I appear to have lost my Happy...

‘Stop crying, get up and make a cake. They’re waiting. Suck. It. Up’

I recently found this self-addressed post-it note clinging to the smudged insides of my make-up case. Although the tremendously jittery handwriting was undoubtedly mine, it was almost like it had been written by an alien version of myself.

It's not often that I take life too seriously. Any of you familiar with my blog will agree with me there.

Nevertheless, it was always my intention to be open and honest in the jolliest of ways to ensure that Mum's everywhere throw their up-chuck cloths in the air shouting 'Horah! 'Tis not just me!'

In the tradition of this, I feel it's time to lower the mood just a tad and address something that so many of us experience, but so many of us hush away for fear appearing a failure.

Postnatal Depression.

We all know that it's common; we all know that it's not in any way a reflection on our capability as a mother. Yet for some reason, there is a loop hole of silent trepidation that stops those amongst us from putting our hand up and saying ‘Yep, I need to talk about this’.

To clarify, it was when my second baby hit the 12 week mark that I suffered from acute PND. Although my particular situation was not to the extreme levels that some experience, it was enough to send me into hibernation and an all-out spiral into self doubt.

But, let’s start at the very beginning shall we? As Julie Andrews suggests, it’s a very good place to start.

The week that we found that we were expecting a second bundle of joy coincided with the week my mother found that she had Cancer.

While doctors had uncovered the start of life in my uterus, they had also uncovered the start of Cancer in hers.

As fate would allow, it had been detected at a very early stage and urgent surgery to remove the affected areas was being organised.

Mum, being Mum, approached the whole thing as she does with most challenges. This was merely a slight set back that would be eradicated without lasting impact. It would be an extremely rare occurrence to find Mum in any predicament which she saw as overwhelming, and this was to be no exception.

‘So they found a bit of Cancer… but it’s all being sorted. Are you in for dinner? I’m making chicken stuffed with fetta.’  Was our blasé introduction to the news.

‘I’m fiiiine,’ she insisted. ‘Nothing is going to happen to me, I’m far too busy to die and I simply can’t be sick for too long because my roses and sweet peas will be blooming this Spring and I need to be able to prune them. Case closed.’

Consequently, I spent the first trimester of my pregnancy pre-occupied with the following a) vomiting at 15 minute intervals and b) denying the fact that my mother was anything other than super human.

The thought of any existence without my mother was too debilitating to comprehend. I simply could not visualise it and had no choice but to agree with her idea of recovering without concern.

Still, guilt consumed me each and every time I rolled about the bathroom floor in a morning sickness self-pity party.

‘Poor Mum is having all her insides removed and facing a future of radiation treatment and I’m lulling about like a great big sooky La-La because I just threw up breakfast. I. Am. A. Horrible. Daughter.’

As we waited with baited breath for test result after test result, I simply had to reside myself to the notion that everything was going to be fine. And, although the surgery required the removal of more than they had initially anticipated, it appeared that most could be removed and that she would be expected, in time, to make a full recovery.

She would indeed be able to prune her roses come the Spring.

I sat by her bedside waiting for her to wake after her surgery, looking for a waste bin to vomit into and anticipating the ramifications of this event.

Two hours post surgery, she tapped me on the shoulder and anxiously probed, ‘did you water the plants today, and you didn’t notice a coffee station on your way in did you, Darling?’

And that was that. Bullet dodged. Normality to be resumed. Go on with the pregnancy.

So, as months of recovery and pregnancy ticked by, we were cleared of Cancer and presented with a beautiful baby girl, Miss Moo, in its place.

Being the yoga enthused, past-in-the-past, kind of girl that I am, I ridiculously concluded that the worst was in the past and no longer an issue.

However, at 12 weeks post birth, I found myself cocooned in a blanket of overwhelming distress. Each and every emotion that I had supressed and failed to process during my pregnancy had bubbled to the surface and blistered my post natal bliss.

Adding to the concern, I felt a perplexing separation growing between myself and Soccer Hubby. In the whole ten minutes a day that I saw him, he appeared completely pre-occupied with the external issues of work, soccer and a thriving social life. All of which were foreign to me. Like it was with the rest of the world, all communication with him was on lock down.

‘But all I have is this little family I have created, how dare you find sanctuary in anything else! How dare your life continue while mine is dictated by feeding patterns and playtime! How dare you leave me behind!’ I wanted to scream at him, but all that escaped my lips was ‘do you want another serving or are you ready for dessert?’

I didn’t sleep. At all. I didn’t have time to eat. Yet, with no rest and fuel, I was pressuring myself to function as the Super Human Mumbot that I had programed myself to be.

Daylight would come and go and I would refuse it like a burnt meal. I refrained from opening the blinds and did little to acknowledge that there was a world out there ticking by without me. I had wrapped a bubble around myself and my two darling girls and I point blank, rejected anything external of the three of us. I am a perfect mother, you have a perfect mother girls, look at me being all perfect. Oh, how I longed to be able to shout ‘EXPECTO PERTRONUS!’ and have a white flash of positive light whizz about around us like they did on Harry Potter. (Bloody show offs.)

I was losing the balance with everything around me but I was not going to fail these girls.

I would spend every waking second smiling and fingerpainting, breastfeeding and reading, then would huddle in the darkness of their naptime and sob quietly until they woke up and wanted my attention again.

At precisely 5.30pm, I would commence the preparations needed to transform from the mess I was to the Stepford Wife I expected of myself for Soccer Hubby’s return.

I did my make-up, made sure the house was in order and the children bathed. I prepared the multiple course meals that Soccer Hubby would walk into. Finding me collected and smiling in the sparkling kitchen, he would think that it was easy to achieve all this and still find the time to make a three tier cake in the short space he was gone. Easy.

Somewhere in those moments, I had created a character of ‘Dee’ and underwent drastic mental discipline to perform as her when needed.

When cheery girlfriends would suggest a day out, I would accept the invitation as this bubbly, vibrant version and play her with perfection. On went the heels and the earrings, the lip gloss and the dark glasses and out she came. Clicking about behind the pram and making random quips during afternoons of gossip.

But the Cinderella fear lingered behind the costume. At any moment, midnight would hit and I would have to go skipping down the staircase, sans heels, with the outfit bursting at the seams to reveal the tattered P.J’s underneath.

On few occasions, people would note that I was looking ‘tired’. Of course I’m tired! I haven’t slept since my last trimester you twit!

‘No, no, no.’ I would giggle. ‘It’s just that Vampires are so in fashion at the moment, I try to keep up with the youth and all, you know how it is,’ I would make light of the topic, hiding behind attempted wit as usual.

By the time the delayed dialogue had been transcribed to my fading mind, it sounded less like ‘you look tired’ and more like ‘you look like total bollocks and you should not be in public. It’s no wonder that your husband doesn’t love you anymore you silly, silly little girl.’

Some nights, I barely managed to close the bathroom door before bursting into tears. In the few seconds it took to splash my face with water and look back at the mirror, hundreds of thoughts had already plagued me.

You could have lost your Mum. Cancer can come back. Your husband doesn’t love you anymore. Obviously due to the fact that you’re weak and silly. Also, you currently look like you’re 50. There is a strong possibility that you will never sleep again. On top of that, there are now TWO children who need you to be perfect. You’re really not keeping up with all this are you… etc etc etc.

I was wired on a self-timer, dancing about on the stage of life playing the role of Perfect Housewife, then blabbering into a towel for 15 minutes during shower time to the tune of concentrated woes.

It was exhaaaaaaaaausting.

‘Dee, you seem a bit low. You all good over there?’ My darling bestie, Miss K, asked over a text message. She knows me better than I know myself and not once in life have I ever lied to her. I was tired and there was only one answer I could give.

‘No. I’m not. I’m really, really not.’

Like most conversations with Miss K, I felt as though I was talking to a projected version of myself. A self that was waving a flashing neon sign and screaming ‘by golly, I think she’s almost got it!’

I had a vivid recollection of a discussion I had had, years ago, with a girlfriend who was suffering PND quite heavily.

‘It’s not a sign that you’re not a good Mum,’ I had cooed, ‘If anything, it’s a sign that you’re so ahead of the motherhood game that your mind and body are literally struggling to keep up with you. You just need a rest from being awesome, that’s all.’

Oh my days, a rest. How grand a thought! How blissful it sounds to the ears!

All this huff and puff I had spat out at mother’s groups about PND being a common thing and nothing to be hidden or ashamed of and here I was hiding in shame.

No more! My name is Dee, and I am not okay!

Voicing this to my mother I sobbed in defeat ‘but, you’re so perfect, why can’t I do everything like you..’

Frowning and shaking her head she simply responded, ‘Oh Darling, there were days when you and your brother cried so much I made your Father drive you around the block for two hours so I could fit in a nap. No-one aims for perfect, that’s intangible and ridiculous. You just aim for happy. It’s perfectly normal to not be okay all the time.’

I had become so preoccupied with proving to the world and my girls that I was as indestructible as my own mother, I had literally begun to self destruct.

And in doing all this, I had laid the foundations for a very dangerous image.

See, my eldest daughter is smart. She is in tune with emotions and she is cluey beyond her three young years. She feeds off the mood of a room like baby at the boob. By painting a smile over my distress and fatigue, I was creating an environment of confusion that she couldn’t make sense of. She knew there was something not quite right and yet here I was pretending that all was merry.

While I endeavour to always shield my children from the anguishes of grown-up concerns, exhibiting a false idea that life is without problems is nothing short of harmful.

My life did a drastic U-Turn. I allowed myself to absorb emotions rather than dismiss them in fear. I stopped hiding from the world and agreed to let it help me. I even started a blog based on the pure honesty of motherhood to reassure women that they were never alone.

I learnt that although I will never sit down and discuss the process of PND with a three year old, sometimes these little geniuses just need to see us have an off day, rather than hide cowering in denial. Not so that they can be confronted by the dramas of adulthood, but just so that they’re equipped to know that when you’re a bit sad, you’ve just lost your way to being happy.

Upon finding the post-it note that instigated this journey, I welled with tears at allowed myself a moment to process the emotions that accompanied it. It was a lesson that I was not alone in taking and I had the right to acknowledge that. Whilst trickling with tears, Miss Boo burst through the door in search of Tinkerbell’s shoe. This was one of those small occurrences when I felt it acceptable to not hide tears.

‘Mummy! Have you lost your Happy today?’ said she with her head crooked to one side.

‘I have my Darling! Can you help me find it please?’ Said I.

‘Oh yes, it’s here somewhere. Think reeeeeally hard Mummy, what are your Happy thoughts?’

‘Hmmm, painting with Miss Boo, singing to Miss Moo, looking for fairies...’ A smile crept across my face.

‘See, there it is.’

‘Yes Boo, there it is. Thank you.’

And off she skips, confusion free.

I wish for my girls that they may reach a stage of adulthood where they can embrace emotions such as sadness and know that it’s not a permanent fixture. That rather than attempt to perfect a situation that cannot be perfected, they can accept the lesson of that moment, and rather than dwell, look for the light to find their Happy.

And sometimes, on the odd crappy day, I wish this for myself also.