So we’re moving forward…

So here we are. I Won’t ever forget it or be ashamed of what I went through. Nor will I pretend that I am not afraid it will happen again in the future. But for now it seems we are moving on. Life is moving forward and the dark days have gone for now and been replaced with mainly sunshine. It feels so good.

I will always try and blog. But they might be a few and further in between now. I will always talk about mental health and I will always be here for anyone who needs to talk. I’m moving forward with my life now but what happened to me has helped to shape who I am.

I know if I got through it once I can get through it again. For the future I am hoping to come off my antidepressants completely. I’m hoping to life a healthy life, mentally and physically. I’m prepared for when I decide to have another baby what might happen. I’m going to be open and tell everyone what happened and welcome every bit of support I can get.

So here’s to the future. It’s going to be scary, up and down and who knows what’s going to happen. But I’m excited. It’s hopefully going to bring happiness, progression, love, laughter, opportunities and possibilities. Out of the showers and into the sunshine. 🌧☀️

Love, Kate. X

So it’s taken us a long time to get to this point.

So here we are. Everybody does things in different ways. Parenting is no different. For me at the beginning, especially, I felt like I HAD to try and follow every bit of professional advice to the T. I am not advocating that you don’t do that but I think there’s a way you do things, as long as they are safe it’s about doing what’s right for you and your family. To a certain extent that might be doing things down to that T.

Looking back I was so anxious and I’ve really come a long way. One of my biggest things was Arthur sleeping. I’ve spoken before about my absolute pure fear of SIDs. Official advice advises that babies should sleep in the same room as you until their six months. Even during naps. I was really strict about this and found it very difficult to leave Arthur when he was asleep at the beginning. I would only leave him with Jord or sometimes his Mum or my family to sleep myself. Even then I found it very hard to get to sleep.

I became so sleep deprived. It’s only recently that feel like I’m actually not tired from having a baby…I know that sounds very strange but having a baby is like a whole new level of being tired! It’s impossible to describe. So when I first became unwell sleep deprivation made everything so much worse. I had gotten to the point where I couldn’t sleep with Arthur in the same room. Every movement he made, every time he made a noise, I had to check on him. And when he was quiet, still, I had to check on him even more.

I would repeatedly check if he was too hot or too cold. If I did manage to get to sleep it would for moments at a time and he’d then be ready for a feed. It was exhausting. In Nottingham they advised that Arthur not sleep in the same room as me at night. I was terrified. Again, I couldn’t sleep. Not with or without him. All I could think about what I had read about them staying with you. To reduce the risk of SIDS, he had to be with me.

But I was exhausted. They had to give me some anti- anxiety medication which basically made me so drowsy I would fall asleep. Then I started to sleep for a couple of hours a night. Then slowly it increased. But my heart was broken. I felt so guilty he wasn’t with me and every night I was terrified of what might happen. It also made the feeling of being away from Jord even more devastating. He couldn’t even watch him. I had to leave him with basically strangers to me and I was so scared. If it wasn’t for the medication I don’t know if I would have slept, I really don’t.

But thankfully I did. Arthur still sleeps in our room now. We live with Jords parents at the moment so we don’t really have a choice about that but even if we did, I still wouldn’t want him to go into his own room yet. Now at nearly 7 months, I have just started to let him sleep, on his own during the day with a monitor. I often feel my anxiety begin to bubble away but I know it is good for the both of us. When I stayed in the room whilst he napped I had to be so quiet that if I made a noise it would disturb him and he wasn’t getting enough sleep.

So we’ve come a long way. Anxiety is horrendous. I know feel much more calm, at peace about a lot of things and it makes parenting so much more enjoyable. Of course I will also have anxiety, maybe more than what a parent should have. But being a parent is scary, you will always have it. It will always find you because they change every day and new scary things happen! (Yay!)

But I really do feel like I have come a long way. I remember on Winchester MBU we had a stress and anxiety management group and we were going round the room with each of us talking about what our biggest anxieties were. When it came to my turn, I began to quietly sob and simply said; “Everything, I am anxious about everything.” I was so terrified of so many things. It was almost as if I was terrified of living because every single thing felt like a risk to Arthur. And I felt so much pressure and responsibility to keep him safe but some things were out of my control to a certain extent and I would crumble at the thought of not knowing what to do.

The thing about my anxiety is that it also fuelled my depression. It made me feel weak and pathetic, scared and exhausted. I felt like I couldn’t face life. I felt like I was too scared to carry on. It made me feel like dying would be better. Dying would be easier. It really is a terrible thing. But if your reading this and you struggling with anxiety, know this – if I got through this so can you. You can learn how to manage it. You can learn how to cope with it.

It might not ever completely leave you. But it doesn’t have to affect you so much it stops you from living. You don’t have to always be scared. When I find myself feeling anxious I try and just stop in that moment, take a deep breath and try to slow everything down. Mindfulness; I learnt about it briefly as a nursing student and to be completely truthful I thought it was a load of mumbo jumbo. I would be the one who would peek with one eye whilst everyone else had their eyes closed to check the clock because I was hungry and wondering when lunch was (always about the foooood). But I did come around to it. I still read about it now sometimes and try an exercise and feel no better for it and think – “that was really silly”.

But the thing is with mindfulness you don’t have to imagine your a ship and you crash through the rocky seas across the ocean to get this beautiful island whilst the sun sets…blah blah blah! You can just take a deep breath. You can just close your eyes and count to ten. You can imagine yourself at your favourite place. It doesn’t have to be extravagant, it can be as simple as you like. It can be anything that helps you feel calm, that helps you feel a bit of peace.

So if you are struggling with anxiety please remember you can find peace.

Stay tuned for another one guys. Love, Kate. X

So then my world came crashing down.

So this is a very honest post. It was hard for me to write and I’m sure some people might find it hard to read. But it’s the truth. I said I would be honest and I certainly have been.

So when I was pregnant I remember reading in a book about the first few months of parenthood how this lady thought about throwing her baby against a wall, but she didn’t. She spoke about how these kind of thoughts were normal as long as she never acted upon it. I remember the first time I had a thought about harming my own son. My whole world came crashing down. I felt so ashamed, disgusting, I felt evil. I kept telling myself it was normal, I kept going over what I read in my head. Kept thinking, it will go away, it will pass.

But with the dark thoughts about Arthur also came thoughts of killing myself. I wanted to die because I couldn’t face being alive and having these thoughts in my head. They just kept getting worse instead of better. But I loved my son, I loved him from the minute I saw him, so why was this happening? I would never hurt him. I wanted to protect him forever. I couldn’t understand what was going on in my own mind. I felt like I would never truly be happy again. I didn’t want to do anything, eat, drink, go anywhere. I wanted to go to sleep and never wake up.

I thought about how my son would be better off without me. How my partner Jordan would too. For me, they didn’t deserve for me to be alive and in their lives. I wanted them to be free. And I wanted to be free from those very dark thoughts.

I told my partner about these thoughts, he was so supportive from the very beginning. We decided they would hopefully go away, that I needed to rest as much as I could because I was so sleep deprived. He spoke to his Mum who said the same. I told him next time I saw my midwife I would tell her. About a week later, the day before I was due to see my midwife, I realised I couldn’t wait any longer. I was going to kill myself. I had many ways in which I was thinking of doing it, I just hadn’t decided which yet. I was broken. Exhausted mentally and physically, I needed help. I told Jord I wanted to kill myself and I was going to do it unless I got help immediately. He spoke to a midwife at our local hospital and she said I had go to A&E. For me, it was really difficult because I had to go to the hospital that I worked at as a nurse. I was petrified of seeing my colleagues. I was petrified at what they would think of me.

However, when I got there the midwife had already informed them of my situation, they were expecting me. From the moment I stepped in there, everybody was so supportive. So understanding. Not one person judged. So then came the moment I had to tell a member of the acute mental health team how I was feeling. With the words came so many tears. They promised to help, they assured me I would get better.

They decided that the best option for me was to be admitted onto a mother and baby unit. This was exactly what I wanted too. I couldn’t stand the thought of being away from Arthur. Then came the good news – there was a bed! It was really close and they were sure I was going to get it but they just had to check with them, they were going to call around 9. So we waited a very long wait. 9 came and went and I only became more and more anxious, convinced we were going to be told bad news. Unfortunately I was right. The bed was gone, it was given to someone who needed it more urgently. I was beside myself. I wanted help so badly. So then they searched. And searched and searched…

Finally they found a bed again. It was in Nottingham. I was from the south. Nottingham would take over 4 hours to get there from where we lived. I was given 2 more options, go home and wait and see if a bed became available closer to home. Or be admitted to an acute mental health ward on my own, 20 minutes away from where we lived. Arthur would be able to visit for 2 hours a day. I didn’t have to even think about it for a second. I wasn’t going to be without my son. I couldn’t. I knew I would get worse not better. But I knew I couldn’t go home either. I had to go to Nottingham. My heart was torn, I was finally going somewhere that was specialised to help me, but I would be very far away from my loved ones. Jord was devastated. He begged me to go home, said he could look after me, I would be okay. He said I wasn’t going to take him son away from him. But I couldn’t go home. I needed more help then he could give me. I needed professional help. We spoke about it and he realised it was for the best.

When Arthur came into the world I was so happy. Then I was cruelly robbed of my happiness. I was terrified of admitting I needed help but I am so glad I did. I didn’t know it yet, and there were days when I didn’t believe it but this was the start of me getting better. This was the start of my mental health journey. The hardest part was admitting I needed help. If you are struggling please, please speak to someone. Once you have got the words out for the first time, every single person you meet will want to help you.

So as for me, there I was, on the mother and baby unit. Stay tuned for the next chapter peeps.

Love, Kate x