05 | Ella
“It was tougher than I ever imagined. I felt so lonely and isolated, and I felt like nobody was going through what I was experiencing. But I think looking back it was just that nobody ever spoke about it, everybody hid it, and pretended like it was all rosy when that’s not the reality.”
When Ella reflects on motherhood, she talks about two things: firstly, the dream of motherhood that she’d had her whole life, and secondly, the nightmare that she was confronted with when she actually became a mother.
Between not feeling the immediate bond to her daughter, the inability to communicate her feelings with anyone in her family, her husband working long hours, and the realisation that the reality of motherhood did not meet her expectations, Ella was overwhelmed by feelings of hopelessness and worrying thoughts about her children being better off without her.
Unfortunately, being told “motherhood doesn’t suit you” is when Ella was forced to confront the reality of postpartum rage and depression. It was this fleeting (and very hurtful!) comment that actually motivated Ella to finally ask for the help she desperately needed and to eventually start her business Mind Over Mumma (@mindmumma on Instagram) as a perinatal Occupational Therapist.
For Ella, postpartum with both of her children included depression and rage. With her first baby, Ella’s depression wasn’t picked up on until later in her motherhood journey.
It was only when Ella sought help for her daughter’s sleep that it was recommended to her that she seek support for herself too, not just her daughter. “My daughter was a terrible sleeper, she just cried all the time, the crying was just so triggering for me. So I started to get help for her sleep to try and manage that and along that way I was referred for a psychologist, and all this additional support, and I guess once I started talking to the psychologist, it then started to come out what I was really going through”.
She admits though that she was still in denial about the depression, “I still kind of just thought no, I'll get through it, I'll be fine”. Unfortunately, the psychologist she had just started to see was no longer available. Her mental health was pushed to the side. “I was just about to start on medications and I found out I was pregnant again”.
Her depression presented much quicker in her second postpartum, “I think the real time where depression and anxiety came up was after my son” which she says is due to her moving out of her parent’s home into their newly purchased home, and due to her husband starting a new business with long, unpredictable hours.
It was here, without a support system, that Ella felt overwhelmed by mothering two. “For me, and I think for a lot of people, having a toddler can be a lot more difficult than a newborn, they’re talking, their behaviour can be really difficult, and I guess a lot of her meltdowns were really triggering for me. I get really overstimulated and triggered by noise, so her going off, the TV going, my son crying, all of that was just always really triggering.”
This is when the rage kicked in. “It was embarrassing at first. I felt shame. I would yell at my daughter. I would even throw things down the hallway. Just so much frustration and anger, just triggered from all the little things, you know, if the house was too messy, I couldn’t stand The Wiggles anymore. Just all the little things would really set me off.”
Ella was also bearing the full mental load of running a household alone, adding to her rage and overwhelm. “Having the mental load on me, all the time, has been triggering and overwhelming, and then that isolation, just being here at home on my own all the time, struggling to get out of the house with the two kids.”
By this time, Ella’s depression from her prior postpartum had only escalated, and she was confronted by a deep sense of hopelessness.
Ella says it was a flippant comment, “saying motherhood doesn’t suit me”, which was actually the catalyst to seek professional support, because it made her “realise that things weren’t going well… and that I needed to go get help, and that things were really not okay.”
“It cut to my core… I was in a really bad place. I guess that comment, although it really was hurtful, it was the turning point for me.”
Within moments of that comment, she sought out help.
“Within a couple of minutes, I was on my phone and booking an appointment with my GP because right at that minute, I knew that things were not ok, I had been having thoughts… I didn't want to be here.”
She had no intention of acting on these thoughts, but the belief that her children would be better off without her was all-consuming.
With the support of her GP, and a referral to a psychologist and psychiatrist, Ella received medication and therapy to begin healing her depression and rage.
Unfortunately, she did experience some side effects with a dosage increase of her anti-depressants, but overall she asserts that “medication has been a saviour for me, it has helped level me out.”
Ella has also only recently been diagnosed with anxiety too, after a particularly “absolutely intense” out-of-body experience when she was meant to go out with a friend. She was left shaken and unable to focus or drive, so she knew she needed to reach out to the psychiatrist. This is when she received a prescription for PRN medication to help if and when the anxiety became too much.
Ella admits though that she is largely anti-medication in general, so she struggled at first with taking the PRN medication, although she knows how quickly things spiral when anxiety is not managed. “We all think of anxiety as this constant worry, but anxiety can get really bad… there’s just no way out of it sometimes, so I think that medication is really important.”
Ella suffered in silence for so long. “I didn’t talk about it with my family or my husband… it was only when I started opening up to him that it started to improve.” Even now, Ella still hides her experience from the majority of her family with the exception of one of her sisters. For Ella though, it’s the practical support “the village” which her family provides that has made a significant difference to her wellbeing. She is so incredibly thankful to her family for helping to ease the pressure of trying to live up to the mother-who-can-do-everything trope.
Finding a passion outside of motherhood in her Occupational Therapy business Mind Over Mumma “has aided in my recovery, making me feel purposeful. I’ve got something that feels meaningful.”
Through Mind Over Mumma, Ella now advocates for maternal mental health and believes in the power of an online community to openly share our experiences. “Being open and honest about what your experiences are, you just don’t realise that you open up the door for so many other people to share their truth.”
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