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.

[Mummyhill]

My Turn.

I have been a member of DWD since 2007 and think this site is a very valuable resource for those with depression, their families and friends.

I am in my thirties and have 3 lovely children.

I have suffered from depressive episodes since my teenage years. Which have varied in intensity. I also have anxiety/panic attacks and have self harmed in the past.

I also suffer from an under active thyroid and when my medication levels are wrong this can also cause depression.

Early episodes stemmed from bullying at school.

I have suffered post natal depression after each of the children. The worst bout of this culminated in a “well meaning” family member calling social services allegedly to help me. After jumping through hoops for social services and my current health visitor I was told that I could keep my children. This has however left me deeply scared. I have panic attacks over what could of happened, I also started self harming again during this time.

I have also seen what depression can do from the other side of the fence. My mother and my grandmothers have suffered from depression/anxiety for as long as I can remember. My father in law also had a break down due to many stresses in his life not long after I had the brush with social services.

I am still under the psychiatrist and I am looking to the future with hope.

[Emmie]

And now me, I'm in my early 30s though if you ask me I'll deny it! And just the one sprog, born Sept 2008. She's, er, interesting ;-)

I was first diagnosed with depression in January 2006 looking back I think I've had depressive episodes since I was 16 but in 2006 it got so bad I couldn't face work, or even leaving the house. My then boyfriend (now my husband) took me to the doctors and I started taking citalopram (which I stayed on for over a year, tbh it didn't work but I thought that perhaps I expected too much. I didn't, it wasn't working!).

My work were less then helpful and after a particularly horendous meeting (where they basically told me I wasn't depressed, I just didn't want to work) I began self harming. It was never a full on habit but it was still hard to break. Unsurprisingly I resigned from the job!

I did a cbt style depression management course and received counselling. I still use the techniques I learned now. I put an incredible amount of work into both courses and really got the benefit from them (and compliments from both my counsellors!)

During my pregnancy I really struggled to keep my anxiety in check so I had another cbt style course, this one focused more on where my anxeity came from. My father is an alchoholic and generally not a nice man. I found it very helpful to see where some of my worries came from and work to combat them.

I have now come through the other side of severe pnd. I was breastfeeding so fought with my doctors to be prescribed something to help and not have to stop bfing. After being referred to a specialist I took fluoxetine and it really helped! I'm now off the medication, I generally feel like I can cope with life but at some point I'm going to have to go back and deal with all the sadness of my pnd. Most of it is locked away somewhere in my brain and a large chunk of my dd's babyhood is completely missing, but I'm plucking up the courage to do that!

I also now run my own business, it's challenging as I take criticism badly and generally worry myself silly! But I genuinely love what I do, and work very hard at it!