Postnatal Expression

It took me a long time to admit to myself that I was experiencing post-natal depression. The tears in the early weeks were no surprise to me but when the weeks dragged on to months I finally had to face the truth about my hormones and headspace.
It wasn't until Amy was 8 months old that I managed to upgrade my Tresillian request to 'urgent' and get in for four nights of sleep school. I knew sleep deprivation was turning up the volume on the depression and was hoping Tresillian could shed some light. Read my Tresillian blog entry and watch my before and after Tresillian videos to see what came of it...

For those first eight months I was kept afloat in the sea of depression and sleep deprivation by some great people I have in my life...my partner in crime, Robert, my super sisters, close friends and a handful of school mums who gave me those knowing looks and words of support when I needed them most.
What I DIDN'T expect was the therapeutic benefits of creative expression. Early on I wrote a piece called Postnatal Expression my experiences with a creative mother's group  - hosted by The Women's Room and Calm Mums , and my newfound love of pottery.
All these things - support of loved ones, a creative mums group, pottery - not only helped me pull through by opened me up with my writing in a way I didn't expect. It's as though I broke OPEN to a whole new world.  So radical was the change in my writing I scrapped the whole book in early 2010 and started over again. Read more about this process on my Writing Journey page.

I'll feed more of my Postnatal Expression chapter onto this page soon...