Helping myself

There are, I have decided, three things contributing to my ongoing depression. One is the fact that because we have decided to try for another baby (no news yet, before you ask) I cannot/do not want to take any medication. So I feel rather out on a limb because I know that I have to help myself through this. Second, because we are trying for another baby, I go through periods when I cannot drink alcohol (which makes me sound like an alcoholic), but I look foward to my gin and tonic at the end of each day with inordinate joy. The fact that I miss it so much when I cannot have it will tell you more about how much I look forward to it than anything I could write! The third is my worry that I no longer have post-partum depression, which to me is an acceptable face of depression, and instead I have Depression, which to me is way less acceptable. I mean, my younger son, William, is nearly two and I don’t think that I can ascribe this depression to his birth anymore. I’m sure however I can ascribe it to being stuck at home with small children. Quite why I struggle with this now, when I didn’t initially, still remains a question in my head. As I’ve said before perhaps it is the cumulative lack of tiredness or adult conversation, or the fact that daily life with two small children is very much harder than with one small child. But most likely it is that I’m tired of being simply someone else’s mother and wife. Which begs the question, would the children be better off being looked after by someone else while I go back to work. And with another baby planned, is there any point? If I were working now, I feel fairly certain that I would not be experiencing these feelings of depression. I think. However I still feel the children are better off being looked after by me, even if I am not at my happiest doing so, for although I am terribly depressed I don’t know that it rubs off on them that much. The depression is mostly internal, perhaps becoming more obvious if I am tired, but mostly it is how I am feeling inside. I don’t lay in bed all day, because I can’t. I don’t crawl into a little ball and disappear when the boys are playing or when they need feeding, because I can’t.Not having another baby is not an option. Going on medication is not an option. Snapping out of this depression (which by the way New Mum at toddler group last week referring to how you overcame your own ‘depression’ is THE LEAST HELPFUL THING you can ever say to someone who is depressed) is not an option. Getting rest, food, trying to find small joys in each day are options. Learning to accept that life at home with two small children is not everything I thought it would be, but I can still make the most of it, is an option. Finding things to call my own is an option: step one, get my own personal blog space; step two, time away now and again from the family without any emotional guilt being laid on me (my plans to get away to London last week on my own didn’t quite work out the way I had intended them); step three, a regular day off which I can look forward to. I am slowly suffocating here and that is not good for me or my family. They are going to have to learn to deal with a new me and frankly I don’t know why it’s taken me so long.