I am 38 and six weeks pregnant.
By anonymous on 06/02/2009
I am 38 and six weeks pregnant. I moved back to the UK a year ago to start a relationship with my childhood sweetheart/ friend five years after a divorce. Things have been going ok, but depression keeps creeping back in, post-divorce issues I never dealt with. I have given up a successful career. We planned this pregnancy, but now it has happened I am very upset and it doesn’t feel right. I am afraid my depression will worsen. I often think about ending it all. I saw my doctor and she was very smug and said it will be the making of you. I wish I felt that way; I really want to feel that way. I already have so much guilt in my head, I can’t even think about an abortion. I think it would put me over the edge. I should be excited about my first baby but I am not at all. I could not be in a better situation or with a better man.Editor’s note: Thanks for sharing your story with us…Depression is usually something we do to draw a grey blanket around ourselves to protect ourselves from further pain. I wonder what pain from your past – your marriage and divorce – that you have not yet dealt with. It’s this which is undermining your current relationship – and now your pregnancy too. Pain avoidance is a common human response; allowing pain to pass through us is far healthier. We are designed to heal; burying, suppressing or denying pain only damages us in the long-term.
Guilt is something that tells us we have made a mistake and is therefore useful for making amends, but shame is something that tells us we are a mistake. It attacks our core being and disables us from being the person we’re meant to be. Guilt can go wrong when we believe that we deserve to be punished, that we should never receive good things, like a baby or a good relationship, in order to pay back for what we did. That’s penance. Is that how you feel? If so, that’s all getting in the way of the life you have now. You are being robbed.
It sounds as if some good counselling would help to unravel your emotions from the past and to establish healthier ways of relating to your past experiences. Contact your nearest centre, the helpline or Online Advisor in the first instance. There is hope and you don’t need to be lived by your past.