I have been diagnosed with CPTSD due to earlier childhood trauma, so I think it's safe to say I don't react normally to negative life events and lack resilience. I don't know why, but I have been having flashbacks and panic attacks lately, related to DS's birth nearly 20 years ago. I haven't told anyone IRL about them because it's ludicrous so long after the event.
My birth story:
I had gestational diabetes from 24 weeks and had to inject insulin twice a day, and got pre-eclampsia at about 26 weeks. I was in a wheelchair from 16 weeks with unusually severe SPD - the consultant who examined me before induction said I could expect to feel like a woman giving birth with a broken pelvis. I was admitted to hospital at 29 weeks and kept in until they induced me at 35, then another week because DS1 was in intensive care. At 30 weeks they showed me a baby weighing about 2lb fighting for his life, and told me to prepare myself (in the end he was 8lb7, because diabetes makes babies bigger. When I burst into tears after seeing the little baby, the midwife sniggered and said "not so keen to get it over with now, are you?" They made me feel as though I was going to be the worst mother in the world. I went into spontaneous labour at about 32 weeks and they had written in my notes that it shouldn't be stopped because my pre-eclampsia was so advanced, and I had had the steroid injections to mature the baby's lungs. Then a doctor came in and blackmailed me in front of my parents and husband to take a labour-retarding drug by saying that if I didn't I would be in a coma in two hours. My dad was in tears. Then one of the midwives told us it was because her colleague had given me a blood-thinner which they were suposed to have stopped giving me, because there was more than a 50% chance of my needing a C-section and I could have bled to death. The consultant came in in the morning and said that my husband and I were liars and that I had never been in labour, that the drug the doctor had given me was to reduce blood pressure.
I couldn't turn over in bed without help, I was in agony, I was vomiting and had an almost permanent headache. The midwives took the p*ss out of my weight/appearance with the PET oedema and alternated between shouting at me for trying to get out of bed (eg to use the toilet) and sending the ancillary staff in to tell me that if I didn't get up I wouldn't get fed. They were openly contemptuous of my wanting my husband around and were very rude to my family.
During the actual birth - it was 24 hours long after having had no decent sleep for weeks. I was hooked up to monitors and a drip so was not allowed to move off my back for the entire 24 hours despite this position being commonly recognised as agony for SPD sufferers. I was shouted at for making a fuss and called a "diva", laughed at for wetting the bed, and when the time finally came to push the baby out the midwife said "If you don't make more effort you're going to kill your baby" and then scolded me for screaming in pain. I had two failed attempts at epidural which has left me with permanent back pain. At one point, when I'd been stuck at 7cm dilated for hours, a male consultant came in, stormed up to me without even making eye contact, shoved his hand inside me and I experienced the worst, most blinding pain I've ever had, said "Now she can push" to the midwife and then stormed out again.
DS1 came out blue and floppy with the cord round his neck so was resuscitated and taken to ICU. I remember sitting on a metal bedpan in agony sobbing my heart out for about half an hour waiting for the placenta, then when it didn't come a midwife yanked on the cord and it snapped. The I started to bleed, everywhere. They rushed me to theatre and I thrashed about refusing point blank to let them touch me without giving me a general anaesthetic - I know it's not wise, but I had just had enough. A male doctor leaned down and said into my ear "No, childbirth isn't easy is it?" and then they put the mask over my face.
When I woke up I was covered in blood, someone was sponging my thighs, and someone put a Polaroid in my hand. I thought the baby had died. Then dh came in and enlightened me. I demanded to be taken to see him ,and a nice young midwife said she would take me but I musn't tell anyone because she would lose her job for moving me. I saw DS1 briefly and went back to recovery. Then they moved me back up to the ward. In the morning two midwives came in and accused me of rejecting my baby and not caring about seeing him. I didn't say I had already seen him because I didn't want to betray the trust of the other midwife. I asked if I could see him now, and they said I would have to get up and walk. I explained that I hadn't walked for six months and was recovering from a general anaesthetic, and suggested dh take me in the wheelchair. One of the midwives said "You can't be selfish now, you've got a baby". I tried to walk and collapsed in a pool of blood and vomit in the corridor. Two days later the paediatrician in charge of my son remarked that I looked like a vampire and was about to collapse. I was then offered a blood transfusion, which I took - they wrote in the notes that I had requested a transfusion!!! They also banned my husband from going into the neo-natal unit to see our son, because he had been delivering my expressed milk to the fridge for me and they thought it would be more fun to make me walk there myself, in pain.
I had more than 200 stitches and now have a rectocele and various other issues. Nobody ever explained to me exactly what my injuries were or how they were repaired, it was done under the general anaesthetic when the placenta was removed.
Does anyone else have trouble letting go of bad experiences like this? I feel so miserable.