Postnatal Depression My Beloved's Experience

This post is from My Beloveds point of view, from his experience I have written it but tried to write it as close to what he said as possible. It is just HIS opinion and he does not speak for all men and he and I talk quite bluntly and truthfully to each other when it comes to women/men point of view, if you need to hear things in an incredibly tactful way, then you do not ask My Beloved his opinion as you will get it , nicely but bluntly. I have softened the conversation somewhat and he didn't elaborate to much more than what is written here.

When I read my last post about my experience with Postnatal Depression to My Beloved he joked about how no one knew how he had suffered for nearly two years with a 'nutter' of a wife.  'What ever!' I had laughed at him.

'No', he said to me 'I am serious. It can ruin marriages and when the men leave they are always the 'bastards' but it is bloody hard to live with someone who has Postnatal Depression. I mean if they have been together for a short time and then they have a kid together and the girlfriend/wife suffers from Postnatal Depression a lot of guys would just think this is just not worth it. I mean, you were acting like a crazy lady!'

'Yes OK, we have established that.' I always say to people when talking about the way I felt during my experience and looking back on it that I was a crazy person. The wording I use isn't exactly comforting in nature and I'd like to say that crazy is most definitely NOT the way I see or view people suffering from postal depression, I see someone that just needs a bit of help because I remember what it feels like, but when I think about the things I felt ( like the paranoia and even the only time I thought something very disturbing which was when I was driving home from a birthday party along the highway and I just thought I wonder what would happen if I just let go of the steering wheel? I was not going to and I had no plans to but I was concerned that I had even thought it!)  When I think about all that now I am amazed at how different I was thinking and feeling and how much I just was not me!

'From my point of view, and maybe not all men but definitely some men would feel the same,' My Beloved said ' Imagine you have come home from work whether it is every night or every few days or weeks and you have been working hard. You have to work hard because you are providing for your family, so you have all that stress as well and you come home to either a miserable crying woman and everything is a mess or maybe everything is clean but your wife is madly vacuuming the floors not really even acknowledging you. And just acting plain crazy. It sucks. You'd like to say for god sake go to the doctor and take some pills because you really need them! But you cant because you don't know how they will react, you cant say anything to them because they will either burst into tears or start screaming at you.

 It is hard because you can not fix the problem and you don't know what to do. If I helped you or tried to you either didn't notice or just yelled at me for how I did it or what I did. If I wanted to get you out of the house, you fought me on it. I kinda just gave up and just handled it. But some guys don't want to do that,it is really hard and they leave and I do not blame them at all. You should talk about that too. The woman is most definitely not alone in the suffering. I know that she can not help it but it should be said that the partner and the kids even suffer it too.'

'I'd feel bad for working but I'd have to work and I probably was even glad to get away at times too I'd be worried all the time and kind of dreading coming home. I don't know about all women but you wont let people help you and I couldn't do anything until you asked for the help and then I knew what to do because you told me what you needed me to do. Men are not like women we don't sit around 'putting' ourselves in women shoes saying 'oh I wonder how I would feel if I were in her shoes? Maybe I  should do this or this to help. Well I don't  Anyway, I just thought you should talk about how it can effect the marriage and the family too, maybe people don't think about it like that but it is very hard to deal with for everyone.'

When I asked My Beloved what he thought someone suffering from Postnatal Depression should do he said.

'Go to a doctor, take the medication they give you or talk to someone, because it is not just you suffering and if your partner knows what to do to help you, he will.'