I used to think that postnatal depression was rare. Even though my own mother suffered from it, and her mother, too. I had no clue it could manifest as anxiety. And I certainly had no idea about perinatal depression.
But that was before my first anxiety attack. I’d had a miscarriage a month earlier and I didn’t expect to get pregnant again so soon. I was 35, after all. But when I found out I was expecting, instead of the quiet thrill of impending parenthood, a shadow seemed to fall over me; a feeling that something horrible was bound to happen – a small root, a bulb, really, began to lodge itself in the back of my brain and it felt like dread.
I put it down to the fact that I’d had a miscarriage so soon before this pregnancy and tried to take it one day at a time. But the shadow – once quarantined to the back of my mind – was growing as fast as the baby in my uterus.
At 12 weeks, I went for my first scan. So convinced was I that it would be terrible news, I told my husband not to come. The scan showed no abnormalities, but my brain, or rather, the shadow overtaking my brain, would not let me absorb that. I became convinced something was dreadfully wrong, and that my baby would somehow fall out of me, blue and unformed, months before his due date.
It’s more than just the lows and highs of hormones – for me it was deeper, darker and unrelenting.
I carried this thought with me everywhere. It persisted through every healthy check-up, every subsequent scan, and every “congratulations!” from the lovely people around me. I could feel no joy, no sweet anticipation, only a growing panic, which, by the second trimester, metastasised into fierce, uncontrollable doom. I would lie in bed for hours at a time, my heart loud in my head, unable to move from anxiety, while furiously googling every conceivable thing that can go wrong in pregnancy. I told myself I wanted to be prepared, I had no idea I had entered into a state of .
I had no idea, when I made my husband take me to hospital at 17 weeks, convinced I was miscarrying, that I was, in fact, in a state of delusion.
I had no idea, because I had never heard of perinatal depression and anxiety. “Perinatal” is the period of time from the conception of a child through until the first year. According to perinatal depression and anxiety affects about one in five expecting or new mothers and one in 10 fathers, which works out to be 100,000 families a year.
There’s not one underlying cause of perinatal depression and anxiety, but, according to the latest research, a , a , a and a family history of mental illness are all factors.
It’s more than just the lows and highs of hormones – for me it was deeper, darker and unrelenting. And yet, because I was an educated, middle class woman with a Type A personality, and a working understanding of mental health, I thought I’d knew it if I saw it. I was wrong.
I hadn’t known what I do now, that I had been blaming myself for my illness, convinced it wasn’t serious, just the silly feelings of a first-time mother.
I remember when the doom spread, from thoughts about my baby, to thoughts about my husband. I couldn’t bear him being away from me for very long. I as fine at work; but if my husband said he was going out, and wasn’t back within 10 minutes, a choking panic would overtake me. My throat would constrict, my heart would thump in my head, I’d pace – as best an eight-months-pregnant woman can – around our house in a trance-like state, convinced he’d found a woman who wasn’t anxious like me, and I’d be left alone to handle the enormous burden of grief, after what I expected to be the birth of my little blue baby.
I wish I could say that when my beautiful son was born that was the end of it. But it only worsened. I nursed my son, and this horrible, life-threatening illness for 10 months before I saw a doctor. When the GP asked me a few gentle questions, I began to cry. I didn’t know then, but I do now, that those were tears of relief. I hadn’t known what I do now, that I had been blaming myself for my illness, convinced it wasn’t serious, just the silly feelings of a first-time mother.
I recovered quickly, and had no issues with my second pregnancy two years later. But I wish that, along with all the precautions and food restrictions we are urged to take so seriously, expectant mothers were also given permission by health care professionals – and, more importantly, I guess, our own selves, to take our feelings seriously too.
Perinatal Anxiety and Depression Awareness week runs from 11-17 November.
