Mother’s Day is the ultimate reminder of how I faced up to my depression after having kids

Alison Perry, 46, from Bromley, was so excited to be pregnant but after having her first child, she was hit by debilitating postnatal depression. She then spent three years trying for her second child, but when twins came along, she felt so overwhelmed she could barely go out. As part of Yahoo Life UK’s accounts of motherhood to mark Mother’s Day, Alison shares her story.

When my children were small Mother’s Day used to make me feel guilty because I was barely coping. But now it feels like a celebration of how far I’ve come.

I remember one day back in 2021 when my heart was pounding and I felt sick. Fighting back tears, I forced a smile and added ‘Alison – day with twins’ in my phone’s calendar. I couldn’t believe that simply planning on spending a day alone with my children would cause such a huge eruption of anxiety inside me.

My husband Mark was a stay-at-home-dad back then and he looked after our toddler twins while I worked as a freelance writer and our eldest child was at school.

We had decided that once a week, I’d take the twins and give him a day off. It was fine in theory, but the reality of solo parenting was enough to send me into a panicked spin.

I didn’t have the confidence to take them out to the park or to a toddler class or soft play on my own. What if they ran in opposite directions? What if one or both had a meltdown and I couldn’t deal with it? But also, with it being 2021 and the pandemic lockdowns being so fresh, the idea of staying indoors with them all day was just as awful.

I felt like a total failure. Everyone else could cope with being a mum, why couldn’t I? In that moment, I decided that enough was enough. I needed to get help. So I picked up my laptop and typed ‘mental health support’ into the search engine.

Expecting magical times

Motherhood was so different from how I’d pictured it to be. Back when my husband Mark and I were discussing starting a family, blissful images filled my head.

After being diagnosed with endometriosis in my 20s, I thought that getting pregnant would be difficult. So when my period was late just three months after coming off the Pill and a pregnancy test confirmed the news, Mark and I were over the moon.

Our eldest daughter was born in 2010 but instead of the joyful experience of motherhood I was expecting, I developed postnatal depression and anxiety. Unable to bear being home alone with her all day, I’d wrap my baby up, put her in the pram and just walk around for hours on end, only stopping to feed and change her.

Heartbreakingly, I didn’t seek help because it didn’t even occur to me that anything was wrong. I was just convinced I was a terrible mother, unable to cope with the basics of this new life.

After three years of saying I’d never be able to face having another baby, life started to feel easier and I told Mark that perhaps I was strong enough and perhaps it might be different second time around.

“I’ll get help if I feel myself struggling again,” I promised him. So we started trying for another baby. But two years later, I still wasn’t pregnant.

Secondary infertility

I went for scans and the doctors told me it was likely my endometriosis was causing secondary infertility. After unsuccessfully trying fertility drugs, Tamoxifen and Clomid, the only option left was IVF.

Despite how hard life had felt when I was a new mum, I was now desperate to have another baby. I couldn’t bear the thought of my daughter being an only child. I also, perhaps weirdly, wanted to prove to myself that I could be a good mum from the start. So we spent a year – and our savings – on injections, scans and countless hour-long round trips to the hospital, doing two cycles of IVF.

The relief and joy I felt when I took a pregnancy test and it showed as positive was huge. However that joy turned to shock when, at our 12-week scan, we were told it was twins. Mark and I looked at each other and burst into uncontrollable nervous giggling.

As the birth approached, we mentally prepared ourselves for a challenging time and made decisions like Mark leaving work, while I carried on working from home, to ensure we were parenting as a team and formed a solid support network.

Paralysed by anxiety

Thankfully, I didn’t have a repeat experience of postnatal depression. But it soon became obvious that anxiety still had its hold over me. We were sitting in a café with the babies one day when they both started crying. People at nearby tables stared and – in my head – judged us.

It was too much for me to handle and I found myself disassociating from what was going on, going completely numb, as if I wasn’t really there at all. I later discovered this is a common response to trauma, but at the time, it was just an uncontrollable reaction.

When I realised that anxiety was stopping me from doing everyday things like going to the park with the twins, I knew it was time to seek help. Walking into the therapy room, for my first session, I felt so nervous. I’d never done anything like this before. But my therapist soon put me at ease.

I told her that I thought I’d suffered trauma when my eldest daughter was born, which was causing mental health issues today. Gradually, through many sessions, we unravelled childhood trauma which was at the root of my beliefs about being a terrible mum.

Finding support

The therapy sessions armed me with a range of techniques to deal with tricky situations – breathing techniques, tuning into my body when I felt anxiety and even having conversations with my younger self. Combined with my twins getting a bit older – they’re now aged six – making things feel easier, it’s made the world of difference. My eldest daughter is now 14 so the baby days are long behind me.

I knew things had changed for me when, one day, last summer I took my twins on the train into London by myself, for the day. We went to the theatre and out for lunch before heading home. It was exhausting but I managed it.

I feel so relieved that I sought help and didn’t keep battling on. Therapy taught me that I’m not a bad mother, just one that needed a bit of extra support. This Mother’s Day, I won’t feel ashamed of that. I’m proud of how far I’ve come.

Help and support

If you are feeling low, remember you are not alone and you can contact The Samaritans any time, day or night on 116 123. You can also email the charity on [email protected].

For help with postnatal depression visit the Association for Post Natal Illness on Apni.org.

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