A number of people had experiences of depression and/or anxiety before becoming a parent. Many had experienced a period of recovery, then found that their depression and/or anxiety resurfaced during pregnancy or early parenthood. Not all people with past experiences of depression or anxiety went on to experience antenatal or postnatal depression.
People reflected on how past depression and / or anxiety influenced their emotional experiences during pregnancy or early parenthood. For some, past depression and / or anxiety helped them to more easily recognise whether or not they were experiencing antenatal or postnatal depression (see also Identifying postnatal and antenatal depression and finding help). Others found perinatal depression gave them a greater understanding of past experiences of depression or anxiety (see Understanding antenatal and postnatal depression). A few people talked about their partners and the impact of prior depression and anxiety (their own or their partner's) on their experiences of pregnancy and early parenthood.
Experiencing distinct periods of depression and / or anxiety in their past helped some people to recognise the 'warning signs' of distress during pregnancy or early parenthood. For Maree, suicidal thoughts during her second pregnancy were a 'big red signal' that reminded her of how she had felt when she experienced depression in her teens and early 20s. Michelle's stressful start to parenthood (a difficult labour and birth, breastfeeding problems, and her baby's reflux and resultant unsettledness) caused her past depression and other traumatic childhood experiences to 'resurface'.
Michelle had a stressful start to parenthood. She also had a history of depression and self-harming, so when she self-harmed one night when her baby was a few weeks old, she and her husband realized she needed help.
> Click here to view the transcript
I think I was diagnosed with depression first of all when I was 25, around 25. And I think I had it way before that when I was in high school. Like I remember times where I was particularly like - there'd be weeks where I'd be just, feel so down and you know basically you know I had - I would have all these you know thoughts running through my head like that I didn't want to live anymore and I was worthless and I used to self-harm, even back then as well.
What I used to do was - what I still sort of tend to do when I get really stressed out I think I scratch my face and I think - I've spoken about it with previous like psychiatrists and stuff. They've said that it's probably because I've had so much emotion pent up but I'm not really - like I don't really know how to sort of express it or have an outlet for it. So that sort of turns - like I'd sort of turn on myself and use pain to sort of deal with it. So that was the first time that happened and it's happened a few times. I've had a few episodes since then. Including when I had PND.
And I'd get very impatient with my son. I'd get impatient with him and I was just afraid of what I might do to him because I was just so sleep deprived and just so wound up and there was one particular night where I had no - zero sleep. I was just lying there and - and my son just wasn't sleeping and he just demanded to be fed all the time so and I just lost it and ran into my husband and said - and just broke down in tears and said, "I'm not coping. I'm not - I can't do this. I'm a hopeless parent, I don't know what we were thinking. I wish I never had him". And my husband took over but I just lost it at that time and I self-harmed again.
And I had scratches down my face and my husband said, "Look, I'll take over". He just stepped in. Gave me a chance to sleep a bit. Dragged me off to bed and when I woke up he said, "We're going to see the doctor today". Because he's actually used to - he's been through a few of my episodes before so he knows what the signs are. Went to my GP and that was when I was diagnosed - like he obviously diagnosed me with postnatal depression and I think we started setting up referrals to a few different places.
Other people described having learned to 'live with' enduring depression, anxiety or distress, and talked about how they dealt with their experiences. Lara had struggled with preserving 'good emotional and mental health' throughout her life, which she thought was related to exposure during childhood to her parents' marital difficulties, and alcoholism in the family. Recognising she was experiencing 'persistent low mood' in early parenthood, she had a range of approaches to help herself, including counselling, meditation, and mindfulness.
Daniel described how he had learnt to 'operate around' ongoing depression and anxiety.
> Click here to view the transcript
Look, me living with a chronic illness like anxiety depression has been something that I've just incorporated into my life for decades now. Just through making sure I do regular exercise and to take the antidepressant once a day. It's something that I've just learnt to live with and operate around and find I can function very well now. I just look after myself with the medication, some exercise 'cause the med - having regular exercise means I can get the medication to a lower dose and so the side effects are at a lower level too.
[Sighs] Yeah, so that's been important, and nowadays, you know, that underlying family history in my family for anxiety depression hasn't been a barrier to living a really full, enjoyable life. I sometimes feel I don't have the same highs and lows as other people. I don't experience the exhilaration I used to feel and people say that antidepressants do numb you to that a bit sometimes. That's probably true.
Yeah, and in that sense I would have liked to have been able to go off them, yeah, but you learn to live with what you are. And it hasn't affected my abilities to be a really loving father.
A few people experienced depression and / or anxiety earlier in life, but did not experience antenatal or postnatal depression. Some talked about how their past experiences helped them to realise that, although they were finding early parenthood challenging, they did not perceive this as postnatal depression. Nellie explained about her feelings as a first-time mother: 'I really reject that I was depressed because I had depression ten years ago and lots of therapy and medication from it. And I think this was really qualitatively a very different experience.'
Kate's long-term GP helped her to see that her feelings in early parenthood were 'normal' and not postnatal depression.
> Click here to view the transcript
I had a period of depression of clinical depression in my 20s, and it lasted probably on and off for five years. I was on and off antidepressants. I got very good at managing it myself.
I have a family history of depression. I grew up with my mum who has been on and off depressants all her life, antidepressants rather, all her life and I got very good as a young child of understanding mum's illness and reading the signs and so it didn't take me long in my own experience to realise that I was suffering beyond what was normally just sad.
So and this came up quite a lot in all the pre-birth, all the pregnancy appointments they would often ask me that type of medical history. So it became relevant that, I guess they were conscious that there's a family history of depression and I had suffered from depression.
In fact I remember when I met [husband's name] I was still on antidepressants and it was one of the things that I had to tell, that I told him quite early on that I am going to try and come off antidepressants and he was very supportive and haven't been back on them since. But so I was conscious that it may rear its head post-babies, though not worried, just conscious of it.
And then I don't know if it's the character of my first child or if it was me as a mother but I found I was quite stressed and I can't think of the right word. I found the company - well something about having a baby, a tiny baby it's quite boring, you know and it's something about little children actually, it's - the days can be quite boring.
And when at one point I did go to a doctor to see if my mood, the way I was feeling was normal. I don't know whether, no, that's not true. I went because I wanted to feel better and I was really happy to swallow anything that a doctor would give me.
But the doctor, who has known me for 20 years and knew me throughout that period of depression was very sweet and let me talk and cry but said, it's just perfectly normal. You know, you need to get some rest and you need to try and make some time for you but what you're feeling is perfectly normal and I think that was really good.
I was really - in hindsight I'm really pleased that he did that because I wasn't depressed I was just sort of, it was just an, an ordinary frustration and boredom and misery's not the wrong word, not the right word, but disconsolate. An ordinary not quite enjoying it as much as I thought I would, really.
Experience of postnatal depression had prompted a couple of people to re-evaluate whether or not they had experienced depression or anxiety in their past. After being treated for postnatal depression, Zara, a mother of two, was diagnosed with dysthymia. She felt this was 'spot on', explaining that: 'It's been great to finally have a diagnosis that I feel explains it all, rather than ad hoc, all these things that I've tried over the years, trying to work it out. Now I can focus on what's proven to work and hopefully it does. So I'm feeling a bit hopeful.'
Melanie thought that she had always had depression but it 'intensified' after she had her baby.
> Click here to view the transcript
I think to me postnatal depression is something that's probably I don't know, like 'easy' is the wrong word but there's a better chance of recovery, whereas depression is something that people tend to just live with and manage. For me the depression came out postnatally but it has probably always been there.
I think I had the wrong idea about what depression was. As I said, I have a friend who has had depression and she would not be able to get out of bed and the house was, you know, not looked after and different things and I just wasn't like that. But I'm quite negative in the way I think, the way I speak. Yeah, so I think I just had the wrong idea about what it was and I probably had it for a long time. It just really intensified when I, you know, in the postnatal period for me.
Some people talked about their partner's previous depression or anxiety and the varying impacts this had on experiences of becoming parents. Others found that their past experience helped them to support their partner. Sila's wife was concerned that her depression had resurfaced after having their daughter. In treatment for his own depression, and despite feeling stressed himself, Sila supported his wife and encouraged her to see their GP.
Nellie's partner began 'self-medicating' to deal with difficult emotions and memories triggered by her pregnancy.
> Click here to view the transcript
Before that I'd been fairly ambivalent about the whole idea of having children. But all of a sudden I just had this urge and so my partner and I talked about it a lot and he was quite anxious about the whole idea of having a baby because in 2000 he'd had a child with a previous partner and it was an unplanned pregnancy in that he wasn't aware that no contraception was being used.
And that whole pregnancy had been very fraught in terms of the relationship and it basically culminated in their baby being born with a chromosomal abnormality and he lived three days and died. And my partner ended up feeling really fucked up. Sorry, but yeah he ended up really having lots of alcohol and drug issues as a result of just trying to self-medicate for the trauma. So it really had a profound negative impact on him.
So then when I wanted to have a baby, he liked that idea but it was really tempered by this previous experience of the baby dying of Trisomy 18. And it had been a really awful experience because he was delivered and they had no idea that anything was wrong with the baby. Yeah, just really, really awful.
So that was sort of the background to the decision to have our first baby. And then, at about the 12-week scan with my eldest everything was fine and it came back like 1:52,000 that the baby would have Trisomy 18 which is a particular type of abnormality that his first son had. So that alleviated a lot of my partner's stress. But then as we got closer to having our son, so from the time when I was about seven months pregnant, he started to get a bit stressed at work and one of the guys he was working with was a bit of a party animal and a bit of a dickhead.
So my partner started hanging out with him and he'd be drinking all night and then going out partying all night and not answer his phone. And I think it was just him trying to deal with his - in hindsight, five years' later, him trying to deal with his anxiety. But at the time it was profoundly distressing and I was thinking, 'Oh my God, I'm at the point where this baby is going to be born. Like it's not a point where I can say, oh, the relationship's terrible and I could have a termination'. I know that sounds terrible but it was also at a point where I felt that his behaviour wasn't enough - I was too pregnant to make a decision, a sound decision about leaving or anything. So, anyway, he kept doing this and to the point, like, two weeks before my due date, he did the same thing. So he was doing it like every two weeks; staying out until nine o'clock in the morning getting totally off his head. But then when it came to the time of the birth, he was a real trooper and he got it together for the few weeks around the birth and that was really great.
And I really think that part of what was going on for him was just they had lots of backpackers working with them who were living this sort of itinerant back packer lifestyle and he's having this massive life change about to have a baby and all of this stuff. Anyway, he got it together for the birth and he was quite excited by the time the due date came around.
Tony's ex-partner's 'history of depression' affected her ability to cope with their baby's gastroschisis as well as her own serious health problems soon after their baby's birth.
> Click here to view the transcript
And then when she came home my partner was having difficulty with postnatal depression and things and she was dealing with it with substances to try and keep her awake and try and sleep at night. So I was doing the feeds at night and going to work and that was a bit hard but we got there. But then she was only home for a week and then my partner went into hospital so I was sort of thrown in the deep end pretty well and truly.
It was difficult at the start knowing that our daughter had the problems that she had. But I think she was okay, just looking forward to having a baby. Again I think she was really looking forward to that. Because in-between our daughter and her son she'd had a miscarriage or she had a baby was born and he died two days I think or a few days after he was born and that was difficult for her. So she was looking forward to having another baby. Yeah so she didn't have many problems with depression or anything at that stage but I think after our daughter was born her postnatal kicked in quite well. Yeah so she was having difficulties then. But before the baby was born she was okay.
She's had a history of depression all her life pretty much because she had a pretty tough childhood and she was seeing counsellors and things like that yeah. She goes through bouts of depression yeah and she won't get out of bed for a week, that sort of thing. Or she'll be up for literally two hours a day. She'll get up, have dinner and then goes back to bed and she'll sleep for the rest of the day. The night and the day - the next day. Or she'll get up and take the kids to school and then go back to bed. Pick them up from school and then go back to bed. That sort of thing when she's in big deep depression, yeah.
But yeah and because she was in a coma for so long she then had to learn to walk again so she had to go to rehab. So she was in rehab for three months. So all up she was in hospital for six months and then she came home and had all the associated depression issues and things like that with finding out she's got someone else's liver. And she's missed out on six months of her daughter, having that interaction with her daughter, was very difficult for her to come to terms with.
So she had several more months of very deep depression. Not getting out bed, sleeping for weeks at a time, that sort of thing. It was difficult. I'd come home and try and do as much as I could when I got home as far as the housework goes and food - cooking dinner and things like that. But yeah after a while it put a big strain on our relationship and it ended because I couldn't cope anymore. Yeah so it was difficult.
Further information
Healthtalk Australia: Experiences of Depression and Recovery in Australia.
