Two Steps Forward...One Leap Back

We moved. To a new city.
A new country.
My husband cut his hours. He started full-time university.
Little miss started a new nursery.
I increased my commute. By three hours a day.


Stress coming from all angles. But I was ready. Hell, this is the kind of thing I used to thrive on. Hand me a challenge, and I was in my element. Exploring the area museums and looking up library times. Finding new running routes. Navigating the area's public transportation.

I multitask with the best of them. I learn new cities quickly. Taking the train to work felt like coming home again. I could do this.

I made running part of my commute. I read books on the train. I budgeted on Saturdays. Slept in on Sundays. My husband did mornings. I did the evenings. It's been busy but we were adjusting.

And then I wasn't.

I've started running because I'm supposed to...not because I want to.
That's if I manage a run at all.

I worry that leaving before my daughter wakes up and getting home after her dinner will scar her for life.

I worry that I will miss the train.
That we will run out of money.
That my daughter will get sick.
That my husband will die.

Worry worry worry worry worry worry worry.

The anxiety is back.

I play the "is it normal" game.

Is it normal to wish for bedtime when it is only 10am?
Is it normal to want to go back to sleep but be too restless to stay in bed?
Is it normal to want to not want to eat?
To want to eat everything?
To want it all to stop?
To be scared of what would happen if it did?

The dark thoughts are returning.

I am a bad mother because I can't provide.
I am a bad mother because I spend all my time working to provide.
I am a bad mother because I didn't enjoy hide and seek today.
I am a bad mother because we played hide and seek instead of practising phonics.

The intrusive thoughts have creeped back in.

I wanted my last post to be one of hope. To show all of you who are battling that there is light at the end of the tunnel. To let all of you who love me know that I was okay. To tell all of you who have shied away that I was me again.

All of that is true. I did get better. But this illness has affected who I am. How I deal. I still try to tackle life head on but this illness doesn't always let me.

With depression comes self doubt. I wonder if I'm making it all up. Whether it's worse in my head than it really needs to be. Whether I just need to work a little harder to pull through.

It isn't that easy. With depression, it will never work that way.

I didn't want to call the doctor, afraid of taxing a system when I was so new to the area. I didn't want to admit I needed help because it felt like admitting defeat. I didn't want to waste their time if I was just having trouble acclimating to change.

These thoughts sound silly when I'm well.

Yet I listened and didn't call.

I met our health visitor on Friday.

It took her five minutes to see what I had been trying so hard to hide.

I saw the look in her eyes and it brought me back to those early days with miss. I cried and said I didn't want to be back at the beginning. That I'm scared that this isn't over.

"You aren't at the beginning. You just need some help getting over some big hurdles. We can give you that help. Let us."

I made the call. I see the doctor this week. My health visitor is visiting again as well.

The depression is trying to tell me I'm at the bottom of that deep dark hole again. I know I'm not.

It is dark but I will get out.

I am well, just not fully healed.

Two steps forward, one leap back....that's still progress.

Too Far Too Fast

It all started a few weeks ago…

Things were going pretty well.  I was taking things one moment and one day at a time. I wasn’t even thinking about being depressed or worried about the depression coming back.  I was well and truly surviving.  

Then, at a regular doctor’s appointment, I was asked a relatively routine question, “How are you feeling in yourself?”

“Okay,” I responded and then smiled because, for the first time in a long time, I was doing okay. Really okay. Not I don’t want to go into hospital okay or I don’t want to sound like a bad mom okay or any of the other versions of the putting on a positive front okay I’d used before. I was alright and had been for a while.  His next question, and my subsequent answer, had me on cloud nine.

“When do you think you started getting better?” I thought about it and smiled again. I’d been out of that weird depressive fog for a few months!  This was amazing. I was not well yet but I was certainly on my way and the changes were finally noticeable.

Then, after 16 weeks on a waiting list, a therapist finally called to administer one of those tests. 

Part one was full of questions rating how I’d felt about things in the last couple weeks. Result: I had my down days but actually it put me in the normal range. Brilliant.  I’ve taken various forms of this test since first seeking help and I had never before been even close to normal. In fact, if I’d been called a week or two after my referral, I have no doubt I would’ve been off the charts.

Part two: how does the depression affect your daily life. My results had the therapist asking me if I needed to be more honest with my questions in part one. Nope, I’d been honest. It was true, in the last two weeks I’d been fine.

But when the depression does hit, it is bad.  Of course it affects everything. In the past two years I have done little more than survive because it’s all I’ve been able to handle. Putting one foot in front of the other is all I could manage and, even though I’ve been feeling pretty okay the last few months, that is still all my life is about.

Survival.

Since I tested “normal,” I don’t qualify for one to one care I have been waiting for. I am on my own to make it from feeling better to actually being well again.  Before hanging up, the therapist was wonderful. She practically prescribed finding happiness and has sent me a series of CBT ‘workbooks’ so I can essentially give myself therapy.

She advised things I’ve been telling myself, that my husband has been telling me, and that various ppdchat ladies have mentioned to me before. I need to do things for myself and I need to do them without feeling guilty.  It’s gone beyond the small things.  I’ve been taking naps, making cups of tea, watching girly movies, reading books, and various other little things since my baby was a few days old. They have been sanity savers but they are not enough. They help me remember I am human and are immensely important but they fall short of what I really really need.

I need time to shut off and re-charge. I am either on mom duty, at work, or on my way from one to another all the time. 

Part of me knows that yes, of course I need time to myself. The other part reminds me that she naps and sleeps so well that I get loads of time without her. I’m at work four days a week so that’s even more time when I’m not around. Surely it’s not too much to ask for me to spend the rest of the time with her or with my husband or with all of us doing things as a family unit?

Apparently it is. I have only been ‘off duty’  from everything a handful of times in the past two years and each and every time I vow to make it a regular part of my routine. Then life gets in the way, my resolve wanes, and I’m not getting better because of it.

It’s been two weeks and, despite numerous suggestions from the #ppdarmy, I have still yet to come up with one thing that would make me happy.  I’m too busy feeling horrendously guilty that having a family doesn’t make me happy enough. I wish I could just get over myself, realise I have so much more than many other women that manage to make it work and to be happy doing it. 

Why can’t I feel happy with a f**king glass of wine in a bubble bath after a long day like a normal woman would?!?!?!? 

Sunday morning is now mine to do with what I wish and step one is to make it out for a run. Once a week isn’t really enough for training and it will actually be much more difficult to get back in shape this way but for now it’s not supposed to be about that, it’s supposed to be to give me a break.

I have also set aside one night a week for ‘writing as therapy.’ I tried to write on Thursday but after 1600 words of skirting the issue of selfcare, I realised I wasn’t actually ready to share how hard it is for me to do something nice for myself without feeling incredibly guilty.

I went to bed feeling low and even worse the next day. This morning I woke up with a sore throat so missed out on my weekly run. Mentally, I’ve sunk again. I feel as though I’ve failed on week one of caring about me.

I KNOW I won’t get better until I start realising I matter. Taking time out for me will actually make me a better wife and mother and yet I can’t seem to bring myself to do it. But even now, as I write this, I’m trying to type as fast as I can so I don’t miss out on quality time with my husband. I am in a mental tug of war as part of me knows if I don’t get this out, I could very well relapse and the other part of me thinks if I spend one more minute wallowing, I might lose him forever.

I’ve got two big hurdles that have become abundantly clear since I started getting better enough to think straight. I need to find to find happiness and I need to restore a relationship that is in tatters after two years of surviving with PPD.  In my eagerness to call myself well, I tried to tackle both at once this week and I’m suffering as a result. Seeing life in a normal light again makes me all the more aware of how damaging depression really is.  I want to be better. I do not want to walk the lonely road from the beginning again. I know I have to go back to baby steps but I am petrified baby steps just won’t be enough.