About Me

Hi there beautiful Mamas - Carolyn Franzke here...

Welcome to A Life Transformed - a place for second chances, for Mamas learning to live simply, authentically and deeply connected to their soul.

Please browse through my extensive blog posts about depression, resistance, organic gardening, cooking with intention, shifting perspectives and embracing vulnerability. I offer a one-on-one coaching service for Mamas who are stuck, in difficulty, have depression and who want to live with soul and passion. A defined coaching program for mamas with post natal depression is coming in September 2014 - keep checking for details.

If you want to keep up to date and I touch with me, then is encourage you to sign up for my awesome weekly newsletter - where I give an overview of the posts I've written in that week.

Lastly, here is my story. So you get where I'm coming from...

Some words about my depression...so it may help you dear Mama:

After the birth of my second daughter, Bethany, I was diagnosed with post-natal depression. For the first month or so things were lovely. We were high on the joy of a new addition to our family, it was Autumn and the weather was sunny, Ian was home for a lot of the time on paternity leave. In general I was tired but things were good. And then somehow I found myself yelling more. The tiredness was starting to build up but surprisingly I had trouble staying asleep. I was getting more and more wired as I got more and more tired. And then I was yelling even more at my family but telling myself that it was okay - I was just tired and it would pass. Except that it didn't and then Ian was telling me that I needed help.

He'd never done that before and it scared me. But it turns out that he was scared too - this was a wife out of control and he didn't know what else he could do.

And so, amid many tears and that pervasive tiredness, I went to see my doctor and finally accepted a diagnosis of post-natal depression and my first prescription for anti-depressants. It felt like a big blow. For since the birth of Rosie 5 years earlier I had had similar symptoms, they had just faded a little with time and I'd compensated for them in other ways. Up until that day at the doctors I had successfully avoided taking chemicals and avoided admitting to myself that I had a serious problem.
Accepting a diagnosis felt like both a relief and failure for me.

It was a conflicted time, but unfortunately I needed to make decisions about whether I still breastfed Bethany (since the anti-depressants carried a small risk to her). Of course, a tired, depressed woman is not the best person to make important decisions and I agonised over making the best one, in turn causing myself more suffering.

Depite all of this, and the prescription in my hand, I still wasn't entirely convinced that anti-depressants were necessary. But to be honest I didn't know what else to do and felt trapped. It took a long conversation with a friend who had been through it herself to feel brave enough to take the first tablet. In some ways it felt like a big step, that one tablet.

But then things started to change. One day of medication turned into a week of taking a tablet a day, then a fortnight, then a month, then we started to notice that I was sleeping better. I was definitely not yelling anymore either and Ian had noticed a difference in my overall happiness. I even started to get out more and interact with others in a meaningful way and this made me feel more normal (a word I try to avoid as it often isn't helpful, but in this case it reflects a return to something acceptable for this mama). I started to feel confident that I could commit to events, play dates and activities for myself. I started to be able to rely on myself again. And I was surprised at how long it had been since I'd felt that way. Years in fact.

Now I've been taking anti-depressants for over a year and still I'm experiencing positive changes. I'm surprised at how far-reaching my depression has become over the years and at the number of thoughts and habits I have that are no longer useful. Each week, it seems, I uncover another unhelpful habit and then proceed to make changes for the better - changes that in some cases I have been trying for years with little success. For this I am very grateful and I now value my anti-depressants much more. They have become a helpful friend in a way I never imagined.

And where to from here?

That I don't really know. I was expecting to wean myself off my tablets this month, but as the time approached it felt more and more wrong. The positive changes are continuing and it would be foolish I feel to put myself in jeopardy again just as things are starting to head in a good direction . Besides, this Mama's sleep is still fragmented from girls big and small each night and the first thing I know about my depression is that sleep deprivation is a key determinate. And so I've decided, amid some angst, to keep taking anti-depressants indefinitely. Until it feels right to stop, whenever that may be. It's not what I imagined when I first started taking them, but life has a funny way of working out despite my expectations.

And so, if you're reading this because you, too, are suffering and unsure what to do then I urge you to persevere. It takes time to work out what the problem is and sometimes even longer to find a solution. But don't be afraid to think outside the square, to ask for help and to take the advice of people in the know (your family, friends and trusted health professionals). In these situations, where mental health is at stake, you need all the help you can get.

Carolyn x x x