Beyond Blue, Movember and Postnatal Depression (PND) Awareness Week

I choose to support a few causes through donations on an ongoing basis. One of these is Movember and the awareness and support for Beyond Blue National Depression Initiative and Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia. I have friends, family and colleagues who grow a mo and it's all a bit of fun.

But it is also very serious and personal for me.

A few days ago I saw a poster for Beyond Blue, just briefly, and I can't remember the exact wording, but it had pictured 5 people, 4 of which were blind folded and writing to the effect of '1 in 5 people have depressions, but the other 4 suffer too'. I went looking on the website thinking I might see it there, but I didn't get further than discovering that it is currently Postnatal Depression Awareness week.

Of the people pictured in the poster, I would have been the one not blind folded.

It has been 2 years now since I have escaped the depths of perinatal depression (depression whilst pregnant and post natal depression). I was so ashamed of the depression that I felt that I did not 'confess' this depression to many people. I sought help, I saw my doctor, had a mental health care plan drawn up and saw a Psychologist. This continued in various levels of severity for around 2 years. My husband and mother carried the burden of helping me through this difficult time, whilst having to deal with a depressed me.

Only since returning to a somewhat normal version of myself, do I see how difficult it was for them through that stage of our lives. My mother and husband still don't fully understand what I went through, but they tried to understand and worked with me to get me better. No one really understands what it is like to be depressed, unless they have been depressed. I wish now, that I had spoken up at mother's groups and with friends. I realise now how many other people have been through or are going through depression. To some degree I feel a connection with these people that I have since been able to talk to about PND and liberated to say out loud exactly what I was going through and know that to them, it isn't that outrageous.

My small support network could have been so much larger if more people were aware of what depression is, if the stigma was taken away, and if I had just spoken up. I feared that people would react with "she's just had a baby, what's she got to be depressed out about?" or "having a baby is hard work - get over it". To be honest, I think a few people I know still would say something like that. But most of the people that I know now and have started talking about it with, have said something more like "I wish you had just let me know!".

I am eternally grateful for the love and support that I did receive, without which, this would have been a very different story.

I still have my ups and downs, like most people, and sometimes I feel my downs getting a little too low. But it is manageable now and I know what to do to get myself out of it before it sinks back to depression. I can only hope that I can keep doing that.

I have my garden now, too, and as my daughter says "Mummy goes to her green house when she is upset", but she also knows I go there when I am happy too. I am driven into my garden by an internal force. I often say to my husband "I need to go into the garden" and there I find my relaxation and calm. I have garden walks to take people on, even if it is mostly my husband and children. They don't seem to mind being taken on a garden walk several times a week. In fact, my daughter has started taking me on garden walks to see her gardens now, too!

So, thank you to my family who suffered holding my hand, and thank you to those who suffered without really knowing what was wrong, yet are still friends with me now.

Thank you for all of you who are growing a mo and to those of you making donations.

Let's not be ignorant to depression. Learn more and help someone you know, because if 1 in 5 people suffer depression, if it is not you, it will be someone you love.

http://www.beyondblue.org.au

http://au.movember.com