A Time To Talk Counselling - Post Natal Support Group

FREE SUPPORT GROUP FOR MUMS

As featured on BBC Radio Swindon's breakfast show.

Becoming a Parent is a life changing experience and no matter how much we prepare ourselves, it can turn our lives upside down. Unfortunately babies do not come with instruction manuals and we can feel that we are floundering and out of our depth when we are plunged into the world of parenthood.

Even though these feelings of being overwhelmed and anxious at times as we adjust to life with our latest addition are normal, we can feel that we should be feeling on top of the world. The reality can be that we are often left feeling incredibly tired, low, stressed out and less confident.

Does this sound familiar? Are you feeling that things are not as easy or enjoyable as you hoped or thought they would be? Are you finding it hard to get out or perhaps feeling lonely, tearful or trapped? Do you perhaps worry that you don’t feel absolute love for your baby?

A Time To Talk Counselling and Life Coaching Service have been running a free confidential support group for the last three years. It is for any mum with babies and young children, in Swindon and its surrounding areas, who perhaps feel tearful, that they are not coping very well, have lost some of their confidence or who are struggling with difficult feelings. A crèche is provided on site with caring and experienced staff who understand how hard it can be to leave your baby.

This friendly, relaxed and totally free group is held in

Abbey Meads Community Room,

Abbey Meads Primary School, Hugo Drive, Swindon

on Thursdays (term time only)

from 1.00pm to 2.30pm with a free crèche

Annette, one of counsellors who facilitate the group says “We understand what a big step it is to take for mums who are not feeling too good to come to a new group. We know how difficult it is to find the confidence, energy, motivation that it takes. We, together with other mums who come to this supportive group, soon help new members feel welcome and at ease – so please come along.”

By coming to the group, we can help you to break the isolation and loneliness that mums often feel when they are at home on their own with babies and young children. You can begin to gain understanding and support and make contact and friends with other mums.

Mums find coming to the group a positive experience as you can see by their comments below:-

"The group is friendly and welcoming"
"It's ok to talk or just listen"
"Other people understand what you feel like"
"The counsellors have been great and very understanding and always there to listen no matter what. Meeting people with the same illness and that I am not alone has been helpful"
"The group is brilliant. I have learned a lot from the other people and friends in the group"
"It has helped me to cope with things better"
"The most helpful thing is knowing that someone else understands"

Some mums are surprised to find out that 1 in 10 women experience some form of post natal depression or post natal anxiety following the birth of their baby and those are only the ones that are brave enough to admit to how they are feeling. Symptoms vary from person to person but may include lack of motivation, feeling lonely/unsupported, tearfulness, anxiety, panic, irritability, resentment, or not feeling loving towards your baby. Friends and family can often be unaware of the extent of these feelings.

You may not feel that you have post natal depression. Perhaps you are just feeling a bit low in which case please come along and join us. We need new mums to come and support our group so that we continue to get funding.

Health visitors pop in for the last half an hour of the group so that they are on hand with current guidelines and answers to any practical issues mums may have around parenting.

If you would like to book a free crèche place or any help with transport or a “buddy” to take you please call Roxanna Cox on 07966 023636 or if you would like to have a chat with one of our counsellors, please ring A Time To Talk Counselling and Coaching Service on 07722 023950.

See below what our mums say about how coming to this group has helped them:-

“When my health visitor suggested I went along to the group I was very distressed and depressed. I had sailed through my pregnancy and I hoped that when my baby arrived it would be equally as enjoyable. Nothing prepared me for what motherhood would in fact turn out to be - a very lonely place. The practicalities of child rearing were far from the problem, rather the emotions that I would feel. And what made it worse was that family and friends were totally besotted with this new arrival, yet, the one person that should have been, me, just wasn't. I felt that my world had been turned upside down. I had enjoyed my job and now I lacked control over everything and felt that I was no longer making any sort of contribution, making me feel worthless. Consequently I felt very desperate, low and on many occasions was close to walking out on my family.”

“The group has been an enormous help to me. It has become the one place where I feel that I am completely safe to admit my true feelings about motherhood and my depression and feel that no one is there to judge me.”

“Those at the group are from different backgrounds, believe in different ways of child rearing and have one or many children and different family situations yet, we all have one thing in common and that is that we struggle to cope at times and want to work through these problems to be the best mothers that we can be. The crèche is an invaluable tool to allow space away from our children so that we can focus on what we need to do to make things right. And it has the added bonus that our children are in turn learning to socialise and interact with other children”.

“Funding for this group must not cease. Being a good mother is the most important thing women will ever do yet so many of them would struggle on alone without groups like this. I feel now that I am making a breakthrough, that I am staring to enjoy having my daughter and my relationship with my husband is getting better. Above all I am looking to the future once again and it is impossible to put into words what a relief that feeling is after many months.”

“Other women in Swindon should continue to be able to get this incredibly important support when they need it through a group like this.”

“ I came to the session for the first time last week. I felt very comfortable with the counsellors and the rest of the group and was able to express how I was feeling. It really helped to be with other people who have been feeling the same way and it has helped me come to some conclusions about why I have been feeling the way I have and how I can improve things. I have started to feel much more positive already.”

If you feel that individual sessions of one-to-one support would be something that you would like to talk about, please call us to speak to one of our counsellors: 07722 023 950.