Discovering Nature Helped Me Tackle Depression During Pregnancy

Most women look forward to pregnancy and childbirth as a precious time. I’ve never been quite so starry-eyed: after four years of a debilitating mental illness, I must confess I was terrified by the whole thing, fearing it would leave me even less in control of my mind than usual. And as I enter the last few weeks of only knowing my child by the wonderful, mystical kicks and wriggles in my bump, I am a mixture of desperately excited about meeting the baby – and terrified about how I will cope.

I had only about three weeks when I appeared to glow during my pregnancy. The rest has either been taken up by vomiting and then a deep depression, which has only recently started to lift.

It’s a feeling I knew very well already. In 2016, I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder following some extremely unpleasant events in my personal life, and I’ve spent the past few years slowly learning to manage my anxiety, paranoia, flashbacks and critically low mood.

The more I tried to understand my illness, the more I realised there were three things critical to my recovery: medication, therapy and the great outdoors. The National Health Service has provided me with the first two, but without the third, the Natural Health Service, I doubt I would have recovered to the point where I am today.

I learned that running boosted my mood and helped me sort through my thoughts; that cold-water swimming tamed the flashes of anger and terror that were ruining my personal and professional relationships; and that exploring the natural world could distract me from the mad thoughts churning like a washing machine in my mind – and give me a simple reason to want to stay alive a little longer.

The more I saw of nature, the more I realised there was out there to see. How could I miss out on finding my first bee orchid, for instance? Many people don’t realise there are around 50 species of wild orchid native to the British Isles. Bee orchids are particularly clever. They have evolved to look, feel and smell like a virgin female insect, and attract a horny male to come along and have a go on the flower.

This cunning kinkiness, like the wild version of an inflatable sex dummy, just made me laugh so much at the cleverness of nature, and I wanted to find all the other relatives of this orchid too and see how they grew.

Longing for nature seemed simpler than the reasons people cite when they instruct you not to think suicidal thoughts. Human relationships are so much more complicated by mental illness that when we are really sick, we often convince ourselves that those around us would be better off if we weren’t there. Orchids, trees and birds don’t need us to be funny or interesting or useful. I have never felt that I am letting down one of the plants I’m hunting, and that simplicity has helped me a great deal in dark times.

In early pregnancy, I found I could stick to many of the aspects of the Natural Health Service that I’d come to rely on to stay sane. I swam the two-mile Swim Serpentine when I was five weeks pregnant, and at that time only felt hampered by a newly powerful sense of smell that meant I could detect a burger van 400 metres away on the shore. I was still running up to 20 weeks.

But, as is the case for many women in later pregnancy, my pelvis became incredibly painful, and I had to stop running and even walking for the long distances I’d grown used to each day. I found despair and panic creeping back into my thoughts.

I had presumed there was nothing the doctors could do to help. But the health service – which is still very patchy for people with mental health problems generally – has been brilliant while I’ve been pregnant. Within a couple of weeks, I was in a psychiatrist’s consulting room, being prescribed stronger medication and given regular therapy sessions.

My mood lifted just in time for the coronavirus lockdown to begin and so, once again, I am working out how to use the Natural Health Service to keep my mind level. I’ll need to be creative once more when the baby arrives, but I have realised that, no matter how restricted our movements, we can still enjoy nature.

I’ve been writing lists of birds I can see from my window, and learning their song. I’ve watched the trees in my street slowly come into flower and leaf. I’ve realised that our disconnect from nature isn’t because it is so far away from us, but because we have closed our eyes to its existence. There are fascinating flowers growing in the pavement cracks around my house, and insects emerging to feed on them. Once again, knowing they are there and that I haven’t seen them all yet keeps me going and helps me remember that no matter how long lockdown goes on for, and no matter how unprecious I find lots of aspects of motherhood, the Natural Health Service will always be there to fascinate and care for me – and in time, I hope, my child too.

The Natural Health Service: What The Great Outdoors Can Do For Your Mind is published by Atlantic Books

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