Wednesday 17 February 2016

Life : Two Years



Two years ago today, I lost custody of my sons to their father due to depression. It was honestly the hardest, most heartbreaking day of my entire life. In a split second, I went from seeing my two beautiful boys most of the week and having them overnight, taking them to school, bathing them, putting them to bed, reading stories and having cuddles, snuggled up with popcorn and movies on the sofa.. to supervised contact four hours a week. You're told they can't sleep at your house, you can't bath them, read them a story and snuggle them into bed with a kiss. You're not even allowed to take them to school, or collect them at the end of their day. I can't explain what it's like for this to happen, all of a sudden you're told you can't look after your own children, the boys you brought into the world - because you're mentally ill.

I'm writing this with tears rolling down my cheeks. The day we went to court was awful. The childrens' father had been physically violent to me during our relationship, I brought this up. He threw me into a wall and winded me severely when I was pregnant with our second son, I literally couldn't breathe. He painted me in a light that made me look like a liar, that I was trying to make him look worse because I was 'ill' - like I wasn't able to think clearly because I was depressed. Some people might wonder why I let my depression get so severe, when actually, I was begging doctors for months for help, they'd send me away with yet another anti-depressant and tell me to come back if it wasn't helping, which of course I did. I wasn't given any kind of help until it was too late and I'd tried to take my own life (I was alone when this happened). 

For the first few months after losing my sons, I laid in bed feeling sorry for myself. I was overwhelmed with guilt and I wanted to sleep the days away, I didn't want to exist. I felt like I'd failed as a mother, as a daughter, as a sister, as a friend. I felt like I had nothing to live for. It took me months and months of going around in circles, getting lost in my own thoughts to actually realise that I could carry on just existing or I could get myself better and regain custody of my children. 

Of course I opted for the latter. Before we went to court, I had to undergo a psychiatric assessment, the psychiatrist reccommended that I would need 12-16 sessions of psychotherapy, but he believed that I wouldn't actually do it. So I spent an entire year having private psychotherapy, to prove that I would do it, to get myself better and work through the issues that had been plaguing me since childhood. 

I started working again, I hated my job but it gave me a routine, I had something to get up in the mornings for, I was earning my own money and it was distracting me from my thoughts, as well as getting me to socialise. I pushed and pushed myself, making small, slow steps to begin with, but giant leaps as time went by.

I got discharged from the local mental health team not long after we went to court, it was in our agreement that supervised access would remain in place for a year. After this, unsupervised contact could be introduced, provided that a second psychiatric assessment proved I was well enough mentally.

Sure enough, after around 18 months of having supervised access to my sons, I had a second psychiatric asssessment. I was no longer clinically depressed and was classed as being in remission, I'd had no depressive symptoms for over 6 months and the psychiatrist was happy for me to see my children alone again. 

I started collecting them from school and having them for dinner, without their father or a member of my family being present. 

On Saturday this week, my children will be sleeping here for the first time in that two years. I've redecorated their bedroom for them, ready for them to come home and they cannot wait to spend the night here. Two days later, I start my degree in Mental Health Nursing.

I really thought that I'd never get through my depression, I never believed that there was a way out of it, like there was nothing I could do to get better, it just wasn't going to happen. I was drowning. But actually, with time and patience, self-belief, support from loved ones and the drive to keep moving forward, I did it. I am so proud of myself right now and I hope me and my little boys continue to keep moving to the future, to continue to make progression and to rebuild our relationship. If you don't believe that time is the best healer, I promise you, it is.

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