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A bad day doesn’t make you a bad parent

A bad day doesn’t make you a bad parent

Everyone has bad days. Parents, children, teenagers, wealthy people, healthy people, singletons, the ones in happy marriages and every single other person who walks the earth. Bad days are, unfortunately, just a part of life. I had a bad day today. A really really bad day. It was one of those kind of days where you feel like drawing the curtains tightly shut, creeping back into bed and cocooning yourself from the world, along with all it’s frustrations and complications, in the safety of your warm soft duvet. Sometimes you have a choice whether to wallow in the hard times or muster some strength from within and move towards a better place. If you struggle with depression, sometimes it feels like that choice is cruelly being kept just out of reach, instead your mind keeps you captive in your house, convincing you leaving and breathing fresh air is pointless. Today I wallowed, I let mum guilt consume me for not being a fun mum for Alex and I had a cry, a rare phenomenon since I started on anti depressants. When I have bad days, times where my mood has a direct impact on the kind of day my kids have too, I end up feeling like the worst parent in the world. Well, amongst all the negative fog occupying my mind today, an epiphany managed to burst through – a bad day doesn’t make me a bad mum! View Post

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Mental health after pregnancy – my first month on Sertraline

Mental health after pregnancy – my first month on Sertraline

Since having Alex back in October 2016, I have learnt quite a bit about mental health. I have learnt that just because you haven’t experienced mental health problems in the past, that doesn’t mean you never will. I have discovered someone can outwardly seem like they are coping just fine but on the inside they are feeling unbearable pain they feel they must keep as a secret. One of my most recent learnings is that we can relapse and recovery is never as straight forward as we would hope.

In January, after months of feeling like my old self, I started to feel really low again. That familiar weight of sadness had crept back in and was resting, heavy and unwelcome on my shoulders. I had started to feel like I was loosing control of my thoughts again, anxiety was seeping through my mind and drowning my normal train of thought with terrifying ‘what ifs’ and worse case scenarios. Unlike when Alex was a newborn, I recognised something wasn’t right really quickly and after a week of daily crying sessions, I knew I needed to get to the doctors as soon as possible, suffering with post natal depression was without a doubt the hardest period in my life and I was not prepared to get dragged back down into the dark again. View Post

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Mental health after pregnancy – social media made my anxiety and post natal depression worse

Mental health after pregnancy – social media made my anxiety and post natal depression worse

I have this really vivid memory lurking in my mind, it has been well over a year since this day yet I remember it all as if it happened this morning. Alex was about 2 or 3 weeks old, I was bathing him in his tiny little baby bath and chatting to Oli at the same time. For a mere 5 seconds I looked up and met Oli’s gaze while we were talking and when I looked back down at my baby, Alex had his face in the water. In just a matter of a few seconds he had silently rolled his head to the side, his head was still resting on my palm but his mouth and nose had become submerged. A matter of seconds, that’s all it was. I took him straight out of his little bath as he cried and thrashed his body around in my arms. He was scared, I was terrified. I got him dressed, cuddled him close and while I was feeding him I reached for my phone. That was the day my phone began to mentally torture me.

Mental health after pregnancy – social media made my anxiety and PND worse

Alex was completely fine after his minor incident in the bath and as he contently slept in my arms, I did the thing paranoid, anxious and depressed new mums should never do: I Googled what had just happened. During my heart-breaking journey through forums, news articles and medical warnings about children drowning my anxiety began to reach the point where I kept having to check Alex was breathing, even though he was right there happy in my arms. I managed to drag myself out of the terrifying depths of my Google search and went to bed, full of dread that Alex was going to be dead when I woke up. The next day I was scrolling through Facebook and was met with a news article that had somehow made it’s way into my newsfeed, amongst the updates and photos from my friends and family. The article had a headline that caught my eye immediately, I was still on edge from the day before and when I saw the words ‘secondary drowning’ my heart sank. The story was about a child who had been swimming happily on holiday and 24hours after returning from fun at the pool he had drowned. Apparently it is possible to ‘drown’ hours after being in water if you manage to get some water on your lungs. Well, obviously my anxiety sky rocketed and I was convinced this was going to happen to Alex. I was scared for days that something bad was going to happen, all the while trying to outwardly appear fine and under control as I hadn’t yet found the courage to tell anyone I was suffering so badly with my mental health.

As if Facebook knew how I was feeling and wanted to torment me further, more and more news articles began to flash up in my news feed, each one pushing my anxiety up even higher and I was left feeling as though my baby was just never going to be safe again. For every 10 updates from friends and family, there was a mum posting in a mums chat group an article she’d read about the dangers of car seats/cot bumpers/prams/choking – the list of potential ways I was being told my baby could die was just unbearably overwhelming. There is not a single doubt in my mind that Facebook made my anxiety and post natal depression worse. I know I was struggling anyway, but this constant horrific barrage of stories and articles about awful things happening to babies just like my own unequivocally had a negative impact on my mental health.

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It wasn’t only Facebook though, social media in general has on many different occasions affected my mood and mental wellbeing. I am better now, but when I was suffering with post natal depression I would go on to Instagram and as I was scrolling through everyone else’s photos I felt as though everyone else was happy in the world apart from me. I would see photos of mums holding their babies with smiles on their faces, captioned with tales from their lovely and joyful day. I would see photos of toddlers kissing and hugging their baby siblings and feel shit because my three year old was showing no interest in the baby at all. Everyone was smiling and everyone was happy and after 10 minutes on Instagram I could easily be left feeling inadequate and like a rubbish mum for days as I wasn’t smiling like everyone else.

Some days Twitter would grab my attention and I’d spend some time scrolling on there. People seem to tell it as it is a bit more on Twitter, which can be a blessing in some ways but also makes an easy breeding ground for keyboard warriors and internet bullies. Luckily I am yet to have to deal with the horrible experience of being trolled but that doesn’t mean Twitter didn’t also manage to play a part in ripping apart my self confidence and negatively impacting my mood during those months where I was suffering with my mental health. This time last year I probably had around 3000 followers on Twitter, not loads but not zero either. Occasionally if something was troubling me, I would try and sugar coat the issue slightly, pop it in a tweet and ask if anyone else was feeling the same. I understood I was opening myself up for potential trolling but I didn’t care, I just wanted to know that there were others out there who understood how I was feeling. As it transpired, most of the time there wasn’t. Every time I checked my notifications and not one of my 3000 followers had replied to say they too felt the same, my heart would sink a little deeper into the painful part of my chest and tears would threaten to spill from my eyes. Despite having followers on all different platforms, there were times social media made me feel so alone.

I am not holding Facebook, Instagram and Twitter responsible for the troubles I faced when Alex was a baby; it is unfortunate but I think getting post natal depression and anxiety was just part of my journey into second time motherhood. However, I do believe social media is responsible for intensifying my low mood and making my mental health worse during what was already a difficult time in my life. In the end I ended up deleting the Facebook app from my phone for months, the articles and good intentioned warnings from other mums about terrible tragedies involving babies just got too much for me. I wised up on the reality of social media in general too, the majority of people are only sharing the smile and the happy times online but that doesn’t mean they are not having the tough days too. I have also been guilty of holding back the complete truth of what is happening in my life and instead painted a very rosy and perfect lie over on my squares on Instagram. I don’t do that anymore, if things are shit then I tell my followers that I am feeling shit. If I have had a bad day then I will tell you, just like I would if it had been the best day ever. I never want anyone to feel lonely and anxious because of what they have or haven’t seen on social media and if I see a new mum reaching out for solidarity or reassurance online then, if I have been there too, I will a hundred times tell her that she’s not on her own.

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I have written this post in collaboration with Head Talks, an amazing website full of useful resources to help inform, reassure and inspire people around the subject of mental health and wellbeing. Head Talks was founded by Oliver Chittenden (find out his story here) who wants Head Talks to be a safe online place for people who want to have healthier relationships with themselves and their loved ones by focussing on improving their mental health.

Fashion blogger Roxi Nafousi was interviewed for Head Talks about her opinion on social media and the detrimental effects it can have on our mental health. You can watch the interview, Beyond The Perfect Image, here and Roxi shares similar advice to me – if you are not feeling mentally well then it is best to stay well away from social media.

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Today, February 1st 2018, is Time to Talk Day. So, wherever you are and whoever you are with, make sure you take some time today to have a conversation about mental health and wellbeing. Stigmas can only be removed and change can only be made if we all make an effort to raise awareness of the many mental health issues thousands of us suffer with every day.

If you feel like you may be suffering with post natal depression here is a list of resources and charities that can help and support you.

If you found this post useful you may also like to read the other posts about anxiety, post natal depression and mental illness over in the mental health section of my blog.

Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post. I have collaborated with Head Talks as raising awareness and helping people will mental health issues is something I am passionate about.

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Social media made my anxiety and post natal depression worse

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14 things you can do to become a happier and more positive mum

14 things you can do to become a happier and more positive mum

The year is almost over and, you know what? 2017 should have been a brilliant year for me but I have spent a good chunk of it feeling unhappy. When Alex was born last October I never could have imagined I would be spending so much of his first year feeling sad and battling with anxiety but yet, unfortunately, that has been the reality of 2017 for me. Being a parent is so hard at times and some days, even if you don’t have post natal depression, it can be hard to get a genuine smile on your face. Raising children is the worlds most difficult job and us parents give so much of ourselves to our little people that it is no wonder we can often feel run down, emotional and upset.

As the year has progressed I have started to feel better and I am a lot happier this December than I was in January. I am so relieved to be seeing the year out on a high note and no longer living under the heavy black cloud of PND. It hasn’t been easy to get to this point and I would be lying if I said I no longer have bad days, I don’t think anyone can say they have been happy for 365 days in a row though, can they? I have worked really hard on looking after my mental wellbeing over the past year and it is such a relief to be about to enter a new year as the happy version of myself I knew I was capable of becoming again – nice try PND but I knew I could beat you. My work is not done though, I am determined to keep up my quest for happiness and to become a more positive parent for my boys and for my own wellbeing too. If you too want to feel happier as a mum and want to try and ease yourself away from a dark place to somewhere more positive, then here is a list of things I have done and continue to do every day to try and keep negativity (from myself and others) away. Let’s all make 2018 a year full of positivity, happiness and confidence – we got this mamas! View Post

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Mental health after pregnancy – When you have post natal depression at Christmas

Mental health after pregnancy – When you have post natal depression at Christmas

This time last year I was not in a good place. In fact, 12 months ago I was in a very dark and very scary place. Memories of December 2016 will always make me sad, I had a newborn baby and a three year old excited for Christmas and I felt as far away from festive as was possible. I didn’t know it at the time but I was suffering with post natal depression. I knew something wasn’t right, I knew I felt unbearably sad and anxious all the time but I hadn’t yet admitted to myself or anyone else what was really going on.

Post natal depression is such a cruel mental illness. Having a baby is supposed to be one of the most amazing things you can ever experience but post natal depression violently bursts that happy new mum bubble. A baby who loves you and who you love back completely unconditionally, what could be better? But when your own mind turns against you, makes you feel sad when you want to be happy and horrible thoughts taint those precious moments with your baby, it is a truly heartbreaking thing to experience as a mum. You feel like a failure (why aren’t I happy? I am supposed to be happy, am I an awful mother?), you feel robbed of this special time (Why can’t I just enjoy this time with my baby?) and you feel like things will never get any easier (I am never going to feel happy again). Feeling all these things any time of the year is difficult and just horrible but imagine feeling this way at Christmas? Imagine spending your baby’s first ever Christmas feeling like you are drowning in your own sadness and that you can’t talk about it with anyone because it’s Christmas and you don’t want to kill their festive cheer. That is exactly how I felt last Christmas and, unfortunately, that is how so many new mums will be feeling this December too. View Post

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Mental health after pregnancy – a candid conversation

Mental health after pregnancy – a candid conversation

Today, Tuesday 10th October, is World Mental Health day.  There is a real stigma surrounding mental health. Those you have never suffered or studied it don’t really understand the complexity of mental illness and many of those who have suffered do not feel they can talk openly about their mental health with others. There is a real stigma attached to mental illness and the only way we can break through that is to start talking openly about it with each other.

I have written about mental health on this blog before. After I gave birth to Alex last October, within a few weeks of him being born I developed depression and anxiety. I didn’t want to tell anyone for a long time as I was terrified of being judged by others and I felt ashamed of the way I was feeling. No new mum should feel like that. Awareness days are a brilliant way to get people talking and that’s what my post is all about today. Recently I had a very open and honest chat with 3 other bloggers about our mental health and how we have struggled since becoming parents. The point of this post is to show how depression and anxiety after pregnancy is more common than we think. I really hope that if you think you might have post natal depression, or any other kind of mental illness after giving birth, that this post helps you see that you are not on your own and there are people out there who understand how you feel. View Post

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Mental health after pregnancy – Reflecting on the darkest days

Mental health after pregnancy – Reflecting on the darkest days

Recently I went to see my GP again about my mental health as I had been struggling with a low mood and had been feeling emotionally run down for a while. I went through a period of a couple months where I had started to feel back on top form, I was loving my life as a mum of two and everything was good but then that familiar cloud of depression began to lurk over my days again. The doctor doesn’t want to give me medication and I don’t think that’s what I want either, actually as soon as I spoke (cried at) to her I felt a weight lift off my shoulders and in the days that followed I started to feel better. Since I started opening up about my mental health way back at the beginning of the year I have learnt that talking is a powerful tool when it comes to recovery. Talking and writing have helped me so much and it may be hard to get the words out but once you overcome that hurdle it really does help. View Post

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The myths and reality of mental health – The Newbie Takeover #2 Our Altered Life

The myths and reality of mental health – The Newbie Takeover #2 Our Altered Life

It is Wednesday so that means it is time for me to hand my blog over to a new blogger on the block for my next instalment of The Newbie Takeover. This week I have Charlie from Our Altered Life guest posting for me. This is a very important post about mental health and how the reality of living with a mental health condition can be completely different to the myths we are told.  View Post

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Post natal depression, it’s not how I imagined

Post natal depression, it’s not how I imagined

I never thought I would suffer with post natal depression. Then again, I doubt many women think they will get it either. It is not what you think about when you are pregnant is it? You are too busy thinking about the little human growing inside you, planning for their arrival and imaging the life as a family that is waiting for you just around the corner. Thoughts of whether you will feel sad for months on end or if you will feel completely overwhelmed by it all aren’t really common place amongst the excitement over adorable baby clothes and decorating the nursery.

Well, I didn’t consider I would get PND anyway. But I did and it is not what I had expected it to be.

Post natal depression, it is not how I imagined

I always thought post natal depression meant you couldn’t love your baby, for me that is not the case. I thought sufferers of post natal depression were suicidal, that is not the case for me either. The media made me believe if you suffered from PND then you thought about hurting your baby, you thought about hurting yourself or you just sat in the dark and cried for months. I was misguided, misinformed, and I was naĂŻve. Post natal depression is not black and white, it is not a one size fits all condition. For some women post natal depression shows itself in one way and in others it comes to the surface in a totally different manner.

Post natal depression caught me completely off guard. I didn’t see it coming, I never expected it to become a part of my life, I thought I was too happy to ever get depressed. I am happily married, have a lovely family and children who are my world, what have I got to be sad about?  And that is my naivety to the complexity of mental health, displayed neatly in that last sentence. There doesn’t need to be a reason, depression can hit any of us at any time, sometimes circumstances and situations can cause it and other times it can just show up uninvited.

My second baby was about 2 months old when I realised something wasn’t quite right. Again, my misconception of post natal depression led me to ignore my symptoms for weeks, convinced I must just be feeling down, the baby blues maybe, as post natal depression crops up within the days after birth doesn’t it? You can’t be feeling happy for almost 2 months and then suddenly just get it can you? Post natal depression isn’t like the flu, you don’t just ‘catch it’. Often it can begin as a slow burn, something you can just push aside and try to ignore, but as time wears on the sadness and anxiety shout louder, refusing to let you carry on with life as normal.

Before I was one of them, I thought sufferers of post natal depression were sad all the time, crying all the time and they were easy to spot because they rarely smiled. This is not the case at all. Over Christmas I fake smiled my way through countless family gatherings, I pretended to be happy when I wasn’t. I lied to everyone around me every time they asked how I was and I said I was ok. No amount of forced smiles or ignoring the elephant in my brain could stop the sadness and anxiety that was constantly niggling in my chest, picking at me and dragging my mood down to depths I wasn’t willing to go. Just because someone is smiling doesn’t mean they are happy, don’t assume a new mum is coping just because she says she is ok – it is hard enough admitting to yourself that you are struggling, let alone telling friends and family that you are depressed.

The smiles though, they are not always fake. It is possible to be depressed but to also have times of happiness. I mean, I have post natal depression but I still have days that are full of fun, my kids and my family make me laugh for real and I do still use my genuine smile too. Having post natal depression just means for me there is always this unhappiness within me, sometimes it feels like it consumes me but there are other days where I can manage it. There are lots of days where I can tackle the sadness head on, lock it away and go about my day, genuinely enjoying my time with my family and not even giving it a second thought. Those are my favourite kind of day, some time really soon I hope to be able to keep that sadness locked away for good.

post natal depression

Having post natal depression for me doesn’t mean I am suicidal or that I can’t bond with my child. For me, this horrible mental health condition shows itself in the form of intrusive thoughts, anxiety and tears that just can not be explained. It is a constant weight on my shoulders (thankfully now not as heavy as it once was), it is the dull shadow that is cast over my days and is the reason I look at my baby and sometimes feel sad. The sadness is not because he makes me unhappy, he doesn’t, it is because for the 7 months he has been on this planet he hasn’t been able to see the real me. I am not a miserable and anxious person, in my heart I am happy and positive. I love to laugh and to smile and take pleasure in everything life has to offer, unfortunately there are days the person I really am and the person this depression want me to be start to blur together; a mess of heightened emotions and feelings. Mostly I am sad for my youngest child as he hasn’t had the same baby days as his big brother, a time when I was able to be the happy mum I always wanted to be, not this tearful imposter.

I have also learnt that there is no easy cure. Talking helps, it really does help if you can find the courage to get the words out. Anti depressants can work for some, I have turned these down for my own reasons but there is no shame in taking pills to feel better. You’d take paracetamol for a headache, wouldn’t you? Self care is important, time for yourself doing something you enjoy can work wonders. Unfortunately, I have also come to realise that you can start to feel better, almost like your old happy self, only for post natal depression to resurface again, once more unannounced and very much not invited. At this moment in time I am struggling again, I have that uneasy feeling and can’t budge that niggling in my chest. I am hoping this is just a small bump in the road back to happiness and I can work through these feelings again.

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I guess all I am trying to say is this, our mental health is complex and it is hard to understand what someone else is going through. If I could show who I am now to the person I was a year ago, that past version of myself wouldn’t think they are looking at someone suffering with post natal depression. What we perceive something to be and what it actually is can be two completely different things. If you are a new mum and think you might have pnd but are reluctant to seek help because you don’t feel how the media has made you believe you should feel then please seek some support. Like lots of illnesses, post natal depression is not the same for everyone, you can love your baby and have never even contemplated hurting yourself or your children but that doesn’t mean you might not have this very common mental health condition. Post natal depression affects around 1 in 10 new mums, there is no way all those mums feel it in the same way.

If you think you have post natal depression, click this link for a list of charities and helpful resources and please speak to someone about it. Bottling up these feelings will only make you feel worse. If you want to read more about my struggles with post natal depression then you can find all my posts about it in the mental health section on my blog.

You can find this post linked to some of these amazing blog link ups –

Maternity Mondays | Marvellous Mondays | Posts from the Heart | #MG | Big Pink Link | Twinkly Tuesday | Dream Team | Tried and Tested | Blogger Club UK | Best and Worst | Family Fun | Cool Mum Club | A Blogging Good Time | The List Linky | PoCoLo |For the Love of Blog | KCACOLS  …and of course #BlogCrush, the linky I co host every Friday.

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Mental health after pregnancy – Am I getting better?

Mental health after pregnancy – Am I getting better?
It’s been a little while now since I last wrote about my anxiety and post natal depression here on the blog. It’s not that I’ve not wanted to talk about it but I’ve been so busy writing about other stuff and the kids have been keeping me on my toes, finding the time and motivation to talk about my mental health has been difficult. Anyway, since that day I found myself drowning in my sadness and anxiety in December I have been working hard, with the support of my husband, to try and get myself back on track. I’ve been trying everyday to be my happy self again and I think my efforts are starting to pay off.

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Mental health after pregnancy – The day I asked for help

Mental health after pregnancy – The day I asked for help

Recently I shared my story about my mental health after pregnancy, how I have been feeling anxious and horrible since I gave birth to Alex in October. I have been completely overwhelmed by the response I have had to the post, everyone has been so supportive and I was actually quite surprised to see how many fellow bloggers have felt the same way as me, I really felt like I was the only one. Although I was terrified publishing that post, worried I would be judged or people would view me differently, I needn’t have worried as the response has been nothing but positive. I have had a post sitting in my drafts for months now, a post I wrote the day I realised something had to give. The day where I phoned my health visitor in tears and spoke to my GP. The first day of my fight to get myself back on track, to find myself again amongst the anxiety and stress, yet it was also the day where I felt like I had hit rock bottom. After allowing myself to be honest and share my experience of perinatal anxiety I have started to feel a lot better. It is a slow climb though and there are still bad days, days that are just so difficult, where the intrusive thoughts take over and I feel like I am being the worst possible Mum ever. But writing about all those horrible thoughts and feelings has really helped me to start to feel better so I have decided it is time I pressed publish on that post that has been sitting gathering dust in my drafts folder for months. It is quite hard for me to read back as the feelings I wrote about are still very raw but I know that by sharing them it will help me to recover from this and hopefully show other mums who are feeling this way that they are not alone. View Post

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Mental health after pregnancy – it is time I came clean

Mental health after pregnancy – it is time I came clean
Before I begin I just need to tell you there are no words I have to describe how nervous I am about publishing this post. None.

I’m not sure where to begin so I’m just going to start typing and see what comes out…

I have never really struggled with my mental health before, I’ve been anxious from time to time and had the odd low day but, on the whole, I am a happy chilled out sort of person. After having Leo I took to motherhood like a duck to water, I loved every second, even sleep deprivation and getting pooed on almost daily didn’t get me down. I expected things would be the same when I gave birth to my second baby. I thought that because I’d done it all before, parenting a second child would be just as easy as the first time around. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

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How to look after your mental well being by writing a ‘to don’t list’

How to look after your mental well being by writing a ‘to don’t list’

Yes, you did read that right.

I am a woman of lists: to do lists, shopping lists and now, blogging ideas lists. To do lists help me keep on top of everything going on and even if there is loads of stuff to do I always feel like having it written down makes it seem more manageable.

Anyway, we all know the purpose of the do list but this post is all about writing a to don’t list and how this practice can help improve your mental wellbeing.
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