Postnatal Depression and Mental Health by Megan Dittrich
Today I am handing my blog over to the lovely Megan from Dittrich Diary. She is a blogger and vlogger, who is a Mum to two boys and stepmum to 3. She has kindly today offered to talk about her experiences with postnatal depression and mental health.
I don’t have any problem admitting that I suffer from Depression and Anxiety but after the birth of my second son at 32 weeks, I struggled to admit I was suffering from PND. It was such a hard issue for me to admit as I was determined that I had to be strong and that I couldn’t crumble. Despite also suffering from birth trauma, I still found myself masking the PND and just crumbling when nobody else could see.
It took me a while, but this wasn’t healthy for me, the baby, or my family and luckily, I released that before anything bad happened. Mental health has such a stigma attached and people are ashamed, worried and most of all they think it makes them weak.
I thought all those thoughts myself and I must admit that I also thought that if I asked for help then social services would get involved. I want to tell you the reader, that nobody will judge you, nobody calls social services for depression or anxiety and the doctor more than likely has been in your position and they can relate.
You Are Not Alone
If you didn’t know this already then, this fact might be a surprise to you, globally there is more than 264 million people of all ages who suffer from depression. About 264 million people around the world, have anxiety disorders and Depression and anxiety are the most common mental health problems in pregnancy and post-pregnancy. They affect 10-15 in every 100 women.
Depression, Anxiety, and Mental Health issues should never make you feel like you are broken, less of a person, less of a parent, a failure, or an issue to people. Seek help and speak to people, doing counselling was the best thing I did for my mental health and taking tablets has greatly improved my life. I didn’t get on with my first set of medication, so I went back and changed onto something else, and I have to say with my whole heart that it balances me out. It stops me getting panicky and restless and it stops the voice in my head that says I am useless.
Ask for Help
I have been fighting with both depression and anxiety since my teens, but it took until I was around 25 to get some help as I just thought I was weird or broken and that nothing could fix it. I didn’t realise that all those feelings I was bottling up had a name and honestly it felt amazing when I felt more ‘normal’ and less like I had a black cloud over my head 24.7. Without my support network around me and my medication I wouldn’t be here right now as my depression took me to some very bad places over the last 15 years.
We all fight many battles a day and most of them nobody will ever know about unless we talk and speak to people. The last 3 years has taught me that we need to be there for each other, we need to talk, and we need to stop saying “I’m fine” when we aren’t. Text a friend, drop someone a Facebook message and just make sure people know you are there for them and find friends who are they for you too,
Help and Support
If you need someone to talk then please check out these charities below:
Pandas – for PND
Mind – for depression
Petals – for pregnancy-related loss and counselling
Anxiety UK
Support Line – For Anxiety
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I suffered a little bit but not as much as my best friend, she was very bad mentally after her baby was born. It’s a very hard time.
I suffered badly with post natal and honestly found the best thing was to be honest with people and accept help, it’s so difficult and we need to keep discussion open
That’s very important topic, thank for this post. Keep going.
I suffered quite badly with depression after giving birth but this was a long time ago, you can come out from this stronger.
A candid and positive post. Thank you for sharing it.
Such an important topic and I do feel there is more understanding out there now and acceptance
I’ve had pnd after both my pregnancies however I was lucky that I had support from the perinatal mental health team throughout my pregnancy as I have suffered with depression for a long time so I was already at risk of pnd. It did help having a mental health midwife so I felt I didn’t have have to reach out for help as help was already there.
Really helpful post, I didn’t get any support at all when I had post natal
I think that postnatal depression affects more people than you state and includes men. I think that having a baby is the scariest thing to ever experience.
@Michael Fisher, for most people
Very brave to open up, to help others. Best wishes to all sufferers.
An excellently written and sensitive piece – thank you.
Wow! I could not relate with this more. I suffered depression and anxiety from my teens to and it took for me trying to commit suicide before I was forced to get help and that was around my early twenties. But it there, in a psychiatric ward where I learnt I was not alone. Depression doesn’t just leave you, you just get better at dealing with things over time but because we’re so used to our old coping mechanisms, we can fall back into the same trap. So even though I have my own family and in a good place, I am still depress. Took me ages to admit that after starting a new life.
But you’re right, after giving birth to my daughter, I didn’t want to admit I was suffering from PND. I questioned why I would need to be depress and just denied it until it was affecting my relationship with everyone around me. Then I found the courage to seek help and after 20 years of suffering from depression, I finally said yes to antidepressants which has helped a lot.
Nowadays I am able to speak about it more openly because deep down I know I have done nothing wrong. People seem more accepting of it unlike my parents’ generation but I do hope by my daughter’s generation, it will be more normalised to admit to having depression and other mental health problems. But I do think the hardest thing is for one not to beat themselves up for having a mental health problem. It’s so easy to hate ourselves and think we are weak but don’t forget that our experiences make us stronger. I truly believe that those who have been through depression or anxiety makes us more empathetic and understanding towards others and that kindness is a good trait to have in this world.