This is a statement I look at now and cannot believe it was me.
But it was an overwhelming sensation deep in my gut.
I didn’t want to die.
I just wanted the world to stop.
For a bit.
I had a beautiful new baby.
I was in a weird fog that lived in my brain.
And I wanted to drive off the road.
Eventually the Dr diagnosed me with Postnatal Depression.
I spent the next 4 months battling to get the help I needed.
I tried CBT (it works for some but not for me)
I spoke to the psychiatric nurse who informed me I was living as if I was on holiday (if this was the case, I wanted my money back!).
I didn’t give up. In some ways this was my downfall. My weekly visits to the Dr and striving to get well meant that people thought I wasn’t very ill. I told myself that story too. It was only mild, I had nothing to be miserable about, I had everything in the world to be grateful for.
Yet I wanted to drive off the road.
Eventually I was given medication that helped me get back on track and the fog lifted enough to re-enter life.
It was a year in total.
I am grateful for that time. It was awful. It was a challenge I didn’t know I would have to tackle. But I did. And I came out with a resilience I didn’t know I possessed.
It also led me to personal development.
Before my second daughter was born, I signed up to a 20 week hypnotherapy, NLP and reiki programme.
The decision to invest in myself changed my life.
I enabled myself to have a natural delivery after a c-section, I learned the tools to help myself when I felt my mood lowering and I entered the world of holistic healing including becoming a Reiki Practitioner.
It was another 9 years until I trained to become a coach and NLP practitioner myself and help others in the way I had been helped.
The most important things I learned during this time were…
💜Never give up.
💜Keep putting one foot in front of the other.
💜Seek help when you need it.
I will never regret a single penny I have invested in myself.
It isn’t selfish, it’s the most selfless thing you can do. It allows those around you to expand into your growth, it shows your friends and family what’s possible so they can do it too.
Investing in myself has brought some of the most joyful moments in my life and it only gets better with each day.
(The picture is what Postnatal Depression looks like.)