Thursday the 14th of September is 'RU OK Day' for suicide prevention, and it got me thinking about my own experience.
All three of my pregnancies were slightly different, but all hectic.
I spent a lot of time in hospital and I never truly got to experience pregnancy like it's portrayed on Instagram.
I didn't feel pretty..
I didn't feel like I was glowing..
I didn't feel freakin amazing.
I used to scroll through Facebook and Instagram and wonder how people had such perfect lives. How did these mums have three kids under 5, all well dressed, with perfectly groomed hair, beautiful houses and they're in mother-effin heels all day?!
It took me years to realise, no one actually lives like this every day.
I remember scrolling through an Instagram feed of an Australian mum who had a perfectly curated feed of her four beautiful children. They were also a homeschooling family and everything they did was 'perfect'. It made me feel like shit. That day, I decided I wasn't going to be 'one of those mums'. I'd tell it how it was and do my absolute best to not let a mum scroll through my own feed one day and feel like she'd failed.
Pregnancy is different for everyone, but for me, it was 'shithouse'.
After three shocking pregnancies, which just got worse each time, I had three very different postnatal experiences.
Havanah, our first-born, was the perfect baby.
She slept through the night, fed perfectly, and never cried. Really. She never actually cried. We even took her to see a doctor when she was two months old because we were worried something was wrong with her, "She's perfectly fine, she just isn't bothered by much".
That changed when she was two.
Holding three-week-old Havanah after my 22nd birthday dinner
Brooklyn, our second-born, was.. well.. he was a shithead.
Brooklyn and I had a rough start though.. a really rough start. You can read a bit about that by clicking here.
Fresh out of theatre after suffering a postpartum haemorrhage from 'retained products' following the birth of Brooklyn in 2014
After that entire ordeal, I remember feeling like "it can't get any worse than that".
We came home and Brooklyn just wouldn't sleep.
He fed all the time.. he cried all the time. ALL THE TIME.
A couple of my closest friends came to visit, you know those friends, they know your shit and you know theirs. You don't worry about rushing around to clean the house when they visit because they've seen it at it's worst.
Well, this particular night, Brooklyn was screaming the place down!
I was bathing him. I finally got him dried and dressed and passed him onto my friend so I could have a minute to myself and he screamed.. and screamed.. and screamed.
I took him back and he stopped.
This would continue to be my relationship with Brooklyn until.. well.. he's three now.. so...
Those months after Brooklyn was born was horrible. I was exhausted.
Eventually, my exhaustion turned into turning down dinner dates with friends, pulling out of plans at the last minute.
I would end up being diagnosed with Postnatal Depression, Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder and some buggered up version of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after the rough start we had.
Every aspect of life felt like it was falling apart.
I felt like a failure. Like I'd failed my husband by taking away any chance at a happy experience with his son, like I'd failed my daughter by not being the happy Mommy she needed me to be, especially in a time where her world had been turned upside down, and like I'd failed my son, who relied on me completely.
I felt like no one would understand how scary it was inside my head, to hear my baby cry and instantly dread the thought of holding him, not because I didn't want to, my goodness did I love holding him, but because I didn't trust the person that depression and anxiety had turned me into.
It felt so cruel to have struggled to get pregnant, having had a number of miscarriages, just to feel so broken when you finally have that baby in your arms. I was so angry at the world for taking so many happy moments from me.
My parents were amazing.
They're the kind of people that, no matter where you are in life, no matter how shitty a situation you've gotten yourself into, if you need them, they're there.
They used to take Havanah for an entire day, every week. She loved it there. She was guaranteed an assortment of snacks and any movie she could think of - if Nana and Koro didn't have it, they'd have it next week.
Having these days meant so much to me. I don't think I've ever really told my parents how much I appreciate what they did for me.
It allowed me to give Brooklyn my full attention, and allowed Havanah to have something fun to do each week.
It gave me a piece of my life back.
When I was pregnant with Carter, the world changed.
I saw what it was like to live in a hospital. I knew who would be working each day and what time their shift began and ended.
I knew which dinner options to take and which ones to turn down and ask for a sandwich instead.
My pregnancy experience with Carter was, by far, the worst of the three, but when he was born, I'd realise that all the sadness I'd felt, all that loneliness and feeling like I was no good at anything, that would come back and be worse than ever.
My 30-week-pregnant belly, the first day of being discharged to Nepean Hospital's 'Hope Cottage'.. the day before Carter was born.
There was one particular day while Carter was in the NICU.
I was struggling. I was exhausted, I wasn't eating properly, my nipples were so over being shoved into a cold breast pump in the middle of Winter, and I wasn't expressing more than 10ml at a time.
I missed home. I missed real food. I missed my bed. I missed all the comforts of home. After all, I'd been in the hospital for almost three months.
I woke up and I felt awful. I began expressing and just felt tears streaming down my face.
"I can't go there today", I said to John, "I just can't do it today".
John took my milk to the NICU and I cried myself back to sleep. I spent the rest of that day in tears. I didn't eat anything, I didn't get dressed.. I didn't even get out of bed. I just lay in my tiny little Hope Cottage bed and cried.. for two days.
On the second night, we got a call from Carter's doctor just before midnight.
Carter had taken a bit of a turn and they needed to give him a blood transfusion.
I couldn't breathe. I felt so guilty that I couldn't even drag my ass out of bed to go and see him for two whole days.
I felt like he needed me.. like, I needed to be there for him.. but I couldn't. In my head, I knew what I had to do, what the 'right' thing to do was, but I couldn't make myself step up. I couldn't be his mum that day.
I was disgusted in myself. If my children couldn't rely on their own mother, who could they trust to be there when they need it most?
Carter at one-month-old, fast asleep in his crib after receiving a blood transfusion.
The next morning, I woke up early and went to see Carter.
He looked so much better. His oxygen sats were better and he was doing really well.
When I came back to our room, John and I had a chat about how we would make this work. We'd been there before with Brooklyn. We weren't going to ignore it again.
We decided to speak to Carter's doctors and nurses and let them know that we would only be visiting for 5am and 11am cares from now on, no longer coming for the 5pm and 11pm cares.
We needed to take time to recharge and ensure our other two children were coping ok too. Making that decision changed it all for us.
We'd always tried to stay positive. Our son was alive. We were given the best possible outcome in a pretty shitty situation. He was fighting.. and we had to fight too.
Kangaroo cuddles with Carter, the morning after his first blood transfusion.
You can't just stop being sad. Let's be real, you're not 'sad'. That's not the feeling you have when you're depressed.
When you're depressed, you feel worthless. You feel like everyone else has their life together and you're just there, treading water, getting hit, wave after wave.. only now, now you feel like you've swallowed as much water as you can possibly take and it's only a matter of seconds before you go under. You feel like it can't be made better. You feel like you're dragging down the people you love.
That's depression. Anyone who tells you to just fix it by 'not feeling sad', they're dicks.
But you can start to feel ok.
Over-time, my husband has learnt the warning signs and he sees them long before I do.
It's not about avoiding difficult situations, it's about knowing that you're entering a difficult situation and talking to someone you trust about how you expect to feel and what you plan to do to minimise the mental and emotional toll it's going to take.
There will always be difficult situations. There will always be moments that have the ability to break you.
'Peace' can be found in the knowledge that you will feel like you can't get up. You will feel broken and you will feel inadequate. You will feel all these things.. but not forever.
You have to believe that, one day, it will be better. That day could be the next, it could be in a week, a month.. it could be in a year. But the day you realise that you're not hurting anymore, will be the day that you realise that life is so much more than what you thought it was.
I still have days where I don't want to get out of bed. I still have days where I spend 90% of it in tears. But those days are few and far between now.
Understanding that nothing gets better if it's bottled up was the first step. Being comfortable in the idea that, no, you're not okay, and that's a perfectly fine feeling to have.
I'm still learning to be okay with shit days. Shit day? Movies and pjs today kiddies! ..and we're going to post about it so the world knows that it's ok to drop the ball.. because no one has it together 100% of the time.
R U OK?
Telling someone you're having a shit time is the first step to feeling 'ok' again.
My inbox is always open.. hello@erinmichelethomson.com.au
If you, or someone you know, are suffering from anxiety or depression, or maybe you just don't feel yourself, you can reach out to the following helplines for advice or someone to talk to.
You can stay anonymous if you wish.
Beyond Blue
1300 22 4636
Support . Advice . Action for Depression & Anxiety
Carers Australia
1800 242 636
Short-term counselling and emotional and psychological support services for carers and their families in each state and territory.
Headspace
1800 650 890
Free online and telephone service that supports young people aged between 12 and 25 and their families going through a tough time.
Kids Helpline
1800 55 1800
A free, private and confidential, telephone and online counselling service specifically for young people aged between 5 and 25.
MensLine Australia
1300 78 99 78
A telephone and online support, information and referral service, helping men to deal with relationship problems in a practical and effective way.
MindSpot Clinic
1800 61 44 34
An online and telephone clinic providing free assessment and treatment services for Australian adults with anxiety or depression.
Relationships Australia
1300 364 277
A provider of relationship support services for individuals, families and communities.
SANE Australia
1800 18 7263
Information about mental illness, treatments, where to go for support and help carers.
Support after Suicide
(03) 9421 7640
Information, resources, counselling and group support to those bereaved by suicide. Education and professional development to health, welfare and education professionals.
Lifeline
13 11 14
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