In September 2010, Luke moved out of our rental house in Lilyfield and back in with his parents. I was left completely alone. And I felt completely numb.
Chapter Eight
2016
‘You can’t pour from an empty cup.’
—Unknown
It’s very easy to look like you’re fine, to look like you’re coping, when you’re actually falling to pieces. You can’t ever really know what is going on for someone else. When things with Poppy are at their worst, I do a couple of TV spots for Channel 7 and there are publicity shots in which I’m grinning from ear to ear. I cannot and will not let the world know how I am collapsing inside. I’m meant to be a champion. It has been my job to be the best—it’s my value, my brand, isn’t it? I’m supposed to be brilliant, and fit and healthy, and post-natal depression has no place in that story. But that’s part of what is keeping me trapped. My life changes the minute I ask for help.
Sitting in the car outside the gym, I wait until the weeping subsides and then I pick up the phone and call Luke, and he can hear immediately that something is different—that I am different. ‘I’m not okay,’ I cry. ‘I can’t do this.’ The love and concern in Luke’s voice is palpable. He tells me we’re going to get some help and that everything will be okay. He’s been waiting and wanting so badly to try to make things better for us, and he’s desperately concerned for me and Poppy, but I can also hear the slight edge of relief in his voice.
I feel the relief too. For some reason, I can now see that things are not normal. I’m not just weak or a shitty mother, I’m having a genuine psychological crisis, and it’s not my fault. It’s not my fault. The instant I recognise this, I feel more in control. I know instinctively that if I can identify the problem, I have a much better chance of fighting it.
That afternoon, I call my GP and make an appointment to see him the following day. I’m every bit as tired and devastated as I was in the morning, but just the act of reaching out has shifted some weight inside me. It feels like there is a possibility for something to change, and it stirs some small reserve of hope in my mind. I need to hold on to that sliver of hope, to find my way out of the dark.
Mum is taking care of Poppy during my appointment. I struggle to concentrate when I’m with my baby and I know that this needs my full attention, but it was really hard to admit to my mother that I was having such a difficult time. I’m just so grateful that she is there to help me. I don’t know what I’d do without her. We don’t talk about it in much depth, because my mother is not what you’d call talkative. She likes to be there, to be helpful.
Sitting opposite my doctor, talking about how bad things have got, is one of the most confronting and yet comforting experiences of my life. I’m fairly new to Dr Michael Clem, but he is incredibly attentive and thorough. I get the sense that he really cares about his patients. I know that I’ve been through many episodes of depression. Of course, my swimming career was intense and sometimes traumatic, and it often felt like the world was caving in on me when things didn’t go to plan. When Luke and I separated, I saw a psychologist and considered going on antidepressants, and since I stopped swimming there have been so many moments when I’ve felt unhappy, but I know that this is something else. This is not something that will pass by itself. And it feels like so much more is hingeing on this moment. I still feel that deep responsibility to protect and nurture Poppy. It’s my duty to try to get better, not just for myself but for her. For Poppy it is even more important.
Dr Clem gives me a diagnostic test—a series of questions about how I’m sleeping, how I’m eating, how I’m feeling and how I’m thinking—that gives a measure of how a person is coping psychologically. When we’re done, he is unequivocal. ‘It’s clear that you have postnatal depression,’ he says. ‘So let’s get you some help.’ He reassures me that what I’m going through, while genuinely awful, is also really common. I’m not completely bonkers, and I’m not a failure—I am just going through something that so many women face, and there are things he can do to help.
He draws up a mental-health care plan for me, which gives me access to the services of a psychologist, and we talk about whether or not medication is appropriate right now. We decide that it isn’t, but we know that we can go there if we need to. Dr Clem emphasises how important it is for me to be open and honest with my family and friends, to ask for support when I need it without feeling ashamed. And he stresses that sleep is the main thing that is going to improve my situation, so getting some assistance with Poppy’s sleep patterns should be a top priority. I know he’s right. I also know the journey is going to be a long one, but I leave the doctor’s office feeling like I have taken my first step in the right direction.
I make an appointment with Georgia Ridler, the psychologist I have seen throughout my sports career. Although she specialises in sports psychology, she also has a broader practice, and I’ve developed a great relationship with her over the years. She was there for me when I needed to cultivate a peak-performance mindset. She was there for me when I left swimming and was struggling with the transition to normal life. She’s the only person I want to see now. I never thought I would be coming to Georgia with something like postnatal depression, but I know that I can trust her. I also know she understands me, and she understands all the baggage I’ve been carrying around all these years that is no doubt having an impact on how I feel.
Every new conversation I have with someone about my feelings makes them a little easier to bear. The shame lessens a little and my resolve strengthens a fraction. Most importantly, there is a process now that I am supposed to follow. Georgia also puts decent sleep at the top of the list of things that I need to help me get better. It’s not like I haven’t understood that being overtired has been the key driver of this emotional instability, and of course that’s what Luke has been saying all along, but it’s different when two health professionals tell you that sleep has to be your main priority. It’s almost like they have given me permission to let go of the self-judgement and shame that I’ve been carrying because of my obsession with attachment parenting. They make it clear that if I don’t start getting decent sleep, I will only be hurting myself and my baby.
Georgia and Dr Clem also talk to me about needing time to myself. They want me to organise blocks of time where Poppy is with Mum, or to consider a day of childcare each week so I can get some breathing space to rest and recover. I’m a stay-at-home mum, so I never would have considered childcare as an option, and it’s both confronting and a revelation to have two healthcare professionals tell me I should think about it. Again, it feels like they are giving me permission to do something that I would have been far too ashamed to do otherwise, even if it had occurred to me, which it hadn’t.
The other crucial part of the recovery plan—something that Georgia in particular knows is especially important for me—is to get regular exercise. I can’t rely on Mums and Bubs at the gym, I need to prioritise finding time alone to get my body moving, because my physical wellbeing is very closely connected to my emotional wellbeing. If I push my body, get the blood pumping and the endorphins flowing, I know that I will be working the stress and grief out of my system.
Most of all, though, I need sleep. So many of my dark thoughts, so much of my behaviour, is heavily entwined with the fact that I haven’t slept properly in over nine months. This is the message I get over and over again from my doctors, and it’s the number-one thing I have to change. When I get home from my appointment with Georgia, I google the number for Katie Forsythe, the baby sleep consultant. After a huge breath I pick up the phone, and take another step towards being okay.
About a week later, Katie comes to spend the night with us, to observe how Poppy and I function and see what we can change. She is such a dream of a person—she puts me at ease immediately with her warmth and her jokes and her general kindness. I feel so safe in her hands. There is steel in there too, which is what I need. She won’t tolerate me saying that I’m a terrible mo
ther because my baby won’t sleep, and she doesn’t let me take the blame for where we have ended up.
‘I’ve obviously created this situation,’ I fret.
‘No,’ Katie replies. ‘Some babies sleep and some babies don’t, and that’s just how it is. Certainly, things are exacerbated by different behaviours, but everything you’ve done so far, you’ve done to try and help your child. You’re not a bad person for feeding your baby to sleep, and you’re not a bad person for rocking your baby to sleep—you were just trying to see what would work. And that is totally okay.’
Katie has a favourite expression and she uses it a lot: If it’s not a problem for you, it’s not a problem. Her philosophy is that there is no one single way to be a good mother, so you need to do your best and focus on whatever works for you. There’s nothing wrong with rocking your baby to sleep, but if you’re doing it for two hours every night, in the middle of the night, and it’s making you even more sleep-deprived and crazy, then you might need to reconsider it.
Katie is with us from the early evening, observing our routine and going over the options for sleep training that we might want to consider. There are two main options, one of which involves sitting next to the baby and soothing them when they cry, but moving a little bit further away each night until eventually you’re sitting just outside the door. The other option she suggests is timed retreat, which is a form of controlled crying. There is a big distinction between controlled crying and crying it out, I discover. Crying it out involves just leaving the child to cry themselves to sleep, which just seems too traumatic to me—all that stress, no, it’s definitely not for me. And Katie doesn’t advocate it anyway. Controlled crying, or timed retreat, involves leaving the baby to cry for short intervals, then coming back in to touch them, kiss them and reassure them that you are still around before leaving the room again. Each time you leave the room, you stay away for a little longer, and each night those intervals get further and further apart. You are never that far away, and your baby is never left for so long that that wailing hysteria sets in.
It hurts to leave my baby to cry. It hurts not to take her in my arms and try to soothe her, but Katie is such a calm and reassuring presence for me that we make it through the night being faithful to her system. And Poppy sleeps about eleven hours altogether, which by morning seems like some kind of miracle. She wakes up once during the night, but only for a couple of minutes, and I get the longest stretch of sleep I’ve had in literally nine months, which is so stunning to my body that it feels like I have jet lag. Coupled with this slightly drunk feeling, the fact that Katie’s system worked is unbelievable to me. On the one hand, it goes against my natural instincts to let my baby cry, but to see results so quickly is just mind-boggling. And I slept. I slept! I am absolutely amazed.
Katie explains that we all have natural sleep cycles, and certain senses that are activated when our sleep cycle comes to an end. ‘Very likely, when you’re co-sleeping with Poppy, her sense of touch is triggered when she begins to wake up. She’s gone to sleep with a nipple in her mouth and it’s missing when she stirs. She’s obviously very alert to that sensation and to the change that she feels. But when she goes to sleep without the nipple in her mouth, her body isn’t sensing a change so it’s much easier for her to relax back into sleep.’
The second night, when it’s just me and Luke doing the same routine at bedtime, Poppy goes down by herself and sleeps the entire night through.
What I’ve come to understand is that motherhood isn’t a competition. It’s not that women are trying to outdo each other, it’s just that everyone thinks they might know better. Everyone seems to think that their own experience is the same as that of other women. I know that not every woman would have the same reaction that I am having to sleep deprivation. I know that some women would cope much better than I am coping. I hear of women who haven’t slept through in two or three years, and I am utterly astounded. These women who can work, and maintain their relationships, and be nice to their family, and function in the world, on month after month of broken sleep are incredible. I applaud them, I guess, but that just isn’t me.
My sister co-slept with all her children, and did it for a very long time. When I decide to see Katie, I sense that my sister is disappointed in me, and I resent her for it—it makes me feel worse and contributes to my sense of guilt and of failure—and that in turn causes a rift. But all I can do right now is deal with my own reality and try to make the best decision for my family.
I’m starting to understand that every family experiences different things at different stages. If your baby is waking three times a night and you’re happy to feed them and put them back to sleep, cool, that’s fine, you don’t have to do sleep training. If you’re co-sleeping and the baby is sleeping, and you’re sleeping, and you’re getting time to yourself and feeling refreshed and re-energised in the morning, it’s not a problem. But if your baby is waking constantly during the night and you’re struggling, there are things you can do to create a better environment, to teach the baby how to resettle and go back to sleep.
It takes me a long time to feel comfortable telling people that we sleep-trained Poppy, because I still feel the residual shame, and I discover that there are plenty of people in the world who are happy to judge you without having walked in your shoes. It’s a pity we do this to each other, especially as women. It’s a pity we don’t have more compassion for what other mothers might be going through.
Within two weeks of sleep training, I feel like a new person. Within two weeks, we also find a position for Poppy in childcare—a near miracle in the early-childhood world. The fact that my schedule is completely flexible helps a lot, of course, and when they offer us Mondays we gratefully accept. I take Poppy in the following week. Walking away and leaving her there nearly breaks my heart, and I last about an hour at home before I go back to pick her up. The following week, we make it to two hours, and we slowly build from there. At first, Poppy seems completely unfazed when I leave, but I think it’s because she hasn’t figured out what’s going on. By the third or fourth week, she wails miserably when I drop her off, but the staff assure me she’s happy as a pig in mud for the rest of the day.
I struggle initially with the guilt, and spend a few lonely Monday mornings sitting on the couch feeling dejected. But eventually it occurs to me that I’m only wasting my time. This downtime is for Poppy as much as it is for me, because she needs me to be healthy and strong emotionally. And there is absolutely no point sitting around feeling miserable when I’m supposed to be caring for myself and relaxing. If I’m going to do this, I might as well do it properly.
It’s barely one day a week. It’s just a few hours really, because generally I drop Pops off at 9 a.m. and pick her up again at 2 p.m. But those hours are mine, completely guilt-free. I can get my nails done or get a massage or go and sit in a cafe with friends. I can lie on the couch and sleep, or binge-watch Netflix—anything I feel like doing. The important thing from a mental health point of view is feeling like I have control over my own time, that I’m not trapped in this hamster wheel of feeds, naps and nappy changes.
Instinctively, I want to call it selfishness, but with guidance from Georgia and Dr Clem, I tell myself that that’s not what it’s about. When I let myself get to the point of burnout, I was a terrible person—short-tempered, angry and emotionally dysfunctional. I have to take the time to nourish myself and to refill the well of love and calm inside of me, so that I have something to give.
A huge part of my new routine is about exercise. At the peak of Poppy’s sleeping troubles, I’d be lucky if I got to the gym once a week. I was too tired, it wasn’t a priority, I dreaded the car ride, what was the point … Even knowing how much better I would feel after some exercise, I just couldn’t motivate myself half the time. This has to change. I know that when I exercise I get completely out of my head and am completely present in my body, and that feeling is incredibly powerful for me. It’s really centring and peaceful
. I’ve never thought about it in these terms, but it is a kind of mindfulness. It’s a form of meditation that works for me, which is something I sorely need. I need to get back in the water.
Getting back in the pool always feels like returning home. The weightlessness, that feeling that I am gliding along the surface, is my happiest place. I love the sound of the water rushing past my ears and the feeling of the sun on my arms. I love stretching every muscle through freestyle and backstroke, from my core through my feet and the tips of my fingers. I start making more time to swim again, for the exercise and the endorphins, but the measured lengths up and down the pool also let my body breathe. I have a ritual at the end of every session where I swim most of 100 metres completely underwater. There is a special silence under there that makes my heart calm. After I’ve finished, I like to float on my back and gaze up at the sky, looking for patterns in the clouds. It doesn’t take more than half an hour a week, but this habit helps me to heal.
Through this period, Luke is incredible. He’s not the most romantic guy, he’s not always very expressive or communicative, and he’s not especially emotionally intuitive, but when he gets it, he gets it. And he really gets this. Our usual dynamic of driving and challenging each other to do better and be better has shifted, and he has nothing but loving support for me right now. I know he’s grateful for the guidance we’ve had from others, and because (like me) he is a very process-oriented person, he has put his faith in the process. Here are the tools—this is how we fix it. He never questions the things I need to get through, or gives any hint of resentment. I’m lucky he’s on my team; I feel blessed to have him in my life.
Beneath the Surface Page 16
