Post Natal Depression Quotes

Women who had often done little more than manifest behaviours that were out of feminine bounds (such as having a libido) were incarcerated for years in asylums. They were given hysterectomies and clitoridectomies. Women were locked up for having even mild post-natal depression: the grandmother of a friend of mine spent her life in an asylum after throwing a scourer at her mother-in-law. At least one US psychiatric textbook, still widely in use during the 1970s, recommended lobotomies for women in abusive relationships.62

I try, but somehow I am always the woman in the wrong line. Lines are like a foreign language. You have to know how to read and to translate them. What looks to me like a thirty-second transaction invariably ends up as a tenor thirty-minute wait.

A single mother! I’ll put you on the watchlist for post-natal depression then!’.

I promise you beautiful woman, if we hold hands together with unconditional love, compassion, understanding, connection and divine wisdom…that you can venture through this journey with greater ease, lightness, trust and eternal surrender that you will heal and you will get through this. I promise.

I release the shame, guilt, embarrassment and taboo or stigma that is attached to suffering from post-natal depression. I wear my war wounds proudly in hope that I can shine the light for those women and families who see no way out of the trenches. I speak out in hope of creating change in a condition that is widely misunderstood, to create opportunities for healing holistically and change the current model where women can get lost in the system, and can lose their lives battling this silent and very isolating dis-ease.

Whilst parenthood will always have challenging moments, days and periods which can feel extremely exhausting, isolating, lonely and the compelling need to be seen, held and supported from your tribe…for example home schooling during Covid lockdown with two or three children at home, it is normal and natural to feel the frustration and stress. We are humans at the end of the day and our children do test the patience of anyone especially with being in confined spaces, financial stress, when they are fighting or there is constant noise and mess…not to mention throwing in illness to an already exhausting day! It is no wonder that it takes a village to raise a child. However, I still do feel that this is manageable when your brain biochemistry is balanced. One can draw on the inner resilience to get through the chaos that is, but with imbalanced biochemistry with PND it can be enough to make you feel like you cannot go on.

Summer showed me to be present and allow the new growth of life to flourish.

Sometimes we’re lost; we’re deep in emotions and we’re drowning in them.

What you’re looking for is already within you and only you can find that.

This is your story and only you can write it. So, take my hand, turn the page, and know that I am here to support and care for you within each word. But there will come a time when you let go, and I will stand back as you begin your journey home.

Over the years, I have had many bad ideas, and keeping my mental illness a secret was one of them.

As I began to connect back to myself and hear my thoughts instead of other people´s, I started seeing the connection we have with nature, and how it shows us every day, in every season, how to live in our own world. Upon my walks, I watched how Mother Nature changes, how each day she rises—every day, every season, every year, nature rises, time and time again. If she is broken, she will rise. She will break through the concrete to grow her roots if she needs to, but she does it her way and in her time and it´s only other people who break her, she never breaks herself. When I watched this, I knew that I could rise too. I was going to rise up through the years of mental destruction and break through.

I wanted to share my story with you so that you felt less alone. I didn’t want you to feel like no one understood like I did, because they do. They’re our secrets too.

I wanted you to see who you are—I wanted you to see that you are not your mental illness; you are so much more. You are you and you are wanted. But right now you are hurting, and being so unwell is painful, but it’s even harder hiding it.

So, believe me or not, you already hold everything you need. What you need is not on the outside; it’s not about the things you buy, the contacts you make, the money in your bank or how you look. It’s about you. It’s the thoughts and the feelings you walk with every day. It’s knowing that you are worthy, that you are so worthy of feeling well and balanced, and that you are wanted and needed–by you and by us. This is your journey on Earth, no one else’s, and the only person that can do your life is you. It’s yours and every second of each breath you take belongs to you. You are your life.

I saw how earth became silent after snowfall, and how the flowers and plants retreat in winter. Nature was telling me it was a time for respite, recovery, and healing.

I won’t be telling you that the reason you may feel unfulfilled is because you’re not good enough yet, or that you’re missing something that you need to work harder for. This book is taking all of that away. It’s stripping back the things that have been added to you throughout your life in an attempt to help you feel whole and worthy being you. You see, you are already worthy without any of that. You are worthy just the way you are–nothing added, nothing taken away. This book is about finding you in a world where you can feel so on show yet unseen, so in demand yet lost. This book is not about being bigger and better; it’s about being you and finding the part of you that wants you back to the home you hold within you. And as you read these pages, I hope you recognise that within you is your true voice, which whispers quietly that you are needed and wanted. You are loved, and you are worthy in this world and within your life just the way you are.

And there it was—it was the seasons I’d been searching for.

I saw that Mother Nature was giving me the answers; she was showing me the way. But because I’d had my head busy with improving myself and moving forwards towards that non-existent finish line, I’d never stopped to see it.

You have been untaught that within you are your answers. Within you may be pain and suffering. There may be sadness, regret, grief, a lost dream, a forgotten hope. There may be a lost child who had their childhood taken away. Perhaps an adult trapped inside that has never gone for it for fear of rejection, being laughed at, or looking like a failure. You’ve kept yourself protected because no one else did.

Have you become silenced and given up? It is, of course, less painful to give up and to support others than to be seen as having failed and not receiving any support yourself.

And there my darkness became my normality, and I lived within a haze of silent mental destruction for years. There have been a couple of occasions that I’ve had to get serious help because I was knocking on suicide´s door, I was fading away. I’d constantly question why I didn’t feel happy and well like other people did? What was I doing so wrong that I’d choose death over life?

So, as I watched and learnt, I noticed that as the golden leaves floated down and became a part of the ground, autumn was teaching me to let go of what had run its course.

I saw how spring offers a fresh start and that each plant grows in its own time and when it’s ready. Spring was showing me that sometimes we’re not ready to bloom, but one day we will be, and it will be when it’s right.

I wanted to know how to feel accepted by myself, and also for me to be accepting of the world around me that I didn’t like.

You are worthy of your life.

I couldn’t change what had happened, no matter how hard it was to hear. But instead, I’d be a new version of who I was, and one day she will be ok. I’ll like her; I’ll like who she becomes; in fact, one day, I’ll love her.

I found it strange not doing anything to improve myself. Not focussing on writing my goals for the day, not reading a chapter of a book to expand my never-ending need for knowledge, and not being a part of any self-help, goal-setting groups. All of that had stopped and I was just being me, and that’s where I got stuck because I couldn’t remember who that was. Who was I when I wasn’t hiding behind improving my business or becoming a better, more positive version of myself? I had become a stranger.

My world had slowed to my pace. I found a new un-need for things. I didn’t need to buy, change or replace anything. I liked the things I had. I read fictional books of adventure, love, and crime. It felt like, finally, the ¨be a better version¨ race had finished, so instead of being constantly out of breath, I could breathe and just be me.

I felt freedom when exposing my mental illness for what it was. How telling the depth of my journey for you became a way to release what it had held over me for so long. It was no longer powerful; it had become weak, and I could see it for what it really was. It was a bully, and I’d been bullied by my own brain. But I’d just pulled its pants down in front of everyone, and my deepest secret became my most exposed truth, and there I was, no longer a sufferer. Instead, I was a survivor.