There are some feelings you never quite forget. The moments when life feels heavier than usual, when your mind won’t switch off, and when you find yourself trying to understand why you’re feeling a certain way, even when you can’t quite put your finger on the reason.
For me, I’ve started to wonder whether October is becoming one of those times of the year.
Last October, around five months after giving birth to my second son, I experienced one of my lowest points emotionally. It was a difficult period, and although I can’t say I fully understood everything I was feeling at the time, I knew I wasn’t quite myself.
Looking back, what’s interesting is that this wasn’t the first time I’d experienced something similar after having a baby.
When I had my first son, I remember feeling a similar way around three to four months postpartum. Then, after welcoming my second son, I found myself in another difficult place around five months after his birth.
And now, almost a year after that particularly low period last October, some of those familiar feelings have started to creep back in.
It’s made me stop and think about whether there could be a pattern here that I’ve never really paid attention to before.
Could the changing seasons be affecting my mental health more than I realise?
When familiar feelings return
I’ve previously been diagnosed with mixed anxiety and depression, and if I’m honest, worrying has always been something I’ve struggled with. My mind can be a busy place. I can overthink situations, get caught up in my own thoughts and sometimes find it difficult to switch off.
It’s something I’ve had to learn to recognise about myself, and it’s something that doesn’t necessarily disappear just because life is going well.
Motherhood has brought me so much love and happiness, but it’s also brought its own challenges. Becoming a mum changes so much about your life, from your routines and relationships to your sense of identity and the way you see yourself.
And when you’re looking after little people who depend on you for almost everything, it can be easy to put your own feelings to one side.
Sometimes, you don’t even realise how much you’re carrying until things start to feel overwhelming.
That’s why the return of these feelings has made me reflect. I know what anxiety and low mood can feel like for me, but I also know that every difficult period doesn’t necessarily have the same explanation.
The fact that I’ve experienced similar emotional lows after both pregnancies, and now seem to be noticing these feelings again around the same time of year, has left me with questions.
Perhaps it’s coincidence. Perhaps it’s the emotional and physical demands of motherhood. Or perhaps there is something about the changing seasons that I need to understand better.
Could it be Seasonal Affective Disorder?
As the days get shorter and the evenings get darker, I’ve started wondering whether Seasonal Affective Disorder, commonly known as SAD, could be contributing to how I feel.
SAD is a type of depression associated with seasonal changes. For many people, symptoms tend to emerge during autumn and winter, when daylight becomes more limited.
It’s something I’ve been thinking about more recently because of the timing of my experiences. October has become a month that makes me look back on how I felt last year, and now that some of those emotions seem to be returning, I can’t help but wonder whether the season itself could be playing a part.
Could reduced daylight be affecting my mood? Could the darker evenings be amplifying feelings of anxiety or sadness that are already there?
I don’t have the answers, and I don’t want to assume that SAD is the explanation simply because I’ve noticed a possible connection.
But I do think there’s value in paying attention to patterns in our mental health, especially when those patterns begin to repeat themselves.
It’s also important to recognise that the timing of my experiences after childbirth may be a separate part of the picture. Postpartum depression and anxiety can affect mothers in different ways, and the demands of caring for a newborn, disrupted sleep, hormonal changes and the adjustment to life with another child can all influence how we feel.
Perhaps several things have contributed to what I’ve experienced. Perhaps the reasons have been different at different times.
For now, I’m simply trying to understand my own experiences rather than dismiss them or feel that I should automatically know how to manage them.
The reality of struggling while being a mum
One thing I’ve come to realise is that you can love your life and still find parts of it difficult.
You can adore your children and still feel overwhelmed. You can be grateful for your family and still have days when your mental health feels like a struggle. You can be doing your best to keep everything together while privately feeling as though you’re running on empty.
I think this is something many mothers experience but don’t always feel comfortable talking about.
There’s so much emphasis on the beautiful parts of motherhood, and rightly so. There is so much joy in watching your children grow, seeing their personalities develop and experiencing the little moments that make everything worthwhile.
But motherhood also comes with a mental load that can be difficult to explain. There’s the constant planning, the worrying, the responsibility and the feeling that you’re always needed by someone.
And sometimes, even when you’re surrounded by the people you love most, you can feel emotionally exhausted.
For me, having a history of anxiety and depression means I know that my mental health is something I need to take seriously. I can’t always assume that a difficult feeling will disappear if I ignore it or keep myself busy.
Yet I think it’s easy, especially as a mum, to keep going and tell yourself that everyone has difficult days.
Sometimes we convince ourselves that we’re just tired, that we have too much on our plates or that things will feel better once we’ve had a little more rest.
And sometimes those things are true.
But I also think we need to give ourselves permission to acknowledge when something feels different, when a low mood lingers or when familiar feelings start returning.
We don’t have to wait until we’re at our lowest point to admit that we’re struggling.
Looking back at postpartum, and looking at the present
When I think about those first few months after having both my boys, I wonder how much of what I experienced was connected to the adjustment of becoming a mother again, and how much might have been influenced by my existing mental health.
Those months after having a baby can be an emotional time. You’re adjusting to a new routine, often functioning on broken sleep, navigating physical changes and learning how to meet the needs of another little person while still caring for yourself and your family.
Even when you’ve done it before, having another baby doesn’t mean the experience will feel the same.
And although I experienced similar emotional lows after both pregnancies, I know that doesn’t automatically mean there was one underlying cause.
What feels different now is that I’m noticing these feelings outside of that immediate postpartum period, and I’m beginning to question whether the time of year might be relevant.
I don’t want to overlook that possibility, but I also don’t want to jump to conclusions.
Instead, I want to give myself the opportunity to explore what might be happening, whether that’s through recognising patterns in my mood, paying closer attention to how I’m feeling or speaking to a healthcare professional about the changes I’ve noticed.
Because understanding your mental health isn’t always about finding one clear answer. Sometimes, it’s about learning to recognise when something isn’t quite right and being willing to ask for help.
Giving myself permission to slow down
One of the things I’m trying to remind myself is that I don’t need to have everything figured out.
I don’t need to know for certain whether the changing seasons are affecting my mood before I take my feelings seriously. I don’t need to wait until things become unbearable before I reach out for support.
And I certainly don’t need to feel guilty for having difficult days.
I want to become more aware of my emotional patterns, particularly during the autumn and winter months. I want to pay attention to my mood, my energy levels, my sleep and the things that might make certain days feel harder than others.
Getting outside in natural daylight when I can, making room for rest and being more open about how I’m feeling are small steps I can take. I also want to speak to a healthcare professional about the feelings that have returned, particularly given my previous diagnosis of mixed anxiety and depression.
I know that looking after my mental health is just as important as looking after my family.
It’s easy to forget that sometimes. As mums, we’re so used to checking whether everyone else is okay that we don’t always stop to ask ourselves the same question.
But we matter, too.
Our feelings matter. Our wellbeing matters. And we deserve support even when we can’t quite explain what’s wrong.
A reminder for any mum who feels the same
I’m sharing this because I know I’m unlikely to be the only mum who has experienced something similar.
Perhaps you’ve struggled emotionally after having a baby. Perhaps you’ve noticed that your anxiety becomes more difficult to manage at certain times of the year. Or perhaps you’ve found yourself feeling low without fully understanding why.
Maybe, like me, you’ve started to recognise familiar feelings returning and wondered whether there’s a connection you haven’t noticed before.
I don’t know yet whether SAD plays a part in my own experience. I’m still working through those questions, and I know that noticing a pattern isn’t the same as having an answer.
But I do know that I want to be more honest with myself about how I’m feeling.
I want to stop minimising difficult emotions simply because I’m a mum and life is busy. I want to recognise when I need a little more support, and I want to remind myself that struggling emotionally doesn’t take away from the love I have for my children or the mother I am to them.
Motherhood is a huge part of my story, but it isn’t the whole of who I am. My mental health is part of that story, too, and it deserves to be acknowledged.
So, as we move further into autumn and the days become shorter, I’m trying to listen to myself a little more closely.
Not with judgement, and not with the expectation that I should have all the answers, but with the understanding that my feelings are worth paying attention to.
Because perhaps the first step isn’t figuring everything out straight away.
Perhaps it’s simply being honest enough to say, I’m not feeling quite like myself, and I want to understand why.
And if you’re feeling that way, too, I hope you know you don’t have to figure it all out alone.
Have you ever noticed a change in your mood as the seasons change, or experienced a difficult emotional period after having a baby?
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