After talking to women who knew how I had been feeling I thought right it's time to take things in hand and take back some control, and that's what I did.
I rang my health visitor and told her that I was ready to see the Dr and tell her that the crazy had set in. I should explain that for a little while now my health visitor would come round and give me a sheet of questions to answer and she would add them up and if the number was too high I would have post natal depression. I called this the crazy test which she laughed at but told me that lots of women get it its normal blah blah blah blah. I had always been a firm believer after watching my sister in and out of depression for years on and off pills and knowing what sort of person she was that it was very much a self indulgent thing that i was determined never to give into and have. I had tried for 4 months to kid to myself that I was normal, I partly had been digging my heels in because my mum kept telling me I should go talk to some one or see a Dr and a Dr I saw at the beginning was too keen to hand me pill's. In my eyes pills were not the answer and I was even now trying to avoid being on them. A Dr in the March had given Betta blockers for anxiety which I had refused to take because one of the possible side effects has been drowsiness and I told her that, that could not be an option. Even she could not understand why I wouldn't take them, if she didn't get it then who would.
One of the questions on the crazy test was"do you still laugh at things that happen" my reaction was to write what the fuck is there to find funny about what me and my little family have been going through the past four months, but i refrained and answered not as much as i used to. I mean who really decides what questions should be asked to see if you are coping with life in general. I would answer as honest as I wanted her to know. If I was to answer how I really felt I think she would have sent me to the Dr months before. Part of the reason for not being totally honest with the answers was that I was ashamed, I was ashamed to admit that I felt like I was loosing control of what was happening around me. She would tell me that I was grieving for the healthy baby that I never got and expected to get. That didn't sound right to me, grief was something that came with death wasn't it, at the time though I started to think that maybe she was onto something.(having and still grieving I can now say she was wrong). I was too scared to let myself get close to him in case the worst happened, this was no way to live life and was far from normal behaviour.
The Dr asked me why I was there, she knew why I was there my health visitor had already told her, so I simply said the crazy has set in and am getting fed up with the palpitations and the arguments with myself. She looked at me like I was nuts. She looked confused and decided it would be more fun for her to make me go into details, and with that I told her that I could easily wined myself up, If my washing was not put away that day I would get up in the middle of the night to do it. My main problem was that i would stew on what people had said to me days before and this always happened at night. Before I knew it I was ready and wanting to ring whoever had said what and give them what for, instead I would just carry it on until the next day when my mood would not be a good one. So of course her reply was well I think we should look at giving you a little help in the form of tablets. Great I thought I have just sat here and told her that this was not something that I wanted to do and was willing to try something else. To that she said well I think we have passed that stage so here's prescription and we will look at you getting you a gym membership at the complex that might help.
With that she said if there's anything else I can do you know where I am. WHAT WHAT, help you haven't helped me you have done what I didn't want. She had given me an anti depressant(i really really had those words) so off I went to get them. Needless to say I had an argument with myself on the way home that I let it get this far. I was also cross at Lee for letting me get this far without saying something to me, but that had he said something he would have been wrong. The past few months he was unable to do anything right, even if he breathed too loud at night I would imagine myself putting the pillow over his head, I never did instead I settled for jabbing him in the back with an elbow which I would always have a little smile to myself after wards (am smiling now at the thought of it).
I got home and Lee had asked me why I had gone to the Dr's I just said about stuff, what stuff he asked, just stuff leave it at that.(see he could do no right). I took my little white bag with my crazy pill's in it and hid it like some dirty secret that I wanted no one to know about. I told one person and that my friend Vikky, I told her that they had finally given me crazy pills, she just said welcome to the club everyone takes them. There was no way I was telling my mum or Lee, this was something that I was not proud of and I wanted to hide it as much as I could.
My mood did improve and so did my night time arguments, the anxiety had calmed down alot so maybe the pills where the right thing to do at the time. I still had anxiety attacks from time to time but I started to see that maybe life wasn't the big black cloud I had thought it was. I started to relax into life and started to enjoy my children, it felt good to finally cuddle them and feel guilt free. After a little while I told my mum I had been on them and she wanted to know why I hadn't told her,the answer was simple I didn't want anyone to know that I was failing at the simple task of looking after my family that I wasn't coping as well as what everyone was expecting me to. I kept everything in and refused to talk about how I was feeling or how hard day to day living was some days. Then out of know where I would be at my mums and would break down in tears, and tell her that none of this was fair and its really really hard work. She would sit and cuddle me and tell me that I should let people help me instead of refusing help all the time. My problem was that I had not wanted help from anyone, and yes that included my husband, I thought that if he helped me he would see it as me not coping or a weakness, I know now that this wasn't the case but that was how my thinking had started to go.
I had to start making up for the time that I had lost over thinking things too much, and try and have a normal life for me and the kids, I had to stop thinking that everyday was going to be the last and enjoy what i had, after all it was more than what others had.
The hardest thing I found was admitting to myself that it was ok to ask for help and not to bottle everything up(well not as much) and that it's ok to not have some good days, and it is most certainly nothing to be ashamed of, its just a process of feelings that you have to deal with and over come to enjoy what you have.
Don't get me wrong the crazy does still creep in now and again some days more than it should, but I am more inclined to say deal with it, I have had enough shit to deal with, its a part of who I am now.
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