I watched a very moving documentary this week called Annie From The Ashes (check it out on iPlayer). During the course of filming it is mentioned that a mother was suffering from Post Natal Depression, which started me thinking of an incredibly difficult time in my life. I have pondered over writing this, wanting it to be an honest account, but knowing it will impact those involved, namely Sam, deeply. I’m going to be talking about my experience of PND & how that impacted on my bonding with Sam as a newborn.
This subject has played on my mind a lot over the years, always lurking like the bogeyman. I feel such intense shame & guilt (I should fucking trademark those feelings), although I am learning to forgive myself through the work I do with Ivan and, more recently, the work done in the Family Systems Constellation Workshop I attended in January. But, this shit goes deep. It is one of the ultimate taboos in our society and something I have never spoken about openly and fully, even in counselling.
As the idea formed in my mind to write this (in the hope that other Mum’s will ‘identify’), I started to do some research online and found some interesting reading and but very few other women admitting similar things. The nature of the beast is to admit to it you open yourself up not only to condemnation, judgement and incomprehension, but also possible legal proceedings. In my mind, over the years I have harboured such deep shame & guilt, I barely not even think about it, let alone come out and say it. But, I do know, if I, as a human being, no different from any one else, have been through this and can speak about it, it could help someone else to get help sooner rather than later.
It was 1988. I was 21. I had already had some episodes of depression and anxiety. I had been raped a week or so after losing my virginity aged 17 and I had no clue as to how to look after myself. I did not have any care or respect for myself when it came to my interactions with men. I was using weed & booze to self medicate.
I decided I wanted to do something worthwhile and signed up for a voluntary position with Community Service Volunteers. I got a 6mth posting to live in Kirkcaldy in Fife, in a group home with another volunteer and 2 young women with severe learning difficulties. I still felt like a child and had no emotional maturity at all. I was excited to be living somewhere completely different and far from home.
The voluntary post job itself was fine, but in the evenings I was bored. The 2 young women went to bed dead early and the other volunteer not much after. I was restless and craving some excitement. I went to a pub one night and had sex with the barman after hours. That filled a couple of evenings.
There was a family living below us. The Dad and who I presumed to be his son’s were essentially rag n bone men, with a truck overflowing with metal and all sorts. The Dad was always smiley and friendly and Irish (I think). The rest of the family spoke in a broad Fife slang, hard to understand the dialect and the phrases (took me ages to realise that ‘messages’ was ‘shopping’). I became chatty with them and then, for reasons that completely escape me other than I was bored and wanted some company I started spending evenings smoking weed and having sex with the youngest son, Joseph. I did not fancy him. I was not really attracted to him at all. I did not even like him that much. But, that’s the level of self worth I had at that time. None.
We had nothing in common, he constantly got on my nerves and we bickered or rowed constantly. He was a bit of a petty thief and had no friends. Obviously he was on the dole. He wasn’t very intelligent or funny or kind. I am racking my brains, but really I cannot tell you why I was hanging out with him. I was just THAT bored it seemed better than nothing. Very very sad now, to think of the little respect I had for myself.
At some point I accidently got pregnant.
I remember going to The Monsters of Rock festival at Donington in August of 1988. My brother, his girlfriend and his friends went every year and I’d been the year before. (The line-up had included the mighty Metallica & Anthrax with the lesser liked, but good fun Bon Jovi headlining. The weekend consisted of imbibing copious amounts of snakebite and weed.)
In 1988 the line up included Megadeth, with Iron Maiden headlining. But the real highlight for me were Guns N Roses. They were just beginning to ride the wave of their popularity and the crowd had gone mental for them. We, thankfully, had found a spot miles back from the stage but, as the site dips down you could see the surges pushing people forward towards the safety barriers. The band had to stop a couple of times to help crushed fans out of the madness. It wasn’t until all the bands had played that we heard 2 young fans had been crushed to death during their set. It changed the whole atmosphere of the weekend and many people were walking around saddened and stunned. It was memorable for that, and for me being aware I had missed my period.
My volunteering post ended in September. I was pregnant, had no job, no money, no home, no partner. At 21, although I probably thought I knew it all I was still a kid and had done nothing with my life. I don’t remember telling Joe. I do remember dreading telling my Mum. My sister already had had 3 kids by 3 different fathers and had been a single parent for a lot of that time. Coincidentally, it turned out she was expecting a 4th child by a 4th father at exactly the same time I was pregnant with Sam.
I am not sure why I decided having a baby under those circumstances was a good idea. I knew I couldn’t have an abortion. I know that when I did tell my Mum and she was angry, upset and despairing for my future and ability to cope that I thought “Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever” and took no notice of her trying to instill in me that this would be the hardest thing I’d ever do. I remember both her and my Dad looking so disappointed, and they were, quite rightly as it turns out, worried how I’d manage. I think their worries were primarily material and financial. They did try and dissuade me, but by that time I’d thought it might be quite fun to have a little baby. For fuck sake. I seriously had no idea what was coming. I can remember truthfully thinking I’d have the baby and it would just fit in with what ever I wanted to do. I cannot believe how utterly clueless and deeply naive I was. I really think I may have been one of those young mums who thought “Well, at least I’ll get a nice flat and the State can help me out financially”. I’m certain my sister also must have tried to tell me how hard it would be. But, I suppose I thought I knew better than them.
I went to stay with my brother’s girlfriends sister, Valerie, who I had lived with in Harlesden briefly. She and her partner lived in St Leonards On Sea. She was working in a women’s refuge in Bexhill, but was soon leaving, so there was a vacancy for a warden there and she suggested she would talk to her boss, explain that I was pregnant, get me a job there until I had to give up work to have the baby, at which time I could them change over and become a resident and live there until Rother District Council found me a home.
So that’s what I did. I became a warden for 6mths and lived in the little staff flat at the top of the refuge, which was a sprawling old house in Bexhill’s Old Town. I enjoyed the work and there were other new mum’s, on benefits, awaiting rehousing whilst escaping domestic violence or homelessness, so I fitted right in. I had asked RDC to be homed in Rye because that was where my brother and his girlfriend lived and my Dad worked and it was the nearest place I wanted to live near Lydd where my Mum & Dad lived. I imagined that all of them could help me out once I’d moved with my new baby.
I don’t remember being too bothered by pregnancy apart from some heart burn and piles. All the scans showed my baby was growing well despite having smoked and drank for the first 3mths. I was due in May and I went to stay at my parents the week before as my Mum was going to be my birth partner.
I started contractions in the morning of the due date, 26th May. I remember the weather was really hot. My Dad drove me and Mum to the William Harvey Hospital where I was booked in. All I remember about the birth is having the Entonox, then after a few hours of contractions they broke my waters with a crochet needle type thing, then me giving in (I had not wanted any other drugs apart from gas and air)and having a shot of Pethidine and Sam arriving really soon after. My Mum took pics of the birth and you can see how woozey and sleepy I was right after the birth, both from the Pethidine and the pushing.
I had had to be cut during the delivery and I have horrible memories of a very unfriendly German man coming to put in some stitches in my poor war-torn perineum. I had had my legs up in stirrups during the birth (Ugh, don’t get me started about how much I hated just being in hospital to have a baby…the bright lights; loud machines; changes of staff halfway during labour; students wandering in to peer at me; being in fucking stirrups…..I found just the being in hospital, under all THEIR rules, intimidating, overwhelming and it made me completely anxious, I hated it so much. I firmly believe in home births where possible. I’m sure lots has changed, this was 29 yrs ago and it was only MY experience)and the guy who came to stitch me up I just remember as not introducing himself and unceremoniously chucking his utensils onto my tummy through my raised and parted legs while he did his thing. I was so distraught and tense and no one seemed to think this wasn’t acceptable. I remember feeling my Mum had let me down for not complaining about him.
Sam was rigid and screaming from the second he was born. I have another photo taken of when he was just handed to me and his face is all puce and his mouth wide open and his arms all flailing about and his little legs drawn up and I just look…….terrified and worried. It’s really painful to look at. I feel like, had I frozen time and gone back and given the me then some advice, some help, some guidance, some support, some knowledge things might have gone differently. I am most certainly not blaming any one else. As I said I thought I knew it all. I just mean if I as the ME now could speak to the ME then, with all the experience I have now…..christ, things would have been so different.
I stayed in the hospital over night and that was the first night I experienced sleeplessness after exhaustion. You think what the human body goes through giving birth and its a fucking wonder we ever stand up again! I had been determined to breastfeed, but from the get go I think I did not have enough milk for him. I remember being tearful and concerned cos he wouldn’t ‘latch on’ and one of the Sisters being really short with me. I just felt inadequate and stupid for asking. I was exhausted and couldn’t wait to go back to my Mum & Dads. My piles were fucking horrendous, my boobs were sore as fuck, I was crying a lot and my baby wouldn’t stop screaming. I was embarrassed as all the other Mum’s & babies in the ward seemed fine.
The next day all the new Mum’s were gathered up to watch a demo of how to bath a baby and the prickly, unsmiling old Sister chose Sam to demonstrate it on. In front of all the Mum’s he screamed and screamed as the Sister sat him in the bath and proceeded to try and bathe him…in the harsh, noisy, bright atmosphere of the hospital. I could see she was getting het up with him screaming and she even told him off and joked at what a bad boy he was being!! And, I said nothing and felt a failure.
So the die was cast.
I left the hospital, feeling like I had a bad baby, who never stopped screaming, and I felt responsible and useless, as well as in constant pain and being exhausted already from no sleep. Sam was not to sleep fully through the night until he was 18mths old.
After coming out of hospital I stayed with my Mum & Dad a few nights. There’s photos of me looking washed out and sitting on a rubber ring the hospital had given me. My undercarriage was a constant source of agony. The stitches were too tight and hurt constantly. Every time I went for a wee I had to pour a jug of warm salty water over my fanny as the urine stung the cut and the healing process took forever. Pooing was a fucking nightmare as any straining was liable to burst the stitches and so I tried to sort of hold my fanny together whilst pushing a poo out. I permanently thought my whole vagina would rip apart. And, I was constipated which not only exacerbated that fear, but also played merry hell with my massive piles. They were so big and so sore i had to sit on the rubber ring. The constant pain from them was debilitating and non stop. I can only equate it to someone squeezing your finger to the tightest degree, all the time, but instead of your finger, it was the veins outside your arse. Agonising. I eventually had to have them injected, where they put a massive needle into the veins to shrink them….more pain than child birth. Vile.
Early every evening Sam would embark on an almighty screaming session, going on so long, he eventually tired himself out to nod off for a few hours. I remember already having no energy to try and soothe him and my Mum taking over, and even she, who was a gazillion times more patient than me, saying how overwhelming it was and marvelling at how loud he could scream and how no amount of feeding, winding, changing nappy, rocking etc would placate him. But, for me, it was no laughing matter. I was feeling less and less bonded to him, if at all.
During the day my Mum get Sam off to sleep then try and encourage me to nap, but I was so tense that he would wake up, and nine times out of nine, he would wake up just as I nodded off. It was relentless. I’m guessing we would have spoken to the health visitor about it but I don’t remember any help being forthcoming.
At the end of the week My Dad drove me back to the refuge, where I was now no longer staff, but a resident. The sleeplessness continued and I became more depressed. I remember my boss becoming concerned that I might be depressed (ya think??), but, ridiculously I supposed that it was the effects of the rape that I needed help to process. She got someone from Victim Support to visit me. I think I’ve already spoken about this abomination. A haughty la-de-da, dressed up to the nines, woman visited me and the sum total of her advice was, infamously, “perhaps you’ll feel better if you put a bit of make up on”.
After 6 mths as a resident, and still on the council housing waiting list I returned to work as a warden. (I don’t remember why I did this). It was the most stupid decision ever. My shift started early evening and I was sleep-in but on call throughout the night. So, I had to put Sam down to sleep in his cot then start my duties; the handover; checking in with the residents; making phone calls; taking in any new residents; doing the house safety rounds. It was hell, as I’d be doing my rounds and I could hear Sam screaming his lungs off, alone, in my room. I would be filled with anxiety, knowing I was supposed to be on call and at work, but wanting him to stop crying and go to sleep. So, I would have arrived to ‘soothe’ him, just being fraught that I would lose my job. This situation was intolerable, as I couldn’t concentrate and just wanted him to shut up. Now I can see that it forced us apart further….he became the reason I couldn’t do my job properly. Why was he always crying?? The other babies in the house were far better behaved. Why was I such a bad parent?? Why didn’t he sleep??
Eventually I got a flat in Rye.
Nothing changed really. He didn’t sleep and kept crying. I remember being the only person walking to the park with him in his pushchair at 5am just as it got light, cos he liked the swings. I was so lonely and isolated there. My Mum did what she could, but as an agoraphobic she couldn’t get a bus, so had to rely on a lift over with my Dad once a week. She was probably there for 6hrs. That left 162 hrs when I was alone with him. I was getting more and more depressed. I never had any money and I had hardly any furniture so my flat looked awful. I had gone to Mother & Toddler groups but all the other Mum’s had husbands, cars, money, their own homes…I felt not good enough in every respect. Their babies were good and slept and didn’t cry and they were all bonded and close. Half the time I couldn’t stand the sight of Sam. What a very very dreadful thing to admit to. I feel such compassion for the younger, clueless, deeply depressed me, and for Sam as this desperately unhappy, unloved little mite. Fucking heart breaking.
I’d managed to get myself into the worst relationship ever, out of utter desperation and loneliness. He was violent and jealous. He punched me in the face in front of his 8yr old son; I came home one day and he had cut up all my old photos, clothes and new mattress; another time he held me and Sam hostage in a flat in Folkestone for 36hrs while I had to talk him out of harming us; once he pretended to take an OD and left me a suicide note…..by that time I didn’t care if he lived or died and just curled up on the sofa. I was gutted he was still alive the next day. In the end I had to threaten him with telling my brother, so he left.
I was even more stressed the whole time he was there and I was at the absolute end of my tether with Sam’s crying and not sleeping. I was broken, exhausted after 18 long months with no let up, it was torture. I do not know why no one else spotted that I was not coping at all and that I was severely depressed.
My very worst most shameful memories and the ones I feel so so riddled with guilt about occurred just before I pleaded to my GP for help. I left Sam screaming, all snotty and red faced and sweaty in his cot til I could bare it no more and I STORMED through the door, not knowing what I was going to do and just SCREAMED into his face, I screamed at him to shut the fuck up, that he was killing me and I screamed that I hated him. I shocked myself and knew I was dangerously out of control. Soon after I pushed him over, violently, onto the kitchen tiles. I knew I really needed help. That’s when I went to the doctor (I had been before, but I don’t think I was really saying how bad things were OR he didn’t take it seriously cos nothing ever happened), I was almost incoherent and I told him I had pushed Sam over and I was def going to seriously hurt him unless I got some support and help.
I don’t remember what help I got but I did get a specialist woman who came round and taught me how to mange his crying at bedtime and get him off to sleep. That night he slept right through and I got some actual fucking consecutive hours sleep.
This has been really emotionally draining writing this. If I had not have read some facts & figures and personal accounts of other Mum’s with PND and if I was not doing the work with Ivan around being more compassionate, empathetic and forgiving to myself I could not have written this. It is shocking to remember it. It is disturbing that no one picked up on it and tried to help, but I think it is so so taboo, to admit I was not coping and I didn’t feel any love to my new baby….I felt like a monster, like the worst person in the world, I could never have admitted that then, so I left it and left it.
Knowing that those early weeks are so vitally important in a persons development, I carry such huge guilt …..fuck knows in what ways it might manifest in Sam. I feel sadness at the damage I have probably caused him, but all I can really do that’s constructive is own my behaviour; try my best to explain what was going on around that time and how it led me to feeling like that; acknowledge that this will have left scars in both of us; be as compassionate & as forgiving as possible to my younger self; be there for Sam today and be able to talk about it and support him; and for him to feel my love, pride and respect for him now. I am sure he may have many questions and for that reason, and because he is directly affected by this I will let him read this before I show it to anyone else. I feel closer to him now than I ever have. We have been through a lot, but have always, pretty much, been able to talk about and face things.
So many factors collided in creating this Perfect Storm; my earlier depressive episodes; a traumatic hospital experience; no partner; single parenting; no money; no job; stigma of feeling less than; not enough professional or family support; a crying baby that never slept; no sleep; physical pain;not bonding; and the relentlessness of this for 18 long months. When I look at it now, it’s so bloody obvious. I think we both got out lightly even, given the circumstances, i could have killed us both.
Here are some links to the stuff I found:
https://www.babycentre.co.uk/x1036937/what-causes-postnatal-depression
https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:b8c36828-4918-4be5-a605-6a8f1c869902
http://www.psyneuen-journal.com/article/S0306-4530(14)00457-0/abstract
Click to access Tsivos%20et%20al.%20Postnatal%20depression%2016-20_0.pdf
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1607551X09704966
http://www.postpartumprogress.com/how-shame-gets-in-the-way-of-postpartum-depression-recovery
http://www.scarymommy.com/wanted-to-throw-my-baby-out-the-window/
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