On being a Medicated Mother

It's strange. Not usually one to be lost for words, I have found myself over the last few months writing numerous posts around what I guess I would call 'domestic' themes - parenting issues, meal planning, sustainability, trying to find balance, ethical eating, blah blah blah - and not being able to follow through on any of them. I've been drawn to some thought-provoking posts along similar themes on other blogs, and wanted to join in the conversations, but my own thoughts are still sitting there in Blogger draft, fragmented and incoherent, much like the piles of hexagons awaiting me on the craft table. 

Well I think I've identified the cause of my writer's block. It's my desire to be genuine, and my need to make clear (before I spout any opinions about being a stay-at-home mother) that there is something I haven't mentioned here much which nonetheless exerts a large influence over how I think and act.

You see, I'm a Medicated Mother.

It was only a matter of weeks after the birth of my first child that we started wondering about post-natal depression. It was hard to identify, given that we were in the throes of new parenthood with a babe who wasn't feeding or sleeping at all well. How could we differentiate depression from a 'normal' reaction to the universally massive paradigm shift that is first-time parenthood? 

But as the weeks went by, it became increasingly clear. Never a clucky woman, I'd expected to find motherhood challenging on all sorts of levels. I'd assumed that in having a child, I would be forced to grapple with my inherent selfishness and desire for independence, and that I would at times feel stifled, resentful, bored. Perhaps I would even struggle to love my child. I was not expecting to embrace motherhood with ease or be a natural, earth-mother type. I had therefore given myself permission to go slowly, to feel the tensions, to learn to adapt, and thought in doing so that I was depression-proofing myself.

I think this is partly why I was blindsided by PND. Because for me PND had nothing to do with these things. 

I adored my baby boy, absolutely and utterly. I was ready to do anything for him. And yet, I was in the grip of what felt like a physical and mental breakdown. An overwhelming sense of fear and doom. Physical waves of panic. Inability to do the most simple daily tasks - I couldn't understand how I could possibly feed myself or wash the dishes AND look after this child. Constant negative thoughts, ruminations and obsessions, particularly about my baby boy's feeding and sleeping patterns. Extreme lack of confidence in my abilities (would I ever find it easy to change a nappy? Put my babe down for a nap? Breastfeed in public? Dress myself again?). Insomnia, lying in bed with my heart pounding and mind racing even when my baby was actually sleeping. Paranoia that my husband would leave me. 

William, 4 weeks old

We tried to find the right help but hit brick walls all over the place. It was about eight weeks in when an acquaintance, a kind, firm, ex-maternal health nurse, visited. After listening to everything that I had been thinking, feeling and doing, she said 'my dear, you're really not well. And you don't have to feel this way.' It was then that I started to accept the possibility that what I was experiencing was not just some personal weakness and failing that I had to overcome by myself, but an illness that needed intervention.

The good news? I got intervention in the form of a month-long hospital stay with my baby boy. During our time I settled onto anti-anxiety medication, worked on our mother-baby routines and relationship, and learned many useful strategies - including crafting! - for counteracting and dissipating anxious thoughts and feelings. I responded incredibly well, and incredibly quickly, to medication and care.

My husband will testify that I left that hospital a different person, and barely looked back. The person who came out was far more optimistic, open to new things, and lighter-of-spirit than the one who had gone in. We have often reflected that my PND has been something of a blessing in disguise for our family, forcing us to face head-on some of the big issues surrounding parenthood and its effects on the marriage relationship. Much personal growth came out of the horror - I learned to enjoy my own company, to lower expectations, to be adaptable, to find and create meaning in the small things. I continued on the medication through the gestation and birth of our second son, and experienced no traces of PND.

Justin, Charlie (1 week old), William, Gina

A few months ago I made the mistake of stopping my anti-anxiety medication for a while. I had been taking it for three years straight, and wondered whether it was necessary any more. I guess for a long time I have felt so very normal, and quite distant from that labelled woman of three years ago, the one with PND, the one who went loopy. It was a heavy disappointment to recognise after a month of 'normalcy' that the signs of anxiety were beginning to manifest and spiral all over again, albeit in a more gradual way. 

Although it brought back some feelings of shame and inadequacy, I have chosen to embrace the medication once again. I have certainly grown a heck of a lot in self-understanding and new ways of thinking these last three years, but clearly not enough to dig myself up from the mire of depression without assistance. Whatever broke three years back remains, to some degree, broken. And while this is a blow to my pride, that I cannot cure myself, life with small children is no time to be letting pride get in the way of feeling well.  

Medication does not make me the mother that I am. It does not manipulate my actions or predetermine my reactions. Instead, it gives me the ability to choose; to choose a life-affirming, problem-solving, less self-critical approach to motherhood. Without it, I am swamped by uncontrollable sensations and feel incapable of those choices. In choosing medication, I choose Choice.

I am a Medicated Mother. And I'm ok.