That for a very long time you are screaming into the abyss.
For a seemingly interminable period - I’m talking nearly a year after the birth of my son - I thought I had lost my mind.
I went from being terrified by an unrelenting tsunami of the worst thoughts and images the human imagination could come up with - all around my beloved baby boy - to a catatonic zombie state, simply going through the motions of caring for my son to the best of my ability. I thought becoming a mother had unknowingly unleashed a part of my soul that was so monstrous and against every single one of my values, that I was doomed. That, essentially, my days were numbered.
When I finally heard terms like “postnatal OCD”, “intrusive thoughts” and “mental compulsions” I wasn’t even relieved. I’d beaten myself down so thoroughly every minute of every day for the entirety of my son’s life, that it didn’t matter anymore. Maybe I’ve got that, maybe not. Possibly. Probably not. It’s not making it go away. It’s only getting worse. Darker. I’d mentally seen nothing but the worst of humanity for so long, I couldn’t remember a life filled with light and joy. It felt like my hard drive had been corrupted.
I slowly speak more about it on Instagram. I even, accidentally, start a podcast. But the bombardment isn’t stopping. That’s my existence, real life is just the dressing. I get better at masking my horror and “looking fine”. My son is growing, thriving, becoming someone and I feel like a spectator. I do everything I can to be hands on. Every feed, every bath, every nappy change, every cuddle, every walk in the pram…even though it feels almost physically painful. My brain is ringing a constant alarm that I MIGHT be a danger to my son. WHAT IF I snap and do something dangerous, inappropriate or just plain wrong? I don’t want to. I hate this. I spend ALL my time mentally reviewing every interaction with my little boy, body checking and scanning whilst I’m with him. Where are my hands? Is he ok? Is he upset? Am I doing something wrong RIGHT NOW and I’m not even aware of it?! My amygdala is stuck in the ON position.
My heart is breaking.
I don’t know who I am anymore.
Even when you beg for help, the help isn’t always available.
I spoke so openly and honestly about what was happening to my mind to so many strangers, I’d lost count. I never really saw the same mental health professional more than once. I had to start my story from the beginning, every single time, with the tiny glimmer of hope that THIS would be the interaction with a clinician that fixed me. That never really happened. It got to the point where Perinatal Mental Health Services were making me steadily worse. They did a final Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale with me. I consistently scored 30/30. Ten questions, 3 points a question. I was put on sleeping tablets to get, if not my mind then, my body to rest. I could finally answer the “Are you able to sleep?” question in the affirmative, albeit chemically induced. I still scored 27/30.
“Are you happy for us to discharge you from our service?”.
At least it gave me my first laugh in months. “Sure.”
I spent every penny of my jobbing-actor, freelancing, tax-money, rainy-day nest-egg to go private. After 6 months of the correct therapy, I had to stop. The well had run well and truly dry and I still wanted to be erased from the face of the earth.
I was officially beyond help.
Except, OF COURSE I wasn’t. I had an undiagnosed brain disorder, I was exhausted, I had not one shred of self-esteem and I felt like a burden. I was so ashamed. I couldn’t beat this. I’d wanted to, so desperately but, in the end, it was too big for me.
I felt passed from pillar to post. I didn’t tick the right boxes on the right forms and I was able to eloquently express what I was experiencing, so I must be fine. I was dismissed. And when I wasn’t, I never saw that person again.
The condition, the symptoms, the guilt and shame are SO common, it’s almost criminal that women don’t know about it being a possibility.
I was too frightened to google my symptoms. The police might come and arrest me or take away my baby. I was so scared. I wanted to protect him more than anything but something was happening and no-one had EVER talked about it happening to them. I was a freak. A medical marvel. At best a maternal outlier, at worst an evil, evil person who couldn’t rest for a single second if I wanted to protect the people around me from myself. At all costs.
When I did start to find things on-line about my experiences, they were few and far between. The odd comment here, a little anonymous article there. Nothing tangible. Nothing that would lay my mind to rest.
When I started to educate myself and learn more about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, I understood wanting the thoughts to disappear and have “peace of mind” was not actually what I needed. I call it ‘feeding the beast’ and it will NEVER be enough for my OCD. I once wrote that I would “never let anyone treat someone I love the way my brain treats me” and once I started to treat myself as if I were someone I loved - instead of someone who deserved this - it was a game-changer.
It started small. Maybe I did deserve to brush my teeth. Maybe I did deserve to enjoy the odd, beautiful moment with my wondrous little boy. Maybe everything I had been made to believe was a lie?
Could it be…?
My brain isn’t trying to hurt me. It’s trying to protect me but in the worst way possible.
I flipped my thinking. If I deserved to get better and what I had been believing wasn’t true (as I’d always suspected but NEEDED to be sure) then why was this happening? Why was my brain in a constant state of ‘fight, flight or freeze’. Why was I risk-assessing 24/7 to a degree that felt unsustainable? Why? Why? Why?
Maybe it thought it was helping? Maybe it was pinging me signals of possible danger like an overprotective, untrained puppy. Maybe the signals in my brain were glitching and sending false messages? Maybe, maybe, maybe.
And with that, I started to live in the maybe. Not constantly seek the definitives my mind was craving. Am I monster? Could be, probably not but maybe. My brain would beg me to delve deeper, solve that problem. But what problem? That threw my mind a little and with that, I had an in. Something shifted.
Shame thrives in the dark. The more light I let in, the less power these Intrusive Thoughts had over me.
I was STUCK for the best part of two years. It started small. A hormone drop, a terrible, scary birth, Covid restrictions leaving me isolated and, quite literally, alone. I went home, things didn’t feel right. I knew this was my house but it didn’t feel like it. I was in the wrong timeline or something. I’d quantum-leaped to a different dimension and I needed to get back to where I belonged. (See: Derealisation!) The more I pushed the horrible thoughts and images away, the harder they came and NEEDED to be analysed and resolved. I got, quietly on the outside but so loudly in my mind, more and more poorly. More tired. I was deliriously tired. My body had acted like there had been a gun to my family’s head - and whether that threat is real or not - the reaction is very REAL. And REALLY exhausting.
At my lowest point, I thought I’d found a “way out”. It came to me so clearly and all of a sudden, I relaxed in a way I hadn’t in months. I could end this. I could rest. I could permantantly make sure I wasn’t a danger to my nearest and dearest and it felt like the weight of the world lifted. I’d never been suicidal before but the urge was so strong and so OBVIOUS. Easy, peasy, lemon squeezy. I wasn’t even afraid. I could put everyone out of their misery
Of course, that wouldn’t have happened. I would have shattered my husband and left behind a baby wondering why his mam hadn’t stuck around. I would have broken the hearts of everyone I was trying to protect and all for a lie. Unknowingly, I was having an adverse reaction to new anti-depressants. “Luckily”, I had decided to wait a few days and end it all on the last day of the month. I laugh now but I genuinely thought to myself “that’s good, my family can start afresh on the 1st of the month”. The clarity of these thoughts still amazes me. This gave me a few days for the medication to start working correctly and for me to see all of that - ACTUAL - crazy talk for what it was. And thank goodness I did. I was a slave to hormones, chemicals and God knows what else. I could and would recover, I just didn’t know or believe it back then.
Once I’d made that decision and it didn’t come to pass, I realised there wasn’t much lower it could go. Why not talk about it? Why not open up? Why not just be honest? What was going to happen…I would die?!
And so the maggots and worms and other ugly creatures couldn’t hide under their proverbial rock anymore. Light was cast upon them and suddenly, they weren’t quite holding up to scrutiny. It’s the same with all bullies, confronting them diminishes their power. With that, the utter nonsense of Kimfluencing was born and I won’t ever be ashamed or hide who I am again.
Parenting Hell came out of nowhere. I didn’t expect the chat to go where it did - it’s fundamentally a comedy podcast after all - but I’m so glad it did. The hundreds and hundreds of, nigh on, identical messages I’ve received from people who are back there in that scary, scary place but suddenly have hope, made all of my embarrassment worth it.
So many of them were labelled with Postnatal Depression and even though they knew it wasn’t right, they sat with that diagnosis because there were no other options on the menu.
Well, now you know there are.
It’s fairly common (1 in 5 women will experience a perinatal mental health condition), it’s treatable (waiting lists and stigma notwithstanding) and remember this ‘if you’re worried about being a bad parent, you’re not a bad parent.’
And hopefully, that’s the end of that chapter.
And I still haven’t had any free fucking dungarees.
I know you are improving on controlling your symptoms now, but also aware they will never go away unless you battle them. I hope you don't ever get as low again as you related in this posting. That would be a tragic loss, not just to your family, but also to work colleagues and friends (real-life and online). And you must be aware of the positive impact you have had on so many people (mainly women, but also their partners too), so they can see a light out of the gloom. Finally, I don't know what 'fucking dungarees' are? Are they some special kind of design that lets you get more 'intimate'? Sounds a bit kinky, but I;ll keep my eyes open just in case i see any, and I'll let you know ;) Clive