Down in the Dumps

Today

What with his aching back, increasing deafness and the continuing dreary weather, Paul's been feeling a bit depressed. It's been making him rather grumpy which is difficult to live with.

"There are two difficulties for loved ones when someone has depression," I said. "Firstly, you feel somehow responsible as though it's up to you to put things right. Secondly, the depressed person often doesn't simply say "I'm sad, help me"; they are withdrawn, grumpy or snipe at people so that one reacts to the behaviour, not the underlying cause."

We talked about the different types of depression - the type that is a result of external difficulties and the depression that descends without warning like a cloud and disappears in much the same way.

In My Day

When Lizzie was born, safe and beautiful after a long and difficult labour I should have been euphoric. Once the initial flurry of relations and congratulations was over, I found myself engulfed by lethargy and inactivity. Getting up in the morning was often only achieved because I knew that the midwife was due or some other external factor. On many days, if Paul's job hadn't meant that he could come home for lunch, I might not have got up until evening.

Paul would clear up the breakfast things, get himself some lunch and go back to work without comment. By evening I would at least have managed to get dressed. I must have looked so unutterably sad that Paul would sometimes ask me what was the matter. This would simply trigger unstoppable tears. I lost all interest in the physical side of our marriage and have lost count of the nights when I pretended to be asleep.

It wasn't as though Lizzie was a problem. After the first ten days or so she slept all night and was pretty placid during the daytime. I managed to feed her and keep her clean but that was about all.

Poor Paul! We were so young and had no idea what was going on. We didn't think to ask for help and simply soldiered on. I confused my experience with the "baby blues" - a tearful state that occurs when the baby's about three days old and is gone within another three - and had no idea that I had proper post-natal depression and maybe could have received some help.

Suddenly, one day, when Lizzie was about twenty months old, the cloud lifted and the sun came back out, prompting me to ask "what was all that about?" The experience prompted me to offer counselling to sufferers with PND because it's got nothing to do with one's own actions or external difficulties; it just arrives, then goes, without warning.

These days, with the medicalisation of everything, it's easy to confuse conditions that are actually an illness and those which are part of the normal feelings associated with life's difficulties.