My take on rediscovering you

The theme of this year’s maternal mental health week is “rediscovering you”. The more I thought about this, the more I realised that presenting helpful ideas on “how to rediscover yourself” could become yet another pressure on the to-do list. Filed next to: lose weight, get fit, get some sleep. Every mum is short on time, but the number of tasks hanging over a mum with maternal pituitary condition is utterly overwhelming. On top of all those parenting, home and work tasks comes a full time job of managing a dynamic and often unpredictable health condition. All the appointments, medicines, tests, pharmacy trips, unexpected infections, random new symptoms and living with the dragging fatigue and exhaustion.

Chronic illness can feel in a lot of ways like constant loss. Loss of self, loss of health, loss of autonomy, loss of time, loss of fitness, loss of self image or loss of career maybe. It is truly a burden to carry. Sometimes that burden feels really heavy, other times it feels lighter but it is always there. So what does this have to do with rediscovering yourself? What does that even mean when you feel like a completely different person? For a long time, I sought to get back to the person I was before. I constantly compared myself with the “old” me. Then I realised that getting back to the “old” me wasn’t going to happen. My life had been completely changed when my pituitary was damaged. But I seriously didn’t like the “new” me either with the fatigue and the hospitals and the tablets and the injections. I grieved for all this. I attended a course about chronic pain and I learnt about the importance of cherished activities in a person’s life. A cherished activity is something that makes a person’s heart sing; the type of activity that makes them lose track of time, leaves them feeling lighter and refreshed. This is what I was missing. Those things that had made me….me, before all of this.

We know that loss of cherished activities hugely affects mental health. It also has a huge role in the development of chronic pain. This is on top of the overwhelming impact of trauma, chronic ill health and the sleep deprivation of parenting. This is where rediscovery comes in and the key to this is…. time. Time to rediscover and reconnect with your cherished activities. But time is not something a mum with a chronic illness has. It’s not something any new mum has. One place to start is 1%. What is that small thing you can do each day? Maybe something you can do at home if you’re feeling exhausted? However, rather than putting all the responsibility on the mums, we’re also shouting out to all those people around them. Partners, family and friends! I’m talking to you now. I’m certain you have been wondering what on Earth you can do to help. Here’s what you can do (and this is equally as important as all the medical stuff). If you can, offer regular time to this mum. Don’t wait to be asked. Offer your time so that she can do something she cherishes, regularly. Weekly. Daily even. Something she loves to do, maybe from before or maybe something new. So that as she figures out this “new normal” of parenting, plus life changing diagnosis, she can take respite in these cherished activities. Have headspace to process, take a step back and realise that despite all that has happened, she is still herself.

For all those struggling out there, the good news is that with time, it’s possible to become more than the you that is the patient and the mum. Almost 10 years on, it is now only one part of the whole me. The burden of the condition may be heavy at times and I may need to rest, but I have been able to rediscover those other parts of the whole Jenn and those see me through. I no longer compare the “old” and “new” me. I’m Jenn and I’ve always been Jenn but now I have some additional things going on. I hope that helps. Sending love to you all this Maternal Mental Health Week.