Mentally Interesting: I couldn’t hold my baby

This is the full transcript of Ouch – Mentally Interesting the cabin fever podcast as broadcast on the 20th April 2021, and presented by Mark Brown and Seaneen Molloy.

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[Music]

 

Mark - This is Mentally Interesting, a podcast series for BBC Ouch. I’m Mark Brown.

 

seaneen - And I’m Seaneen Molloy. We’ve been friends for ages. We’ve got years and years of personal and professional experience of mental health between us. And we’re here to talk about the awkward stuff so you don’t have to.

 

Mark - And oh my gosh is it awkward. Each episode has a broad theme; this time it’s growth. If you’ve not listened to this podcast before then we’ve probably got a little bit of back story to fill you in with. Seaneen, my co-host, has recently given birth to her second child. I recently lost my sister. And Seaneen today is going to be taking the time to fill us in on her mental health journey since her young baby arrived. What’s the young baby called, Seaneen?

 

seaneen - He’s called baby Jack, which is a startlingly normal name considering his parents, but there you go. He has got Cantona as a middle name so that kind of helps.

 

Mark - He hasn’t, has he?

 

seaneen - He does, yeah.

 

Mark - Was that your choice?

 

seaneen - No, that was Robert. It’s Jack Dahay Cantona Beasley.

 

Mark - That is incredible. So, what have you got coming up in this episode, Seaneen?

 

seaneen - Well, as well as lots of me and Jack Cantona, we’ll be joined by artist and mum of two, Kate Lovell to continue the chat about parenting with a mental health diagnosis. And we’ll finish with a cringey conundrum from the Book of Awkward Questions. If you want to get in touch, ouch@bbc.co.uk is the email address, and we’re also on Twitter and Facebook @bbcouch. We want to hear your thoughts, your questions and your stories too.

 

[Music]

 

seaneen - In our last but one podcast I left you on a cliff hanger about the COVID test. Dah, dah, dah it was negative.

 

Yay. So, I’m going to talk a little bit about what happened next. Some of this stuff can be kind of heavy. I just want to say I’m okay to talk about it because I already have a diagnosis of mental illness bipolar disorder, that means that the mental health team were involved basically since the moment of conception. They were right there watching – no, they weren’t. But I’ve been with the perinatal mental health team the whole way through. The perinatal team are like a specialist crack squad of professionals who understand that being mental in pregnancy is a little bit different, and also that pregnancy can cause you to become a bit mental in a different way. I didn’t think I was going to get ill because I thought I’ve got the perinatal mental health team and I’m on medication, I’ve got a great husband, but I did and it happened extremely quickly. So, basically I went from one hour being like oh, I’m sick of these visits from the perinatal team, I just want to be left alone, there’s nothing wrong with me, to an anxious delusional mess. It happened extremely, extremely quickly. So, I got completely convinced that I was going not die of a blood clot, and I was also convinced that Jack was going to die, not in a kind of way that I could be reassured or talked down, but in a way where I was crying and screaming and couldn’t sit still. So, that happened extraordinarily quickly and I didn’t expect it to, because everyone was looking out for mania or psychosis or depression, but I did not know that you could be hit with anxiety like that. It was completely all consuming. And that was a bit of a shock, even for me, seasoned mental with 20 years’ experience it was a bit of a shock, for everyone, because I had been doing so well.

 

Mark - So, what happened then?

 

seaneen - The crisis team and psychiatrist came out and basically my medication, I was on an anti-psychotic medication, was ramped up to the max and diazepam was also added, which I was kind of surprised about because my diagnosis has kind of shifted around over the years, like from bipolar to borderline personality disorder, back to bipolar again. And if I'd still had a borderline personality disorder diagnosis I think one, I wouldn’t have had the perinatal team, and two, they wouldn’t have given me diazepam because they’re very, very reluctant to prescribe any sort of medication to people with BPD, borderline personality disorder. So, I was even in my state going isn’t it good not to have such a stigmatising diagnosis and wouldn’t it be crap if I still did because my treatment would be totally different and they wouldn’t have taken it so seriously.

 

Mark - Yeah.

 

seaneen - They did take it very seriously, so they hoicked up my medication to the very top and diazepam, which I really hoping it was gonna kind of space me out and I’d be very…

 

Mark - Floaty.

 

seaneen - Floaty.

 

Mark - With a lovely come down.

 

seaneen - Yeah, didn’t touch the sides. Really disappointed. I thought, you people sell this? Nothing’s happening. Diazepam, for the people who don’t know, is a benzodiazepine which is a class of medication that can make you feel really chilled out. You might have heard of Valium, that’s the most famous one of those. It’s meant to make you feel really chilled out and relaxed. It’s often used for people who have a lot of anxiety, or you might more hear of it for people who have things like they’re worried about taking flights or about having dental treatment.

 

So, yeah, it was hoicked right up and I was basically staring at my child all the time, frightened to leave the room in case he died, frightened to leave the room in case I died. It was not fun at all. And with the medication being increased so quickly I was hit with severe, severe side effects. But on the plus side I do now have a new sofa and recliner because it took me a while to realise what was happening was side effects; I thought it was my furniture. I thought, this is a really uncomfortable sofa. I’ve only just realised how unbelievably uncomfortable this sofa is.

 

Mark - Psychiatric medications often do have side effects. What were the particular side effects of these ones on top of the world collapsing terror?

 

seaneen - I had a restlessness that was so severe I couldn’t sit down, which is why I got new furniture – in case anyone thinks the BBC are paying me loads of money. I got them second-hand off street marketplace. I also started to have trouble moving my arms, and I had extremely bad restless legs. Again, thought it was something else. Bought loads of magnesium spray which apparently is good for that; sprayed it everywhere. I couldn’t hold Jack, I couldn’t sit down long enough to hold him and I couldn’t move my arms properly so I couldn’t get him into a proper position, they were really stiff. So, that was rubbish because it’s kind of important to try and bond with your child, and one of the ways you do that is by holding them. So, because I wasn’t doing those things I was also very determined I was going to do the night feeds because I could be a better parent when I was horizontal. So, I wasn’t getting a great deal of sleep either, which obviously wasn’t helping the insane anxiety. I had another side effect which wasn’t good for bonding, which it’s called parkinsonism, but what that means is that you look like a mental patient. Your classic One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest mental patient look. And with me wearing a dressing gown basically constantly for a month really had topped it off. It means you – I say you, I – I couldn’t walk properly; I was shuffling around. And I lost my facial expressions. So, couldn’t hold my baby, when I did I couldn’t make faces at him. And all through this I had a raging infection which I didn’t realise until I landed myself in A&E.

 

Mark - This is a bit much to go through. How did you get through it? How are you getting through it?

 

seaneen - I’m starting to feel better. The medication did help. The side effects did not help, but on top of the medication I was taking was propranolol which is good for your physical symptoms of anxiety. And I eventually started lowering the dose of the medication down, which they were very, the psychiatrists and nurse were very, very not keen on me doing because of the risk of relapse, but I could not continue having those side effects. I wasn’t prepared to take it anymore. But just gradually my anxiety started to decrease a bit. And now I feel anxious but not to the same kind of quasi delusional level of anxiety that I had.

 

Just to say I did lower the dose and cut down under the supervision of medical professionals. I didn’t just do it off my own bat. If you have any issues with your medication talk about it with your doctor. I take no responsibility whatsoever for anyone’s medication decisions or choices. I feel a bit robbed. I feel a bit like I got mugged from my first golden month. And now I’m slightly in the back of my mind worried that I’ve somehow damaged Jack by not being a very expressive, engaged parent for the first six weeks of his life. But I don’t know.

 

Mark - I don’t know. I grew up in Newcastle and I’ve turned out vaguely all right, and I’m sure there weren’t too many facial expressions apart from grimacing and fag smoking when I was a bairn.

 

seaneen - But I do feel lucky because if the perinatal mental health team hadn’t already been there I don’t know what would have happened, because the reason they found out about the anxiety was Robert basically hit the emergency button. But at the same time they were seeing me anyway. But I had deteriorated so quickly that Robert did need to do that; he couldn’t wait until they visited later that day anyway. But I live in the only trust in Northern Ireland who has access to that kind of support, so I feel lucky, even though I went mad. I’m an optimist, man!

 

Mark - Yeah, evidently, because that sounds absolutely awful and terrible. So, if any of you at home have anything to add to this discussion then please to email us at ouch@bbc.co.uk. We’d love to hear from you. You hear from us a lot, we’d love to hear from you more.

 

[Music]

 

MARK - You’re listening to Mentally Interesting with Mark Brown and Seaneen Molloy. Still to come we have another clanger from the Book of Awkward Questions. But before that joining us now is Kate Lovell.

 

kate - Hi.

 

Mark - Hello. Kate is a writer, theatre maker and mum of two young daughters, and she also had a baby in the pandemic.

 

SEANEEN - I was going through all this terrible anxiety with a six year old in the house and a newborn. Do you explain mental health or your diagnosis to your children? How do you kind of experience mental health around them?

 

kate - This is really present for me at the moment. In fact I was having discussions with my three year old about it at the weekend. But it’s the first time that I’ve tried to explain that I have bipolar disorder and what that is. And I felt quite nervous about broaching it because there is ultimately this innocent three year old and telling her about the darker sides of life – should I? But then the other part of me that thinks it’s a part of who I am, it’s not all bad at all. And I want her to understand what’s happening because I witnessed adults having mental health difficulties as a child and sometimes there was a kind of ushering out of the room, don’t let her see this. And actually your imagination can be more powerful than the truth and you start dreaming up reasons for what’s happening that are not helpful at all. Sometimes the truth is a bit easier, I think.

 

So, we have a picture book called The Colour Monster which is all about emotions having different colours. So, seeing as it’s one of her favourite books at the moment I thought, I’ll use that as a kind of starting point. I tried to explain that my colours get all mixed up and I find it really difficult to separate out my colours, and sometimes my colours get really bright and I might get really angry or I might get really scared or really upset and it’s really hard for me to bring my colours down so they’re less bright. And I don’t know whether it was a good explanation or not but she really engaged. And because she loves this book she started talking about the colours. And I thought it was a way in and it went better than I maybe anticipated. It’s a conversation to be continued.

 

Mark - Historically the assumption is that people with mental health difficulties that have a diagnosis don’t have children; they have hobbies instead apparently. And they don’t have families and jobs and work and stuff like that. And I know that’s changing over time, but there is that weird sense of well why would you have children if you also have a disability or a mental health difficulty, why would you add a burden to your life. So, I wanted to ask you both did that kind of stuff go through your heads when you were thinking about having young ‘uns?

 

seaneen - No. Literally anyone can become disabled at any time. The discussions around it with professionals are always kind of very, oh you must be extremely careful, the risk of relapse is very, very high. And there are some medications that you can’t take basically if you are, as they say, a woman of childbearing age. People go through life thinking that we are separated into camps of disabled and non-disabled, but it takes one thing. You could become physically disabled or you could experience a mental illness, anyone can; you can’t tell what’s going to happen. Maybe I’m just very optimistic. I don’t know how you feel, Kate?

 

kate - No, the activist side of me is in complete agreement, and especially I think that I parent with more empathy, with a higher sensitivity to the emotions of my children, and also trying to teach them to be sensitive to the emotions of other people and themselves. I think that’s something that we don’t necessarily teach children enough about.

 

And I guess my husband was concerned will we as a team be able to cope if you get very unwell when we have children. And I had to undergo a medication change to get pregnant, and unfortunately it was very badly mismanaged and I had one of the worst depressions of my life, and it was very long. Part of me thought wow, I’ve had to go through all that just to get to this point of becoming a mum. But I wouldn’t change. I mean I would rather have not had the depression, of course, but I just have to accept that as part of the package of me. And like you said, Seaneen, anyone can become disabled, can experience mental ill health. A lot of mums experience mental ill health for the first time postnatally; it’s a trigger point, even if you don’t have a pre-existing diagnosis. It’s just something I think we need to be more accepting of as a society.

 

But I’ve been thinking a lot before having children and while they’ve been in the world about what it means to have a mental health diagnosis. Sometimes feeling guilty about having to prioritise my own needs. But then again realising I’m doing that so that I can parent and be the best parent that I can be. Things as well like sleep deprivation, no one copes well with that, and it’s just heightened if you have a diagnosis.

 

Mark - Is there a big step change between the care that you receive from a perinatal mental health team and the care or the support you receive once you’re just shuffled back into being an adult and no longer having the special status of being a new mum?

 

seaneen - Do you mean is the care during pregnancy better?

 

Mark - Yeah, or different.

 

seaneen - Yeah, it’s definitely different. In my experience they’re much more understanding and compassionate about having feelings, and things aren’t pathologised to the extent that they can be outside pregnancy. You’re allowed to have feelings of anger and you’re allowed to have feelings of despair and hopelessness without it being tagged on to… I found the care I got during pregnancy I wish I always had that kind of care. It was very risk averse but very kind. I don’t know, what about you, Kate?

 

kate - I feel almost like having another human involved makes them more interested than they were, which is a bit double-edged because you think it would have been nice if you’d cared before that as well a bit more. But there’s a slight edge to it to me. For instance I went to my GP when I just had my one child because my anxiety was really awful and I needed some more support. And suddenly she says, “Well I may have to refer this on to a social worker”. I’m kind of saying, “Why, why?” And she says, “Well that’s just for me to worry about”. The appointment carried on and I said, “Sorry I need to return to this idea, are you going to refer this to a social worker?” And she said, “Well that’s for me to worry about”. I said, “I really don’t feel I need that so I’d rather you didn’t”. She said, “Well that’s not up to you”. No one’s ever said that to me before about referring me to social support. I need the caveat and say, it’s not a bad thing necessarily being referred to social support; you can get some great support. But it was the lack of information and the lack of control. And I just thought, well you could at least explain it to me even if I haven’t got a choice. And I ended up I did actually make a complaint about my treatment, and I did feel it was related to my diagnosis.

 

But during the complaint I was told, “Oh you may like to know it was noted about the good bond with your daughter”. I thought well I know that, I don’t really need external, I don’t know, professional stamp on the bond with my daughter, but thanks anyway.

 

seaneen - That’s been my experience is that people like GPs and stuff are not great at all with this stuff. A similar thing happened a while after I had given birth as well to Aishling and the perinatal team had gone. Which is why I was grateful for the specialist team because they didn’t seem to panic in the same way that the GP did, where the GP would hit the social services button. And I had a similar experience where there was no explanation. It was just clearly they were nervous about a woman with a mental health diagnosis having a child basically, that was it; it was pretty much being judgemental. But in my experience the perinatal team were a lot less, even though they were very risk averse, they were also a lot less freaked out I guess by the mere idea of a woman with a diagnosis having a child, which I think there is still amongst GPs in general healthcare, there is still quite a bit of stigma about it I think.

 

kate - Yeah, you’re right. I’ve not really thought about it in those terms, but the perinatal team obviously they’re specialists and they understand a lot more. Actually with the daughter I’ve just had, the six month old, they referred me to a peer support group for mums who have a mental health diagnosis, and either are pregnant or have just had a child, on Zoom. And to be honest I’ve been referred to everything under the sun so my first thoughts were cynical, like oh another group, yeah, yeah, whatever. So, I thought but I’d better do it, I’d better be a sensible good person with a mental health problem. And I actually really enjoyed it because I do sometimes hit a bit of a wall with mum friends, who are my dear friends, but most of them are not parenting with a diagnosis and you do start to talk about some things, “And then when your anxiety is so severe you can’t eat, am I right?” And they're like, um… So, to have a group of people who understood a bit more deeply what that’s like was really great.

 

seaneen - I kind of wish I’d been referred to something like that.

 

Mark - It sounds amazing. It’s been absolutely wonderful. And as someone who doesn’t have kids it’s neither filled me with fear nor trepidation. I’ve got to learn a lot from both of you in that conversation.

 

kate - Oh I’m glad. Thank you again for having me.

 

[Music]

 

seaneen - It’s time for the Book of Awkward Questions.

 

Mark - In my hands is a mysterious book. It’s so heavy that I can hardly hold it. It’s thick and leather bound, corners tipped with brass, it smells of dust and secret places. On its deep red cover in faded gold leaf is the title: the Big Book of Awkward Questions; handed down from generation to generation. Only two copies of the Big Book of Awkward Questions are known to be in existence. I have one copy, Seaneen has the other one. No one knows who compiled it or why, but in it are contained every single awkward question that has ever been asked of anyone about mental health. Each episode we’re going to open the book and see which awkward question it suggests to us. So, what’s today’s awkward question, Seaneen?

 

seaneen - I’m opening the book, if you can imagine my hands trying to hold the heaviness. The question is: why did you agree to it if you aren’t going to turn up and do it? I’m operating on about two hours’ sleep, Mark, so I’m going to let you start with this one.

 

Mark - Well, that’s literally the answer to that question always, isn’t it, because when you live with a mental health difficulty or you live with mental illness there are peaks and troughs. There are times when you feel all right, there are times that you don’t feel all right. And you can guarantee, especially if you have a diagnosis of something like bipolar or bipolar 2, like I do, there will be times when you feel on top of the world, you can do absolutely everything, you can take on everything, and solve all of the problems, you sign up for a load of things, you agree to a load of things, and then the night before funnily enough sleep doesn’t come and then getting ready to go to the thing doesn’t come. And then you ultimately end up either cancelling at the last moment or you end up turning up really late.

 

There’s an incredibly good example about this that involves your wedding, Seaneen, which I went to, which you maybe don’t know because you were a bit busy on the day getting married. But I turned up to your wedding do about three hours late, about 45 minutes before everyone went home, precisely because of that weird feeling that I get that sometimes even things that I really want to do at that point I don’t feel like I’m enough or I’ve got enough. I always feel too tired; I always feel like my tongue’s made of carpet, I feel absolutely terrified. My life is filled with agreeing to do things that I would really like, which I knew that I would really like, and then even getting all the way there and not being able to step across the threshold to do it. And it’s really weird; I don’t know whether it’s anxiety, I don’t know whether it’s just exhaustion, I don’t know whether it’s fear of looking like an absolute fool, but I just get caught. Do you get that?

 

seaneen - Yeah. By the way I know that you were that late to my wedding.

 

Mark - I thought you might have done.

 

seaneen - But what you might not know is I was also late to my wedding.

 

Mark - Really?

 

seaneen - Yeah. I turned up basically in the complete nick of time, for very much the same reason.

 

Mark - Well, you looked lovely.

 

seaneen - Thank you. Yeah the thing is I’ve just stopped telling people I’m going to do anything, so that helps, because same reason, I just fluctuate a lot. I’m notoriously flaky and it’s not something I like about myself.

 

Mark - Yeah, I hate it about myself.

 

seaneen - Yeah, it is the reason why. It’s not on purpose; it’s just my mental health it just changes.

 

Mark - When people talk about having physical disabilities or chronic conditions they talk a lot about they need to build in recovery time after doing something. Things take it out of you more than they might take it out of someone else. I feel like I need the mirror of a recovery period, which is like charging the batteries up period. It’s like when you see someone doing like triple jump at athletics rocking backwards and forwards on their heels for ages. I find this so much, and it’s not got any better as I’ve got older. It’s not quite procrastination, but it is procrastination, and all of the tips that people give you to get over that just don’t work and just make it worse.

 

seaneen - So, Mark, how do you feel then when you are, in my words, notoriously flaky?

 

Mark - Other people will see that I am not doing too well. And when I’m not doing too well I don’t necessarily want other people to see that. Because I feel like it feels like being a constipation of a human: none of the words will come out, everything will feel awkward. Someone will say, “Would you like a crisp?”, and then you can feel the beads of sweat forming on your head, oh what is the correct response to the question, do I like a crisp, what will they think of me, I don’t really like cheese and onion, normal people like cheese and onion. And just being trapped in a horrible sense of self-consciousness, and wishing to avoid that feeling of being self-conscious. Because sometimes it’s just really hard to be out there and be present when things aren’t so good. So, maybe it’s just a lack of feeling of safety or ultimately a lack of confidence, because it’s not quite shyness, and it’s not situational shyness because I’m not a shy person. But there are some times that I would much rather be run over by a forklift truck than I would talk to anyone. And that’s a really weird thing because that’s not a constant, because sometimes I will talk to people until their eyes roll back in their head and they desperately are looking to phone an Uber to escape from the situation they’re in talking to me.

 

seaneen - I used to be a lot more up for it, but as I’ve gotten older and more crotchety and experienced I guess I’ve become a lot more insular, and just decide that I’m not going to go anywhere or do anything. Which I don’t advise.

 

Mark - This is where we hit the fact that experiencing mental ill health is a chronic condition, and we’re not talking about the way in which usually it impedes us physically; it impedes how we feel. And that’s really, really hard. It’s really hard to say to other people, I really would love to have this conversation with you today, but I can’t because I’m not that person in this place at this time that can have this conversation. So, the obvious thing that comes up there is oh well, you should be kinder to yourself, you should look after yourself. But sometimes when you are feeling bad in general, like for me I don’t know whether I’m being kinder to myself or I’m just indulging the worst elements of what I’m experiencing, and that’s difficult. Because you run into people’s advice which is, you have to challenge yourself, you have to get back into life, you can’t withdraw totally and stuff like that.  But the feeling of that being difficult is sometimes really hard to disentangle from the feeling of not feeling very well. So, it’s hard to know when you should be kind to yourself, and it’s hard to know when you should push yourself forward I find. Because I could quite easily go for months and months and months never signing up for anything, and ultimately I wouldn’t know whether what I’d done was myself a great favour and looked after myself and nurtured my inner child and stuff, or whether I was just really, really low and depressed. It’s really hard to see from outside of yourself.

 

What I do do these days is I don’t go to things I don’t think I’ll like. So, if someone says, “Come round to ours, we’re having a barbecue”, I say, “No thanks, I don’t want to stand next to a bit of smoking meat and discuss cars with some men, I’d rather stay at home thank you”.

 

seaneen - I’m closing the Book of Awkward Questions. Another episode of Mentally Interesting has come to an end. Hopefully the next one will not be borne out of one of us experiencing a massive and traumatic life event.

 

Mark - Well, fingers crossed for that, because to be honest I’m not sure I have energy in my tanks for anything more traumatic than only getting five packets of crisps in a six-pack multipack. I don’t know how I’m going to do it. So, thank you for listening to us talk about parenting and mental health. We know that many of you will relate listening at home, particularly to the ups and downs of having a new baby in this terrifying strange world of pandemic.

 

seaneen - If you feel able to share your thoughts on this or anything else email ouch@bbc.co.uk, putting Mentally Interesting in the subject line. Or drop us a line on Facebook and Twitter by searching for BBC Ouch.

 

Mark - If this podcast does it for you it will appear on your device as soon as it gets published when you subscribe to BBC Ouch on the BBC Sounds app. We’ll be back next month when the broad theme will hopefully be something like joy or flowers or beautiful sunrises or the smile of every child and the raising of every sun, or just something that isn’t about death and horror. But until then bye for now and we’ll see you soon.

 

seaneen - Bye.