The Stress Factor

Over the past 10 days or so my computer time has been somewhat consumed by other things - all of which have been mentally taxing and have seen the odd glass of wine consumed.

Now I know everyone has stresses in their life, and individual stress tolerance depends on their situation and in my opinion the healthiness off their mind, so as mundane as the following may sound my reason for sharing this with you is because it reflects hugely on how my mind and body copes with stress whilst recovering from Post Natal Depression.

So over the past few days a summary of what my recovering mind has had to deal with is: My daughter having another eye operation, to then be told its not likely to be successful and need further surgery, my kitchen being redone which in turn equalled Lylha and I living at my grandparents for a few days (anyone with young kids can understand why staying away from your home with them is a mammoth mission in itself as the stuff you need looks like a 2 week family holiday), a husband with man flu, a car that needs sorting out and selling, and finally and possibly the most stressful of all - my husband has gone ahead (against my protests) and brought puppy Annatto to join my madhouse!

Now these events in themselves may not seem too much, but after having Post Natal Depression (PND) I developed anxiety on the side, and as a result these events have had me fretting for weeks prior to them happening in turn adding to my already sleepless nights. So by the time the events arrived I was already a sleep deprived nervous wreck.

I have found since having PND that I have physical side affects to stress, like many I develop a tension headache and this often leads to a full blown migraine, I am literally sick, I shake a lot and my IBS goes into overdrive, all of which then make me feel physically ill too, thankfully I have a pre payment prescription card or I'd be broke too!

I am sharing these because a lot of women who have come forward about their own experiences with PND have told me about their own physical symptoms and I didn't realise how common anxiety is amongst those who have suffered or are suffering from a form of depression. If it wasn't for me mentioning the "shakes" to a friend I wouldn't have told my GP and certainly wouldn't have linked trembling to me having suffered from PND.

Emotionally my mind is frazzled at the moment one of the sad things personally for me is when something causes a PND trigger I find it very difficult not to become upset, every time I feel anxious or stressed I feel like I am failing again and this normally results in me hiding away for a few days and having a good cry, unfortunately this time I couldn't hide away and get over it in my own time and in my own way as I was staying with family. As a result the tension built up to a head yesterday where I truly questioned my minds health again as I flipped on a fairly momentous scale, emotions + stress + bloody traffic + tescos + a whiny toddler = mummy in a seriously bad place - the good thing is after erupting and then cooling down I started to realise that I must be getting better as before this would have taken me weeks to recover from where as this time it was actually just 1 evening and 1 nights sleep I needed to feel better.

I write about these things not just to share with the world and encourage other parents in the same place to seek help - if they haven't already done so, but because for me writing it down makes how I feel and I how I think real - it's in black and white, it's now something those on the outside can see, and more importantly for me because if I can see it I am not as scared off it. I liken blogging about PND to being like Little Red Riding Hood going through the forest, when you know something is there lurking it sparks fear - but when you can see it you realise it isn't as scary as it seemed in your mind.

On that note meet the wolves in my household Nutmeg and Puppy Annatto:

Thank you for reading, please feel free to join in and comment
Lx