hormones

PMDD Awareness Challenge: Day 24. Dear Younger Self

April 24, 2022 — Leave a comment

Oh Little You. What if you had known that this journey of menstrual hell, poor health, psychological trauma and self sabotage would eventually lead you to finding your best, most compassionate self? If you had known this would you have been kinder to you? I wish that you had, it may have made the road here easier. The paths you walked were often the wrong ones, but it wasn’t entirely your fault. You have an illness, several actually. A brain that absorbs too much and erupts like a volcano every few weeks. I wish you had believed in more holistic methods like therapy and diet much sooner as they may have helped you earlier. I wish you’d given yourself more opportunities and grasped life with less fear. I also wish you’d known that PMDD was lying to you. People didn’t always hate you, some did, and some didn’t know how to handle you, but I wish you hadn’t let PMDD convince you it was always your fault. That you were just some fucked up kid that there was little hope for, because that wasn’t true. I wish you had believed in your creative self sooner and found better ways to self soothe.

Right now in the present day, you are managing a lot, but you have the experience now that Little You didn’t have. The lessons you have learned and the life you have led, have not been easy. Without those lessons and life choices though, you may have never made it to this point. I wish you had known that when you felt as though you were fighting against the wind, that storms come and go. That it never stays dark forever, that believing your life is inherently terrible will only leave you feeling, terrible! PMDD has kept you stuck, on a loop of misery that left you feeling inadequate, wrong, and misunderstood. It didn’t tell you that one day you would be proud of your journey. That when you felt suicidal you didn’t want to die, but instead for the way you felt in those moments to die. For it to stop.

Little You should know, that you’ll also learn a lot from PMDD. You’ll learn that better days come. That somethings are out of your control. That life is a marathon and not a sprint and that deep down you are not some angry, misunderstood teenager. You’re a person that will grow, heal and learn.

I wish you knew how much you’d live to overcome.

Confessions of a chronically ill mum #11

April 12, 2022 — Leave a comment

I started out really unhappy writing this one. I’ll forewarn now that it includes some glumness! (Maybe a lot) As ever though, I keep it honest.

The beginning off the week was tough going because I was exhausted from Ciara’s party and already feeling a little run down. Then Wednesday night about midnight I started, (pretty much out of nowhere) vomiting. It was awful, and it went on for 3 days. When the vomiting finally subsided it started coming out of the other end. Vile. And I cried, a lot. It was my birthday Saturday and I spent it in bed, crying. Monday we were due to go on holiday with the kids to Dorset and Shaun began vomiting for over 24 hours, so we weren’t able to make the trip as planned.

Life: It’s just life. And it is! It’s one of those things that can’t be helped or avoided or unpacked, because it just happens, people get sick. But when you get sick on top of your everyday sick, I’m not gonna lie it kicks you a little harder in the kidneys. Vomiting always makes me feel quite heightened anxiety because it’s a involuntary action. I have no control over it, and no power to stop it. I’ll be honest it’s taken a lot from me this week. I’ve felt pissed off at a ruined birthday and genuine frustration at how long my body takes to recover from ‘everyday illness’ whilst managing its’ several chronic illnesses. Taking a bath at my mum’s yesterday to avoid sharing the only bathroom we have at home with Shaun, I felt sick and faint.

Kaiser gave me zero grace in my recovery. He woke up at midnight for 1.5 hours and then again 2-4am both nights whilst Shaun was ill. Again, just life stuff. I keep repeating the ‘it’s just life’ sentence, not because I’m minimising my experience. I’m not. It’s been awful. But because, I have spent many years battling out of the ordinary things. Things like having a baby and spending nine months in therapy because you believed with every ounce of your being that you were crazy, incapable, and unsafe. Things like getting pregnant and suddenly being unable to walk, driving around in a mobility scooter and eating your way to gestational diabetes. Things like never being able to show up because your illnesses’ block you at every turn. Those things are not just life, they’re my life, sure, but they’re not everybodies. Sickness bugs though – they are a free for all and one of the things I learned during my time in therapy, is that I have to give a certain level of acceptance to this everyday stuff and not let it consume me. 

I confess that I have always been a person that reacts negatively to stress. Where some people might shrug off the everyday stuff, I take it and wrap it around me in layers. I’ll also go as far as confessing to having used it as excuses over the years. Yet, I’ve also felt the weight of it. Learning to accept certain scenarios doesn’t mean I’m ok with them. Nor does it mean I don’t have to work hard to live through them, it just means, simply - that I have to prioritise peace.

Moving on from all the sickness, and bugs and life as a disabled mum, for a second…. If you’ve been following me on socials you’ll know that I’m fundraising for IAPMD by way of a raffle. It was my intention to make a fuss about this via my birthday weekend and really try and get some momentum going. Unfortunately, you know what, put paid to that! However I have managed to raise significant funds in the last few days and we’re now on a grand total of £308 smashing my self set target of £250 out of the park. I’m thrilled. And forever grateful to all the strangers on the internet that want to support a cause close to me. Of course my friends and family too, but strangers on the internet are definitely more frivolous with their cheering, that’s for sure! (Just stating an observation, don’t @ me!)

Today, we made it to Dorset. I am still expecting one of the kids to start vomming any second but I shan’t dwell! We drove down this afternoon, made it to the beach for a chippy tea and then holed up in the caravan and listened to the rain pelt it’s tin roof. I didn’t realise how much I needed this break until I arrived here and my shoulders dropped. Tension leaving my body, anxieties being swept up with the spume of the sea, literally. I don’t even apologise for my over the top description of just how sacred this trip is. I needed it, the kids needed it, Shaun, though still feeling fragile, needed it. I hope the bastard that is norovirus and his mate covid manage to stay the fuck away from us for the rest of the week and beyond.

PMDD Lightbulb Moments

April 2, 2022 — Leave a comment

This month is premenstrual disorder awareness month and I have teamed up with The International Association Of Premenstrual Disorders as a PMD Awareness Champion. Over the course of the month I’ll be sharing my personal experience of living with PMDD, as well as catching up with other PMDD warriors. This year’s theme is Connect The Dots and I talked to several women I’ve connected with via Instagram to find out how they connected the dots, between their hormones and their mental health. 

I asked these brave women three questions which were: 

1. When was your ‘light bulb’ moment?
2. How did you connect the dots?
3. Do you feel as though you’ve found a manageable treatment and if so, would you mind sharing what that is?

I’ve included my own answers below too.

Me, Steph:

I can’t tell you exactly when I knew it was PMDD because hormonal changes have affected me my whole life.

If I look back now I can see how the most traumatic experiences in my life were either in relation to my menstrual cycle or my reaction to such experiences was exacerbated by my hormones and their fluctuating.

For me, I was quite aware of the fact that hormones played a big role in my life and on both my physical health and mood, from a young age. In childhood I had a hormone condition called Premature Adrenarche. PA is diagnosed when your adrenal glands over produce sex hormones. Adrenarche can happen in both male and females, but obviously for females and AFAB individuals, puberty means periods. A lot of my dot connecting came down to PMD’s running in my family, thus having knowledge of them from other sufferers. Since menarche my moods have been severe during luteal, so bad that I was diagnosed with clinical depression at 13 years old and prescribed antidepressants. I also attempted suicide. It wasn’t until some almost ten years later, and I got my first iPhone, that I started cycle tracking using an app. Along with my mum’s knowledge of my symptoms and their severity, we pieced it all together and it became apparent that my symptoms were very obviously cyclical.

Over the years I have had many successes followed by, ultimate failures with treatment. Many treatment options have worked for a limited amount of time, until 𝐏𝐌𝐃𝐃 comes back with a vengeance. For example I’ve tried countless antidepressants and birth control and they have all helped for a period, until they don’t anymore. I can also say it’s definitely worsened in severity and duration since having children. Symptoms have also increased, such as allergies. I’m now allergic to the hair dye I’ve been using for a decade and silver. Migraine is relentless and an attack lasts for days. Treatment wise, I have biweekly B12 injections, try to manage my sugar intake, take SSRI’s month round and use progesterone only contraception – The latter has limited success in the treatment of PMDD, but combined with other methods works ok for me at the moment. What I have found really useful is, since the birth of my son 9 months ago, I have been having intense Dialectal Behavioural Therapy. DBT involves learning distress tolerance skills, and how to dial down the intensity of emotions. Skills include using holistic treatments too such as cold therapy. I really feel DBT has been invaluable in treating symptoms of PMDD particularly.

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Lori:

After giving birth I began mapping how I was feeling along side some cbt for PTSD due to a traumatic birth experience and I started to realise every cycle I was physically and emotionally not well

Research, research, research

CBD oils have been amazing, I live with chronic pain which worsens around my cycle and impacts sleep so these help me get into a deeper sleep, SSRI’s all month too. And lastly, the fitbit app tracking my cycle to rationalise why I’m feeling the way I’m feeling (I can pretty much tell exactly when I’m about to ovulate or bleed based on my emotional state)

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Amy:

For me, it was when I stumbled across the PMDD Information page on the Mind website.

After years of various tests and being told by the doctor that I’m ‘fine’ this was huge. I ticked every single box for PMDD symptoms and I just knew that this was what I was going through each month.

I went back to the doctor armed with this new knowledge plus a symptom diary that i’d been keeping for the previous 6 months and they agreed that the diagnosis was PMDD.

Yes. But it’s just sticking to it that’s the problem! My go to treatments are regular B12 injections, keeping on top of my SSRI intake, Ice hats, pain medication, plus loads of water and trying to cut down on sugar and fatty foods (even though this can seem like the most impossible task in the universe, during hell week!)

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Jaimie:

My lightbulb moment came when the doctors kept telling me I was ‘just’ depressed and giving me SSRI’s and the pill and wouldn’t listen that I only felt this way some of the time rather than fully. Hormonal contraceptives do not agree with me and I knew there was more to it than that but trusted them that they know what they’re doing.

It took a long time but I noticed that I felt immediately relieved and lighter as soon as my period started so good old google came to the rescue and I started reading about PMDD

I felt like for the first time what I had been going through was valid and real when no one seemed to believe me or understand.

I just don’t know how bad each cycle is going to be, however I did find an SSRI useful for a while, they’re not for everyone and I no longer take them. I’ve found that taking things easier/slowing down and planning things for the parts of my cycle where I know I’ll be more positive and less likely to cancel helps because I don’t then feel like I’m letting people down or being unreliable which is a big thing for me – getting outside whenever you can works wonders too even if you don’t feel like it or it’s raining being in nature does more good than people realise

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Maisie:

My light bulb moment was when I was with my ex partner and he called me a psychopath. I was so upset and angry that I punched a hole in the wall. I scared myself with how angry I got. I was so angry that he called me that, but it made me think about what I had done to warrant that, and I thought “shit, I’m not a psychopath, but I’m not myself either, somewhere in between maybe”. It was going round and round in my head, and for a few days every month leading up to my period, I was so deeply upset, I didn’t want to be here, and it was like a cycle that I couldn’t get out of. Why am I like this? This isn’t me. But in the moment, I couldn’t see it.

It wasn’t until I was out the other side of those few days that I could reflect on my behaviour and feelings and realise properly that it ISNT me! I spoke to my GP, who put it down to “bad periods”.

I told them this wasn’t just bad periods, bad periods don’t make you suicidal, aggressive, or run away. Bad periods are tummy cramps and a heavy flow.

I pushed for more help, tests, anything. I was advised to have therapy for my dark thoughts, and they prescribed me SSRI’s. After I gave birth, they changed me to ca different SRRI. But the main help for me is telling my close people “it’s coming” or “it’s happening”. I find myself apologising in advance. “I’m not going to be myself for the next few days and I’m sorry”. Which makes me even more frustrated. No one that I have met so far, has ever heard of PMDD. Except a few queens on Insta! I try to explain it to people by saying “it’s like the volume is turned up full blast on everything. My emotions, the hurt, the anger.” You could say something to me on a normal day and I’d brush it off. But say the same thing to me on those few days and my world comes crashing down. The best treatment I’ve found more than telling people, or medication, or therapy, is reminding myself that it’s all in my head. Sometimes that can be hard, and it doesn’t take the thoughts or sadness or anger away, but it makes them more bearable, knowing that I am ill, not crazy. My ex partner didn’t help, but now he’s gone it’s so much clearer to see. I’m poorly. I have been diagnosed with PMDD, it’s not just in my head but at the same time that’s all it is. Finding others who are going through the same thing and trying to raise awareness for PMDD to others as well as medical professionals helps too. I felt like I was going mad, because I was told I was, and felt like I was. But it was all in my head and that’s where it stays. Like you say (sic) Cunty Carol just comes to visit a few days a week, and where I used to be terrified of her unpredictability, now I can at least say “fuck off Carol, I know why you’re here and I’m okay with it, close the door on your way out”

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Confessions of a chronically ill mum #7

March 10, 2022 — Leave a comment

We started well. The weekend the kids and I went for a short walk on our own. This was a big deal because I rarely go out alone these days, and it was the first time I’d been out on foot with both children. As my health has worsened so dramatically in recent months, I have developed quite significant, but understandable, health anxiety! I took the win Saturday, rested in the afternoon and woke up Sunday ready to attack the day. But it didn’t quite work out like that. I woke up feeling extremely fatigued to the point where I couldn’t keep my eyes open and had to have a nap mid afternoon. For most of us with fibromyalgia this is normal, particularly following a day in which we’re more active. However, for me, fatigue is also a symptom of the pro-drome phase of migraine.

Being the hormonal mess that I am, I have noticed migraine attacks increasing in frequency again in the last two months. 2am Monday morning I was woken by the head pain, swiftly followed by cold sweats, hectic fever and vomiting. Monday was a write off. I spent all day in bed unable to watch tv or read and silently crying in between naps. I’ve said it before, but migraine is the most debilitating symptom for me, even more so than not being able to walk well, because migraine is a complex neurological disease that affects everything!

Fast forward to today, Thursday and I am feeling better. Not by any means ‘well’ but I was able to get out yesterday and I haven’t needed my husband to stay home from work to care for me. I also managed to get out this afternoon even though I couldn’t think of anything worse at the time I forced myself to do it and I have to say…. I’m converted. All the times people said to me ‘you need to get out’ while I led in my bed riddled with pain and anxiety, I thought those people were prize pricks to be honest, but I can see there’s merit there. I will say it’s not as simple as just getting outside when you live with chronic and or mental illness, and even in motherhood it can be hard to just get up and out. Let’s be real here it takes longer to wrestle a screaming baby into the buggy and pack your nappy bag than it does to do your weekly shop! But if you can get outside, you may benefit to some degree. For me the benefits are:

  • It’s a scenery change from the monotony of mum life.
  • I feel a sense of achievement if I’ve been able to do something, even if it’s as simple as popping to the shops.
  • That sense of achievement rewards me with feel good endorphins.
  • It’s so much easier (for me anyway) to be ‘present’ whilst in nature and not dwell on negative thoughts.
  • It’s free!

During pregnancy when I ate every meal in bed and couldn’t get down the stairs, going out was not only a physical impossibility, but it became mentally terrifying. I avoided leaving the house for so long, doing it now feels alien, but it also feels good. I feel like I’m taking back some control. 

I don’t have any major confessions this week, other than I’ve spent a lot of it feeling sorry for myself and on occasion a little bitter about how shit and unpredictable life can be when you’re unwell. I’m worried about how I’m going to do my job in a few months when I’ve already cancelled a Keeping In Touch Day because I was so unwell. However, those feelings were scuppered by guilt as they always are when I look at the bigger picture and remind myself how lucky I am to have the life I do. I’ve also learnt that life is more fun and fulfilling when you’re grateful for the tiny things. Like a hot cup of tea or getting into bed with a good book.  Kaiser, my youngest, is an absolute rogue. I’ve had to take deep breaths a plenty in the last couple of days whilst trying to stop him climbing the stairs and then throwing himself down them. Dunno if this is a boy thing but fuck, it’s hard work.

It’s easy for me to write this today because today has been such a huge improvement opposed to earlier in the week. That’s not to say I won’t feel the sadness and resentment again in the near future, but it means today I choose happy. We don’t always get a choice, and so on the days that we are gifted one, we have a responsibility to ourselves, to make it a good one. 

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Confessions of a chronically ill mum #5

February 21, 2022 — Leave a comment

The difference two weeks make when you’re living your life around hormones, pain, kids and food…

Ok so some context, last week I was so irrational and some days inconsolable. I cried relentlessly and burst into a tearful rage when my husband told me roofers were coming to do some work on our roof. 

I’ll go as far as confessing my embarrassment when I attended group therapy Friday and had to partake in an exercise. It went like this.. 
Group facilitator: Name a situation this week whereby you haven’t been able to contain your emotions. 
Me: My husband told me the roofers were coming and I don’t want them there, making noise, antagonising the dog, leaving their shit all over my driveway, waking the baby up with their clanking, etc etc etc. 
Group facilitator: Ok now strip away your interpretation and just give us the facts. What was the situation?
Me: My husband told me the roofers were coming.

I can laugh about it now, because I realise how pathetic it is to get so emotional and behave so irrationally over something rather minor. However, to me and my perception, all I could think of was them invading my safe space and my peace, and my feelings felt really valid at the time. I know my hormones and the way I am living my life around them at the moment isn’t sustainable. My daily tracker consists of days feeling angry/anxious/flat/tearful to severe itchy skin/insomnia/nightsweats/cramps/bloating and more. But even with these hellish symptoms, likely as a result of taking progesterone, I’ll still take them over feeling suicidal every month and having migraine attacks that last a week at a time. Weighing it up with pros and cons isn’t the right thing for me to do, because in all honesty I have to accept that I will live with moderate to severe symptoms probably indefinitely, whilst praying that their severity is less.

In the last two weeks Ciara has been poorly, emotional and generally not herself. In the last few days she has perked up again and this brings me joy, I really struggle to regulate my own emotions when the kids are ill and I know they need me to master this better. For some reason I just seem to retain so much anxiety when one of them is not their usual selves. Kaiser has started flying around on his knees faster than our old Seat Leon, and climbing the walls quite literally, but still rarely sleeping. I’ve also spent a night alone in the house with Kaiser that I was petrified of doing, eradicated lots of foods from my diet and lost 6lbs despite the cravings those hazardous hormones bring! So it’s not been all bad.

It’s also noteworthy that whilst some symptoms have been tolerable, fibro fatigue and brain fog has been much worse, though physical pain in the more manageable stakes. We’ve gotten out and seen friends we’ve not seen for ages. I’ve all but organised everything for Ciara’s birthday party, and…life goes on. It’s up and down and yoyo’s persistently but some of it, is ‘just life’ I guess, and not everything is a catastrophe, as much as my brain would like to convince me otherwise!

Next week I have my first appointment with the diabetes team postpartum, and also an appointment with cardiology. Alongside these I have to collect my new laptop for my imminent return to work and arrange for Kaiser to meet his childminder. It’s all go for sure, but it’s not all bad. Shaun and I have a night off this weekend, his parents are having both children so we can lie in bed all day and binge watch all the TV we started the last time we didn’t have the kids home which was January!

Life is good and then it isn’t, it’s awful followed by magnificent, excruciating and liberating all at once. So far this week, I’m grateful for small wins, play dates, family and friendship.

Ps. The roofers haven’t even turned up yet!

Confessions of a chronically ill mum. #4

February 10, 2022 — Leave a comment

It’s all been going on! Since last week’s news about my health, I’ve been determined to go full steam ahead with the diet change. For us, living on takeaways we can’t afford and binging on food instead of our pre kid vices like booze and fags, has been the norm for so, so long. Shaun set us a goal of no takeaways in February and I know we’re only 2 weeks in but for a couple who ate pizza and mail order brownies several times a week, we’re smashing it. I’ve signed up to do a diabetes prevention course which I’m keen, but also stressed about getting started on. Keen because I want to make the best changes possible, but stressed because it’s another thing to try and squeeze in to my ever full appointments calendar.

Kids

Kaiser has started crawling! At seven months old, Ciara was crawling at six months plus two weeks, so this didn’t come as a huge surprise. But how annoying are kids that move so soon?

Confession - This week Kaiser had to see a paediatrician. I won’t go into detail here but, we need to get a urine sample from him. Note I say need and not needed because after two hours of trying to catch his piss in a plastic tub, inside a waiting room on the children’s ward, I gave up. I also, and shoot me for being a terrible mother, wished they would just do a bastard heel prick blood test and let him scream! After failing in my attempts and wrestling him into a position that wasn’t comfortable for either of us, I left the appointment sweating profusely in unbearable pain and doing a lot of cussing. Nobody wants to see their baby in pain, but dear god I would of preferred the blood spot over that pantomime. Worse still I am going to have to endure the debacle all over again in my second attempt. Have googled whether it’s ok to wring out a nappy, but have been sadly informed it is not! Fucking Kids!! To top that, Ciara had an appointment at Bristol Eye Hospital and fainted! My second confession is that I was glad it was Shaun that was with her and not me. I know that sounds awful but I also know I would have panicked so badly I wouldn’t of been able to cope. Or maybe I would, maybe I’d have dealt with it on autopilot. Right now though, I’m just glad she’s safe and seems to be otherwise fine. She’s so desperate to go to school tomorrow for her non uniform day in aid of Childrens Mental Health Week that I’m letting her sleep with me tonight so I can monitor how she’s doing.

Hormones

I’ve been struggling immensely with TMD and went to the dentist on Monday only for them to shave off half of one of my wisdom teeth and then tell me that probably won’t work. PSA, it didn’t! Unfortunately, hormones (those bastards) really flare up all of my pain and it’s not unusual for me to experience horrific TMD during ovulation and through luteal.

Speaking of hormones, I’ve been taking progesterone for around 4 months now, and whilst I am seeing some relief from the mental health symptoms, physically things are no better. In fact I may even go as far as to say they are a little worse. It’s hard because I have to weigh up what is worse, and realistically I know it’s the crippling anxiety and thoughts of suicide, along with inexplicable rage. But knowing this still doesn’t make the physical symptoms any easier to manage.

Breakthroughs

What I will say though, is that I am managing the mental symptoms I am experiencing, much, much better. And I think I have therapy to thank for that. It’s a slow burn, therapy! It makes you feel vulnerable with each session, but the more vulnerable you can allow yourself to be, the less that vulnerability is able to take hold. Then suddenly, seven months later, you realise you are doing better! You don’t always feel it, but you know it’s true. The feeling of drowning in quicksand every time you have a bad day gets less, and it starts to feel more as though you’ve just been inconveniently splashed by a car driving through a muddy puddle.

I’m not saying I’m cured, or that I will never have episodes of dread and impending doom again. But I feel right now, that if I do experience that again, I have more tools in my arsenal to help me fight it. I’ve another eight weeks of group therapy to get through before I can be discharged from the perinatal service. Discharge looms, like a black cloud really, because I’ve been helped in so many amazing ways by the team that I’d like to be able to talk to them about my trauma forever. At some point in the not so distant future, I’m going to have to hold my own hand.

Subtle break-throughs

November 26, 2021 — Leave a comment

If you suffer from anxiety, or the feeling of impending doom and inexplicable terror that comes with panic attacks, the debilitating calamity that is intrusive thoughts, the unrelenting personality shift before your menstrual cycle because of PMDD? I hear you. I see you. I am you.

If you suffer from one or all of the mental illnesses mentioned above, you will know that logic is about as far away from fear as is possible. You may as well fly a rocket to Mars and you’d be no closer to logical thoughts during a panic attack. I’ve been having therapy for five months. The single longest stint I’ve ever managed to stick at anything relating to my mental health that doesn’t come in a blister pack. Full disclosure I take the pills too, I need them, but therapy is a different level of healing. It’s eye opening, confronting and real hard graft.

During these five months I have had breakdowns, many breakdowns. I have also experienced breakthroughs. These tend to be subtler, less outwardly monumental, but I can tell you from experience they are transcendent and quite awe-inspiring when you become aware of them.

I’m going to give you an example of one of my recent breakthroughs.

I am currently waiting for several hospital appointments, one of them may end up being quite life defining so it’s pretty important. With anything of importance for me, almost always comes anxiety. Throw in a self diagnosed terminal illness via Dr Google and we’re talking full blown life limiting panic attacks. But, not this time. I got my appointment letter a few days after the referral was made, though supposed to be seen within two weeks the NHS backlog means the clinic are running two weeks behind. Where as this kind of delay would usually lead to more panic, endless overthinking and probable sleepless nights, something has shifted in me and I feel different.

My logical brain has always known that there is little point in worrying about something that hasn’t happened yet, but regardless of my knowledge I have never been able to stop myself from said worry.

Worrying about tomorrow, steals today’s joy.

After going through what I have in the last five months, being scared of my own brain and constantly coming up against new challenges in trying to change the way I think, I decided right at the beginning of my recovery that I no longer wanted to live in fear. Of course simply not wanting something isn’t usually enough to stop it from happening. But with subtle changes and a keen desire to get better, engaging and working hard during therapy sessions and opening up fully to my mental health team, I have noticed a shift. I still feel anxiety around the appointment of course, but anxiety itself is a normal healthy human response. It only becomes problematic when it interferes with our everyday lives. And in this instance, relating to this appointment….I’m so happy to say it’s not doing that.

I don’t want to waste time worrying about an outcome that I cannot predict or influence. I don’t want to fear the worst only to find out when the time comes that it’s not the worst, then look back regretfully that I had wasted precious moments living in fear.

What if it isn’t a tiger in the long grass? What if it’s just a fluffy little kitten?

I won’t bullshit you, I know I’m not always going to be able to rationalise in this way. So many factors contribute to my own personal experience with anxiety and panic, that there will inevitably be times when I falter, and times when I fall. But what I’m doing right now, today, is I’m saying no to worrying about things that aren’t within my control. Isn’t anxiety itself a deep rooted need to control our fears and possible catastrophes?

How did I get here?

  • I took on board the offerings of tips my therapist suggested, such as grounding and breathing techniques and practised them even when I didn’t believe in them.
  • I reminded myself that if there’s a possibility that my world might fall apart, there’s also a possibility, it won’t.
  • I take prescribed medication religiously and stick with it for the recommended amount of time.
  • I’m trying, I say trying because I don’t always succeed, to implement healthier lifestyle changes, such as getting more exercise and eating healthier.
  • I write my feelings. It’s a personal favourite in helping me to process them.
  • I try to stay more in the present moment.
  • I have an amazing mental health team that I talk to regularly, even when I don’t think I have anything to say.

I know these things aren’t easy to do, I know this because it’s taken me twenty years to even begin to start really healing. But along with the above list, I also believe that celebrating small wins is a great way to remind ourselves that even when we are not where we want to be, we are further forward than we once were.

Me this week on a particularly bad day. Reminding myself it’s just a bad day not a bad life.
Also me this week on a better day

104 days postpartum

October 12, 2021 — Leave a comment

It’s funny how days are marked by our worst memories and our great ones, are often lost in mind with no clearly accessible date and time attached to them.

At 5am on the 11th October I woke up, eyes barely even open before I was thrust deep into a panic attack. My body wracked by the sensations, my mind reeling from the racing thoughts. To say I was devastated is an understatement, this is the first acute anxiety attack I’ve had in just under three weeks. Three weeks isn’t very long to most people, but it felt joyous to be able to think clearly for a while without the feeling of dread hanging over me. Without ruminating and catastrophizing. Without the pain in my teeth from my clenched jaw. Without the fatigue that hits you after yet another night of insomnia. Sleep when the baby sleeps… haha, if only.

What I’ve noticed though, in the fifty something days since I last updated my postpartum progress, is how hard I’ve tried to implement grounding techniques. How dedicated I have been to my recovery. I started a new contraception eight weeks ago to try and eliminate my periods, ergo reducing symptoms of PMDD. I’ve been on similar contraceptives in the past for the same reason. In this instance I have bled non stop for eight weeks. I am so run down I have ulcers in my mouth and reoccurring shingles pain, requiring more medication to combat. Around the same time I started the new contraception, I also switched my migraine medication for a slow release version and this has helped immensely with preventing attacks.

My son is now fifteen weeks old, he can hold a toy in his hand, chatter and laugh. but he rarely sleeps. His charming little face is one of the most beautiful I’ve seen, that is when it’s not screwed up like a tomato that’s past it’s safe to eat stage, wrinkly in places and as red as hell.

In the last one hundred and four days I have felt every emotion to ever exist. My days are now spent trying to wrestle a screaming baby into a car seat I’m unable to lift, and reading books about Biff and Chip with the big kid. I don’t get any opportunity to rest, which is hard when you have an illness that requires it. I’m mortified to admit some weeks it takes me three attempts before I manage a shower, and even then it’s hurried.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, I find it much easier to remember all of the hard bits, the downs, the panic and the tears and I’m very good at choosing to ignore the successes. Deeming them unworthy in their minutiae. Such as; getting the baby down for a nap on the first attempt. Watching his sister cuddle up to him or gently bounce him in his bouncer with her foot, whilst idly watching yet another episode of Bluey. The beauty in the pumpkin patch photoshoot we’d had recently, a windy autumn day surrounded by orange and forest green, the memory of the rain pelting down on our clothes afterwards, and rushing home to drink hot chocolate.

Watching my son grow, though hard, has not been wholly clouded by my poor health. It’s been beautiful in so many ways, and I’ve enjoyed very much time spent with him. I can feel my confidence as a mother returning somewhat. I have my first night out coming up and I’m anxious. When my daughter was a baby I couldn’t wait to get out, feeling more than ever that I needed to let off steam. Now the only steam I’m interested in, is the steam coming from a freshly boiled kettle and the piping hot tea that comes after the boil.

My pelvis hasn’t healed, I am still struggling with walking as with any physical activity. Unfortunately, it does seem this is likely to be yet another long term problem, but we knew that was a possibility.

I use the word progress to explain how far I’ve come and it’s the reason I’m utterly disappointed when I come up against relapses like that earlier panic attack. Im devastated when Im unable to rationalise my intrusive thoughts. Yet in spite of relapses, hard days, long nights and tragically cold cups of PG tips, I’m grateful. Grateful for the support I’ve received from an amazing perinatal mental health team, from my family, and from those few close friends who selflessly and with conviction, care enough to remind me I’m doing ok.

They say it takes a village to raise a child, and there are many people whom have contributed to my progress. Thank you. And here’s hoping for another 100 days of progress to follow.

54 Days postpartum

August 24, 2021 — Leave a comment
23.08.21

My daughter was on her way to bed last night when out of nowhere panic hit me full force. My son, lying in the crook of my arm, suddenly started to spit milk out from the sides of his slow flow teat, and I realised, the hand that was holding his bottle was shaking. I felt hot, from the feet up, like a flush, my brain scrambling for grounding thoughts that just couldn’t make their way to the forefront of my mind. It’s coming I thought, knowingly.

My husband comes when I call, and holds me tight. Our son, bewildered at why he’s suddenly had his bottle snatched from his mouth, our daughter, obliviously cleaning her teeth in the bathroom above our heads. Breathe Shaun tells me. Why am I like this???? I sob, trying to catch my breath. You’re not like anything, Steph. It’s a panic attack and it will pass. He reassures me, never letting me go.

It’s been 54 days since I gave birth. Our son will be 8 weeks old on Thursday 26th August.

This isn’t a birth story, because my birth story is too long, the trauma that surrounds my pregnancy will not shrink into an Instagram caption or a rushed blog post. This is a progress report.

When my son Kaiser was born, and during the days preceding, I was in a constant state of panic. I would have moments of calm, but they were fleeting and hard to grab onto. I’ve plateaued at a panic attack approximately once a week now. I know that a large part of their occurrence is directly linked to hormone sensitivity, yet that gives me no control or reassurance regarding their assault on my life.

I’m currently under the care of the most amazing perinatal mental health team, they are some of the best medical professionals I have ever come across in my entire life and I’ve met a few. Sadly this support was massively lacking during my pregnancy – but that is a story I’ve semi already told and one that would take up the duration of the rest of this blog. The point, is that I have some amazing people in my life at the moment helping me heal from acute anxiety, intrusive thoughts and various states of panic. I genuinely don’t believe without their consistent support during the postpartum period, that I would have gotten these bastard attacks down to once a week on my own.

The trouble is, I’m still very much in a state of fight or flight. During the periods of calm, I am logical. In fact I am probably calmer than I’ve ever been in my life and generally laid back (a term probably not often used to describe me as a person) but I can’t stay there, because as quick as I’m calm, a storm cloud opens up the heavens on my head and I am ready to flee the country as though I’m being chased by a hungry tiger.

However, during those moments of calm I have reflected. I have corrected, and I have made changes to my mindset. Living with chronic illnesses as I do, migraine, fibromyalgia, PMDD etc it’s easy to become all consumed by pain and suffering. The shift in my mindset has been that I don’t want to be consumed by this suffering anymore. I know I am going to suffer, bad days, sometimes bad weeks and maybe even bad months, but I don’t want it to consume me. I want change.

My community nurse said to me this week you have to do different to feel different and so I’m doing different. Every day I’m fighting tiny fires of fear. For example, I’m frightened of being alone with my kids in case I have a panic attack, but I’m staying alone with them anyway, because I know if I avoid this fear it will only grow.

I was absolutely distraught about Shaun returning to work after paternity leave, but I knew if he delayed that process I would be as scared, if not more so, when he eventually did.

I’ve been avoiding books and television that might be triggering or that contain storylines of anyone with mental illness, but very slowly I’m reintroducing those things into my life.

I’ve been too afraid to walk or drive anywhere on my own because of how much pain I’m in. What if I get stuck with the kids? And then what if whilst I’m stuck, I panic?

I’ve been too scared to enjoy days out for fear of repercussions on my body, or to go places more than half an hour away from my house in case I panic and need to flee, but slowly I am doing both.

I’m making this sound easy, and yet it’s been the hardest most hellish experience ever, doing things I’m so desperate to avoid goes against the grain. But I’m using these examples to measure my progress, because it’s so easy to feel as though I’m making absolutely no progress at all when anxiety strikes.

I want change. I want my life back. And I have to do different to feel different. I have to be open to the idea there are positive outcomes in life, because if I don’t open myself up to this possibility, I will forever be living half a life.

33 weeks of growing you

May 15, 2021 — Leave a comment

17 weeks of not being able to walk, using a makeshift commode for the many wee stops I need in between the kitchen and the lounge, but not being able to make it up the stairs. Weeks in bed, watching the room spin and change only with the fall of day and night, has been rough. I have felt tremendous guilt, panic, resentment and fear for so many months. I have spoken up, and I’ve clammed up. I’ve felt supported and let down equally, by both the system and people closer to me.

But, Master Cullen – this week I bring better vibes. Hallelujah, praise the fucking lord, mama is finding a way to move through the quagmire of the last eight months. And all it took, was a complaint, and someone to listen.

I am forever grateful to our NHS, I sympathise greatly with the challenges they face. However, after proactively trying to access support to stay on top of my mental and physical health during this pregnancy, I have felt let down.

I asked to be under the mental health team to ensure I didn’t spiral like I did with your sister, the idea of this meant I would be allocated a midwife that specialised in mental health and could manage the links between physical and mental health throughout this pregnancy. As promised, I was, and in the eight months I’ve been pregnant, I’ve seen that midwife twice and sent several dozen texts to her that have been completely ignored. I don’t mean answered late, I mean, completely ignored. Thankfully I am not in mental health crisis, but I’ve felt well on my way as my physical health has depleted so rapidly.

I didn’t want to complain, because despite feeling unheard, the maternity team are all lovely. They are just harried and overworked. But it paid, because as soon as I voiced my concerns I was listened to, and am now, finally, being given the support I’ve been lacking.

There have been so many worse case scenarios running through my head about you throughout these months, and on top of those, the impact of being immobile and in crippling pain has had my mood plummeting to the lows I’d been desperately trying to avoid. I felt like I had nowhere to turn, many, many times.

The positives throughout this pregnancy have been overshadowed by the many negatives, but finally I can see the end nearing with a clearer and less restricted view. Soon, you will be with us, and life will look different again, we’ll face new challenges but I aim to face them with hope and a positive mindset. I cannot promise you this mood will last, I cannot promise you my positive resolve won’t waver again. In fact I can probably guarantee you that it will, but I can promise you that I will do my best, for you and your sister, for our family, our future and our new life with you in it.

I promise you that I will try harder to practise gratitude and to speak up loudly again when things get rough, and they will.

The nature of my health means there will be days, sometimes weeks, during your life that I will fail you. Not intentionally, but because my body is failing me. During those times, as you age (obviously not when you’re a baby) you will need to learn empathy and compassion. Your sister is shining a light on that for all of us at the moment, radiating positivity and excitement at your pending arrival, whilst being the kind and compassionate kid that she is. So I know she’ll teach you the ropes. She will also probably force them down your throat, but we are a family of strong girls and you’ll have to get used to that.

As always your Dad is doing his bit and I think he’ll probably need a rest of his own when we’re out the other side. We are lucky, we are thankful and we will be ok, but sometimes when things are hard life seems like a mountain made of quicksand, impossible to climb. I will always try to teach you that nothing is impossible, but it takes time and we’ll need to be patient with each other, you and me.

Love you 💙

Best sister ever

32 weeks of growing you

May 10, 2021 — 4 Comments

TW: Perinatal anxiety & depressive thoughts.

Too many tears. Too many days in bed. I’m done now. I have nothing left. Except I’m not allowed to be done, because there is more time left, there is more to do, there are more weeks you must stay inside of me to keep you safe, and despite feeling like I am losing my fucking mind and having no control over my body, my goal is still to keep you safe. You’re still the most important thing.

It has been over four months now that I’ve not been able to walk, drive, leave the house alone, spend one on one alone time with your sister. Four months of being told over and over again ‘it’ll all be worth it’ and that ‘it’s not long now’ it is long, it feels like fucking forever. Every single day feels like ten years. My skin feels like it’s crawling with insects. I cannot move without feeling like I’m rolling around in glass. I have put on so much weight, because I can’t move. My anxiety is through the roof, I am getting no sleep, and I cry all the time. What will I do when you come? How will I cope?

Nobody will tell me what happens next, I still don’t know if I will regain mobility and if I do, how long it will take. I’m just waiting, and wading through treacle, with limbs that don’t work. I feel like I can’t plan anything, look forward to anything. I feel physical pain so acutely, but I’m mentally numb.

People message to ask me how I am and when I tell them, they don’t reply, because they don’t know what to say. I think it’d be easier if they stopped asking, because it’s worse to open up and be vulnerable, only to then get ignored.

Everywhere I turn I keep seeing messages of hope, speak out, don’t suffer in silence, etc etc…. it’s everywhere, but it doesn’t feel real, because when you do speak out, when you do open up, people judge you. People think you should be doing better, feeling a certain way, being more grateful. People give you their opinion on how you should treat your mood. They tell you what they think, they try and fix you, they tell you that someone else has it worse, and they aren’t really listening.

It’s the honest, ugly, truth that nobody wants to hear. Not really. They say they do, but they find it uncomfortable. People tell you how well you’ve done when you’re out the other side of something. When you’re in it, they don’t know what to say, and I do get it. I really do, I understand, because it’s hard to support someone whose in a negative place. But sometimes you don’t have to say anything, you definitely don’t have to ask questions or have answers, sometimes you just have to be available to listen.

I don’t want to feel like this. I don’t want to be ungrateful or feel like a burden. It’s not a choice, it’s a lot of self doubt, and it’s a reaction to a difficult situation.

With all this in mind, I’ve been working really hard to try and change my mindset today. I know it’s only me that can do it. I know I can’t expect to be rescued. After days in bed over the weekend, today I got up. I had a bath and washed my hair, it was an exhausting task, but I know it helps. I put on clean clothes, I had soup for lunch instead of binging on crisps and junk. I took painkillers, because I needed them and tried not to feel any guilt. I watched a comforting film that felt like a hug and downloaded a feel good book to read. I’ve drank plenty of water, and the cloud is lifting.

I know I can do this, I know I have to do this, I know I’m strong enough to do this, but sometimes I don’t feel like doing any of it.

I’m downstairs now, waiting for your sister to get home from school, with a smile plastered on my face. I will watch another film with her, talk to her about her day and she will give me the hope I need to keep going and do the same tomorrow. I won’t sleep today, because if I nap now, sleep will evade me again tonight, and I need sleep. I need it to allow my brain to switch off. I need it to keep going. I need to enable me to focus on the positives, and they are that we are lucky, we are lucky to have you and I want to feel that. I want to feel joy override all these other emotions. I want to feel better, excited.

The below pics were taken less than 24 hours apart. It’s hard to believe that the extremes can peak and trough so rapidly. But I have to remind myself that it doesn’t matter what other people think, I’m surviving a hard and long journey, and I’m doing it whilst keeping you safe. I’m doing my best. I’m going to be okay, and so are you. ❤️

I think I’m failing but my kid still thinks I’m a superhero 🦸🏽‍♀️

March 4, 2021 — Leave a comment

It’s no secret that during pregnancy your hormones are all over the shop, one minute you’re chomping on cheese on toast and the next your crying into your cottage pie that your friend drove 25 miles to deliver. It’s a funny old game this growing a human malarkey.

Because my health has been on a steady decline since my daughter was born, this pregnancy though a lot like hers, has been overshadowed with worry and feeling unwell constantly. When I say constantly I mean it. It’s either not being able to walk, migraines, sickness, feeling faint, high blood pressure and the rest, it’s been bad, and not fun. Also those people who said you never get two the same, you were wrong.

That said the guilt of ‘wasting’ days in bed in an attempt to make the next one better and unable to do all of the things I want with my family has had a negative impact on my emotions. Team this with hormones and you have me, an unstable, anxious, dribbling mess.

This week said emotions have been on overdrive and I’ve spent countless hours in tears, I’m surprised there were any left after the first ten or so. My husband has looked at me with puppy dog eyes and a need to fix my broken spirit and my daughter has looked at me with longing and frustration. I haven’t been able to meet their demands, particularly those of the little person. She doesn’t get why mummy is always in bed and at one point I was worried she was going off the idea of having a brother because he’s been making her mum so poorly. It all hit a crescendo on Tuesday when Ciara wanted 5 things at once and I couldn’t even give her the simplest one, which was turn the volume up on the TV. I couldn’t do it because the bastard NowTV remote is a dodgy little fucker and it just would not work. Off she stomped whilst moaning at the dog and calling for her dad to come and fix the problem that mummy was incapable of rectifying.

Once I heard her footsteps on the stairs I burst into a fit of hysterics, threw the remote which bounced off the bed and smashed a photo on the bedroom wall. It wasn’t my finest moment because I couldn’t even roll myself off to pick up the glass before Shaun bursts in asking me WTF I was doing!?

Picture it, 5 month pregnant woman whose legs don’t work, rolling around on the bed with no bra on and crying inconsolably. It’s not a pretty image is it?

I don’t want to do this anymore I wailed, like an actual whale. To his credit, Shaun turns the tv off and shouts down to Ciara that they’re going to watch tele downstairs instead. I didn’t see them again that evening because I cried myself to sleep and woke up at 10pm and waddled into her room to give her a kiss goodnight, something I abhor to miss.

The next day I’m feeling full of shame and still in pain wondering how I’m going to get through the days for the next 4 months. But I needn’t of worried about the rest of the family because like clockwork they traipse in from school and work with smiles and cuddles for me and chat shit about their days as if the previous ones have been erased.

Ciara was pleased that I had finished colouring in her tiger costume with a sharpie for world book day and asked if she could come and snuggle in my bed.

This morning I got up at 7 after being awake from 2am with possibly the worst nerve pain ever. I say this because I can’t treat flare ups in the same way I would when I’m not pregnant ie with heavy drugs. The pain relief I’m taking at the moment just isn’t working to the same effect. Anyway up I get and by ‘up’ I mean sit up in my bed and paint my beautiful daughter’s face and send her off to school with a smile.

It doesn’t matter that I collapsed back in bed after and slept until lunchtime, because she was happy. When she got home she found me asleep in the bath because it’s the only place I don’t feel like my body is on fire and she poked me to tell me about her day. Including poo gate by another kid in class which we all found highly amusing.

I do feel like I’m failing life on the reg at the moment and somedays I can’t get on top of those crazy emotions and pretend I’m bossing it, because I’m not. But what I do know, with absolute clarity is that when it comes to my kids my best is good enough, and the need to be moving all the time and trying harder is born out of my own insecurities, not those of my five year old. She loves me on all of the days, even the really shitty ones. She loves me for all of the things I can do, not all of the things I can’t.

Pregnant and chronically ill.

January 11, 2021 — 6 Comments

Some of you might know my story already. I married my husband in January 2020, we did it just the two of us and it was amazing, but since our wedding, lockdown and covid-19 have presented challenges, as it has for everyone, I’m not naïve enough to believe I’m alone with that and I know there are people everywhere that have it a lot worse than I do.

For me though, my health deteriorated again and baby making was not on the cards for us during lockdown…. or so we thought.

We had a baby in 2016, and she’s a healthy, sassy four year old, but her start in life was hard, on her and on me.

My pregnancy was not an enjoyable experience, I didn’t feel well for a single day of it. I was debilitated by hormonal migraines and nausea throughout, and by 16 weeks I was on crutches diagnosed with Symphis Pubis Dysfunction- a condition that causes your pelvic ligaments to become stretchy and relaxed, making walking painful, the same condition had me in a wheelchair by 25 weeks completely disabled. Later I had preeclampsia, I was admitted to hospital and after several attempts a doctor finally managed to break my waters, my contractions were then hormonally induced. I often refer to labour as the easy part after 9 months of what felt like torture, but honestly, none of it was easy for me.

I was taking antidepressants throughout my pregnancy to manage my mental health, and as a result my daughter was born with Neo Natal Abstinence Syndrome.

A condition where babies are born withdrawing from drugs they’re exposed to in utero. I wasn’t warned about this, I was told the medication I was taking was safe for my baby. Withdrawal was something I assumed only illicit drug using mothers experienced, I was wrong.

She was in NICU for 10 days and then she screamed for 15 hours a day for almost 10 months. I’ve since spoken to people who were on similar medicines and they’ve had different experiences so it’s important to note, I’m not trying to scaremonger here. I believe in looking after your mental health, but there is no dressing up that it was a very traumatic time for us. I think the consensus is not to force mums to stop medication that keeps them well, and of course this makes a lot of sense, I just wish I had been armed with facts sooner. I was peri and postnatally depressed, suicidal at times, and it hurt. It massively effected my pregnancy and birth experience, my early bond with my daughter, and I don’t consider it a positive time to reminisce about.

Given the story so far you’ll have probably read/heard me freak the fuck out at the thought of baby no 2. Yet here we are, we got bored in lockdown. We ran out of things to do, we also ran out of condoms. (That was a joke btw don’t @me) Shaun always wanted baby number two, and for the last year Ciara has asked for a sibling, but the truth is I never wanted to be pregnant again.

But I am, kind of by accident, almost certainly by fate.

In truth, I’m petrified. I haven’t acted happy about it, because I’m not about being pregnant, not really. I know how ungrateful that must sound, and let me be clear, I want the baby, I love being a mother, it’s my life’s biggest achievement. What I don’t love are the effects pregnancy has on my health and well-being.

I battle with guilt daily about my dislike for pregnancy, because I know I’m lucky to be able to birth children.

In an ideal world I would have weaned off all of my medication before conception this time, but I have a chronic illness, one that takes over much of my life. I am constantly met with new symptoms, making it impossible to imagine a life without medical intervention. You know when people say ‘you’re pregnant not ill‘ – Well in my case I’m both. Most of the time giving things up in pregnancy is par for the course but what about when you’re giving up drugs that have kept you well for years.

So, I’m withdrawing from several different types of medication at the moment, but I’m still not medication free and I might not ever be. It’s hard on me mentally, to know I could go through the same thing twice with NAS and having a baby in NICU.

In my dreams this pregnancy would be totally different, I’d be fitter and healthier, mentally stronger.

Unfortunately it hasn’t worked out that way. I’m not going to miraculously become well whilst living with a chronic illness, (chronic = ongoing) if anything it worsens as the years progress. I haven’t gotten better, and I feel as awful as I did in my first pregnancy if not worse, because there’s more to worry about – a lot more.

Midwives have classed my pregnancy as ‘high risk’ for preeclampsia and SPD again (I’m already struggling with this just 14 weeks in), and for diabetes, and that’s without accounting for my illnesses and the cretin that is Coronavirus robbing us all of joy.

I feel like somedays, even before pregnancy, I was barely hanging on to my ability to cope as a functional human being, do the fundamentals like washing and cooking meals, and yet I’m putting my body through this again and it already feels hard.

So what happens if I can’t look after a new baby?

What if they cry for 15 hours a day again and I have a breakdown?

What if Shaun leaves me for our skinny neighbour with muscular thighs and perky tits?

What if, what if, what if…..

It’s a redundant question, because what if I got ran over by a bus tomorrow?

I could cite an endless lists of what ifs, but to get hung up on them means I also need to think of the flip side, that being, what if things work out ok?

A pandemic is a big deal to the most hardened of us. So being pregnant with several illnesses and a penchant for going fucking mental at the first sign of a hormone shift feels ominous, but we’re doing it.

Baby 2.0 is coming!!

Aside from being terrified, feeling even more like shit than usual and eating everything in site, I’m optimistic, because despite ALL of that, this time I really do know it’s all worth it in the end.

I’m being seen by the maternal mental health team this time, an option I wasn’t (but definitely should have been) offered in my first pregnancy. And I have a plan for my physical health issues and medicines, it’s not a great plan, but it’s a plan that involves a lot of listening to my body.

On top of that, I have a family who have my back. We’re a team and we’ll get through it because we have each other and because we are lucky, and this, however hard it feels, is a blessing.

I wanted to write this, because there still feels much stigma around not loving every second of pregnancy and motherhood.

There is never a time when I feel unlucky in motherhood. But sometimes I feel unlucky in health, and pregnancy is hard on my health, it’s hard in general, as is parenting, at times, for all of us. And it’s ok to say that out loud.

Our journeys are different and we are forever a divided world on how to parent, because there’s no rule book and we all have our own unique way.

I wish I could flip a switch and love every tender second of motherhood, but my truth is, I don’t love pregnancy and my experience of newborns brings with it traumatic memories.

That doesn’t mean I don’t love being a mother, it just means it’s not straightforward. I didn’t want to announce my pregnancy without having explained how I feel because I’m sure there are other expectant mothers who feel similar to me that don’t have the confidence to say so aloud.

There’s so much pressure to say over and over again how much you love your kids, how blessed you are, and if god forbid you forget to mention that, obviously you don’t deserve to have them.

What I actually think is, all you can do in these times is YOUR best. There will always be people that are struggling for different reasons in every aspect of life.

When it comes to your baby though, I really feel, like your best is good enough and what works for you, what keeps you well and healthy is as important as protecting that newborn head.

We will delight in the birth of our second child as we did our first and we will get through the tough times because this time, we know they really don’t last forever and the long nights whiz by with painfully short years.

Motherhood is hands down the hardest, most rewarding job and my only goal is to be good at it (and to get to the end of this pregnancy with both of us in one piece)

NB: If you’re struggling with maternal mental health please visit Maternal Mental Health Alliance for support.

For fibromyalgia resources it’s FMAUK

And for migraines it’s Migraine Trust

Misophonia – What is it?

November 18, 2020 — Leave a comment

I am often overwhelmed by noise. It makes my skin prickle. I never used to feel like that. Not really. Then I had a kid who screamed for 15 hours a day every day for 9 months and I forgot what quiet felt like.

But that noise sensitivity did not end when she stopped screaming. I get increasing amounts of rage about noise. It could be listening to someone eat loudly whilst I’m trying to read. Having a husband who snores is a prime example of the rage I experience with repetitive sounds. If you have a husband/wife/partner who snores you will understand.

If Ciara is talking and someone else tries to speak to me, like I will literally tell them all to shut up and speak one at a time because I cannot cope with the pitchy sounds of their voices permeating my brain. Take zoom meetings for example, they boil my piss, because nobody knows when to talk and everyone talks at once. If I’m reading or working I have to do it in silence. If I’m eating and I can hear your chewing over mine I might tell you to stfu too.

It’s no surprise that the level of rage I feel increases during my luteal phase and sometimes I will literally (and ironically) scream for quiet when I’m due on my period. Or when I’m tired. Or when I’m in pain, and sometimes when I’m feeling perfectly ‘normal’ whatever that is.

Today I’ve been working from home and the dog, has been noisily gnawing at shit that isn’t food. My daughter came home from school with 25 tales about her day that she needed to tell me all at once, and she is currently downstairs learning letters and is speaking about 5 octaves too high in triumph of her achievements. I am seeking (unsuccessfully) the quiet my brain is desperate for in my room.

I know it’s a joke really, people with kids should know better than to get uptight about noise right? But I cannot zone out. My neighbours noisily run up and down their stairs every night between 9pm and 11pm I dunno what the fuck they’re up to but as soon as I hear it I cannot focus on anything else.

I know it’s not rational and I know I need help because losing my shit every time someone disrupts my quiet is not practical or productive. Give me silence and the sound of my own heart beating would probably still piss me off. So what is this random condition I seem to have acquired – I know what you’re thinking ‘another condition’ but ‘hear’ me out. This condition is called Misophonia, and it’s way more common than you might think.

The sound sensitivity is a real thing, and it’s most commonly found in females. Not everyone will experience the same reaction, for some it may be mild and for others complete extremes. We’ve established my default setting is extreme, as is my reaction.

It’s unknown what causes Misophonia and it isn’t suggested to be brought on by one specific event but can occur at anytime during our life cycle.

For me personally my go to emotive reaction to noise is always rage. It’s swiftly followed by the need to flee the scene. Sometimes I leave the culprit and take myself outside to gulp for air. No exaggeration. I once stood in a food queue with my husband (then boyfriend) and had to leave because the person in front of us did not stop talking in an animated pitch and I couldn’t for all my reasoning zone out. Sometimes it’s a background noise, sometimes it’s someone speaking and other times it’s a barely noticeable minuscule sound that my brain has sought out.

There isn’t much available in terms of treatment, definitely not in form of medication, but after research I’ve found there are some things I can do that might help. Like expose myself to specific sounds on repeat and try and convince my brain it doesn’t want to smash the house up in response.

I’ve decided to set myself some trials because let’s face it telling a customer to shut the fuck up for talking too loudly or too fast isn’t appropriate. Quieting your family when they have something to tell you, isn’t fair. And smashing the house up isn’t an affordable or constructive escapade. I’ll keep you informed with my findings but for now if you think you have misophonia check out this article on Web.md

Here we go again, sertraline.

October 27, 2020 — Leave a comment

When I recorded last months #PMDD diary I mentioned I’d started taking antidepressants again, but only during the luteal phase of my cycle. Unfortunately my symptoms have not improved greatly in the months since I decided I didn’t want to be here anymore (again).

When I say not improved, what I mean is not enough for me to do this on my own. So here I am again, where I’ve been for almost 20 years, trying to get a grip on my mental health with the help of antidepressants full time.

I am still here, so I’d be lying if I discredited their power in helping me get through dark days, but when you live on a cocktail of drugs for survival, it can make you feel like you’re never really moving forward, just treading water.

Antidepressants for breakfast, painkillers for lunch, more antidepressants for nerve pain at tea time, a side of beta blockers, followed by occasional benzos for supper.

I often feel like I’m failing by being so dependent on medication, but I weigh it up with my need to be able to function.

I’ve made many positive changes over the years for my mental health.

I very rarely drink alcohol anymore and have drank only 3 times in all of 2020. Though I feel no better for it really, I’ve not missed hangovers, and truthfully, I’m scared of it now.

I’m scared of doing ANYTHING that might trigger a migraine, a flare up, PEM. I’m scared of walking too far, or dancing too hard, or staying still too long. I’m scared of things I used to enjoy, and not enjoying, is depressing. I know I feel better if I don’t over plan, if I have a day in between activities and I know I feel better if I get enough sleep, but trying to implement that into a modern world where we have to work, and parent and show up for shit, is hard.

When I think about how hard it is I also try to think about how lucky I am.

Because if I don’t think about the good things I will be forced to believe there are no good things, and that is simply not true.

So how do I remind myself of everything that’s great when all I can see is what’s not? I look at my family. That’s it, I see them and I am reminded of my luck 💗 Though I don’t imagine they feel the same about being stuck with this bitch 🤣 This is your Tuesday night reminder, to TAKE YOUR MEDS💊