Challenging Maternal OCD

I’ve written before about my own battle with Maternal OCD (which you can read here) it was something which escalated over time and affected how I lived my day to day life. I was diagnosed with “regular” (?!) OCD in my late teens, however by the time I fell pregnant it was largely under control…

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PND & Christmas – Tips For The Festive Period

Christmas is probably one of the most stressful times of year for parents. Whether you struggle with depression and anxiety or not it can become overwhelming. Here’s some tips for parents struggling with their mental health, which can help make things a little easier. Plan I’m a lover of lists, I have them for everything…

Baby Loss – Sadness & Stats

***Trigger warning - Baby Loss*** Today I received an email from a well known parenting website informing me I was 34 weeks pregnant, I'd signed up for updates as soon as I found out I was expecting, and this email told me that my baby would be plumping up and could hear my voice...except I'm…

End Silence & Stigma – Baby Loss & Perinatal Mental Health Course

Baby Loss & Perinatal Mental Health Awareness course for health care professionals, and those who support families. November 3rd & 4th, Canvey Island, Essex. Ourselves here at Lotus Petal Family Support have teamed up with 'From My Womb To My Heart' to create a two day course focusing on Baby Loss & Perinatal Mental Health.…

8 Tips on Dealing with anxiety during a stressful time

Everybody goes through stressful times, it's just part of life. But when you struggle with anxiety, stress can make the symptoms feel worse. Recently I've had quite a lot going on personally. We've had a run of unfortunate events, our miscarriage earlier in the year, I've struggled with my physical health, which thankfully has begun…

What I’ve learnt from my Mental Health relapses…

I've been well now for nearly 3 years. Recovery is individual to everyone but one thing we all know is it isn't an easy, straight road. Here I share what I've learnt from my own difficult moments and relapses. I've had two main 'relapses' when it came to my postnatal mental health. The first was…

Thriving or Surviving?

5 years ago I was hanging on, living each day one dreaded day at a time. Everything felt too much, I was overwhelmed by responsibility, feeling completely empty of any positive emotion and anxious each second of the day. I was surviving, just. During 2011 I was a newlywed, pregnant with our first child, we…

Recovery – its individual

Recovery means different things to different people. For some it means no longer needing medication, for others, including myself it means being able to do the things your illness prevented you doing before and some people don't believe in the word recovery. These are all valid points, but something I believe is recovery is different…

The Taboo of Baby Loss

It's such a difficult subject to talk about yet it affects so many people - Baby loss. * Trigger Warning this post contains my experiences of miscarriage and may be triggering for some, please read with caution and only if you feel able to * Its Baby Loss Awareness week, an event held each October…

Moving on after Postnatal Depression..

My first taste of motherhood wasn't what I hoped. My daughter is nearly 5 and it's taken me the best part of 4 of those years to make peace with the desperate sense of loss I felt at not enjoying the first precious years with my baby. In previous posts I've explained how postnatal depression…