Young mum opens up about pregnancy depression
A mother has spoken of how pregnancy made her suicidal after robbing her of her identity and freedom.
Ayah Long was initially excited about her pregnancy, but her journey to motherhood almost came to a tragic end after her mental health began to suffer.
On Boxing Day in 2014 she found herself weeping on the floor, planning to take her own life.
With the pandemic shining the spotlight on anxiety, depression and all kinds of mental health problems, Ayah, 35, of Ratby, decided to share her story and try to break the taboo around perinatal mental illness.
She said: “Jody and I had just got engaged and it was a planned pregnancy. I did everything right – ate well and took the supplements – and had this vision I’d be a real Earth Mother and love being pregnant.
“I had all these preconceptions of it being a wonderful time but I just really lost my identity.
“I’m quite an independent person and I like doing things for myself. Suddenly there were things I really couldn’t do and I always felt people were judging me all the time.
“It’s not that I ever really wanted to have a glass of wine or to smoke, but I hated not being able to.
“I felt like I was just a pregnant woman – not myself any more.
“I hated having my choices taken away from me and I hated just being this pregnant person.
“Every conversation was the same and always about the pregnancy – it was like Groundhog Day.
“And, of course, as well as feeling really bad about being pregnant I also felt guilty for feeling bad.
“I wanted the baby, after all, and people were reassuring me that things would be much better once the first trimester ended and the morning sickness stopped.
“But it just got progressively worse.” In the days before Christmas 2014 she and Jody had an appointment for the “gender scan”. While they did not want to know the baby’s sex, they were keen to be told it was healthy.
On the day of the appointment everything went well and Ayah felt great. But she said: “After that high, things just sort of plummeted and on Boxing Day I can remember sitting on the floor crying.
“I was suicidal and I spent the day plotting how I would kill myself and trying to think of a way to do it without harming the baby.”
Jody was very concerned about Ayah by this point and an emergency consultation was organised with Ayah’s doctor, who sent the mental health crisis team to her home.
She was referred to a perinatal team, given talk therapy and, while her depression continued throughout the rest of her pregnancy, she felt herself backing away from the brink.
“After I had given birth to my daughter I wanted everything to be perfect, so that caused a lot of anxiety,” she said.
“But having given birth I was happy to start taking medication and the mix of the drugs, the talking therapy and cognitive behavioural therapy helped me through it.”
Ayah and Jody got married in August last year and their daughter turned five in April this year.
She said: “As a family, we really count our blessings now and life is good.”
It was the coronavirus pandemic that persuaded Ayah to share her story and to raise money for the PaNDAS charity, which specialises in offering one-toone help to women suffering with perinatal mental illness.
Ayah got her hair shaved off at the Honeycomb hair salon in Ratby and has raised more than £2,000.
She said: “With Covid and people generally being down there’s been a lot of emphasis on mental health, which reminded me of everything I’d been through and made me want to do something.
“I can’t emphasise enough how much I hate having my hair cut.” uk.virginmoneygiving.com/AyahLong
FELT SUICIDAL – NOW HELPING RAISE MONEY FOR A CHARITY