This week is PANDA’s Postnatal Depression and Anxiety Awareness week. Such an important time to open up the conversation about a topic thousands of women around the globe are suffering with both in silence and with the support of family, friends and professionals. Yvette is an inspiration to so many women by talking openly about her experience. Kindly she has written a piece sharing her personal story with PND and Anxiety with us all.

By Yvette Mystakas

My experience with severe post natal depression and anxiety was not my first taste of mental illness.

In fact, I have been an anxious person my whole life.

From a little girl in primary school right up until now I am constantly battling with my self worth, forever doubting my capabilities of doing anything greater from my dreams and always on edge with every little detail about myself.
In my teens I suffered from bulimia and was 50 kilos (which is scarily thin for a girl of 5’8” height). Why did I become bulimic? I just wanted to have a perfect figure just like the size 2 models on the runways. Back then social media was none existent, so I had pictures of supermodels from Vogue plastered on my wall so it was a reminder of the figure I wanted. I craved, starved, and purged to be like those women on the runway. It became an obsession. I tirelessly worked out, morning and night to get to my goal faster.

I recovered from my bulimia – but my anxiety was rattled. I did not think highly of myself and I ended up choosing the wrong partners in my late teens and early 20s, when one partner physically and mentally abused me for almost a year.

In spite of these experiences, not once I wanted to give up, not once I wanted to take my life. I was merely existing in life, achieving the bare minimum to live and get by.

One day I decided to get a university degree, meet my soulmate and we got married. Life was perfect. It was bliss.
Until the night before I handed in my honours thesis, I found out I was pregnant.
My life flipped upside down. I was 26 and had my life planned out. I did not expect to become a mother in my 20s but I did and it completely changed my life.

My identity was reconstructed too as a mother and that scared me so much. So I quickly formulated during my pregnancy that I was going to be the perfect mother for my son. As you can imagine, this was a recipe for disaster.
This idea of perfection crushed me and I feel deep into depression and anxiety, which was the crescendo. My mental health was obliterated. My husband and I separated. I wanted to take my life. I wanted to give up and end it all. As a result, I ended up in the psychiatric ward.

So, this is my story of my fight with mental illness condensed.
On the outside I look like I have overcame it all. I might look happy. I might look like I have it all together. But to this day, I am still fighting the fight.
Some days I still crumble and some days I want to give up.
I am still figuring it out and how to completely win the war that wages in my mind silently.

I do not have all the answers, but I can tell you this what works and has worked for me.

Firstly, I have let go of that idea of perfectionism. I did not learn in my teens that perfection was not attainable. Now I get it. Perfection does not exist. Perfection is obsolete. Perfection is all in the mind.

But what I do know for certain, I am perfect enough for my son. He thinks I am the perfect mother for him. When I enter the room, his eyes just shine. His beacon of light drenches me with so much love and achievement. I am perfect for him. He is perfect for me. We are perfect for each other.

Secondly, my path was not some romanticised journey where I saw the light and I was healed. I took medication. I sought counselling. I reconciled with my husband and our marriage is amazing now. Some days we struggle. Some days we argue. Yet we never forget to communicate to each other now.
I was so ashamed I struggled as a mother. I thought that struggling was apart of the process of being a new mother but also I thought being a mother was supposed to be one of the most happiest times of my life. It took me a long time to come to terms that I had severe post natal depression and anxiety. I was completely in denial as I thought I suffered the worst before becoming a parent. Now I embrace it, I have began to forgive myself. Most importantly I have started to love myself. I am worthy of this life and what this life has to offer.

Yvette Mystakas is the founder of She Is Sacred. Her online platform empowers women though an exchange of raw, real and heartfelt experiences around modern womanhood, motherhood, mental health, marriage and wellbeing.
Yvette’s continued involvement with the Gidget Foundation, plus her shared personal accounts of postnatal depression and pregnancy loss have established She Is Sacred as a significant study of modern motherhood and womanhood.
You can follow Yvette’s journey via Instagram, Facebook and her website.