6 weeks into my Sertraline prescription and after my first talking therapy session, I could feel that I was starting to return to my old self.
Lets start with some background to my personality.
Since a nipper I have been non-stop active, fun loving, consciencous, caring and happy, but I have had some dips in my mood in the past, none of which required any kind of intervention though.
I've always been shy, when I was a youngster I was ridiculously timid. I recall a parents evening at the start of secondary school when my history teacher begged me, in front of my parents, to speak more in class. I am fairly certain that is an unusual request for a teacher to make.
I have never had much self confidence and I have always set my standards too high, never been satisfied with my own personal achievements. An example being my GCSE results day. I got 6 A's, 5 B's and a C. I was absolutely mortified by my C. Rather than being proud of my A's and B's, I was heartbroken by my C in Spanish. There is nothing bad about getting a C I'd like to add but I had worked so hard and to me I had failed myself. My Spanish ended up getting re-marked and was upped to a B but by then I had experienced total disappointment.
I know I should be proud of my achievements, I worked so very hard to get to where I am. I think the school systems are partly to blame (I "failed" my 11+ when it was expected I would pass, and then passed my 12+, I went off a grammar school where I was made to feel anything lower than a B wasn't good enough only to get a C in Spanish when I had been predicted an A, then at A level I got BBCD and was the only person out of all my friends not to get into university that year. I spent a year at home, whilst everyone else enjoyed uni life, and resat my exams) but my opinions on school assessment is another topic entirely. The point is, I set my standards high even at a young age and achieving didn't come easily to me. It wasnt until I was a sucessfully qualified 22 year old Physiotherapist, working with so many different people, patients and colleagues, from so many different backgrounds, and I was able to see that I was making a positive difference in their lives, that my self esteem began to improve. And over the 7 years since qualifying, I gradually became a much stronger person.
So back to the main point of this post. I didn't have a masses of confidence before I had post natal depression but the confidence I did have, had been built up over years of work , and so this monster had taken what confidence I had. I have had 11 months of feeling almost reclusive, with most conversation being no more complex than 'I think it's snack time' or 'have you done a poo? ' So I pleasantly surprised myself on a work course in London last week.
I have never been fazed when it comes to travelling so the trip alone to London did not daunt me one bit, but once in London my apprehensive, polite, introvert self took over again. It was rush hour and I missed the first 2 tubes for the sole reason that, unlike everyone else in Baker Street station, I didn't confidently and forcefully push my way onto a train that had not a single inch of space left on it, and I was left behind each time.
Eventually making it to London Bridge and into my course room, something unusual yet distantly familiar happened, I found myself chatting to the other strangers in the room, mostly health professionals, all with a neurological interest. I immediately saw some of that bygone confidence and my true identity making a reappearance. It wasn't until that point that I realised how long it's been since I saw this person and quite how much I've missed them!
The day continued in this way. We had to do a role play type task, my idea of a nightmare, but at the end of the task, the course leader asked for some feedback and to my astonishment I was the first person in the group to volunteer my opinion and to top it off, I got a laugh from the group! My history teacher would have been so proud.
Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a total transformation from the PND me to the old me, I had my moments, like when I couldn't figure out how the hot water jug worked and eventually, timidly and in embarrassment asked someone to help me. But the old me was definitely reminding me every so often that they are still there and to me this brought hope and a monumental, positive step in my recovery.
I got home from London and received big cuddles from my son, it had been a long day away from him, the longest so far, and I had really missed him but I had also enjoyed my day. I had used my grey matter, been involved in intellectual conversation with actual adults and it had allowed me to rediscover my own identity. Today I was me and not just E's mummy.
As I write this I'm watching my little boy, who is 3 weeks from his first birthday, pulling himself up to stand and waving at me and I finally feel proud of myself. It's been a tough journey these last 11 months, with big highs and lows but my son is a handsome, well behaved, albeit cheeky, intelligent little man and I played a massive role in that, I am truly seeing that now. Returning to work in 3 weeks time will be tough but stricking the right balance between being me and being E's mummy, I feel, will bring me back to that cheerful, confident person I was a year ago. Normality.
No comments:
Post a Comment