OCD, anxiety & me

I decided to start an Instagram page about my mental health & hopefully what will become my recovery. I then thought writing things down about my ‘journey’ might help me & I’m all about helping others as much as I can (the people pleaser in me!) so thought I’d try writing things down in a blog. 

I’m keeping things anonymous so places & people may seem a bit generic, I won’t go into details about my job or my family but there will be some of course because they play a big part in my recovery & management of my mental health. 

Briefly, a little bit about me. I’m in my late 20s living with my husband (J) & my son (H) who is a toddler. We live in the South of England & J & I both have stressful jobs requiring us to work shifts, luckily I’m able to do this part time and still bring in a decent enough wage to have a few luxuries in life. I’ve always thought to myself I have a great life, I’m very lucky why do I feel this way, why am I worrying about this when I really don’t have to?

Depression runs in my family, ever since I can remember my dad has suffered from quite severe depression. He had his first mental breakdown around the time my younger sister was born and I can only imagine how difficult that must have been for my mum. 3 young children, a dog and a husband who was suffering a severe depressive episode. Both of my sisters take anti depressants & so does my brother. My brother has tried to take his own life once before but is now doing really well. I have always felt that I am the ‘together’ one in my family. I went on to further education, I have a good job & I own my own home. I didn’t want to admit to any of them how awful I was feeling when my son was born so I didn’t.

As far as most people knew I was enjoying being a new mum & I loved my son but in reality I was struggling. I didn’t love my son, I cared for him a great deal but there was not a mother and son bond that you would expect. Breastfeeding didn’t work out for us which along with having an EMCS made me – in my eyes- a failure as a mother. If anyone had come to me with these issues I would of course tell them they were doing great, their baby clearly loved them and they were caring for them exactly how a new mother should. But I didn’t feel like this. I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t a good enough mother & I wasn’t a good enough wife. 

J saw this, he saw me struggling and on more than a handful of occasions told me I needed to speak to someone or go to the drs but each time I refused. I was fine, the bonding would happen, I would deal with how I was feeling myself & things would be just fine. 

We muddled along like this for 3 years before I went to the doctors & spoke to someone about how I was feeling. During those 3 years I did bond with H, I love him more than I could even try to describe But I feel like I lost his first year or so to worry & stress. 

In June this year I finally went to my GP and told her how I was feeling, She listened to me while I sobbed & said due to what I’d told her & how long a wait it would be for CBT sessions she thought it would be best to start some medication. I started 25mg of sertraline for 4 days and then increased to 50 mg per day. I do feel like this is starting to help although I do still have my bad days and I’m due to go back to my GP on Thursday so I’m going to discuss maybe increasing my dose until I start my CBT sessions. I had my phone assessment over a month ago now and still haven’t heard anything further. I scored very high for social anxiety and also scored over the threshold for OCD. After reading about OCD and the different types it made me realise that a lot of it rings true for me. Discussing things with J I think that a lot of my anxiety stems from OCD and the fact I obsess over certain thoughts. 

I plan on talking about how I’m doing, my CBT sessions when they start, any drs appointments I have & just general mental health things. I’m also going to explore things from my childhood & where some of my thoughts & feelings stem from.