Because Parenting Isn't Always Peachy

If you've been following my blog for awhile, it's no secret that I suffered Post Natal Depression after the birth of my first born. I suffered in silence and guilt for a long time, not wanting to confide in anyone and feeling ashamed for the feelings I was having towards motherhood.

If you want to read about the ins and outs of my motherhood journey, head over here for a squiz.

About 18 months ago I was lucky enough to find a wonderful organisation called Peach Tree Perinatal Wellness who are dedicated to helping parents who have or at risk of developing a mental illness during the perinatal period. As soon as I read their website, I fell in love with what they do and how they are doing it. Mainly because it's so aligned with my own personal values and big, hairy, scary vision of developing a Parenting and Perinatal Wellness Centre for the Capricorn Coast.

But that's not what I am writing about today!

This weekend I am heading to the magnificent Sunshine Coast to take part in the Peach Tree Coastal Trek - a 22km trek to help raise awareness of perinatal wellness and the work that Peach Tree is doing. If you would like to support me, please head to my supporter page to donate.

This is the major fundraising event for the year. Being a not-for-profit organisation they don't receive any funding from the government, so rely solely on fundraising and winning grants for projects. It helps to keep Peachy Parents Groups running each week. We are seeing success with the group I was involved in starting in Yeppoon earlier in the year and it would be wonderful to be able to spread this even further.

Little Mr and I have clocked up many km's over the past few months getting ready for Saturday. Any support you can give will go to a great cause. Parenting isn't always peachy and it's a relief to know that there's support out there if and when you need it.

Head on over to https://peachtreetrek2015.everydayhero.com/au/shanelle to make a donation.

Being PND Aware

Dear Fellow Mums

You may or may not be aware that this week is Post Natal Depression Awareness Week. You may have just cringed as you read that, and that's ok. This post is not for everyone.

Right now you may feel like you're sitting on the bones of your backside in the deepest darkest blackest place you've ever known,  or you are reduced to tears for no good reason, you may feel or you are constantly feeling guilty, worthless and incapable of going on, you may feel at a loss of what to do, who to turn to. I know these feelings well, because I have been there - in the cupboard, shrouded in darkness, sad, lonely and lost. Feeling like I was the only one. But I wasn't.

As a Mum who has travelled the rocky and bumpy path of PND and come through the other side, I feel it's my duty of care to reach out and help those who may be struggling with being a new Mum or just being a Mum in general.

If you are feeling in any way depressed, overwhelmed or simply not coping with motherhood, please reach out for help. (At the end of the post I will share with you some fantastic organisations that exist that can help you).

Reaching out and asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness. Your family relies on you more than you will ever know. If you are not functioning well, neither does your family. Mothers are the glue that hold families together.

Talking about how you are feeling is so important. Getting out of your head and putting your feelings into words can help so much.

Please know that no matter how dark and heavy you may feel, it can get better and it will get better. You must be the person to make this decision. If you can't make the decision for you, make it for your family, for your children, for their future. As my GP told me "a happy, healthy Mum makes a happy, healthy family".

Your mental health and wellbeing is just as important as your physical health. If you are physically unwell, chances are you would do something about it. Why should your mental health be any different?

It's okay to feel afraid, scared and frightened of what may lay before you. Reach out. Talk to someone you trust (a friend, your GP, a counsellor, Life Coach).

What's not okay is to try to battle through alone, hoping these feelings will just go away, because they don't and they won't. So as I promised earlier, here are the names and links to some wonderful organisations doing fabulous work with PND & Perintal Mental Health ( Peach Tree Perinatal Wellness, PANDA, Smiling Mind, COPE, Beyond Blue, Lifeline) Connect with them, utilise their resources.

From one Mother to another, I send you love, strength and courage. I send you peace for your heart. I send you hope for a brighter tomorrow. I send you light for the long dark tunnel.

Love always

Shanelle

A Promise to Myself

I'm well aware that it's been quite some time since I posted, considering I found a post I'd started to write talking about how Little Mister is now 3 months old. Well today Little Mister turns 4 months old. Boy has the time flown! I'm a little guilty of letting other priorities take over and have missed the moments spent tapping away at the computer allowing my musings to take form. Anyhow, that's not what I intended to write about today.


What I wanted to share with you was a promise that I made to myself yesterday. For much of my life I've been an incredibly emotional person. I feel things deeply. I cry easily (read very easily, at the drop of a hat kind of easy!) and it's not because I'm sad or mad or angry or frustrated. I cry because sometimes I am incredibly overwhelmed that I cannot find the words to express the intense emotion that I am feeling and it's then those tears escape the levy.

I used to think that crying was weak and because I was crying so often I must be sad. Yet, I've come to realise that a good cry is an incredible way to release and flush out pent up emotion. Life seems so much clearer after a good release! The discovery I made yesterday was that I also get teary when talking about my passions.

You see, I'd gone into our local community centre to enquire about hiring a venue for a new parenting group for parents dealing with post natal depression. While sharing a little of my story with the office lady, the tears started to roll and flow out of the corner of my eyes. I wasn't sad. I was overwhelmed that I had come full circle in my own personal journey that I am now in a position to support others who may be finding it difficult to adjust.

As the tears slid down my face I apologised to her  and said I was having an emotional day (she probably thought I was crazy and that's okay if she did, that's her beef, not mine!). We chatted for quite some time and she revealed to me that she'd suffered PND with each of her 3 children. Side note here for a second - I find it incredible how many people have actually suffered from this and how many have suffered in silence. All the more reason for me to do what I can to support others.

Replaying this scene as I drifted off for my afternoon nap, I had a powerful realisation. I am human. I am emotional. I am here to love. I am here to give. Feeling for me is a way of life. No longer will I apologise for my tears for they are a genuine part of who I am. They are part of my humanness, my softer side. My heart may be more exposed to the world than others, as it seems to be overflowing with love and passion for so many people and causes, yet I am okay with that. For now, I am doing what I can to make a difference to causes I am passionate about. And the promise I made to myself was to allow my emotions to be seen and to stop apologising for who I am and what I feel.

How about you? What gets you emotional? What are you passionate about? I'd love to hear!

Don't Forget Dad - Guest Post by Robyn De Beer (Mrs D Plus 3)

After my first child was born I was very unexpectedly struck down with Post Natal Depression.  I know ‘struck down’ sounds a bit dramatic, but that’s how I felt.  I went from a perfectly normal pregnancy where I was counting the minutes until I’d meet my little boy, to almost not being able to be in the same room as him when he cried.

I was so withdrawn and ashamed about how I was feeling that I did everything in my power to hide it.  I actually did a very good job of pretending to the outside world that I was ‘fine’ and life with a new baby was ‘fabulous’ even though it was anything but.

The problem was that I was unable to hide it from my husband.  Living in the same house together and sharing the same bed made it impossible.  He watched me slowly fall apart and listened to me sob myself to sleep night after night.  I was in such a massive state of denial, that in my mind I was hiding it all from him too.

I believed (at the time) that our baby didn’t love me he just loved his Dad.  Why was it that Dad could settle him and I couldn’t?  How come Dad went all doe eyed when he looked at him and I didn’t?  How did Dad get to bond with him so quickly and I couldn’t?  All these questions were running though my head every second of every day making me build up huge walls and barriers of resentment.  I was horrible to him and it wasn’t his fault at all.

Our relationship, which was once rock solid before this little human was born, was falling apart too and I couldn’t even see it.   The more he tried to help the further away I pushed him, until one day he decided to have a intervention and he called my mum.  I was so angry with him for doing it because I saw it as the ultimate betrayal of trust.  This was MY secret and not his to share.

Some time later and upon reflection I can now fully appreciate that by stepping in and doing something he not only saved me, but also saved us, and I will always be so grateful for that.

During the months I suffered from Post Natal Depression the focus was so much on me, the new mum, that very few people actually asked how my husband was doing.  Although he was over the moon by with the arrival of our precious boy, he also had to silently watch me suffer from the sidelines and that could not have been easy for him.

Having a new baby affects everyone differently.  Some people cope perfectly well and others struggle.  It is not always just the mums that struggle; it can also be the Dads and relationships too.

If you are reading this and think that you or your partner may be suffering from Post Natal Depression than please visit or call PANDA (http://www.panda.org.au/) on 1300 726306

Written by Robyn de Beer at www.mrsdplus3.com

"Real life tales of a stay at home mum with three kids. Honest and often humorous, I cover all the ordinary moments that can often be extraordinary if you look closely enough. My blog appeals to anyone who loves cooking with a thermomix, appreciates the odd 'hair-pulling' moments the school run or kids dinner time can bring, loves photography (especially the amateur kind), and sees the bright side of parenting. Life is different every day."

The Help

Sitting on the couch with the psychologist across from me, re-telling my birthing story again with tears streaming down my face, I began to wonder if I would ever get over what had happened. Every time I went there I was asked to tell my story. I get it now that she was trying to de-sensitize the experience for me. It just wasn’t working and definitely wasn’t helping. I was caught in a spin cycle, just like that of a washing machine – going round and round, faster and faster. I had no exit strategy, no way of getting out or escaping the feelings that engulfed me whenever I was taken back to that life-changing experience.

Whenever I thought about it, it would dredge up feelings of failure, helplessness, hopelessness, being out of control, not being perfect, not being good enough. These feelings made my heart feel heavy, my chest tight and then the sadness would set in, like a tonne of bricks weighing on my shoulders.  I felt trapped. I loved my baby. I hated what had happened when she was brought into the world. I just couldn’t move on from that.

I realise now I had no control over what happened with the way she arrived into the world. I had a choice though as to how I responded and the meaning I gave the event. Back then I didn’t realise. I was naïve, ignorant and uneducated.

The psychologist t told me one day she didn’t believe I had post-natal depression. It never sat well with me any way. She had another label for me, post –traumatic stress disorder. On one hand  it was a relief, on the other I was still entrapped by a  “label” of what I was going through.

Once I accepted it was post-traumatic stress, I was able to move on a little. Our sessions then took on a different focus, and began delving into my relationship with my partner. He couldn’t understand why I could just snap out of it, why I couldn’t get over it, why I couldn’t just enjoy being a mother and being home all day with our beautiful girl. We started to argue. Constantly. Whenever we were together, we’d end up arguing. Me out of pure frustration of not being able to communicate what was happening and him out of pure frustration that he came home to a helpless mess.

Part of me was jealous of the fact that he got to go out into the big wide world every day and talk to real people who didn’t pee or poo on him, who didn’t vomit between his breasts just as he was about to head out the door. I was envious that he didn’t have to worry about when baby last ate, how much she ate, when she was going to sleep, how he was going to soothe her cry. I longed to be connected with the real world again.

As I discussed my relationship with the psychologist, the struggles we were having, the issues with communication, me feeling like my actions were controlled by him, she began to wonder if he had narcissistic personality disorder. Another label pulled from the endless pot of labels that seemed to come from the health professionals. She’d never even met him. I must have told a great story about him though for him be to sporting his very own label. I’ve never told him about that.  He probably would have forbid me from going back to her.

For the longest time I believed that how I felt was in direct proportion to how my partner was treating me or how I perceived him to be treating me. I thought my happiness was hinged on him being in a good mood or a bad mood. Flicking back through my memories and other previous relationships, it was a strategy that I had always run. I had no idea that I was in control of my feelings or that I actually chose how I wanted to feel.

Being happy for me was always tied to being in a relationship with a guy where I felt worthy and wanted. I had to be in a relationship to experience happiness. When I realised this much later on and realised how much control and choice I actually had when it came to mastering my emotions and being in charge of my own life, it was like discovering Pandora’s Box had been hidden under my bed for the past 30 years.

I couldn’t believe it! Who’d have known that I had the innate ability to make myself happy or sad or good or bad or elated or dreaded or ecstatic or depressed? That I could choose the meanings that I assigned to events in my life. Who knew that I had the power and the ability to move beyond circumstances and that my happiness in life was directly in proportion to how I felt about myself. Its been the discovery of this power that has led me on a journey of learning more about human behaviour, what makes us tick, how we choose our beliefs, how we communicate with the rest of the world and has ignited a passion from within to help others discover their Pandora’s Box and open up a world of endless possibilities for themselves.

Silent Screaming

As the weeks wore on, my feelings about myself and motherhood weren’t getting any better. I loved my baby, yet I didn't love me and how I felt. Constant anxiousness, racing heart, tight chest and shallow breathing were my new friends. I felt like I was drowning. I felt so out of control that I had to control everything I could.

When I was feeding our baby girl, her feeds were timed. Ten minutes on each breast, I recall being the magic number and the rule I had. I hated feeding. It was so uncomfortable. I hated not being able to move and hated even more those moments when I needed to go to the toilet but was in the middle of a feed and not able to take her off the breast knowing all hell would break loose if I did. So I carried on, hating it.

I wondered what was wrong with me. I didn’t get the warm and fuzzy feeling that I’d heard many mums talk about when they were feeding their babies. I felt so relied upon all the time and that scared the living daylights out of me.

There were days when I couldn’t shift the anxiety. I couldn’t bear to hear our girl cry. If I did, I would start too. There was so much sadness in my heart. My favourite hangout when she was sleeping was in the bottom of our walk-in robe with the door firmly closed. Enveloped in darkness, I felt safe. My external environment matched how I felt on the inside. I remember silently screaming. So many fears and emotions running rampant, I just couldn’t get them out. I didn’t know how to. I didn’t know what the consequences would be. And so they stayed inside me and the internal screaming continued to get louder and louder.

But the feeling in my chest just wouldn’t let up. I can clearly recall the day that I realised my world was falling apart. It was 7am in the morning and I’d already done 3 loads of washing, hung them on the line,  baked a chocolate cake, some monte carlos and had an apple pie on the way. It was as if I had a momentary out of body experience. From afar I saw myself doing what I was doing and said to myself, “This is freaking crazy! You are not okay and you need to talk to someone about this. It can’t be normal!”

It seemed like forever until it was 8.30am and I could ring the doctor’s surgery to make an appointment with my GP. Finally I got through.  The receptionist must have picked up that things were not good with me; she managed to get me in straight away. As I got off the phone, I felt relief. The tears were streaming down my face and the feeling of hopelessness and imperfection came bubbling up again. In my heart I knew I was doing the right thing for myself and for our baby girl.

Sitting in the room with the doctor, I managed to tell her what I had been going through. I felt safe with her and trusted her. Through the tears I managed to tell her my story, how I hated breastfeeding, how I felt like a failure and how I wasn’t cut out for motherhood. She turned to me and said, “If the mother is happy, then the baby is happy. If you being happy means stopping breastfeeding and moving to formula, then so be it”. It was really that clear cut and simple.

I was with her for a long time. I talked. I cried. I shared my pain. She just sat and listened and offered me tissue after tissue. She then looked at me and said, “I think you may have postnatal depression, with what you’ve experienced with the birth and everything else that you’ve gone through”. In a sense, there was relief. What I was going through was abnormal and yet again, I wasn’t alone. Now I had a label to add to the collection, and it definitely wasn’t Chanel.

Together we came up with a plan. Start weaning baby off the breast and get her onto formula. Then we could start to take care of me. She gave me options. Once baby was weaned I could go onto medication and see a psychologist. I was to see her every other week as well, so she could keep track of my progress. I left with a fistful of pamphlets about post-natal depression, it’s causes and it’s treatments to take home to share with my partner, phone numbers for Lifeline in case I needed someone else to talk to, phone numbers for playgroups because I needed to start mingling more with other mums and her own personal mobile.

As we left, that familiar sense of failure came back. I had felt so completely safe and trusting in the doctor’s office. Yet as soon as I was back in reality, I felt totally out of control. I had no idea how I was going to explain to my partner what was going on with me and what was happening in my head.

That night I had a discussion with my partner about my visit to the doctor. I had always struggled with knowing the “right” thing to say. When I was younger, I would spend hours having conversations in my head, just to ask my parents a simple question like “Could I go to the disco on Friday night”. Communicating my feelings to my partner was a huge risk and I was terrified of how it he would accept it.

I was able to tell him about our trip to the doctor and her recommendations. He told me there was nothing wrong with me; it was all in my head. Darn tooting right it was in my head!!! He wasn’t in favour of me going on medication, but said if that helped, then so be it. He agreed that the breastfeeding was upsetting me and wanted to become more involved in that side of things. I couldn’t help but feel that I had let him down too, that on some level I had failed his expectations of motherhood.

And I guess this is where it all fell down for me. I had the picture in my head of how it should be and what the right thing was and the wrong thing was. There was no room for someone to throw a spanner in the works and change the course of my pre-planned events. Over time I’ve learnt to loosen my grip on control and have learnt to go with the flow more. To just relax, take a deep breath and trust that things will work out the way they are meant to.