An Angel on My Shoulder. Theresa Cheung
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quickly through the questions:
Have I been able to laugh or see the funny side of things?
Have I blamed myself unnecessarily for things?
Have I felt anxious or worried or scared or panicky for no reason?
Have things been getting on top of me?
Have I had difficulty sleeping because of unhappiness?
Have I felt sad or miserable?
There were a few others, but they were all pretty similar. I could clearly see that the questionnaire was trying to help the health visitor assess the state of my emotional health.
At first I toyed with the idea of being brutally honest. Yes, I was feeling tired and unhappy, and I had been crying myself to sleep at night between feeds, but there was no way I was going to admit this on a form. Besides, it was only a phase I was going through and I would soon shake it off. I’d done my reading and I knew all about the post-baby blues. I decided it would be far better to put a positive spin on things – wasn’t that what everyone did? In fact, it felt ridiculous doing the test in the first place. I wasn’t depressed. I wasn’t ill or anything. I wasn’t contemplating harming myself or the baby. I was just feeling a little low. I grabbed a pen and ticked all the ‘Hardly ever’ options.
As I closed my front door behind the health worker I felt a rush of relief, but that relief was also tinged with disappointment. My mother had always encouraged me to ask for help if I needed it and here I was refusing help when it was offered because I was frightened of being labelled a bad mother. But then I reasoned that I was doing the right thing. What if everything got out of hand and a few tears at bedtime were somehow diagnosed as full-blown post-natal depression? Visions of social workers swooping in and taking my children from me flashed through my mind.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was the moment when I really started to lose a sense of perspective. My husband was working hard to pay the bills and I was alone with the kids all day and spiralling fast into depression. Neither of us had parents that were alive, and apart from my brother (who was living abroad at the time, so visits were sporadic), we had no close family to give us a break from time to time. Hiring an au pair or nanny was out of the question for me, not just because we were watching the pennies but because I was paranoid about trusting anyone to look after my precious babies. So there I was pretending that life couldn’t get any better when in fact I was struggling to keep my head above water.
I Should Have Been Happy
I should have felt on top of the world. OK, we weren’t rich in monetary terms, but we were rich in other ways. I had two beautiful children, a 20-month-old son and a newborn baby girl. I had a loving husband and my writing career was coming together. Not only that, but I had been comforted by the presence of my mother in spirit when things hadn’t gone to plan during my daughter’s birth. The full story is in my first book but, in brief, after years of frustration trying and failing to make contact with the world of spirit, the veil had finally lifted and I’d heard my mother’s voice in both my dreams and my waking life. My psychic development had taken a huge leap forward. I really should have been happy. But I wasn’t. I felt as if the bottom was about to fall out of my world.
Eight years later I sometimes struggle to understand what happened in those lost dark months following my daughter’s birth. Sometimes in the morning when I’m putting on my moisturizer or brushing my teeth I’ll still get a flutter of panic. I’ll remember how for several long black months I stopped using the cream and brushing my teeth. No point. No time. Then I’ll gently put the cream on my cheeks and forehead, feeling comforted by the smooth softness. My tension will ease and any panic will be replaced by a warm glow as I’ll remember how at
one of the lowest and saddest times of my life my guardian angel walked shoulder to shoulder with me every step of the way.
The first baby I ever held in my arms was my own son. I used to tell people I wasn’t very good with babies or ‘not that maternal’, but the truth was I found the responsibility of babies terrifying. I was scared of doing the wrong thing. I didn’t understand what they wanted, I didn’t know why they cried, and when I couldn’t settle them I would panic and blame myself. I made endless trips to the doctor with my son and each time I was told that he was simply tired, hungry or, in other words, perfectly normal. I read stacks of baby manuals, grateful for any advice I could get from people who seemed to know what to do. I loved and hugged my son, but I also felt sorry for him. I wasn’t much of a mother. I’d join play groups and feel that I didn’t belong. The other mothers seemed to know everything and do everything right. Nothing I did or said felt right at all.
I just about kept afloat with one child to care for, but when my daughter came along 20 months later I stumbled and slipped. I lived in flip flops, even when it was cold and rainy. There never seemed to be enough time to put proper shoes on, just as there was never time to wear make-up, phone friends or eat properly. I was constantly run down with mouth ulcers, colds and stomach upsets. I felt beaten by the simplest of things. One day my cash card was swallowed up because I’d keyed in my PIN number incorrectly three times. I remember sobbing uncontrollably on the way back home.
I was painfully conscious of my inability to enjoy my children. I’d watch them wriggling their arms and legs and then I’d look at the clock, wondering how long it would be before they napped. And whenever my daughter cried I felt myself spinning out of control. At those moments my anxiety seemed to burst out of my head and force its way into every organ and muscle in my body. Sweat poured off me, my pulse raced, I struggled to get air into my lungs and my stomach filled, as efficiently as a lavatory cistern, with acid.
Not understanding why I couldn’t soothe my crying baby or make my toddler son laugh like he did when his dad was around gradually chipped away at my confidence until I had no belief at all in my ability as a mother. I felt a complete failure. This went on for about four months after the birth of my daughter until I experienced perhaps the worst weekend of my life. Then I came crashing down like I’d never known before. I felt weak, I felt like nothing. I wanted to walk away from everything. I was convinced my children would be better off without me. It was the most desperate I had ever felt. I just wanted everything to go away. If I’d seen a truck coming towards me I would have had to fight the impulse to jump in front of it.
After limping through the day I fell into bed that night exhausted but wide awake. As I lay there with tears streaming down my cheeks I realized that for the sake of my children I had to seek help.
I fell into a deep, heavy sleep. I started to dream, but it wasn’t like any dream I’d ever had before because I actually knew I was dreaming. It was the weirdest sensation. I couldn’t wake up, but I knew I was in control of my dream. I could create anything I wanted. I could be anything I wanted. My first instinct was to fly. I rose in the air without wings. The sense of freedom was intoxicating. I did some cartwheels in the air and laughed at the tiny people below watching me open-mouthed with amazement. My next instinct was to soar. I flew over London. I flew over the ocean. I flew over Disneyland in Florida. I flew into a firework display. I flew to Africa and Egypt and Alaska. Anywhere in the world I wanted to go my dream took me.
I asked my dream to take me to my guardian angel. Curiously, instead of flying up higher to the stars and space, I started to sink down to Earth. It didn’t feel as though I was falling, it was as if someone was gently putting me down. I found myself in a field with luscious green grass. There were streams everywhere, bubbling with sparkling water. I heard the sound of a celestial choir and then I saw a figure floating over the grass towards me. Eventually it stopped in front of me, hovering at shoulder height. I think it was female, but I wasn’t sure as I couldn’t see the face properly because the light was so blinding. I did see golden curls of hair tumbling over shoulders and I also saw wings. They were dazzling blue and when they beat together I felt my whole body shake.
I tried to fly up towards the figure so I could get a better look at the face, but the nearer I tried to fly, the more distant the angel seemed to become. I tried to talk, but no words came out of my mouth. Then I heard a voice speaking. It’s hard