To think I'm having a breakdown (TW pregnancy, sensitive topics)

[Reanne1]

I got pregnant in January. It was a wanted pregnancy, I have a lovely partner and I was so happy. It was my lifelong dream to be a mum.

January through to April I had a horrendous first trimester with morning sickness but was otherwise happy and excited as was my partner.

I remember the exact day the "switch flipped", so to speak. I was relaxing at home and scrolling through the news as I often do. An article came up about quite a well known child abuse/murder case that has been in court this year and I read through it. I've always kept up to date with the news and with high profile cases as many people do these days and I had become relatively desensitized but something about this case got into my head. I presume it's because it relates to a baby and I am pregnant. One particular sentence in the article mentioning what happened to the baby triggered me to have a huge panic attack and I haven't really been the same since. It was literally like a switch flipping. My life has a "Before" (before I saw the article) and an "After".

I was so horrified and upset by what I had read that I sought support online. I found a feminist page on Reddit in which women supported each other about past traumas from men and also discussed news stories about men who have harmed women and children and advocated for better protection for women and children. It was similar to the feminism page on Mumsnet. I'm not sure why I thought engaging in this forum was a good idea given that I was clearly very emotionally vulnerable. Some women on the forum advocated to get certain pornographic websites taken down from the web to protect women and children.

Despite wanting to just forget it all and move on with my life and enjoy pregnancy, my mental health continued to deteriorate. In my mind I would constantly be replaying scenarios in my head about how children can be hurt by men and how awful it is and how I need to help. So I would go back to the forum and read through it. It's like a compulsion which I can't control. I would try to go "cold turkey" and bury it all and stop reading about stuff but then it will randomly all come to the surface again and I will find myself in my room, isolating myself from my partner and having panic attacks and reading the forum and checking news articles. I've been able to mask it relatively well from my partner and family. I am able to act like a normal excited pregnant woman around them but it is becoming exhausting.

Recently I was on the forum and someone said they wanted help in starting a petition to have a pornography site taken down due to content on there. Unfortunately they posted a screenshot which showed that men were sharing inappropriate cartoon images on a different website. She had made the post in good faith - she wanted people to band together to get the website reported to the authorities and get taken down. I made reports to various online authorities. I was horrified and vomited several times. It was cartoons but it has still traumatised me.

This was a couple of weeks ago and now I am in darker mental place than ever. I feel sick 24/7 and I can't get all of the stuff that has built up over the last few months out of my mind. I feel very mentally unwell. I have convinced myself that police will now be coming for me and will knock on my door any second. I am convinced my baby is going to get taken off me and I'm terrified. I keep going to an AI chatbot for reassurance where I ask if whether the police will visit me because of the report I made and the chatbot gives different answers each time, sometimes saying yes, other times saying no. I will spend hours asking the chatbot the same question desperately trying to get it to reassure me but it's no use. When it tells me that I won't be in trouble for reporting something in good faith, I will attempt to "argue" with the AI and accuse it of just telling me what I want to hear. I feel as though I have to be prepared for the "reality" so I will tell the AI to "give me a worst case scenario" which is then does and I'll then have a panic attack.

Even now I still get compulsions to go and read articles in the feminism forum to "prepare" myself for the reality of how fucking awful this planet is

I can't bear any of it anymore. I feel so guilty. All I want is for all of this to be gone from my mind and to enjoy my pregnancy and bond with my baby. I was sat in an antenatal class the other day and zoned out the whole time thinking about all of this. It was the same the other week when I went for a growth scan. I was just thinking about all of this.

I've built up a whole scenario in my head where the police will knock on my door and arrest me and ban me from seeing my baby and my partner will hate me and I'll have to go and live with my parents. I've even started provisionally planning for it all. The other day I nearly booked a taxi to a police station because I wanted to "tell them everything" so that I could take away the uncertainty about them visiting me. What doesn't help me is that a week ago go my brother who has autism and lives with my parents DID get a police visit and they checked his computer because of online activity. It was related some political forum where he'd made comments that had gone too far and police wanted to check the person behind the IP address but they determined that he was vulnerable and didn't realise what he was doing and the case got closed immediately. But I feel as though I have "manifested" the situation by obsessing over the thought of me getting a police visit.

I'm due in 3 weeks and I feel as though I am losing control of my own mind. I so badly want to confide in my partner but due to the subject matters I just don't know how to bring it up. He's so excited to be a dad and have our little family. When he talks about wanting to set up the nursery etc I feel sick.

I did try to say something at one of my midwife appointments but I didn't feel able to go into the full details. I just disclosed feeling "a sense of dread that something bad is going to happen" and she assumed I meant I was worried about pregnancy complications and she assured me that this was common. She referred me to a talking therapy service but when I got the call from the talking therapy people a few weeks later I was having an okay day so I asked to withdraw my referral. At my midwife appointments since I have pretended that everything is fine.

I honestly cannot bear it anymore. I keep wanting to just go to hospital or call 111 but I feel like before I can do that I need to be honest with my partner but I just can't because of the subject matters. I don't know how to bring it all up. I'm due in 3 weeks and I don't know how I'm going to get through the birth and postpartum. I think if I do get help it needs to be from an acute emergency service. Making a referral and then weeks waiting to be contacted isn't going to work as I have "okay days" where I bury it all and try to forget about it and if they contact me on one of those days then I will decline the help.

I love my baby boy so much and I just want to be his mum. I don't know why I have gone down this route, I fucking hate myself. All I ever wanted was to be a mum, this should be the happiest time of my life.

If you say so. I’d delete the comment in that case, but cant find any mechanism to do it.

You’re going to sound like one of the many many many women who experience mental health difficulties during pregnancy and need help, and not like an offender because you are not one. You must trust that professionals are qualified to identify when someone is suffering with their mental health and not misinterpret that. The more information you can give them about your intrusive thoughts the easier that will be for them? When are you due to see your midwife? Your partner may be hurt but if he’s a good man he will know you were struggling and not blame you. Can you find the strength to tell him today what’s been happening?

@Reanne1I’m sure your partner will understand. That is what he is there for, to support you. You’re having a baby together so you need to be honest and you need to be able to have hard conversations.

No one will take your baby away. The peri-natal
mental health team explained to me many times that their ultimate goal is to keep mothers with their babies. They will want to help you get better.

My partner hasn't been working much lately. He has a weird job where he is contracted to 40 hours but often there is no work so he will get sent home on full-pay. His workplace has been very quiet this week so he goes in at 7am and is home by 8am.

It's lovely in some ways but in others it has been difficult to navigate for me. Today I thought he was going to work the full day and as I couldn't bring myself to tell him all of it I thought that I would take the day to call the mental health emergency team and then let him know everything this evening when he got home. I was all mentally prepared to do it. Then he walked in the door at 8am and threw off all my plans.

He's going to be so upset.

OP I think you should write a letter outlining how you feel on your worst and your best days and show it to your GP, partner and midwife.

You haven't done anything wrong, you won't be arrested and baby won't be taken away.

I don't think it's uncommon for people to hide their symptoms and hope they go away - don't see it as a lie. If I were your partner I'd just be focusing on how to help you rather than ruminating on whether you could have told me earlier.

I also struggled in my last few months of pregnancy with anxiety and irrational thinking. I had PPA for my first 18 months post partum. Peri and post natal mental health is more common than people realise. Midwives will only want to support you through this process, they won't be taking your baby away.

Even if things escalate further, mother and baby units exist for a reason - separation really is a last resort and very very rare

Please don't feel you are broken forever, there are lots of support frameworks out there for people like you and it's better to reach out sooner than later

I saw my midwife on Friday and not due to see her again until the end of August now when I'll be very nearly due. I am due in 3 weeks.

Im autistic so can fixate on things so much that i do m y own head in 🤣. Maybe this will help you ? You need to stop looking it up delate the app you are looking it up on . And start reading about something else and fixate on something trivial a show for example look up the actors / actress etc to shift your focus. Ideally nothing to do with your baby .

You can reach out to them any time, you don't have to wait for your next scheduled appointment

Have they left an email address for you?

You could talk to him today and then benefit from a hand hold as you call the mental health team. You are clearly a loving mum and partner, let him have a chance to support you through this. Today could be the day that things start to get much much better. You can do this. You’ve survived months of having a horrible time and when you take action it will start to get easier.

He might be upset initially that you’ve been struggling with this all on your own and that he didn’t notice / step in to help earlier.

But you can change that now. If you go and speak to him he can start helping you find that lovely future with your new baby.

Alongside being due to give birth 3 weeks, were also completing on our house purchase and moving house in 2 weeks. It's a lot

I'm going to go downstairs and get something to eat now. I'm still not sure if I'll be able to open up the conversation with my partner on my own but I will imagine he'll notice the puffy eyes and red face (from crying) and will notice I haven't brushed my teeth and stink of BO and he will ask questions.

I've been having horrendous night sweats the past few months. Not just during the heatwaves but even on cooler nights. I wake up literally soaking wet. I think it's all of the pent up anxiety and despair.

You’ve made a good step forward by starting this thread. Could you copy and paste your first post and send it right now to dh or a family member or midwife? Getting it out there is the next step as you do need the help now.

Do you realise it doesn't need to be like this?

Contact your midwife, GP, antenatal team and tell him you are having intrusive thoughts.

They will give you the support you need.

Night sweats can also be hormonal. I smelt like a men's locker room for the first few weeks postpartum and had horrible hot flushes and shivers.

Hope your partner gives you the cuddle you need and you can work out a plan together for how to support you during this tough time. A house move on top of pregnancy is anxiety inducing for anyone - don't feel bad for needing support during this time from your partner

Im not sure if it will help or not but bryony Gordon has written quite extensively about her experiences with this especially when she was pregnant

I had something similar too and it was horrible - i know the sort of thoughts you are having and you wont want to voice out loud but you need to find a way - i believe it comes under pure O rather than the CD part of OCD

I didn't get help but ended up taking prozac for something else and it helped with that fairly quickly but you need to be brave and tell people - there is a chance that post baby it will get worse

Hi OP. You have been given some great advice on here already. I also think it would be a good idea to write how you feel when you're at your worst, or copy what you wrote in you're opening post. The professionals will not judge you or think you will be a bad mother, you should be very proud of yourself for opening up and asking for help. I had terrible obsessive thoughts about being seriously ill after my last pregnancy. I heard about a disease and I was convinced I had it. I couldn't sleep when my husband worked nights because I was so convinced I would die during the night and wouldn't be able to look after the baby. I felt so stupid and embarrassed as though I was the only one who acted like this. But I wasn't and neither are you. Please please tell somebody before you give birth, you need support now as the drop of hormones after birth will only make things worse. Good luck OP.

I had similar to this in pregnancy but not the same subject. Once I’d given birth it did ease and I felt a lot better. I had presented to A&E a couple of times though and got medication in the end. I had a therapist too but it was more about the medication to get me well for my daughter. I feel for you as it’s an awful place to be in

OP you CAN get better, you can feel better and learn to cope with the fears. Saying this as someone who suffered from severe anxiety that got worse post partum. You CAN’T do this alone. Things won’t get better on their own, the birth hormones and newborn challenges will only make it worse. For your sake and your family’s sake, you need and deserve to get help. Screw the AI bot, it’s not what’s going to help you - how has it worked for you so far? You don’t need to tell your partner everything right away, tell him enough so he can support you in getting help asap. Screw the bot. Speak to the man you chose to have your baby with.

@Reanne1Hi OP I am a psychotherapist. I am so sorry you are so distressed.

this sounds a lot like it could potentially be OCD.

you need to urgently speak with your GP or midwife and they will refer you for support which you will be prioritised for.

I am sorry you are so distressed. There is NOTHING wrong with you. This can be treated xx

OP please ask for an urgent referral to the perinatal mental health team from your GP, midwife or health visitor. They can help you. Be as honest as you can. Things will get better but you deserve the right support.

I am in a similar boat - about to start counselling after being exposed to a story about horrific child abuse. It’s led me to have panic attacks when my toddler daughter is really crying as the noise sends me into a spiral. Thinking of you a lot. Please do seek some help asap. Rumination is very common. X

Hi OP, you’ve had a lot of good advice already but I just wanted to hop on and say you aren’t alone. I have OCD myself that manifests in intrusive thoughts l/rumination and it was so much worse when I was pregnant. Please do reach out to your midwife for support they can help you and things will get better x

You have been very brave writing this thread. Please show the thread to your DH and to your midwife.

copy-paste you op into an email to yourself. Then send it to your DH. Go talk to him and say there is some stuff in your head that you find hard to talk about so you wrote it down. Ask him to help you get a mental health appointment. Even if you get the appointment on a good day, you can show them the email and that will be easier than talking.

also look up this person https://www.instagram.com/mindmommycoaching

you are brave and strong and you can reach out for the help you need.

This is a mental illness, not a habit.