Claire's story

I wished to be a parent for a long time. Sometime in the late 1990s, I remember doing an activity in high school where I had to disclose how many children I wanted when I was older. The purpose of the exercise was to highlight the social, financial and environmental impacts of having children and how these increased with the population. My answer was four children! As the years went by and life happened, my initial number of four began to decline until I was eventually happy with the possibility of having just one child. As well as being a parent, I longed to have a family unit. A partner, a child and I. I dreamed of my partner and I showering our child with lots of love and support and having a sense of completeness.

In late 2017, after four years of trying to conceive, my husband and I were blessed with the arrival of our beautiful daughter via IVF. The family unit I longed for was finally complete. However, to this day, I have not felt the completeness I wanted for so long. The sleep deprivation and anxiety over looking after a helpless child kicked in pretty much straight away. On top of that, my husband and I were going through the pain of a relationship breakdown. The sleep deprivation and an unsettled baby made us both irritable.

My husband was also experiencing a mental health crisis, which sadly he kept to himself. He began to withdraw from us and he was very absent from my daughter and I, both emotionally and physically. When he was at home he had his head locked in his phone or was downstairs tinkering with his motorbike. He’d lay in bed late in the morning while I struggled with the newborn challenges of the day. Or he would make any excuse to get out of the house.

I remember being very angry, annoyed and lonely and I took his behaviour very personally.

The struggle must have been immense as he decided he would end his life, which is what he did when our daughter was only three months old.

Even before I got pregnant I had an understanding, although vague, that fathers could also experience postnatal depression and anxiety. Although theirs is not hormonal based, but rather based on the pressures of being emotionally, mentally and financially supportive to their growing family (amongst a million other reasons), it is as equally as terrifying as that of the birth parent. Throw in society’s archaic mentality that men don’t talk about their feelings and emotions and it really is a recipe for hardship and disaster.

I remember my husband turning into a different person and that prompted me to ask him whether he was experiencing postnatal depression. A simple ‘no’ was his response and then I went on about my own daily struggle. When he passed away I remember feeling very guilty and blamed myself for not doing more to help him. Should I have dug deeper when he responded with ‘no’? Should I have asked him repeatedly to get more of an answer from him at another time?

So many ‘should haves’ dominated my mind. It’s only through lots of support and counselling and time that I can truly say I did my best and there is nothing I could have done differently to save his life. Even if he had responded with ‘yes’, it still wasn’t evident to me that he was having suicidal thoughts. If he said ‘yes’ I could have encouraged him to seek help, but I’m not confident that he would have done that.

I think the important thing I learned here is that it’s OK not to identify the signs of someone being suicidal, or having depressive or anxious feelings.

I cannot speak for my husband and say that it was 100% postnatal depression that made him decide to leave this world. He had a lot of other stuff going on. Only he can speak for himself and know how he was truly feeling. But my interpretation of this time is that he began to go inwards in a time that was incredibly stressful and that can provoke some pretty intensefeelings. I know my own thoughts during this time were sometimes quite negative and dejected.

So there I was, a sole parent and my baby just a few months old. All the years of longing for a family unit were squashed. I lost what I thought was my life partner and the daddy to our beautiful girl. At the same time, I was dealing with the loss of my sense of self; who I was and who I used to be. Being a new mother can be incredibly lonely. Sometimes you don’t leave the house for days as there is no break in the feed, change nappy, sleep (or lack thereof) cycle. Throw in losing your partner to suicide and it felt even lonelier.

Looking back to this period in my life, I can say that I too was struggling mentally and emotionally. Even before my husband passed away I felt the struggle. I was very fortunate to have a good support network in my family and friends. I was also very mindful of myown mental health as I had suffered from anxiety and depression in the past. I was aware of mysigns so that I could be proactive in reaching out, should I need to. I was offered a few counselling sessions through the hospital in the perinatal period and I had a great mothers group who were very honest and very supportive of one another. These were all very positive factors that gave me a sense of comfort, support and security. When my husband passed I again had very intensive counselling to navigate my way through the grief, guilt, anger and loneliness.

There are many takeaway messages from my experience during the perinatal period. It’s OK to feel lousy and less than your usual self, but time is truly the biggest healer. When my husband passed many people told me that it would get better in time. I was very angry at them for saying this, because how could they understand the depths of what I was going through? But they were right.

Time is a very powerful healer. I also had a specific mantra that I looked to all the time which was: “This too shall pass”. Even now, when I’m in the midst of grief, having a less than ideal day or having a challenging time with my toddler, I recite this mantra to myself. It wasalso very important to have a great supportive network filled with friends, family and professionals. Without them I can’t say with confidence that I would be where I am today. 

But the most important thing I’ve learned is that dads can have a hard time too and sadly they can be more brutal to themselves. Many men are conditioned into silencing their feelings which means it can become a dangerous time in their life. Sadly, this was my experience, but it doesn’t have to be with more open discussion and men feeling welcome to discuss what they are going through.