Meet the Team!

[Suzi]

A bit about me.. This isn't easy.. Its quite hard to know how much to say!

Im Suzi and I have 3 children (Ben who has Aspergers, Hazel who is a Princess and Fern who is allergic to almost everything!) and a husband, Marc who suffers from "severe clinical depression, severe anxiety and paranoia".
I have been with Marc for over 13 years and have lived through him having a breakdown where he couldn't get out of bed for 3 months or so. I have been there when he told me "I dont know if I love you" and him totally ignoring the sprogs. He "crashed" when I told him that I was pregnant for the 3rd time and he told me "get rid of it". I didn't, but went through the whole pregnancy on my own being the only one excited about anything. It was hell. Now we have good days and bad days, he has had CMHT involvement which has resulted in a CPN coming to see him for an hour every other Wednesday.

Personally I have had PND each time after my children were born which were all very different episodes and not parts of my life I would like to relive.. I have arthritis, and have had to face the prospect and fact that I am losing the use of my right knee, and so I now have to use a stick which took a while to get used to (and has been fully "pimped" by the kids with stickers!). This is not as bad as people have it, and I am just grateful for what I have.

I am a qualified teacher specialising in music and special educational needs, but am currently a full time carer and mum!
I have had many things in my life which have been horrible, but I'm not just going to list them! However, for all the not so good things I wouldn't change them as they are what has made me who I am today. I tend to see the positive in most negative situations, I like to think that I am a brilliant listener, and I'm really good at trying to put things in some sort of order!

I think that's pretty much me in a nutshell, but if you have any questions then please don't hesitate to ask, it's really not easy to offend me!

If you have any issues on the site please let me know. I have been a member of DWD since day I and am incredibly proud of what we do here. DWD was born after a thread on another forum owned and run by a friend of mine where we were discussing that I was finding it really hard living with my then partner (now husband) and not being able to get any understanding of depression or any support at all. Many others who had or lived with someone with depression were also saying similar things, that they had no one to talk to and that they/we all felt so alone. Hence the beginning of DWD.