What two brutal periods of postnatal depression taught me about living with depression, and ten things I do to manage low mood now
I've accepted now that I live with depression, but it's taken me five decades to recognise the triggers, and understand what to do when they arrive.
A close friend has just emerged from a period of depression which swallowed her for about six months. Although she has previously experienced periods of feeling overwhelmed, or down, or very, very low, this was the first time she’d had the kind of depression which made her feel completely separate from the world, and disassociated from the people and things she loved most.
Did she feel like she was living in muffled silence on one side of a sheet of glass, with the rest of life moving and laughing and animated, on the far side, visible but way beyond reach? And she said, yes, that’s exactly what it feels like, like the world is going on in another place which I can see, but cannot reach. We’ve talked several times a week since then, and she gave me permission to refer to her experience here since we’ve discussed the way that hearing other people have been through exactly the same experience makes it easier to understand, then recover from.
Talking to her, and holding her hand, at least as much as I can from across the Atlantic, has reminded me (again, again, again, again) how important it is to share our stories. When we share this stuff, we feel less alone, less ashamed, and more compassionate, more human. And so today, inspired by what my friend has been through and emerged from, I want to write specifically about managing depression, which is something I’ve lived with since I was a child, and which hit me particularly hard, in my late thirties, after the births of my third and fourth children, and returns to me again, quite regularly. Experiencing post-natal depression has helped me understand how the specific feelings of depression differ from feeling low or down or blue, and also helps me to identify depression now, when it returns. It also showed me how to create small, fragile, essential changes in my life, which today I depend on to haul myself out of depression, when it returns. I went through a period of it, for about two months, in 2023, and again last Autumn, and although it was devastating and painful, I think I’ve now learned to accept it as part of who I am. I’m going to share with you what happened, and how I dealt with it, since I’ve learned, or am learning, as this is an ongoing process, that I’m not powerless when it starts creeping back. I’m also going to share ten extremely simple and free things I do, at least every week and often every day, to counter depression.
I’m going to caveat this by saying I’m not a psychologist or psychiatrist, but that instead I’m going to share things I’ve personally learned, having experienced post natal-depression and clinical depression; this will also include reference to violent intrusive thoughts and suicidal ideation.