I’m not going to tell you I have answers because what works for each of us is different but I can say that in hindsight this is what I feel I wish I had done differently. I hope they encourage you to seek some kind of reconnection with your life.

1. Gotten help to get my baby to sleep. Absolutely and totally this is number one. I have already decided which residential sleep program I will be going to if baby 2 doesn’t sleep! For me (and according to the latest research over 50% of depressed mothers) all other burdens are bearable when you have had enough sleep. There is no need to endure this problem alone. Even if your baby cannot be made to sleep you can be alleviated of some of the burden. My partner and I agreed before we had no 2 that we would do whatever it took to get the sleep thing working. Let me say that again. What ever it takes.

2. Recognised that feeling like things are hard is not the same as feeling unhappy. Everyone warned me that having a baby wouldn’t be easy and so feeling bad seemed like a natural consequence. It isn’t. Even on really hard days now I know I’m OK and I feel confident that what is hard will pass and tomorrow may well be a pearler of a day. I also am on the lookout for signs that it isn’t OK.
Listened to my own feeling that I had lost joy and a sense of possibility for the future before it came to seem normal. When I got it back I realised how incredibly deeply I’d missed it and how terribly important it is and how easy it is to normalise feeling crappy. The slow grind away of what’s really good about life is easy to miss until you realise all you got left is bones.

3. Drawn a line in the sand about when it wasn’t going OK and shared that as a must solve problem. This is not a personal failing or an admission of guilt or a blame for anyone else, it’s just a statement of fact that I have taken all I can take and I now have a problem of too great a burden that I need to solve.

4. Recognised that any change would have been good change and had an open mind. I finally took a big risk and went overseas for 6 months and in totally unexpected ways the change solved our problems. Up until then I was really stuck in wanting to follow my instincts – even though they kept leading me to a bad place!

Sorry – what a rave!! I really feel for you, I remember it well.

I think you are very brave to admit this in your blog. I can totally associate with everthing you’ve said, and I too have been wondering if it is PND. You’ve put into words just exactly how I have been feeling. I don’t really know what to say to help, or what to suggest to do (if I knew I’d do it myself too) but just to let you know you’re not alone.

Do you feel sometimes that you’re not really enjoyed as much of Niamh’s early months as you should have because you’re too miserable to appreciate it? Then feel even more unhappy when you realise you’ll never get that time back? I know I do. If you want to chat honey, you have my email and we can be miserable together (hugs).

I have been in a (what I call) funk for a while. I am prone to bouts of depression. I feel your “pain”. Maybe you should have a talk with a doctor and see what that person says. It can’t hurt, it could potentially be the help you need. I hope you get to feeling better…Claudia

Your girl will grow up, will become more independent. She just need time .It’s good you can talk about how you feel: then you can see things differently.

hugs to you !!!

And I completely related to what you said about enthusiasm waxing and waning depending on whether the week is going along well or miserably. heh.

It’s a good thing we don’t understand what the books and friends and mothers mean when they talk about these things, before we have children, or the human race would vanish. LOL

Also, thanks so much for the little package I received today – it’s beautiful I am so stoked…I will post a piccie tomorrow on my blog. Unwrapping it made my day!

Let me know if you need anything
xxx