I have the most amazing son who i love more than words can express but about two months after he was born i have been suffering from anxiety attacks!!! i have days where its a struggle to get out of bed and then others where i feel perfectly fine! i m so confused because i love my son so much but i m struggling to cope!! i have a fantastic health visitor who is incredibly supportive, she is the only person i have been able to talk to about my feelings!! in the last two months i have barely slept and i m plagued by horrible thoughts!! i know i need to go to the gp but i just feel like such a failure and i m frightened they will judge me!! i cry uncontrolably nearly every day and i just want it to stop!! sometimes i feel detatched from my own body like i am looking down on myself! i dont have many friends and my family arent great when it comes to emotions so really i m just looking for someone to talk to who feels the same way!!!

Feeling judged is horrible and this awful illness magnifies any insecurity or vulnerabilities, but the one person who can really help is your GP. Once you take that step through the surgery door and start to talk about it you can begin accepting the situation, it's hard but you're doing an incredible job taking care of a little one and coping with this. I was exactly the same 3 months ago, once I started talking I was given the right support and treatment and within a couple of weeks felt much better, the tears stopped and I started to rationalize again. Remember this is nothing to do with how much you love your baby, he knows that he has the best mummy in the world but you have to take care of yourself. Hope this helps x

This is just the same as
me. I've been on sertraline for nearly 3wks now and feel loads better. The anxiety thing stopped just over a week of taking the medication. I really strongly recomend you go to your gp. The sooner you go the sooner you will get better.
Hope you feel better soon

Hello, how are you now ? As the other ladies have said , you will get better. But it doesn't seem like it will ever go when you are in the grip of it. Recovery takes time , but you will get there. My son is now one but 2 days after he was born , i felt i had made a terrible mistake. the anxiety i felt was horrendous - I felt tormented by my thoughts. I spent six weeks basically unable to get out of bed , in a sea of tears, having about 10 panic attacks a day. i felt unable to breathe , could not be in the same room as my son on my own and had an overwhelming fear of the future. the idea that i was now a mum , forever , unable to unbirth him , beyonf terifying. i was crippled with fear beyond my control. But I am better. It may seem like there is no way out - I remeber crawling round on all fours on my mother in laws bed , screaming till my mouth bled , totally hysterical. I remeber telling my husband that i could not posibly feel any lower than i did , that i was in a black pit and suicide was the only way out . I called my health visitor who listened to what i said , and saw a doc who put me on anti depressants. I also got so bad, that I went into a mother and baby psychiatric unit for a little while. and - I got better. It's taken a year to get where I am now but I got here. I am now back at work , love my son , adore him , and can enjoy life. I still have intrusive thoughts sometimes - mine are often about the fear of being a mum - but I read a wad load of books about how to deal with intrusive thoughts , and I now know to just ignore them . I got brooke shields book - down came the rain - and it was instrumental in my recovery. Please remeber that the very fact you have posted on a blog means you want to confront the illness and rid yourself of it. and you will. talk to your health visitor. talk to your doc - they wont think of you badly in any way. if you find the doc is unsympathetic , see another one. If they prescribe anti d's - don't be ashamed. I truly believe taking anti d's saved my life. I took sertraline but it didnt work for me ( tho i know a lot of people i have met with pnd and say sertraline was totally amazing for them ) so they changed me to amitriptrline. and within a couple of weeks, i felt the anxiety going. there are hundreds of anti d's on the market and there will be one to suit you. Please remember that recovery wont occur over night - it can take a while - but you will get there. you are a great mum , just rememebr that xxxxxxx

I had a really good few days recently and honestly thought i was getting better but then two days ago there were some family issues and i hit rock bottom and did something i never thought i would return to!! When i was younger i went through a really bad period where i felt so alone and unhappy that it would cause me physical pain! I used to feel i could control this pain by self harming, i did it on and off for years and didnt tell anyone and i never have!! I feel awful i look at my beautiful baby boy and cant understand why i feel the way i do, he is so good and so amazing and i love him with all my heart but i cant control my sadness and when its comes its so unbearable! I m scared to tell my health visitor what happened as i am worried she will take my baby away! I feel so ashamed and desperate for things to change, i wish that when i was sad that i could just cry and then get on with it but instead i feel so down its agonising! When will this end???

Bex, are you ok ? How have you been feeling? xx