Here - Health Promotion Agency

Your own life
Alcohol may appear to
help you relax and
unwind. In fact it’s a
depressant, affecting moods,
judgement, self-control and
co-ordination. If you’re
tired and run down, it
affects these even more.
So watch how much and
when you drink. Never
mix alcohol with antidepressants
or tranquillisers.
not talking about just feeling low but
something more worrying than that.
You may find that you’re too low even
to make the first step. If this is the case
it’s important to talk to someone –
your partner, a friend or your mother,
and ask them to talk to your GP or
health visitor on your behalf and
arrange an appointment for you.
they can take time to work. Antidepressants
are not habit-forming. You
should not be concerned about them if
they are prescribed for you by your GP.
Tranquillisers may also be offered.
They are different. They don’t help
depression and can be habit-forming,
so they’re best avoided.
RELATIONSHIPS
‘It felt like an invasion. All
of a sudden, everything was
revolving around the baby.
For the first month or two I
found it really hard. Now it’s
three of us and it couldn’t
ever be different, I couldn’t
imagine it back with just the
two of us, but it was a very
hard feeling, adjusting to the
invasion of our privacy.’
‘I think Dave thinks I’ve got
an easy life, you know, just
being at home all day. He
thinks I can just suit myself
and do what I want to do. I
get very angry because there
are days when I’d give
anything to be walking out of
the house like he does.’
‘There’s a lot of pressure,
it’s true. I think we’ve
had to learn a lot,
and learn it fast, about how
to get on when there’s
so much to cope with.
But then there’s a lot we
both enjoy, and more
to share, really.’
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Talking it through
It does help to talk, but it may be
very hard to do so.
• You may want to say things that
you’re afraid of admitting to the
people you love.
•
You may feel guilty about
your feelings.
• You may believe that you’ll be
judged as a bad mother for
admitting to your feelings.
For all these reasons it’s often best to
talk to someone who isn’t close to you,
someone with whom you can be honest
without being afraid of shocking them.
You may find that it’s enough to
talk to your GP or health visitor, or
they may be able to refer you to
someone else. If you can talk about
how you feel, you’ll almost certainly
find that the things you fear are not
as bad as you thought they were.
Medical treatment
If you’re feeling totally lost in
depression, your doctor may prescribe
anti-depressant drugs. They may be
enough to give you the lift you need
to start coping again, and then to find a
way out of your depression, though
PARTNERSHIPS UNDER STRAIN
Relationships are often strained by
parenthood, no matter what they
were like before. Part of the problem
is that you have so much less time to
spend with each other than you did
before the baby arrived and it’s so
much harder to get out together and
enjoy the things you used to do.
• Your partner may feel left out.
•
You may feel resentful at what
you see as lack of support.
The really hard time, when children
take up all your energy, doesn’t last
for ever. Try to make time for each
other when you can and do little
things to make each other feel cared
for and included.
TIME TO LISTEN
Don’t expect your partner, however
close you were before the baby was
born, to read your mind. Things are
changing in both your lives and you
have to talk about it. Your partner will
not know what you want unless you
say what it is and will not understand
why you’re resentful or angry unless
you explain what’s bothering you.
• Ask a friend or relation to babysit
so that you can have time
together – even if it’s just for a
walk together in the park.