I can hear the voices calling out, "Mummy! Look! Come see!"
But my feet won't move, my body heavy, I just don't feel like me.
They'll be fine without me for a while, infact they'll have more fun...
I'll stay here wrapped up warm in bed, comfortably numb
I don't want to go through the motions today, I don't want to fake the smiles
I just want to watch the world go by and lay here for a while.
I close my eyes and wait for sleep to take it all away...
all the sadness, all the guilt, all the fear I feel each day.
I hear my babies coos and cries, and wonder if he knows
That his Mummy isn't always like this, so full of all these woes
He has a very different mother to the one his brother had,
so full of fun & excitement, and none of all this sad.
I want to get her back again, for his sake and for mine
I want to want to hold him and to cuddle him all the time,
But my feelings seem so muted now, nothing feels quite real
Everything is darker now and gloomier I feel.
I feel as though I'm covered in a cloud of thick, dark fog...
and no matter what I try to do I can't escape this smog.
I'll find a way to carry on and find a way to cope
But I'll keep searching for the sunlight, I'll find it soon I hope.
You might have noticed there's been some radio silence on my blog recently...
Infact it's been 11 days since my last post went live and longer still since I actually sat here and wrote anything. A good 3 or 4 weeks or so infact, which is probably the longest break I've ever taken from my blog.I don't really know how to explain how I've been feeling lately, except to say that I've felt a darkness and it's been all-consuming. You hear people talk about post-natal depression so much - they say it's not discussed enough but I seem to hear it spoken of all the time...or at least I hear the words said ..."Post natal depression"...but I don't think I've ever actually heard anybody say what it is...or how it feels....or what to do when you find that its hit you. I think I thought you'd somehow just know when it affected you....as though it would come with a big fanfare and announcement "You have post natal depression now! Take yourself off to the Dr right away!"... But no...that's not how it happened. Not for me, anyway. It wasn't an "all at once" kind of thing...it was gradual. Very gradual. I definitely felt a bit low after having Noah...I blamed it on soreness from the c section, on the infection I had, on the recovery from the horrible pregnancy itself, on exhaustion from those newborn sleepless nights... But as the pain from the surgery went away, the infection healed, my body repaired itself, the baby started sleeping through the night....I was shocked to find that my mood didn't lift....infact everything started to feel darker...more blurred. And I felt tired. So very tired. And the more I slept, the more tired I felt. I felt weary...I didn't want to talk to anybody....I didn't want to do anything...the only person I had the energy to fake a smile for was Tyne...I didn't even feel like picking Noah up for a cuddle. And I hated that so much....there would sometimes be a whole day gone by when Jon had been home and at the end of the day I'd comment that I hadn't even held Noah once all day....and when Jon would try to hand him to me, I didn't want to take him. I wanted to want to...but the want wasn't there. And I couldn't force it. I couldn't fake it. And the more those days occurred, the worse I felt...and the more I hated myself for being so annoying and so cruel...and even though I didn't want to feel the way I did and I knew I couldn't help it, I berated myself for it anyway. I got more and more anxious. I was a horrible mom who didn't even want to hold her baby....so obviously something bad is going to happen to him. God's going to punish me for being so horrible and he's going to take my baby away. So all through the night, I'd be eaten up with fear and panic and would continually check on Noah...time and time again....to make sure he was breathing, make sure he was warm....but I still didn't want to pick him up and cuddle him. It went on like this for a few weeks. I didn't really know what to do. I thought the best thing to do was maybe to admit I felt depressed...everyone always says to tell someone if you're suffering...so I did, I kept telling Jon that I felt depressed and I didn't feel any connection to Noah....but he didn't seem to know the right thing to say. Is there a right thing to say? And that made me feel worse. And made me want to shut myself off completely. A few weeks have passed now and I'm starting to notice some changes. Little ones but I think they're important. I feel like bothering to do my hair and put my make up on in the mornings...and once I do those things I feel brighter and more like myself. I feel like picking Noah up and cuddling and playing with him more...and when I do, he cheers me up and makes me feel better. I think all of this has coincided with Noah's personality starting to shine through more....the past couple of weeks his character is really coming out, he's laughing all the time and interacting so much more, and it makes it so much easier to relate to him and connect with him than before when he was an expressionless newborn who only wanted to cry, feed, sleep or be held. I feel brighter now. I feel as though I've been walking through a dark patch and I wasn't sure where the sun had gone...but now the fog is lifting....and now I realize that it was dark because of the fog....the sun was there all along, it was just hidden by the fog. I'm leaving the fog behind now...and I'm pleased about that. But I'm scared of running in to it again...of losing my way in it....and I'm scared that I don't know how to keep it away. And I wonder how many other mums like me are out there facing the same struggle...feeling cut off....feeling desperate...facing so many anxieties and irrational fears...fighting their way through the same fog.
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