
Lucky for me, one of my colleagues, who I have known for a long time, and now class as a very good friend, realised I was ‘missing’ and came to look for me. He talked me out from under the table and gave me plenty of tissues, not once did he say ‘don’t be silly’ nor ‘are you OK?’. He listened to my ramblings, quietly and calmly and took me of the see the site nurse, and later drove me home.
We are very fortunate to have a small occupational health department on site, complete with Nurse, bedroom with comfortable bed – well at least it felt comfortable at the time, I slept for the first time in over a week – and it was fabulous.
Recognising that I had a problem and telling someone how I felt, was the first step to working my way through the dense fog of a second bought of depression. This time though it was not classed as Post-natal Depression, as at had been previously, it was just depression. I say ‘just depression’ but I’m sure that this time it felt different. Maybe its because I spoke about it. With my post-natal depression, I never really admitted that there was a problem, until well into my treatment, it was something I was ashamed of, and didn’t want people to know about. This time I had no choice.
I had to take a week off of work, although I forced myself to go back as soon as possible - I soon realised that I was completely unable to deal with basic day-to-day tasks. I ended up working short days, gradually increasing my hours from 1 to 3 to 5 to a full day. It took a reasonable time, and I found it hard as I wasn’t ‘ill’ and I had nothing to show – no wounds or visible scars and I felt incredibly guilty for not ‘pulling my weight’. Everyone close to me seemed so understanding, but without being patronising. No one asked how I was feeling, I think they were scared, but I could tell that they wanted to ask. I remember someone, who had been trying to book a meeting with me, sending me a message asking if I could possibly fit them in before I ‘skived off early’ again, that message really hurt, I wasn’t skiving, I was trying to get myself back together – they soon ate humble pie, when I explained why I was working shorter days. When I did finally manage a full day the feeling of achievement that I got was amazing. I was shattered, but I had managed it.
I am very lucky, as I have had a lot of support from a lot of people. People who I have known as acquaintances have now become good friends. Unfortunately some of the people who I thought of as good friends have drifted away. They found it difficult to understand how I could be depressed when I had no reason to be. I have tried to explain that there is not always a reason, sometimes it just happens, but it is very hard to put into words. A lot of people say that I was the last person that they thought would suffer from depression, as I was always so busy and ‘full of life’.
Since January I have made a lot of changes to how I approach things. I have stopped working extra hours, I still feel it’s an achievement to manage a full week, and still be awake at 8.30pm on a Friday evening. When I lock my office door at 5pm, I switch off my work brain and engage home brain. I have seen a counsellor who has made me rethink a lot of my behaviours. I have also been on a ‘Stress Management Workshop’, which has taught me how to relax and unwind. I have also kept a diary of my feelings and what triggered them, in the hope that I can learn from it.
All in all I feel that I have made a number of changes to me, in order to fight depression for the last time. At the end of the last article I wrote I said: “You are not a failure by admitting to suffering, but you will fail yourself if you don’t”. Looking back I can see the signs were there for a long time, and I know that I failed myself by not admitting to them, perhaps if I had admitted it sooner, it might not have got so bad. However, hindsight is a wonderful thing, and I hope that by reading my ‘hindsight’ if you think you might be affected by depression, you may take action yourself before it gets too bad.
I am no well on the road to getting back to normal (what is normal?), to being vibrant and bubbly again, like I said earlier, Life is not a rehearsal – Enjoy the debut! I certainly am!

Nina McKerlie
May 2003