I was 38 when I had Joe. You make all these birth plans (which are pointless, by the way, as trying to predict what a birth will be like is like trying to predict British weather!) and listen to everyone's advice and then.......you have a small person completely dependent on you. I remember laughing at the epidural, the stitches, everything I didn't want (too many drugs to care). Joe looked a bit like a mole and I remember my other half asking why he had to wear a shower cap as he was bald?! It was funny now I look back at it.
I was fine to begin with, just sort of got on with it, but the tiredness soon got me; that and a weird combination of other-worldliness, an inability to stay within four walls and also, an inability to eat (the worst thing ever). I think I'd been obsessive and anxious before but the hormones and the whole situation just exacerbated it. I was mad and I knew it.
Before long, I'd reached a crisis point; having gone for a walk, I almost threw myself under a car. Anything to get rid of the knot in my stomach, the invisible hand squeezing tighter and tighter, making my breathing short and my personality non-existent. A walking shell of myself, I didn't do it. Why? I can't answer. I think I still had a tiny bit of logic rattling around in my addled brain, so I came home and told Chris (the other half) that I needed to go to the doctor's. And so I did.
The weirdness of medication came next - 'it will get worse before it gets better'. True. Within two days I'd had a meltdown and moved to my Mum's. I couldn't get out of bed, couldn't see past the edn of my nose and I'd reached rock bottom with a depression assessment of 'severe'. I couldn't get up, communicate or eat. Anyone who knows me wouldn't recognise me at this point,
I was sent to the Mother and Baby Unit - this was my turning point as I knew I didn't belong there, surrounded by women who wouldn't let go of their babies (I was the only one who would put their child in the nursery) and I was laughed at by the doctor, who thought I was fine. And so I was.
But, as someone who worked with teenagers with anxiety and depression, I was the one who laughed at it and didn't quite believe it was as bad as it was. But sometimes, it still bites me on the ass - and its bite is harsh. You never know when it's coming, but at least I can now be a little bit prepared.....
