New routines

We move house and it goes without a hitch, thank goodness. It is cold  as there isn't any proper insulation in the walls. We get a grant to squirt weird yellow goo in the walls and put layers of woolly stuff down in the loft. This will help keep us from hypothermia and bankruptcy. My husband starts his new job too.I keep reminding him that I am not keen on the idea and that I'm struggling. It falls on deaf ears. The new vision of work and success is not up for negotiation and the shift work goes ahead.

My husband either gets up at 5am or 5pm. If he's on a day, its not too bad. I can be at home or at work during the day, and he comes home for 7pm. It means he's in the house overnight and can help me if I shout loud enough. When I am at work, my son can go to nursery and it gives me a change of scene. My colleagues try to be polite, and tolerate my prescence. They can't wait for my maternity leave to start. When he's on nights its awful. He needs to sleep during the day, so having a baby at home is disruptive. I either have to try and keep him quite or we need to go out. Also, he goes off to work at 5pm and I am alone all evening. This I find hard as it means I can be awake most of the night if baby is ill, I have noone to help, and its lonely. I'm also getting quite pregnant now so its getting harder to carry baby, do housework.

Having depression makes completing normal tasks complicated. Your thinking can be sluggish or scattered. You can become more easily confused. Couple this with pregnancy hormones and you might as well get shipped off to the knackers yard. I am of use to noone really. I am not living the dream (Marriage, home ownership, having children). Those thoughts were naive and foolish wishful thinking. Currently my life is not dreamy and its not really living.  Its hard work, people ignore you - you know, "oh Hi, you must be so and so's mum" and you are not socially acceptable as your twice the size you normally are. Although a baby is tiny, it depends on you for absolutely everything and can only communicate via 100 decibels of screaming. Life is about juggling balls and getting by. Nobody asks me how I am. If you have depression, people stop asking you about it. Its similar to a death. When someone first dies its fresh in their minds so they ask you regularly how you are feeling. After a few weeks, new situations or events happen and nobody mentions it again. Even though you are grieving, noone else gives it a thought.Being depressed means being disregarded after a few conversations. People also have a limited supply of sympathy. Like I said before, people use the "Pull yourself together"attitude or think you look ok so it must be alright.

Saying all of this though, I am managing to do everything I have to. I might not be doing it very well, but I'm doing it. For me, I am trying not to let the depression ruin my daily life. I don't want to give up, get into bed and never get out. I have a gorgeous son and a new baby on the way. I will not let this illness steal my ability to be close to my children. I refuse to give in. I'm fighting the whole way.