Free Microsoft Word - At Last A Life Final Copy 16-03-09 by Maureen Page A

pregnancy complications and had
    ‘normal’ pregnancy worries, but it was very difficult being
    alone all day. Then, out of the blue, something was said
    which I couldn’t get out of my mind and this lead to obsessive
    thoughts about my unborn baby’s health, which then
    developed into more obscure obsessive thoughts about
    harming my own child.
    I was in such a bad state I walked to the local hospital and
    they kept me in for 3 months. At the time, I hadn’t found this
    site, and had never heard of antenatal anxiety/depression
    before, so didn’t know what I had. I thought it was the
    deterioration of my mental health and that I was becoming
    schizophrenic or going crazy. The hospital weren’t much help
    to be honest, and I spent much of my day on my own in bed
    obsessing, and became afraid to leave my hospital room. I
    convinced myself that I was a bad mother, would never be

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    able to look after my own child, and would need psychiatric
    treatment for the rest of my life.
    Then when my baby was born, they sent me packing with my
    newborn and some ADs, which I took for 4 months…and
    very little else.
    During the first year I plodded along without knowing (or
    believing) what was actually wrong with me really, and I
    avoided ‘normal’ situations with which I felt uncomfortable. In
    hindsight, this was the wrong thing to do, as it wasn’t until I
    actually faced my fears that I started to recover. But, of
    course I didn’t know this is what was necessary to recover. I
    thought I needed to rest and one day I would wake up and be
    back to normal, but it never happened. It was a very difficult
    year, and I had the most terrible thoughts which I couldn’t
    control and I walked around with DP for most of the day,
    barely functioning really, trapped in my own little world with
    my terrible thoughts.
    It was after the first year that I came across very helpful
    information on the internet and read stories of those who had
    recovered. I joined a forum for those suffering from Post
    Natal Depression and this has helped me enormously. This
    is when I came across Paul as well, and the start of my
    recovery began.
    What you must do is NOT avoid your fears. In fact if you fear
    something, DO MORE OF IT, pay no heed to the intrusive
    thoughts, they are not actions.
    When a thought enters your head, the moment a negative
    emotion is attached to it and you are probably having that
    sickly feeling in the pit of your stomach, you need to get rid of
    this emotion and adopt a ‘whatever’, ‘as if’ attitude to your
    thoughts. It takes time and effort, but the rewards are huge
    and if you can recreate this new emotion - a ‘don’t care’
    emotion - then you will be able to dismiss the thoughts as
    utter rubbish and they will diminish. At the moment, the fear

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    you feel for the thoughts is what is keeping them coming.
    Once the fear has gone they will have no hold over you
    whatsoever and you can also adopt this new attitude to
    chronic worries as well.
    At first, this don’t care/whatever attitude may ‘feel’ false as if
    you are having to fake it, but like one doctor said in an article
    I read, you need to ‘fake it to make it’. Kiss, cuddle, smile,
    talk to your kids/grandkids, even if you have no feeling or
    inappropriate feelings/thoughts, and it will come naturally in
    time. This is so very true and I can personally vouch for it.
    You must practice the behaviour you want to achieve - in
    your case it means no ‘negative’ emotion attached to an
    intrusive thought.
    I promise you that in time, if you just follow these few
    behaviour changes, you will notice less obsessive/intrusive
    thoughts. It won’t happen overnight because you will have
    doubts to begin with, but in the weeks and months ahead,
    your mind will slowly clear and you will begin to notice a
    difference.
    At the height of my suffering, I was pushing my baby in his
    pram to pick up my other son from school and I saw a
    knitting