Kirsty's story

Living with anxiety

"I was terrified when I first became pregnant. I have had anxiety for quite a long time, it first started in my teens but I only recognised my symptoms for anxiety when I was about 19, whilst at university. I learnt to manage my mental well-being as an adult, with the help of medication but when I found out I was pregnant my anxiety kind of ramped up a gear.

It was really hard at first, because you are flooded with hormones and your body is changing physically, emotionally and mentally and it was difficult to know whether what I was feeling was down to the pregnancy or because my mental health was not quite where it needed to be.

It didn’t help that people would say to me “oh of course you are going to be anxious, you are a first-time mum.” But for me, that didn’t feel a good enough reason to be struggling the way I was, I suffered from panic attacks, palpitations and sometimes felt afraid to leave my home or go to work.

They would say “you must be so excited” and of course I was excited but I was terrified at the same time.

I first struggled with the sense of losing control, a lot of my anxiety anyway stemmed from not feeling in control and when you are pregnant, you are suddenly faced with this situation where you are completely out of control, where you have got no control over this “thing” you have got inside of you."

Knowing I needed help

"I knew I needed some help and I think that’s important, knowing yourself, knowing when you are not ok. But I also get anxious about going places I have never been before and meeting people I don’t really know, so when my midwife referred me to the NSPCC’s Pregnancy in Mind programme I was terrified at the prospect.

The idea of going to a group was overwhelming but as soon as I met Pat from the NSPCC, who ran the groups, all of those worries just disappeared because she was just wonderful. So reassuring about everything, it put me at ease and you have to remember everyone in the room is in the same kind of position, everyone else is tackling some form of anxiety or depression.

I had hated going to my NCT classes, I couldn’t help but feel everyone else in the room is normal and I am struggling with anxiety, nobody else is worrying about being here.

But with the PIM group meetings, everyone else is worried or anxious too, I felt normal for once. I felt I could talk about my anxiety really openly and that’s what I liked the most about it, from the minute we got there, the transparency of it, it was a safe environment and everyone was really honest with each other."

Building a bond with my baby

"I started trying the things recommended in the group sessions, so for example when I played music to my baby, she was kicking and I suddenly felt a real bond forming with her.

Before I was so apprehensive, I was so terrified of giving birth to this baby and that I wouldn’t have a bond, I wouldn’t love her, I wouldn’t know what to do with her but having the support of the PIM group sessions really helped.

I think there is an expectation that you should be on Cloud 9 for the whole nine months and the reality of it is, is that it is not like that at all.

Once I had that support, I thoroughly enjoyed my pregnancy, because I was able to create that bond with my bump and if I had had a bad day at work I could sit and think, right now I am just going to have five minutes with my baby and just relax a little, and that was nice because I would never have known to do that if I hadn’t gone to the group."

What I took from Pregnancy in Mind

"I have taken a lot from the PIMs group, about being a mum, recognising that getting stressed is not good for me and it is certainly not good for my baby.

That’s my focus now, doing everything as simply as possible so she has got the best possible chance. I don’t want to be an anxious mum around her and then she grows up being an anxious person.

I know what to do to stop myself getting to crisis point, I think it is really important to be able to look after your mental health and to know when to ask for help.

From the very first session we created a Whats App group and we have all kept in touch. I haven’t been to any local mum’s group meeting, I can’t make myself leave the house and go to them but I know at the end of a text or a phone call I have now got the PIM group of girls, they are a vital support network, without having to put myself in a situation that is going to make me anxious.

I firmly believe that it is so important to give that kind of support to mums before children are brought into the world, so you are protecting them early on.

I feel so fortunate to have done it and I do tell everyone about it, and actually I think, would it not be fantastic for something like that to be standard for everybody that was pregnant, whether you have mental health problems or not?"