Having the small-but-really-honestly-very-treatable-don't-worry tumour in my brain was the immediate cause of my non-pregnant life. But there had been something else getting in the way for the past few years:
Depression.
Now, if you’d asked me two years ago if I was depressed, I would have said no. Yes, I worried about a lot of stuff, and I often felt kind of crap about everything, and I did sometimes struggle to do my job and go out and meet people and lead a normal happy life, but that wasn’t cos I was depressed. Of course it wasn’t. It was just cos I was me. And I was a bit rubbish.
It was only once I’d got married and I started feeling really, really crap about everything, all the time, despite the fact I’d just got married to a really great guy and should therefore be feeling really, really great about everything, that I started wondering if I might, in fact, be a bit depressed.
So I went to see my GP.
Simples, right? Well it might be logical to a non-depressed person, but for me, it took a lot of doing. First of all, I wasn’t convinced there was really anything wrong, or that there’d be anything they could do to help. (I didn’t want to make a fuss). Second, I had to make a phone call. (I hate making phone calls.) Third, I wasn’t sure my GP would be sympathetic. (I’d tried before, with other GPs, and not got very far). But I knew I had to start somewhere.
So I made that appointment… and the GP was great. She listened to me, she asked some questions to work out if this was a one-off episode or part of a bigger pattern, and offered me a few treatment options:
Now, if you’d asked me two years ago if I was depressed, I would have said no. Yes, I worried about a lot of stuff, and I often felt kind of crap about everything, and I did sometimes struggle to do my job and go out and meet people and lead a normal happy life, but that wasn’t cos I was depressed. Of course it wasn’t. It was just cos I was me. And I was a bit rubbish.
It was only once I’d got married and I started feeling really, really crap about everything, all the time, despite the fact I’d just got married to a really great guy and should therefore be feeling really, really great about everything, that I started wondering if I might, in fact, be a bit depressed.
So I went to see my GP.
Simples, right? Well it might be logical to a non-depressed person, but for me, it took a lot of doing. First of all, I wasn’t convinced there was really anything wrong, or that there’d be anything they could do to help. (I didn’t want to make a fuss). Second, I had to make a phone call. (I hate making phone calls.) Third, I wasn’t sure my GP would be sympathetic. (I’d tried before, with other GPs, and not got very far). But I knew I had to start somewhere.
So I made that appointment… and the GP was great. She listened to me, she asked some questions to work out if this was a one-off episode or part of a bigger pattern, and offered me a few treatment options:
1) She prescribed me anti-depressants.
In a weird way, this really helped. I went straight to my local chemist, got the pills, and walked home feeling really good. I was Officially Depressed and I had the prescription to prove it.
But when I got home, I started thinking. Could I conceive if I was on antidepressants? I did some research and decided that although some women do, I’d prefer not to have any unnecessary medication in my blood. If I’d already been taking them, it might have been different. But I didn’t want to start taking them, maybe not get on with them, have to try something else, then get used to them and then have to come off them again in order to start trying to conceive. The whole thing could take a year or two and I was already heading for my mid 30s. I didn’t have two years to spare. I clutched my little pack of wonder drugs and wondered if there was anything else I could do. Luckily, the GP hadn’t just given me pills:
In a weird way, this really helped. I went straight to my local chemist, got the pills, and walked home feeling really good. I was Officially Depressed and I had the prescription to prove it.
But when I got home, I started thinking. Could I conceive if I was on antidepressants? I did some research and decided that although some women do, I’d prefer not to have any unnecessary medication in my blood. If I’d already been taking them, it might have been different. But I didn’t want to start taking them, maybe not get on with them, have to try something else, then get used to them and then have to come off them again in order to start trying to conceive. The whole thing could take a year or two and I was already heading for my mid 30s. I didn’t have two years to spare. I clutched my little pack of wonder drugs and wondered if there was anything else I could do. Luckily, the GP hadn’t just given me pills:
2) She gave me some relaxation CDs. I have to say, these were kind of shit. Some gooey-voiced woman telling me to picture myself in a hot air balloon, over a plinky-plonky guitar soundtrack which I soon grew to hate. BUT. I was determined to get better, and I knew I was often tense and afraid, so I did the bloody CDs every day just as instructed. And you know what, they did end up helping me. I became more aware of my body and the tension and the anger it was holding. Often it was holding anger because I was forcing myself to picture myself in a hot air balloon, soaring away from my troubles. Then one day I was getting all worked up about something and suddenly - I was picturing myself in a hot air balloon, soaring away from my troubles...and I totally calmed down and got on with my day. 3) She advised me to stop drinking. At the time, I thought she was wasting my time. Alcohol was one of the few things that was getting me through the days! I loved drinking. If I’m honest, I guess I kind of needed it. When I had to hang out with my friends sober, I became incredibly anxious. I felt boring, awkward, lacking in all sorts of things… I felt like an outsider, drinking ginger ale to everyone else’s beer and remaining stone cold sober whilst everyone else got progressively louder, sillier and less interesting. But…even after one night sober in the pub, I noticed the difference. Gone was the feeling of self-loathing the next day at the thought of all the stupid things I’d said and done. Gone was that heavy feeling in my mouth, the fuzzy brain, the desire to lounge about on the sofa eating crisps. Instead, I woke up feeling … fine. Just fine. I had energy, I could make healthy food choices, I could get on with my work. It made a big difference. And I’d have to stop drinking anyway to get pregnant, wouldn’t I? 4) She made an appointment for me in a month's time Just knowing that I was going to see her again in a month was a big comfort to me. I felt reassured that if things did keep getting worse, she’d pick up on it at our next appointment. She kept seeing me until I was feeling better and that was a big deal to me. I suppose it was a sign that I mattered, and that she took my symptoms seriously, and that she would stick with me until I showed an improvement. This version of events is maybe a bit like the “sequence shortened” ads on TV where they show you slick, speedy things you can do on your tablet which actually take half an hour in real life. I had a lot of stop and starts with the not-drinking and the bloody relaxation CDs. I kept my anti-depressants in the bathroom cupboard and I knew that if things got bad again, I could take them. But I also wanted to have a baby, and I wanted to get better for the sake of my new husband, so we could have a happy marriage instead of one where I cried the whole time. Little by little though, I did feel like I was getting happier and getting calmer. I still felt pretty shit a lot of the time, but the things I were doing gave me enough hope to keep at it. With this new-found strength, I decided I needed to do even more to get really well. You can read more about that here . The image at the top is from Matthew Johnstone's film for the WHO called "I had a black dog, his name was depression". It's a lovely film. It's only four minutes long. If you want to watch it, click here. | |