Can't get too lonely and stressed

Long time no post. Busy - which is not a bad thing since there's less time for navel-gazing. But I also feel like I am living in some sort of truncated universe where evenings no longer exist. This is because I'm very tired. Thank goodness the nausea is over. I find it so difficult to imagine that, for some women, being pregnant is not very much different from not being pregnant. That they feel energetic, well, happy, not anxious. For me being pregnant feels like having a disease, or a parasite, on board. And I find it hard to feel excited about getting a baby at the end of it, especially as this is the second one. I know there will be sleep-deprivation, marital friction (because we'll both be tired and irritable), loneliness, frustration, and expense - and I can't pretend that there won't be.

I try not to think beyond today. I don't mean that I am not planning for the baby to an extent. I am rounding up baby equipment that I've loaned out, we're thinking of names, I've thought about when I'll stop work and I have conversations with my three-year-old about his new baby brother. But if I allow myself to think about having to wake up in the middle of the night and feed a new baby, I think I'll start to not cope. If I wonder about finding another job when I want to go back to work, I could get very down. Plenty of time to worry about that when it comes along. Living in the moment is something that I've become better at since I did the mindfulness meditation course. I try to see what I can do today to keep myself in the best mental and physical health that I can, and accept what I can't manage to do. Worry about the future is something I can do without. Conversations with my mother are also something I can do without, sometimes. I have a habit of getting into conversations about my aches and pains and about my worries for the future, with her, and often it's just best to avoid them.

My husband is a hemisphere away visiting his ill father for three weeks. I've had the whole Easter weekend alone with my son, who, thankfully, has been pretty well-behaved. I feel exhausted, though. When you are possibly sitting on the edge of a depression, little things can tip you over the edge. "Depression is insidious and you have to watch out," said a psychiatrist friend the other day, and I am glad to know that. Exhaustion can get me. Even the fact that I have to be ten minutes late for work while W is away, because I need to drop my son at daycare, can trigger low self esteem, guilt and low mood. It helps to be aware, but I'll also need to take breaks and take care that I don't get too tired, lonely, guilty or pressured. Tough one for me - don't like to ask for help. If I'm going to give avoiding depression my best shot, I'm going to have to do what it takes!

Leaden limbs, crazy head

I've spent a week trying to think of something 'readworthy' to write. I used to have this problem when I kept a paper diary. As if someone is going to read it and 'grade' the diary entry. But this is supposed to be my tool to help me with the depression a I feel is coming on so, today, having felt dreadful, suddenly I don't care as much about how it reads and I just what to say to something/someone, even if it IS just my computer screen, that I'm struggling.

Weekends are worst. Work structure helps me get through the week but on the weekend I am at home with my husband and my son and I don't know what to do with the day. Especially when it rains. Just getting going is difficult and I feel supremely tired and my limbs feel heavy.

Yesterday my husband (W) went out. He seldom does go out, leaving me at home with my three year-old (A), so I certainly didn't begrudge him the time. A is very much his dad's boy at the moment and gets upset when dad is not around. No sooner than W was out of the house than A began acting up and crying for him. There was nothing that I could do to distract him and I ended taking it all very personally and feeling like I was a bad mother because my son didn't like being alone with me. And then the thoughts wandered on to the new baby and what a mistake it was to be having another child when I couldn't even make it with the first one. Today, I felt utterly drained, exhausted, leaden-limbed, despite not doing very much the whole day.

For some, and for me, feeling depressed doesn't feel like sadness, it feels like emptiness. These past two weekend days my life has felt empty and meaningless, and, other than feeling generally worthless, I've felt quite numb. I look at other people and they seem to have a reason to live. I don't really get suicidal. A depressed state, for me, involves feelings of insignificance so that I believe that it would make no difference to anyone if I ceased to exist. And that insidious, growing belief translates itself into action, so I start to not participate in life.....and so the ball rolls.

Procrastination is fed and watered by depression

I have a website www.pregnancy-depression-help.com that's developed out of my experiences of being depressed in pregnancy and postnatally, and of working in mother and baby psychiatry. My intention was to blog during any subsequent pregnancy and talk about my mood day by day.

Well, I'm now 18 weeks into my second pregnancy and this is my first post! Let's just say that pregnancy, low mood and motivation are not totally compatible. Procrastination is a key personality trait with me but depressed mood blows it up into a monster.

Knowing all that I know about depression in pregnancy.... how common it is, how it's not great for baby, how it makes you more likely to be depressed after baby is born.....somehow I thought that the knowledge would protect me from it second time around. Of course it can't, because depression is not something you can think your way out of, is it? "Doctor, heal thyself" - not followable advice for me in this instance, I'm afraid.

This pregnancy was unplanned but not unconsidered. We were talking about maybe having a sibling for number one child, but not right away. It was 'badly timed' - one month into a year's fixed term work contract so no long maternity leave and no job security for me - something to start the worry ball rolling.

And then began the 'morning sickness', a misnomer if there ever was one! More like all day sickness that gets worse in the evening. Granted, not everyone gets it to the same degree, but if you get it baaaad like I did (I'm talking dehydration and throwing up on a train platform) then feeling physically revolting kind of feeds those niggly thoughts of inadequacy, self-loathing and guilt that are the cornerstones of a depressed mood.

So, in short, I've not been feeling like the happiest bunny for at least 16 of the last 18 weeks. I haven't wanted to say 'I'm depressed' because then I'll have to start making decisions about doing something about it....ah, the indecision....another old depression 'friend'. But I've said, 'I think I might be teetering on the edge of a depression,' to my husband and a few trusted confidantes.

The signs are there, though it can be difficult to say whether I feel crap because my mood is low or because I've felt physically unwell for weeks on end. Diminished enjoyment of my life. Poor motivation. Poor concentration. Sometimes, disturbed sleep. Frequent feelings of self-contempt, failure, guilt and unworthiness. Increased irritability and a tendency to bicker with my husband. Thoughts that I look old, fat, unattractive - likely not true. Indecision and procrastination, the two shackles of depression, for me. Diminished interest in, hope for and planning for the future.
Not every day for two weeks straight - like psychiatrists define clinical depression. But definitely for a lot of the time, enough for me to feel like giving up on life sometimes.

It's good to write it down - stare at it all in black and white. Oh my, I feel a spark of motivation to DO something small about it all...... or has this been the doing for today?