“The collapse took place after the birth of my 2nd child. I had lost a first baby in utero so this new pregnancy, obviously, I was apprehensive about it. But from the first pregnancy, I was asking myself a lot of questions. I was worried, I felt that the arrival of a child was going to be problematic. And when my daughter was born, I gradually fell into depression. I felt useless, good for nothing. Despite this difficulty, I managed to bond with my baby, he was breastfed, received a lot of love. But this bond was not serene. I didn’t know how to react to crying. In those moments, I was completely out of touch. I would get carried away easily and then I would feel guilty. A few weeks after the birth, someone from PMI visited me to find out how it was going. I was at the bottom of the abyss but she saw nothing. I hid this despair out of shame. Who would have guessed? I had “everything” to be happy, a husband who got involved, good living conditions. Result, I folded in on myself. I thought I was a monster. JI focused on these violent impulses. I thought they were going to come and take my child away.
When did I decide to react?
When I started to make sudden gestures towards my child, when I was afraid of violating her. I searched the internet for help and came across the Blues Mom site. I remember very well, I registered on the forum and I opened a subject “hysteria and nervous breakdown”. I started chatting with mothers who understood what I was going through. On their advice, I went to see a psychologist in a health center. Every week, I saw this person for half an hour. At the time, the suffering was such that I thought of suicide, that I wanted to be hospitalized with my baby so that I could be guided. Gradually, I went up the slope. I did not need to take any drug treatment, it was the talking that helped me. And also the fact that my child is growing up and gradually begins to express itself.
While speaking with this shrink, a lot of buried things came to the surface. I discovered that my mother also had a maternal difficulty after I was born. What had happened to me was not trivial. Looking back on my family history, I understood why I had rocked. Obviously when my third child was born I was afraid that my old demons would reappear. And they came back. But I knew how to keep them away by resuming therapeutic follow-up. Like some mothers who have experienced postpartum depression, one of my concerns today is that my children will remember this maternal difficulty. But I think everything is fine. My little girl is very happy and my boy is a big laugh. “