To feel robbed of a delivery experience

[callmehannahbaker]

I was in labour for 2 hours, I pushed for 14 minutes. I had 20 people in ready to rush me for a c section but I pushed against their wishes.

I only have that from notes-I remember none of it.

I watch OBEM and wish I had an experience of birth.

Aibu to wish I had a birth I remembered?

I hate that women beat themselves up so much about how they delivered their baby. When I had DC1 I was the only one amongst my friends to have a natural birth. They were really upset about it. For no.2 I had to have a C Section. I can quite honestly tell you that I prefer neither scenario as they are both unpleasant and wonderful in their own way.

I can quite honestly say that how you deliver your baby is irrelevant and has no bearing on what kind of mother you become or how much your baby loves you. I don't know who came up with that stick to beat women with but I'd sure like to ram it up their arse.

You misunderstand. I think you're using other people's bad experiences to congratulate yourself on how "well" you've coped with yours.

Most of the abuse on this thread has actually been directed at me, presumably for a digression from the accepted MN narrative

There's no abuse. Some people disagree with you and some perhaps find your 'snippy' posting style hard to engage with.

It is rather insulting to the people on this thread who have taken the time and trouble to reply to the OP and talk about their own experiences to be dismissed as perpetuating the 'accepted MN narrative.'

HariboIsMyCrack

From Here: www.rcpsych.ac.uk/healthadvice/problemsanddisorders/posttraumaticstressdisorder.aspx

Most people, in time, get over experiences like this [an experience that is overwhelming, frightening, and beyond our control] without needing help. In some people, though, traumatic experiences set off a reaction that can last for many months or years. This is called Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD for short.

So the JFGOWI approach is not unique - and in fact people who go on to develop PTSD often JFGOWI to begin with and continue - they have a new-born to care for, and lets face it most mothers have to.

so the leaflet goes on to say

Many people feel grief-stricken, depressed, anxious, guilty and angry after a traumatic experience. As well as these understandable emotional reactions, there are three main types of symptoms:

1. Flashbacks & nightmares

You find yourself re-living the event, again and again. This can happen both as a 'flashback' in the day and as nightmares when you are asleep. These can be so realistic that it feels as though you are living through the experience all over again. You see it in your mind, but may also feel the emotions and physical sensations of what happened - fear, sweating, smells, sounds, pain.

Ordinary things can trigger off flashbacks. For instance, if you had a car crash in the rain, a rainy day might start a flashback.

2. Avoidance & numbing

It can be just too upsetting to re-live your experience over and over again. So you distract yourself. You keep your mind busy by losing yourself in a hobby, working very hard, or spending your time absorbed in crosswords or jigsaw puzzles. You avoid places and people that remind you of the trauma, and try not to talk about it.

You may deal with the pain of your feelings by trying to feel nothing at all – by becoming emotionally numb. You communicate less with other people who then find it hard to live or work with you.

3. Being 'on guard'

You find that you stay alert all the time, as if you are looking out for danger. You can’t relax. This is called 'hypervigilance'. You feel anxious and find it hard to sleep. Other people will notice that you are jumpy and irritable.

Personally I was a 2 for as much as I could but my children kept ending up in A&E at the hospital that I birthed in which meant that I ended up with 1... flashbacks and anxiety attacks.

It's important to note here - that most mothers that I know who have had this tried to ignore/mask their symptoms for as long as possible, when one of the more effective approaches is to talk about them and get appropriate therapy - CBT has been shown to be effective with or w/o antidepressants

Contrary to what you may believe about kvetching and moaning - it's the way most people make sense of events that have happened to them. It does not mean that they are weak or lesser - it's a common way of processing trauma that is effective. It's when trauma is denied and not given the space to be processed that problems can occur. This is why counselling is offered to members of the emergency services - as it's proven to increase their resilience, not decrease it as you appear to think.

I'm not having a go here - I'm evidencing information that is more than anecdotal that explains why people on here are saying what they are. PTSD is real, birth PTSD is real and your approach will not work with mothers who have this.

Finally you can't catch PTSD by "dwelling" on a bad birth experience. That is insulting to mothers who have had this and recovered.

Tbh I’d forgotten just how much it bloody hurt straight afterwards. I can remember small moments from my labour with dc1. Then I remember being in labour with dc2 and remembering how much it hurt the last time and saying to dh “bloody hell it’s all coming back now”. And the same with dc3...

Haribo. I really hope you’re not like this in real life! But for what it’s worth I was always a crack on with it kind of person and I did for 5 years but what the life coach failed to mention (whilst trying to sell their wares) actually very often you can’t choose how you react to things. People don’t end up traumatised through choice or wanting a pity party. You’re right in saying a lot of people in the past weren’t as traumatised by birth because many of them would have been dead a long with their child. I’m really sorry you can’t see how your words repeatedly invalidate others very valid feelings. Positive thinking is great but can only really go so far. But no one, and I mean no one suffering from mental health issues or simply seeking support should be subjected to quite frankly vitriolic attacks and being told to pull themself together. If you can do it (and I suspect you can’t judging by what’s gone in here despite what you might be telling everyone) good for you. But in that case you clearly shouldn’t be on a thread clearly asking for support.

You seem to be saying the it's fine to share the "experience" (ick, again) of your traumatic birth as long as you are suffering some kind of PTSD and not pointing out that what helped you recover was actually just consciously moving on with gratitude

Where have I said this or even alluded to it? I demonstrably haven't done so.

You haven't just pointed out that what helped you was that attitude; indeed, that might have been helpful to an extent for some people, maybe even the OP.

The reason your posts may have drawn some fire is because you have been consistently very disparaging of anyone who deals with it differently or needs different support. You have been exceptionally strident in your views, almost to the exclusion of what I think of as ordinary, normal empathy. You don't seem at all willing to accept that - quite simply - your way isn't everyone's way.

Someone asked upthread if you have the same attitude to returning soldiers with PTSD, or someone who has witnessed atrocities, maybe someone who has suffered appalling treatment.

Give their head a wobble? Get a grip? Or is just women with issues relating to giving birth that riles you so much?

The tone of your most recent posts has changed from your earlier ones, and you appear to trying to shape your comments into 'this is what I'm actually saying,' but your earlier posts rather speak for themselves.

Fucking hell - there is a lot of over thinking going on in this thread.

Are we that spoilt and over indulged that we can spend years naval gazing about this?

I do think a lot of navel gazing does go on. But normally because it’s something you’re not allowed talk about. No one really cares. Sure women have been having children forever, you’re nothing special. So it gets bottled up and gets worse.

Sarcasm is wasted on me.

This is the crux:

your approach to JFGOWI doesn't work with PTSD.

You can't catch it, you don't get it through navel gazing and you can't cure it with gratitude or a PMA.

I see you conveniently ignored the q - Someone asked upthread if you have the same attitude to returning soldiers with PTSD, or someone who has witnessed atrocities, maybe someone who has suffered appalling treatment. ?

Your way isn't the only approach and what works for you may not for others.

Yes, yes, haribo, and me and other posters can easily pick out all the other comments you made, but you dismiss that as 'impressive C&P skills' so I won't bother.

go ahead and invent some spurious woman-hating justification if it helps

You really like to embellish, don't you? I - again - have done nothing of the sort. I really would appreciate it if you stop attributing thoughts and feelings to me that are of your own invention.

You have declined to answer a couple of times whether you afford the same level of empathy/understanding to other people - examples given upthread - and you have declined to do so.

Everyone draws their own conclusions from your comments, and everyone else's, in any event.

I wonder why that is and whether there are tools for mental resilience that can be taught. To bring it back to the OP, I wonder whether those tools could be used to help women prepare for childbirth

What a difference to your earlier posts, eh? Drop the swearing, accusatory 'what's wrong with all the weak people' yelling, and who knows, maybe you had a helpful point under it all?

Honestly that sounds wonderful. People are left traumatised by birth - you’re one of the lucky ones.

You really don't understand or want to discuss without judgement do you?

Jesus Christ, anyone can be traumatised by anything if they decide to be.

I work with post 16's teaching resilience, amongst other things.

Yes resilience can be taught, no people who get PTSD are not less resilient, it's different. It's not a weakness.

Blaming people for having PTSD by implying that they have no or less resilience is insulting.

You're straying close to victim blaming here.

What has been researched repeatedly is it's not the level of trauma that counts, so there is no top trumps, on person's ok will be another person's not ok. It's the perceived level of trauma or threat.

The problem with childbirth is that we bring our whole selves to the table, and we are uniquely vulnerable at that time.

And I stand by my earlier posts about the op.
which was (As I am Queen of the C&P)

"The OP was asking whether it was unreasonable to want to be able to remember the birth of her child

She described what had been written in her notes

She watched OBEM where she saw other mothers being able to recall this.

I do think that she is not being unreasonable in wanting to be able to remember this - It's quite a moment (good or bad) that most mothers would want to remember

It's not a post asking you to play top trumps with your birth traumas. FFS most of us have a birth story - she doesn't as she can't remember."

haribo drivelled all over another thread involving trauma too. Some people just lack the empathy to realise that failing to 'get on with it' after trauma isn't a choice people make, its something that happens to them against their wishes.

People don't choose to become depressed or suffer from delayed PTSD or any other MH issues. Anyone who has experienced them will know how stupid a suggestion that is.

I 'decisively chose' to get over my MH conditions, to move on, to get on with my life, and it made as much difference as decisively choosing not to have cancer.

I have certainly never said "what's wrong with all the weak people" as you well know

I wasn't quoting you; I was summing up your attitude in your posts.

Being resilient (JFGOWI as I called it earlier) has helped me enormously with recovering from serious bumps in the road of life

As I mentioned before, me too. I just don't share your unpleasantly reductive attitude to other people's problems/issues. I'm aware that my way isn't right; and so I don't feel the need to tell people to 'give their head a wobble' for not sharing it.

I'm also aware that people have different coping mechanisms, strengths and weaknesses. As someone with a 'JGTFOWI' attitude, I'm clued up enough to know that I could learn from someone who copes differently, rather than slamming them and suggesting that they get a grip and be more like me.

Finally, as I now have a sick animal to care for, you have laboured the word 'kvetching.' You have continually described people 'kvetching and moaning,' thus showing a remarkable willingness to minimise anything they might be suffering from.

Any kind of mental illness or trauma is NOT 'moaning'. It is a real thing. Can I suggest that you stop dismissing mental trauma or illness - mild or less so - as 'kvetching'? Even if you think people should simply cope better, you would need to be living under a rock to think this kind of attitude is acceptable these days.

I do think a lot of navel gazing does go on. But normally because it’s something you’re not allowed talk about. No one really cares. Sure women have been having children forever, you’re nothing special. So it gets bottled up and gets worse

Totally agree with this Slanetylor. Odd that this thread should appear when this has been on my mind this week. DS is 7 months and on Monday night I was watching Corrie and ended up crying so hard that I struggled to breathe at the sight of a brand new baby in one of those plastic cots. I've purposely avoided OBEM and anything similar and wasn't expecting to react so strongly.

I can safely say the week I spent in hospital having a very slow and painful induction with DS then not being allowed to leave as he was ill was one of the worst of my life. I felt wrecked, mentally and physically and just wanted to go home. I feel so guilty for hating the first week of his life

After my meltdown on Monday DH, who is a very kind person, tried to tell me that dwelling on it was pointless as I now have a happy, healthy baby. But there is so much anger and sadness there. I had to say, with the greatest respect, that it didn't happen to you (DH). It happened to me.

@callmehannahbaker my friend felt something similar about the birth of her twins. She ended up having to be knocked out for her c-section and had no knowledge of being in labour and the twins being born. Whilst she was utterly grateful for the necessary medical intervention, she said it left her feeling detached, confused and almost in shock. The sensation of being pregnant one minute to having her babies there with nothing in between really rocked her.

She spoke to someone at the hospital about it. They talked her through her notes and what had happened. This made her feel loads better and more at peace with it all. It sort of gave her a piece to slot into her memory instead of a scary blank.

I hope you manage to get some resolution. Enjoy your baby and stop watching OBEM

Haribos no not everyone reacts to everything in the same way. Because we are a sum of both our experiences and chemical reactions. At no point has anyone said everyone goes on to develop ptsd when they suffer trauma! I suggest you concentrate on your comprehension skills rather than riding roughshod over other people’s feelings? And why wouldn’t you be so obnoxious in real life? Because of compassion for your fellow humans, that’s why! I suggest you look up the word kindness. And yes in these circumstances I really think it’s a case of the lady dots protest too much!