Eyes Without Sparkle

A Journey Through Postnatal Illness

Elaine Hanzak

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9781000466744
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Medical Theory, Practice & Reference

One day you will feel better… Eyes without Sparkle is a powerful medical autobiography describing the journey followed by the author into, through, and out of puerperal psychosis, the most severe form of postnatal depression. With vivid and intimate descriptions of events and the author's feelings, this is the only book offering a single first-hand account of postnatal illness. The book serves as an inspiration for anyone suffering from or involved with a depressive illness. For health and social care professionals it is a reflective guide to learning from patients' experiences, and the examples of positive and negative aspects of treatment can inform mental health services and policies.

CHAPTER 1

My life before becoming a ‘Hanzak’

‘Children bring their love,’ said my dying grandmother, as she patted my mother’s bump (me!). Unfortunately she did not live long enough to actually meet me. Yet I shared her belief about children for many years, until illness proved the theory wrong, for a while. My middle name, Anne, was chosen after that special lady.

I was the second child of Lawrence and Maureen Walsh, born at a maternity home in Fleetwood, Lancashire on Sunday 4 August, 1963. My elder brother Kevin, who was two when I was born, had been a perfect baby who slept, ate and charmed everyone to the book. I did not! My sleep pattern was terrible but my worst problem was crying constantly until I was picked up. Sometimes if a woman tried to calm me it did not work, but put me in a man’s arms and I was happy. I have never changed! My parents tried everything to soothe me and eventually they were told by a doctor that all I needed was to feel loved and secure and not to worry.

‘All children are different,’ he reassured them.

My mother, an only child, had trained as an assistant librarian and my father left school at 15 to join the Royal Air Force. He was from a large family in Greenock, Scotland. They had met in Blackpool, whilst my father was based in Lancashire, and settled in nearby Thornton Cleveleys. It was rare in the 1960s for families to ‘move away’. Our small town was a typical ‘retirement’ area, whose residents often felt their aspirations lay higher than those associated with the brashness of Blackpool, and compared to the austere 1940s and 1950s, our standard of living was high. It was generally a time of hope, progress, community involvement, care and safety. It was a time and place when aspirations could become real – and did. Both my parents had wanted their own children and although we were not wealthy, we were rich in the attention, love and interest they bestowed on us. I always wanted a family like ours when I grew up. My chosen childhood books described the classic family with a boy and a girl; a mother who stayed at home and a father who went out to work. My parents had the typical problems of coping with shift-work, limited wages, each other and a young family, but to me we resembled the epitome of a happy life. My dreams of having this for myself one day were normal at the time and many of the modern-day stresses did not exist then, especially the notion of being a ‘working’ mother.

My childhood years were fulfilling and I was contented. My father worked shifts on jobs usually involved in fire-fighting and safety whilst my mother stayed at home to care for us. We lived in a small, three-bedroomed, semi-detached house. Kevin and I would often play happily together and we participated in many after-school activities. I was busy with Brownies, then Guides; dancing classes for ballet and tap; Sunday school and playing the cello. We would play family games some evenings and often had days out at the weekend with my maternal grandparents, who had a car. From an early age I learnt to be busy and enjoyed being so, although there was never any pressure to attend these activities. The years ticked by with happy memories of school, playing out with the local children, shopping and meals at my grandparents, in nearby Fleetwood, every Friday night. We would have an annual holiday, usually to a caravan on a farm or boating on the Norfolk Broads. At school I was usually quite successful but had to work reasonably hard to achieve ‘B’ grades. Kevin seemed to find academic skills easy and managed ‘A’ grades with apparently little effort.

Right from being able to walk and talk I adored children. I was the classic little girl who wanted dolls’ prams and to play ‘house’. My grandmother often used to come and play and we would spend hours with me being ‘Mummy’ to my dolls and acting out events such as christenings in my bedroom. We always used to have lovely birthday parties. My father was great at entertaining children and making us feel special. However, I always used to say to my parents that I would have no Christmas presents and no birthday presents ever again, if only I could have a baby brother or sister. When I was ten we moved to a slightly larger house in Fleetwood; I also got the dreamed-of little sister and I have had presents ever since too! At the time many people commented to my parents that she ‘must have been a shock’. They were annoyed as she was actually planned. So at ten years old I had the nearest thing to my own little baby, a sister named Claire. I idolised her. I did everything for her – I bathed her, fed her and changed her. We shared a bedroom. She was my little living doll. I took delight in all her stages of development and she fed my hunger even more to be a mother in the years to come.

The decision to move was mainly to be near the local grammar school, which had an excellent reputation. Our new home overlooked its playing fields. Fleetwood is a fishing port but its industry was in decline at this time. My grandparents were delighted that we moved within a mile from them but my parents had the foresight to realise that their own children’s future would lie outside this area, and good education would be the passport to success. I always remember my mother and father being supportive in all our childhood activities. I admire them for making sure we got the opportunities they did not have. They gave us a great deal of time, effort and everything they could provide. This is reflected in the fact my brother has spent his career learning and teaching in universities worldwide and my younger sister has got both a Masters plus a first-class Honours degree.

My younger teens were very involved with Claire. This was not to the exclusion of the usual teenage things, but as opposed to watching television I would rather be playing games with her. One favourite game was to make a den between our beds. I had some best friends and was mad about all boys from the age of about 13 – just a typical teenager really. My later teens were busily spent on homework, Claire and the standard infatuation with a boy who lived across the road. I never rebelled and never went through any wild phases. I suppose I was boring. My reports always said I was mature and sensible. How I hated that description! My best friend at the time was very attractive and won local beauty competitions. Most of the time, I must admit as a teenager, I felt very much under her shadow as she had a beautiful face and figure. I always felt that if a boy showed any interest in me it was because they wanted to get to know her better! Guess who the boy across the road asked out? Yes – it was her!

Meanwhile I began to wonder what my choice of career would be. I often used to read a book called Careers for Girls to help me. Soon I realised that I wanted to become a speech therapist. My parents had sent Kevin and me for elocution lessons, as it was considered to be a useful course during this era. I went for 11 years and loved it. My teacher, Peggie Ward, taught me the skills to speak in public and founded an interest in the English language that has remained with me. The older girls who went to elocution did their diploma in speech and language there and I always wanted to do it. I knew that it could lead to speech therapy and this became my ambition.

In the summer of 1978 I had just finished my ‘O’ levels and Kevin had taken his ‘A’ levels, when we all moved to Runcorn, in Cheshire, due to our father’s promotion within ICI. At the time this was one of the UK’s largest companies and promotion and moving around the country had become more commonplace. My maternal grandparents were devastated and reacted as though we were going to the other side of the world, not 70 miles away. To their generation you were born, worked, lived and died in the same area and did not desert your home town. In spite of their reservations we did move and all the family benefited. Our new home was roughly between Manchester and Liverpool. Runcorn has its roots in the chemical industry and from the building of the Jubilee Bridge across the River Mersey, it had become a designated ‘new town’, and was undergoing tremendous development in housing, transport and industry. Our house was on the edge of the ‘old’ town and we soon all settled in. Kevin and I had a great summer together as he had also just learnt to drive and we commandeered the family car. We both got holiday jobs and amused ourselves in the evenings by getting to know people locally. In the autumn Kevin went on to Oxford University and I went into the sixth form. I was surprised at that point that people actually talked to me and not just because I had a glamorous friend. I had several romances and I loved it! My only regret at leaving Fleetwood was that I had to leave my elocution lessons and consequently was not able to pursue the diploma.

During my final year at school I had my life mapped out. I wanted to go to university, be a speech therapist for a few years, be married at 24 and have a family by 28. I would definitely give up work for a while because at that time I did not agree with the philosophy of being a working mother. Why should you bring a child into this world if you could not look after it 24 hours a day? Yet it did not work out that way ultimately for me and many others. In the early 1980s there were still many mothers who stayed at home but since then it seems that Britain has had a major change in its values and society as most women now work and bring up a family too, adding to the stresses of modern-day living.

The week before I did my ‘A’ levels I was in a car crash with some friends, breaking my wrist and being very shaken. Consequently I did not do as well as I should have done in my exams. Whilst I had been researching speech therapy I had kept coming across the words ‘mental handicap’, and did not know anything about it. So during the sixth form I started helping at the local school for such children and loved it. My parents advised me that a teaching job for a mother is a great bonus, due to the holidays, and rather than resit my ‘A’ levels I decided upon this alternative career. It was a decision I generally do not regret. Four years later I qualified with an Honours degree in Education with a specialism for children with mental handicaps, or learning difficulties which is now more accurate. I studied at Edge Hill College, in Ormskirk, Lancashire and thoroughly enjoyed my time there. It was a quiet campus in a rural setting but the course and social life suited me. I made some good friends, some of whom I still see regularly. I had a steady boyfriend during my college years and for a while thought we may marry. However, once away from the campus we drifted apart, but I shall always treasure my special memories of that era.

Once qualified, I got a job teaching nursery children at a special school in Chester and was able to live with my parents again. As I did not have my own house to run, socially there was a big gap and I filled it with a group called ‘Rotaract’. This is the junior version of Rotary International and is basically a club for 18–30 year-olds who organise social and fundraising events. I loved the planning and all the activities and was the president one year, when we raised about £5000 for local charities.

I had a happy and contented life around that time and I also met my first husband through the ‘Rotaract’ club. He was a solicitor and I thought he was everything I ever wanted. It was all slotting into place. We were married a week before my 25^th birthday, just within a few days of my overall aim of being married at 24, and I thought that was it. Unfortunately, just after we were engaged, I was chatting about our future together and hopes for children when my fiancé said, ‘To be honest I would not be fussed if we never had them.’

At this point I heard the warning bells of course and replied, ‘Look, we need to sort this out, because I desperately want children. I admit not immediately, but I know it’s something that I really do want.’

We tentatively agreed to wait five years.

Initially it felt like the perfect marriage and I appreciated all that our lifestyle provided. However, as the years went by we started having all sorts of problems, not just about the prospect of having a family of our own. As several of my peer group were having children, I was feeling more and more left out and the maternal ache became intense. Meanwhile my husband kept saying things like, ‘Oh children, they ruin your life.’

Just after we had been married I had moved jobs back to the original special school where I had helped out as a sixth-form student. For a while I was the nursery teacher and thoroughly enjoyed working with disabled toddlers and their parents. After a few years I transferred to the leavers’ unit for 16–19 year-old students. Our class base was in a self-contained bungalow on the playing field and our focus was on life skills. My assistant and I worked hard in encouraging the youngsters to achieve targets in all curriculum areas and we even had several students who went out on work experience placements. As my pupils’ confidence increased, mine did too. One day we had a very useful staff training day concerning assertiveness. The main message that I picked up from it was that if you have a problem you have two alternatives. If you cannot do anything about the problem, why worry. Alternatively, if you are in a position to do something, then get on with it!

This made me realise that I had been pretending my marriage was fine for a long time and I faced the fact that I had grown apart from my husband. We both had to reluctantly acknowledge this and tried to solve our differences, but unsuccessfully. Just before I was 30 I moved back to my parents again, became divorced and threw myself into work.

CHAPTER 2

Nick and I

I had felt very stifled at times in my first marriage as my husband was caring but overly cautious about many things. My favourite song became ‘Reckless and Impulsive’ by Wilson Phillips. I bought myself a fast, sporty car, had my hair cut short (my ex-husband did not like it that way) and generally wanted to live life more adventurously. I met up with college and ‘Rotaract’ friends and organised many social events. For my 30^th birthday we had an excellent summer barbecue at my parents, complete with bonfire and merriment into the early hours. My goal of having a child by 28 had faded like the flames did.

At school a teaching colleague, called Nick, and I became good friends. He was eight years older than me, had never married, and lived an active lifestyle. Together we began to go hiking, cycling and for meals out. We took some of our pupils to France on holiday together and our friendship blossomed. We even did a sponsored parachute jump for school and went skiing. How I enjoyed being reckless and impulsive! He was generous, kind and made me smile. The desire to be together grew stronger as our romance and love blossomed and in May 1994 we bought a house together in Runcorn, where we still live. The rate at which we transformed the house and garden amazed us. We both liked planning, choosing and buying our new decor and furnishings. Many hours were spent busily making the house our own and we often commented on what a good team we made. Both of us are very tidy and organised (some may say boringly so), but we like it!

Within a few months we began to plan our wedding and on 17 June 1995 we were married at the local registry office. Family and friends joined us for a buffet back at our house, and then some of us went on to a hotel on the outskirts of Chester for an intimate dinner. Nick and I stayed in a suite there for two nights, a short but blissful honeymoon. We chose this particular time, as opposed to school holidays, to coincide with my brother, his wife and new baby visiting England. He had met Annie, his wife, in her native Zimbabwe, where they still lived. Being a strong ‘family-minded’ girl, it would not have been as special if they had not been there.

Second time round, rule number one was that I wanted children and initially Nick was somewhat reluctant because he had lived on his own for 12 years. He was very much set in his ways, and as far as he was concerned he felt he was a bit too old for children. Years earlier he had presumed that he would have a family but after some unlucky relationships had given up on the idea. However, we had talked about it long and hard, and before we even got the house together we agreed that we would try for a family. I still felt very much that I wanted to be married before I had a baby. I am quite old-fashioned in that way, and very luckily, I was ecstatic as within three months of us being married, I was pregnant.

The baby was conceived on my 32^nd birthday and I was over the moon. A couple of days after my birthday we went on a touring holiday in northern Spain with my parents to rural areas where pregnancy kits cannot be easily purchased! So we had to wait until our return to confirm it. I just knew I was pregnant. Normally I cannot keep any secrets from my mother as I either tell her or she guesses. I was dying to reveal my suspicions to her whilst we were away but managed not to. Afterwards she said she had realised I was expecting as my obvious silence on the subject of periods spoke volumes! In the previous two months I had commented on my disappointment. I remember lying in bed on my birthday just being aware that a miracle of nature was happening inside me – the miracle I had dreamed of all my life. It reminded me of my childhood plea to my parents. This was to be a birthday present I would never forget!

Yet the pregnancy path was not smooth. The first blow that fell was that we both had thought that maternity leave was on full pay but discovered the day after I had done the pregnancy test that this was not the case. At the time, we had spent a fortune on our house and the wedding and had tried to fit into 18 months what most couples take 15 years to do. Nick and I had decided that for financial reasons I would have to go back to work if we had a family. I liked my job, although given the choice I would have preferred not to work. I loved Nick deeply and felt content with him. He did more than me around the house and so I did not feel that I would have to do everything for a family. We both taught so would have the advantage of the school holidays with any children we may have. We lived close to our workplace and also would have some support from my parents and Nick’s mother. I felt that I could manage being a working mother – so many people do, why couldn’t I? I thrive on being busy so was convinced we would manage well.

If we had realised about the finances, we probably would have left trying for a baby a bit longer so that we could have cleared some of our debts and saved up a bit. However, we had not and I was determined that money worries would not cloud my delight at being an expectant mother. I wanted the whole world to know my condition and told the news to the rest of the family and friends almost immediately. On returning to work that September we had some training days. One of these involved lifting and handling techniques for people with special needs. The instructor asked if anyone had any particular physical problems or were pregnant, as they could not follow the practical aspects of the course. I admit to being extremely pleased to confess I was!

That pleasurable feeling extended across all areas of my life. Like most things I am ever involved in, I bought all the magazines and bought the books. When I had been getting married I had devoured the bridal magazines; when we bought the house I had delved into home-making journals. I did not feel I had an idyllic approach but I like looking into projects, researching them, finding out and making my own choices. Being pregnant was a wonderful venture for me. I began making lists of all the items we would need; sent off for mail-order catalogues by the dozen and researched every aspect of consumer advice into each maternity and baby product available. We decorated one of the two front bedrooms in a bright, primary-coloured scheme, hoping it would suit a boy or girl.

I was very, very excited about it. In addition, within the family, Nick has only got one sister, who had a single teenage son, so his mother had not had another new grandchild for years. My parents also only had one little grandson, Brendan, but at the time he lived in Africa and they did not see him very often. Consequently this baby would be the first grandchild they would be able to watch growing up day by day. All the family were excited and were looking forward to the baby co...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Forewords
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Prologue
• 1 My life before becoming a ‘Hanzak’
• 2 Nick and I
• 3 The birth
• 4 First days on the ward
• 5 Coming home
• 6 Another hospital stay
• 7 We’re going to the Lake District
• 8 A holiday
• 9 Dominic’s in hospital!
• 10 Pressure, pressure
• 11 Losing it!
• 12 Downhill
• 13 The final descent
• 14 A refuge
• 15 Becoming institutionalised
• 16 Looking up and outwards
• 17 Discharge day!
• 18 He’s almost one!
• 19 Another summer
• 20 Back to school
• 21 Springtime
• 22 Back to reality
• 23 Spreading the word
• 24 Making a difference
• 25 And so to London
• 26 Insight into emotional disorders associated with childbirth
• Appendix