Slipping swiftly

I've just been crocheting, a stolen moment whilst the baby naps, but I can't concentrate. I'm mentally composing a post. It won't leave my head and my heart is racing and eye's keep filling up. So here I am blogging to just GET IT ALL OUT.

Before I launch into this post of gloom (feel free to click away as soon as you like - normal service will resume with the next post) I'll quickly tell you what the yarn is that I am crocheting my ripple snood with. It's Rowan Pure Wool DK in the following shades:
Pier 006
Frost 044
Marine 008
Cypress 007
I did have indigo in there too but it looked almost black in the dark half light and I didn't like it so I frogged it out and tucked it in my ever growing stash.

Now what comes next is going to be a bit of a brain dump. Probably quite erratic and no photo's to relieve your tired eyes. (You know, I really would click away now if I were you!)

For a little over a month now I have been very, very tired. I've been a right pain in the arse. I've been awful. I've felt awful. I had things going on that were stressing me out. Things that other important people in my life were relying on me for. I would have dealt with these things just fine if I hadn't been so tired. Mini still wakes in the night and I'm on my knees.

In the middle of this past month I had had a long day. A rudely early start and six hours driving in the car to deliver a cake that I was certain wasn't going to survive the trip. I got home and cried on Mr C's chest. I said "I don't feel well". I wasn't talking about a cold coming on. My head was feeling wrong. I kept hoping and hoping that I'd spring out of my gloomy demeanor. Hoping that I was having just a normal blip. You know, a bit hormonal, a bit tired. General busy life stuff. You see I live in fear of becoming ill with depression again, so I was hoping that I'd get back on track.

I haven't manage it. I'm not back on track. I'm in a spin and a panic and I can feel I'm slipping. Swiftly slipping. Wierdly I am comforted that I have for once caught myself early, that I have trotted off to the doctors after a tearful phone call in pretty good shape, at least, I'm not in a total black fog of despair. A mist of gloom rather. When you look at how lovely my life is, to feel this way is not fitting, this is how I know I'm falling. I have nothing to be depressed about so my logical brain (it is still working  bit) is telling me that my chemicals must have gone a bit crazy. I think of it like a diabetes of the brain. The brain just isn't producing the hormones I need to feel normal.

Now I guess it would be good to start at the beginning. I've always been a fairly cheerful person but I don't do well when stressed or tired. Really quite normal I think. After Big was born my mind went into overdrive. Sleep was in short supply and I had a baby that didn't seem quite right, not sure how to phrase it. However I was the only one at that time who felt things weren't ok with him. It caused me to quietly worry and whittle, I worried and whittled through many long sleepless nights. Things always seem worse in the middle of the night and those hours spent cradling my small boy who seemed to have no idea what sleep was all about meant that I walked through the days with a persistent feeling of concern which, over time, escalated into full blown Post Natal Anxiety which led to slight depression. I went to the doctors about my baby on several occasions to say how concerned I was but by this time my mind was playing horrid tricks on me and I was blowing everything out of proportion.

So the doctor treated me rather than looking at my son. I guess the fact that I was seeing horrific accidents in my head was more pressing. I'd be driving along and I'd visualise a lorry ploughing into us. I would physically jolt at the thought. In my head I saw myself fall down the stairs breaking my baby's neck every time I got him out of his cot after a nap. I would slip and stab myself when emptying the dishwasher. I would faint whilst bathing him and he would drown. I would trip and his pushchair would wheel in front of a car. Of course none of these things ever happened but I would 'see' these images like watching a film and it was terrifying. I would feel shaken as though I had tripped. I was prescribed a very good medication and began to feel quite alright. But it still took almost four years to get Big's diagnosis as every doctor and health visitor and to some degree family and friends still tried to comfort me as an anxiety patient rather than a mother whose instinct was saying that there was something going on with her child. Thank goodness I am a stubborn and tenacious bugger (to my detriment at times) as Big's condition, if not kept under supervision, could cause some difficult health issues for him in the future.

So that was my first run in with a brain backfiring. Second time was nasty. Oh it was just dire. There was a lot going on at the time. Little Cuckoo had been born at Christmas and he'd been suffering with reflux and colic. He was never a small boy and so he has never had small lungs nor a small cry. My health visitor was retiring after 40 years and she said she had never heard a young baby with such a loud cry. The sound distorted in ones ears, left them ringing. And it didn't stop for long either. It was four months of constant screaming. Big was still waking twice in the night for 2 hours at a time and whilst he was asleep Little was awake. We had a huge renovation/building project going on. We ended up sleeping in the playroom with both the boys. The only rooms we had were the kitchen, utility, playroom and ensuite. Plenty of room but no where to take a shrieking baby in the night. I was up with Little the second he murmured for fear he would disturb Big Cuckoo and Mr C. Mr C had just taken over a business that had been doing badly and so he really needed his wits about him and therefore needed to sleep.

I was busy beyond anything I had anticipated, I knew two young children would be no picnic but Big wasn't like a two and a half year old. He was like a one year old. It was tough going but not impossible and I just got on with it. Thousands deal with much tougher situations. But the lack of sleep led to my brain malfunctioning but I didn't see it coming. I was too busy and tired to notice that I was getting ill. I was exhausted. I kept having an odd sensation in my chest, a bit like when you dream you are tripping up the pavement. A bit like someone had jolted me. I can't quite describe it. It happened regularly, every five minutes or so and my heart would leap in my then very thin chest. I couldn't sleep as I was jolted every few minutes and every snort or murmur disturbed me

One day, I as I was making a cup of coffee, I had a brief lucid moment when I recognised that I felt desperate. I was about to pour a kettle of boiling water over my arm so that I could go to hospital and just STOP, just give up, be cared for, escape my life, escape myself...and I thought "Oh My God, I'm ill. I didn't know!"

Ruby Wax summed it up so well for me. When your brain is sick you haven't got one in reserve to compensate, to say "Hey no.1 brain, you're exhausted and poorly, I'll take over for a bit" You're just lost in the bleak confusion. When your liver packs in you go a bit yellow and feel quite shabby, your brain recognises this and off you go to the doctor. When it is your brain that is ill it's not so straight forward. I have spent so long worrying that I'll miss the signs and that I would do something dramatic. That I would lose my mind and do something so devastating it would destroy me and it would destroy all I care about. I've witnessed first hand how someone can wreck their life when they were out of their mind and how that ripples out to everyone who loves them. I've seen the devastation and I never ever want to get to the point where I have missed the signs that my brain is sick...I'm not saying this very well at all. I'm trying to say something without saying it, so I'll just say it. My fun loving, sociable Aunt became deeply depressed. She started out just a bit sad, then a bit worried, then unable to cope. Before long this capable woman was unable to speak, wash or feed herself. Eventually they gave her medication that seemed to work. She started reading again and talking to people. She was improving. One day, after months of looking after my Aunt, my grandmother thought she was well enough to leave for half an hour. My Aunt encouraged her to go and get some fresh air. Said she'd be fine. But when my Grandmother returned my Aunt had hanged herself with her dressing gown belt. She'd obviously had a desperate moment when she felt she could no longer go on. Had she have remained in the vegetative state she'd have probably stayed sat in the same place my Grandmother left her, but because she was responding well to the treatment but still had a long way to go, she had the motivation to exit stage left. I'm not saying I have had suicidal thoughts, not now, not ever, but I have had things go through my mind that I would never have expected and I've seen that it is all too easy to fall deeper and deeper into mental illness till you are no longer yourself anymore. My Aunt was the very last person you'd expect to hang herself. She liked to complain too much!!!

I guess some of you newbies to my blog are surprised to be reading this.  You won't have read the posts were I have stated that I have had Post Natal Depression. You'll have flicked through the last few posts and seen what a wonderfully privileged life I lead. How fabulous my friends and my family are, but then you only see what I choose to reveal here. This blog is my therapy as well as my diary and my place to mingle with like minded crafting gals. It is the place I document all the good stuff that I want to remember, the place I come to to focus on the small details that bring me joy. Funnily enough it has been my rescue this time round too. I noticed as all the comments were pouring in from my last post that I wasn't feeling the joy of the day the way I would have if I was feeling myself. It's like I was there in body but not really there in the moment. I feel too much like I am going through the motions. I am short tempered too much, I'm tearful, worried, tired, flat, joyless, restless, my heart is thudding. I'm not enjoying the things I love. I'm on auto pilot. I'm like a walking, talking doll. To the world out there I appear to be the smiley happy go lucky thing like always. I wonder how long I could have gone on like this, in this denial. I kept thinking "I'll be ok in a minute". You see I have periods through the day when I do feel fine, when the smile on my face is genuine. But that's the trouble. I'm so up and down but I focus on the ups and try to ignore the downs because I don't want to be that person cashing in a prescription. I don't want it to be me again. Not this time. It's not fair! Why me? But then again, why not me? Why not me? 

It's like this: I'm standing on a cliff edge, my back is to the sea and I'm facing sunny fields of wild flowers. There's my family and friends frolicking about, a bag of crochet, a yummy picnic, the sun is shining and the breeze is gentle. But behind me there's a storm rolling in, it's on the horizon. Dark, black thunder clouds, streaks of lightening. The sea is the colour of sewage and swirling around the jagged rocks. One step the wrong way and I'll fall into it. Most of the time I have two feet on the grassy ledge, some times one of them dangles down, stones falling down the cliff face as I struggle to get my footing again. Right now both feet have slipped. I am hanging on with my fists tightly grasping the long grass. Both feet are well and truly flapping about trying to find a resting place to steady myself while I climb back up. I can still see all the good stuff up on the top of the cliff in the sunny fields. I'm still looking at it. I still want to be there, I don't want to fall. I know how horrid it is to be free falling down and down towards those rocks. I'm so thankful that after the last time I got back to my old self and I am ever hopeful that because I have seen my doctor before I was too far into the blackness that I have been saved. My fear has always been that I wouldn't seek help in time, that I'd not notice how confused and muddled I was becoming, that I would lose myself. That who I am will be torn so badly apart that I'll never get put back together properly and I'll be an empty shadow of the glorious, vital person I can be. It's funny how you can only appreciate all the positives of oneself when you imagine it all being destroyed and stripped away. I'm not being big headed, I know that when I am well I am a nice person, I know I have attractive qualities in my nature. I'm not perfect but I do a good enough job most days of keeping those I love happy and that's the main thing I guess. I am finding everything so much harder at the moment, it's terribly difficult to be everything I am when I'm not feeling like I'm connected. (I've cut this from an email I sent a long time ago, I knew one day I would be blogging about PND and that I would want to include this analogy, though I have edited it a bit as I wrote it when I felt very well)

The thing I find hard when I feel flat, when I lose my emotions and they get replaced by episodes of simmering rage or worse, nothingness, I find the hardest thing is not being able to tell people what's going on. I don't want to worry anyone. I don't want to drag others down. I don't want my children to be taken from me (big fear and unlikely) I can't rant and sob, I've gotta hold it all together with out having had a chance to offload. I don't want to ruin my marriage, my friendships. I don't want all those people I love to fear that I'll go the way my Aunt did. I don't want them to worry. I don't want to burden my best friends, they have their own problems to deal with, such busy lives to lead, they don't need to be talking to me from Dorset, Reading, London, Dorking,...knowing they are too far away to be of any practical help. Knowing they can't get to me and back in time to pick up their children from school. They don't need the added stress of worrying about my fragile state of mind.  Have I explained that very well? I'm not sure.  I suppose I'm just saying to you my dear Girls, my dear Mum, I didn't want to worry you as I love you so very much.

I understand a bit about depression as I used to work in the medical industry and because of my family history I have had a lot of conversations with people who know the facts and I know that I feel like I do because my serotonin levels are buggered up. If my insulin levels where buggered I'd take diabetic medication and so when my serotonin goes wrong I'll take the appropriate meds to get better. It's not forever, I'm resigned to the fact that sometimes I'll be ill and sometimes I'll be well. I'm also resigned to the fact that there's a lot of misunderstanding of depression and people are incredibly judgemental which makes it a dirty secret style sickness. I hate that. So that is why I'm putting all this out there I suppose. It's my story and I'm telling it in my own way and dealing with my wonky brain in my own way too. Some people might think that going to the doctor and walking out of the surgery with a prescription is the wrong way to do things. But I know me and I know my body. It seems this is just what happens to my hormones after I have had a baby. No amount of counselling will help my brain produce more of the seretonin I need right now.  If I had cancer I'd have chemo, it would save my life. If they'd treated my Aunt sooner it would probably have saved her life. It would have prevented all the horror my family has been through.


This post has done me the world of good, I feel like I have got everything out of my mind now, the endless chatter can stop for a bit and I can take great comfort in the fact that although I feel like  (forgive me, I am about to swear on my blog) ... shit. Although I have blubbed my way through this, I am going to feel just fine in the future, already I feel lighter, knowing it has happened again and I'm not in as bad a place as I was last time.


In the past when I have mentioned my PND I have had a few people either leave me a comment or email me (my address is over there in my side bar) saying that they struggle too and that many people in their real lives have no idea. Why oh why are we so happy to discuss our sex lives and pelvic floors but not comfortable to talk about depression or mental illness? How many times have you heard someone say "I've been signed off with stress"? I bet you 70% of those people are beyond stressed, they are depressed but they feel like they will be persecuted for it. I'm happy to talk to anyone and everyone about my journey. Sometimes I get a reaction of pure disbelief. After all what have I got to be depressed about? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. So I know it's because my chemicals are out of balance. I say I'll talk to anyone about depression but actually I only ever talk about it in past tense to strangers and acquaintances. 


Now I must go as I need a wee and the baby is due to wake up and I need to do some star jumps in the sunshine. I need to do some exercise for I am on "Project Feel The Joy, Get The Cuckoo Flying Again". I shall be nurturing myself for a bit. I want to feel better, I never want to be calling my doctor in a desperate panic and in floods of tears ever again...though I bet you I will do one day....


So in the mean time, you may or may not hear from me for a bit. I may or may not be cheerful when you do. Funny thing the internet, for I may be having a really crappy moment yet I'll be writing something on your blogs that would never alert you to the way I am really feeling. It's a good thing though, to be writing jolly messages to people when you feel bad, a bit like standing up straight and smiling when you don't feel very confident. 


Ok I really am going now, I must stop waffling, do excuse any hastily typed errors! 


xxx


ps. If you need a little lightness now, ay I refer you back to this post?!