Prenatal or antepartum depression is a type of clinical depression that occurs during pregnancy. You might think that you would easily recognize it, if you (or someone close to you) are suffering from depression. And while some people do, others don’t. Some women have depression for the first time in their lives during pregnancy, which may make it even harder to recognize, as they don’t have the experience of dealing with it in the past. Also, it might be hard to differentiate the normal ups and downs that can be expected during pregnancy from signs of depression.
Undergoing prenatal depression, without realizing and understanding what is going on, is an absolute struggle. This blogpost shares some personal experiences to create more awareness on this topic, hopefully contributing to the well-being of women who recognize themselves somehow in this story.
Let’s start with a list of common symptoms of prenatal depression:
Fallacy
I faced many of these symptoms, but during my first pregnancy it never even occurred to me that I was suffering from prenatal depression. I guess the fact that I didn’t feel persistent sadness, or a depressed mood was the first hurdle to realizing what was happening.
I was very tired but considered that a normal symptom of my pregnancy.
I had difficulties in concentrating. Situations that I could normally handle quite well at work became unmanageable and too stressful for me. In addition, I completely lost my joy at work. But those things I didn’t attribute to my pregnancy, at least not in a direct way, only indirectly. I felt very guilty about not being able to do my job properly. I started to doubt myself. I believed that something was wrong with me. Also, the fact that I didn’t enjoy my work anymore made me doubt myself.
I thought: “Have I always been able to hide these issues (even for myself!) that now come to the surface as I am becoming a mom?!”
The fact that I would constantly burst into tears didn’t help either. I felt pathetic and stupid. I felt so much shame. I had no idea that the crying, the self-doubt and feeling of worthlessness were all symptoms of my depression. There were also plenty of times that I did feel good. I was certainly happy that I was pregnant. I guess that made it even more difficult for me to recognize what was going on.
Hard to acknowledge my needs
Because I was really struggling, I did ask my doctor for partial sick-leave, but I didn’t dare to go on full sick-leave. For me that would be the proof that I was worthless and weak.
I would regularly go to yoga during office hours during the times that I was on sick leave. Something that was very good for me, but I also felt very guilty about. I remember I felt such a relieve when my maternity leave started, because then I finally didn’t feel so bad anymore about doing yoga while I was supposed to be at work. Looking back on it, I wish I would have trusted myself and would have dared to just follow this intense desire to not do much more than some yoga and just rest the rest of the day.
After the birth
After the birth of my first child, I felt empowered, my confidence was back. This idea that something was wrong with me had disappeared. But the arrival of my baby made that I didn’t think much about this, and I wasn’t so conscious about the change.
After a while, I looked back on my pregnancy and felt I could have taken better care of myself. Still, I didn’t realize that I had experienced depression. But I did feel that I had not well protected my boundaries, and that it would have been better for both me and my baby if I had taken more rest and had protected myself more from the stress at work.
Second time around
When I got pregnant again, I immediately started to feel extremely tired and experienced this sense of being worthless again. Based on the experience from my first pregnancy, I tried to not fight this feeling this time, but listen more to my body’s needs. Feeling fine after the first pregnancy helped me realize that I was not crazy. Being pregnant was apparently something very challenging for me and I started to learn that I needed much more rest and peace compared to other women. This was not at all easy to acknowledge and bring into practice, but at least there was some realization. Still, I did not understand or realize that I was dealing with prenatal depression.
At my first early ultrasound (at 11 weeks) it turned out that my pregnancy was not successful. I had what they call a ‘missed abortion’. An early pregnancy loss, where the embryonic tissue is still in the uterus. I was given medication that would help my body to complete the process of ending this unsuccessful pregnancy. Due to this medication the pregnancy hormones were stopped from doing their job. This sudden change in my hormones made it very visible for me what a huge impact these hormones were having on my mood.
Although I experienced grief and physical pain related to the pregnancy loss, I felt an enormous mental relief. As if a heavy dark cloud that had been hanging above my head, and pushing heavily on my shoulders instantly had resolved. The crazy thing was, that I only became fully aware of this dark heavy cloud, when it suddenly disappeared. I felt light, I felt like I could deal with life, and I felt relieved. It was only then that I realized how pregnancy was impacting my mood, and how heavy it had been for me. In that sense I am happy with this experience, as it helped me to fully understand what was happening to me.
A third experience
I was fortunate to fall pregnant a third time. This time round, the symptoms of prenatal depression were no less than previous times, I think they were even worse. The big difference was though that my previous experiences had thought me things about myself and my body. So even though I was again suffering from feelings of guilt, self-doubt, worthlessness, etcetera, there was also -on a deeper level- trust in myself. Deep inside me, I knew that I was not crazy, that this was temporary, and pregnancy related. Maybe this was not something that most women would experience, but still it was totally normal that I did. That helped. Besides feeling ashamed, I also knew this was not something to be ashamed of.
Still, I had plenty of thoughts about being weak because I worked significantly less than fulltime during my pregnancy. But the feeling that this was exactly what me and my baby needed was stronger. I tried to do things that I liked. And I was trying to be kind to myself. Listen to myself.
A quite common piece of advice is to go out and spend time in nature. Although I still believe that that is a rather good one, in practice that was just not feasible for me, most of the days. Just getting off the sofa to go to the bathroom to brush my teeth could already be a real challenge. Rather than feeling guilty about not going out for a walk, I would consider it an achievement that I did manage to brush my teeth. And I found other nice things that I was motivated enough to do. An extra hairdresser’s appointment or a lovely massage could make my day better, so that was the kind of thing I chose to do.
Not believing my own thoughts of shame anymore helped me to talk about my experience. My sister would listen to me, and show respect for my struggles, without any judgement. This also helped me.
Trust yourself and reach out
I have my own experience that I can share, but I am not an expert. Therefore, I can’t and won’t give any (medical) advice here. If you do recognize yourself (partly) in this story, please do reach out to people that can give you such advice. And trust yourself, you are not crazy!
If you think it would be of any support for you to talk about your own experience with me, please feel free to contact me. I can listen, might very well understand you and won’t judge!
Bình luận