Pregnancy & Depression in a Nutshell-ish

So, I've come to realise that I've had depression since I was 18 - I cried almost every single night in my late teens and throughout university. I simply didn't realise how wrong that was. 

I had a good few years, aged 21, after graduation was reasonable. 2009-2010 were brilliant, I was resilient, was reliable at work, finished my second degree, travelled over an hour to get to work in the mornings and I enjoyed life...  

Right up until I discovered that I was pregnant with my first child. No one warned me how hard it could be, I had no idea that a planned pregnancy could cause me so much misery:

I hated being pregnant

I hated the fact that I didn't realise I was until I was about 2 weeks late (L.O.L)

I hated my morning sickness (or all day and all night sickness) and it depriving me of food, thinking about food, even Come Dine With Me was a no-go.

I hated that the first trimester is like a 12 week hangover, with only one night of fun that caused it!

 hated that people told me that sickness goes away at 12 weeks (mine was 16, I was lucky)

I hated having to keep it a secret (I'm a naturally chatty, gossipy person, I wanted to tell people!) - what is it with Society's obsession with early pregnancy being a taboo thing to talk about? Those were the scariest weeks of my life. 

I hated that my body was being hijacked by a foetus that made me feel so dreadful and I couldn't control it AT ALL. 

I hated that pregnancy turned me into a horrible person. 

So, you get the point. 

For balance, things I enjoyed about my pregnancies:

The magic of the growing, moving, wriggling baby. I loved my boys before I met them. 

Wearing figure hugging clothes and celebrating curves!

Second meals (after the first one ended up in the toilet)

Anyway, after Ewan, my eldest, I had PTSD, got that treated (another story for another day) and then I got pregnant again, once again on purpose but MUCH faster than expected. Google did not tell me that stopping cerazette would enable me to conceive straight away. The moral is, don't trust Dr Google. 

Second pregnancy: ditto all the points from above, add in weaning, crawling, walking and toddler tantrums. 

The second birth was fine, took Noah home, all seemed fine, I'd read books on 2 under 2 ... Except for the juggling the needs of 2 tiny boys, sleep deprivation and the huge guilt that troubled me from day 1, how on earth do I show these boys that they're equally important and loved, while seeing to their every need? I am not being cocky when I say that I think I'm getting there.

By the time Noah was 10 weeks old, MrB noticed that we needed an impromptu holiday (to those huts in the forest where everyone goes swimming every day)... Which helped, however, after that I started to slip into Post Natal Depression.

I cried, I was tired even when both boys slept through, I was irrationally angry, I worried about the boys' diets, I worried about usual mum junk, I worried that everyone hates me, looked around and realised that I had no one to talk to ... Oh, yes, that's my old depression thrown in for good measure as well as post natal depression *fanfare*. 

Anyway, Noah is now 16 months old and I still have PND. I noticed it 11 months ago, but have only just broken through a complex web of denial and bullshit that I have told myself. I need therapy, I need medication and I need time for myself. 

So, this is my story. I think that there are quite a lot of stories about my mental health hardships still left to tell.