All Genna could talk about was her depression and anxiety and she worried that her friends might judge her for it.
Transcript
I’m trying to remember. Just that maybe I wasn’t paying attention to her enough. I was really that, I don’t know, I wouldn’t give her the means to grow into a successful or healthy baby, that I wasn’t talking to her enough or I wasn’t playing with her enough. I found it really boring to be quite honest being at home with a baby. It wasn’t very stimulating intellectually. It was pretty isolating as well to be at home. My partner did go back at work at this point so I was the main care provider.
Interviewer: So this is like eight, nine months down the road?
Yeah, between like six and eight months. And I had some friends who had also had children recently and they were helpful but I just felt like all I wanted to talk about or all I could talk about was the depression and anxiety that I was having and that people really wouldn’t want to hear it and that they would judge me for it or they would not want to hang out with me because I was so negative all the time, which is not true. They were great people and very helpful and welcoming but I was just really stuck in a negative head space.
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- Managing Personal Challenges with Sleeping and Eating – GennaDuring her psychotic episode Genna developed a sort of algorithm to help her remember her daily tasks, as she often forgot to eat or sleep.
- Stigma and Feeling Judged – Genna (clip 2)All Genna could talk about was her depression and anxiety and she worried that her friends might judge her for it.
- Stigma and Feeling Judged – GennaGenna feels there is a kind of judgement that people struggling with mental health during and after pregnancy do not love their child.