Pregnancy, postnatal & mama depression: a personal perspective

Pregnancy, postnatal & mama depression: a personal perspective

 

I have not sat down and written a blog for a long while now which – for those of you who know me – is very uncharacteristic. Indeed, it’s apt that this piece focuses on the topic of pregnancy and postnatal (and beyond) depression in support of the charity PANDAS.

Why is it apt, I hear you ask?

It’s particularly suitable because, to put it bluntly, I have been hiding from the world in a bout of low spirits. It’s not very fashionable in this world of curated social media personas – the face we wish to present to the world – to admit to feeling low, weepy and sad, particularly if, to the outside world, no discernibly logically cause can be seen.

In fact, on reflection and as both a user and observer of social media, I feel that it’s very much a double edged sword: we have all seen it put to great good helping those in need, yet at the same time, I feel – as in I really feel inside me – the adverse impact of relentless perfection being showcased to the world.

Surely I am not the only one to feel this way?

I mean, frankly, if I were to give you an honest, blow by blow visual and verbal account of my family life on social media, I think you’d start off by laughing out loud but end up crying!

No I mean seriously, I can’t offer the world photos of me and my boys sporting matching outfits, Colgate-white smiles and looks of mutual brotherly and motherly adoration.

I’d love to be able to but I simply can’t…

…not because of a lack of motherly adoration – there’s an abundance of that - but because it’s buried by the daily grind.   

Family life here resembles a bad tempered rugby scrum and getting my youngest through his daily, non-negotiable “to do list” is a veritable psychological marathon that leaves me shredded every evening when, at around 11pm, I have finally managed to cajole him to bed.

And this can eventually take its toll, despite the respite afforded by having a job (no joke).

All this to say that society encourages us to not only put on a brave face but also to bury and hide our innermost feelings and join the relentless march towards an imagined and constructed perfection on all fronts: career, family, appearance – everything!

That’s being quite tough on ourselves. In my view, it’s no surprise that feelings of inadequacy, failure and overwhelm can sometimes pervade the mind.

I haven’t often, if at all, spoken publically about my own ups and downs but given my promise to write a piece for PANDAS I feel as though I’d be shirking my duties if I made no mention of my own internal battles.

My story so far…

Hindsight is a great thing, although it would have been more helpful to spot things at the time rather than decades later. Looking back on my life I can trace my first episode of feeling very low (see how I find it difficult to use the word “depression”?) back to my final year of undergraduate, a year that passed me by in a miserable haze of over-eating, excessive sleeping, incessant fatigue and complete inertia. I had no idea I was depressed.

Subsequent years were marked by a relentless rollercoaster of ups and downs with the ups eventually becoming more destructive than the downs. I still had no idea that anything untoward was going on.

The next bit of the story some of you will have heard before: after the arrival of my first 2 sons in quick succession, a leaflet dropped through our letterbox announcing the opening of a fabulous new gym on our doorstep.

I joined.

It transformed my life, quite literally, for ever.

The regular exercise had such a profoundly positive effect on my mental wellbeing that I dropped the successful career in academia and retrained in pregnancy and postnatal fitness.

It may sound ridiculously corny but I just wanted to pass on the “power of exercise” to others. I remember thinking “well if it can do this for me, then it can do the same for others” and I’ve been on a happiness-through-fitness mission ever since.

These days, if you ask me to define what I do I’ll tell you that I peddle happiness and that fitness gains are a handy by-product.

And I’m not being facetious: I really mean it.

But let me be clear: I am not suggesting that physical activity is some kind of panacea for depression. Everything has its limitations. There was a time for me when regular exercise simply wasn’t enough and I had to turn to medication.
 

Nevertheless, exercise continues to be the bedrock of my wellbeing – it lifts and carries me through the not-so-good times, gives me much needed head space, allows me to switch off from the thoughts and worries knocking on the doorway to my mind, offers me focus and release, gives me energy when my reserves are depleted, builds friendships and above all, quite simply makes me happy.

So yes, I am having a low moment; I do feel like hiding from the world; I wouldn’t mind pulling the duvet over my head and escaping; I know that my mood is making it really hard for me to progress in any meaningful way at the moment…

…but at the same time I have some powerful tools in my “keep happy kit”.

 Exercising and catching up with friends are probably the 2 most effective of these tools for me.

Mums and mental wellbeing…

I see and connect with a lot of mums given what I do in life and I find myself endlessly fascinated by the incredible women I meet. What I see is women striving on all fronts to do their best and be their best: home, family, work & career, health & fitness, cooking, birthday cake making, DIY – you name it, everything!

It’s awe-inspiring but at the same time it’s a tall (tough) order. Goodness we are all SO hard on ourselves.

And looking at things with a relatively external eye, maternity leave appears to me as if it has the potential to be quite stressful. For those of us with a certain disposition (I would put myself into this bracket) I reckon that in the recesses of our mind there’s the feeling that we somehow have to “excel” at maternity leave too.

With its endless round of activities, appointments and engagements there’s barely a moment to simply stop and be.

Our babies and children need us, their mamas to be happy and healthy.

That’s all really.

They want and need us. No more, no less.

We are their world – we can see it in their eyes when they look up at us with undiluted adoration.

(Make the most of it as that all changes to a look of irritation when they’re teenagers!)

So I guess that what I am saying is this: if we want to do our best for our families then we should to be kind to ourselves and look after ourselves rather than always pushing our needs, hopes, desires and aspirations to the bottom of the pile.

What you need to keep happy and healthy is individual to you. For me and many others I know that physical activity is tremendously powerful.

If you find yourself in a whirlwind of activity yet feeling rather dispirited and low, take a moment to stop, think and decide what, in life, really helps carry you through the tough times.

Then do more of that and less of the other stuff!

Over the years many a mum has told me – often months or more later – that their weekly dose of exercise kept them going. I’ll keep things anonymous but one such mama wrote in to say that:

“I suffered with perinatal OCD with both of my babies. I struggled to calm the constant battles going on in my mind. I was afraid. On my darkest days I loathed myself, and felt I didn't deserve anything.

Weekly exercise [yes those were my classes but that’s by the by] gave me the permission I needed to do something for me, and therefore be kind to myself. I was able to meet and socialise with other mums, and the exercise itself helped clear my mind and give me a sense of achievement.”

Whilst another mum shared the following with me:

“I suffered with PND with my first, although for a long time I didn’t realise and assumed it was a new mum thing. I was advised to do exercise to help by someone at a SureStart support group and began to go for walks around my local reservoirs every day. Getting out of the house and having a goal really helped me to feel motivated and have a sense of achievement so I began to do an exercise class too.

With my second, my OCD and anxiety flared up quite early on and to try and combat the feeling of ‘oh no, it’s happening again’ I joined a local pregnancy exercise class (yours Jo) and although I still needed additional support for depression, anxiety and OCD the classes were my moment of calm each week. They allowed me space to breath and let my body react without needing to think or do”.

When I re-read these two comments, what stands out to me is the emphasis on the social side of exercising, on the importance of outdoor physical activity and on the way exercise enables one to rid the mind of internal battles – all things that I too experience.

If you only take one thing away from this piece…

I am a great believer in not trying to squash everyone into a one-size-fits-all simply because something works for me. So what’d say is this: if you find yourself engulfed in a sense of mama-overwhelm or a real dip in your mental wellbeing, then simply have a go at combining these three key ingredients to see if they work for you: exercising, socialising and the great outdoors.

You choose the type of exercise that you enjoy and, of course, your friends to keep fit with and, in an ideal world, head out into stunning countryside.

For me, that is a truly powerful combination!

I’d love to hear your stories of what has helped you so please do share so that others can read and give them a go.  

PANDAS is a UK-wide charity offering support for those suffering from pregnancy and postnatal depression. You can find your local support group HERE.

 

Family summer holiday pic.... the good bits.... the public face....