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.

Please know that the subject matter you’re referring to is COMMON and KNOWN within OCD treatment. Often intrusive thoughts stick because they’re the worst thing you can imagine. They’re the opposite of your value system and so that’s why even thinking them feels so repulsive and scary.

You are not alone and many many people with OCD have the same thoughts and hide them because it’s such a touchy subject matter. MH professionals will understand and have seen it before. They will not take your baby and they won’t think you’re somehow a peadophile. They will know about intrusive thoughts and that this one is a common one.

Thoughts are not crimes. Reports are not crimes. You have comitted no crimes.

Go t A&E if you have to.

Yes, sounds like severe OCD. Have you informed your midwife? You need a mental health service asap.

You need to ask for urgent help from the pregnancy mental health team.

I still haven't spoken to my partner. He's upstairs still but I can hear him moving around so I think I'll he down shortly. I came downstairs and have eaten a ham sandwich but haven't got dressed or anything yet. I don't know why but I just can't bring myself to go in there! I'm not scared of him or anything, he's absolutely lovely and so caring but I just feel so bad about ruining his peace. I imagine once he does eventually come round and ask what is wrong with me it'll all come out in some barely comprehensible word-salad whilst in crying and hyperventilating. I will absolutely tell him today, this thread is helping me as it's keeping me accountable to make the step however hard it is.

I just wish I'd gone to him for support when I first saw the article about the child abuse case. In ruminating over the child abuse case and looking online for other people who had also been moved by it I inadvertently exposed myself to more and more horrendous stories, anecdotes and knowledge about how widespread abuse towards children is.

I looked up Pure OCD and that sounds very much like what is going on with me. I think maybe I've always had a pre-disposition to it and maybe it has now properly been triggered? I remember as a child I used to convince myself that my parents had died in a car crash every time one of them was a few minutes late home from work. When I was 12 I called the police to my home because my mum had gone to the shop on Saturday morning and she took longer than I thought she should have. Turned out she'd bumped into a friend but I was convinced that she was dead in a ditch.

Hi OP, I'm so sorry you're going through this. I've read all your posts and I think you should show them to your partner. That way, he'll get to see how you've really been feeling. You've articulated yourself well and it's clear to us that you deserve support so no need to fear word salad/vomit plus giving him the chance to read all your posts might prevent you from rationalising/minimising when you feel better.

I’m so sorry that this is happening to you. I’m not qualified to diagnose you but this does have a lot of features of perinatal OCD.

Please don’t wait for your next midwife appointment to seek support. Your local mental health trust will have a crisis line, which should be available today. If you feel like hurting yourself (or others) then a&e would be the quickest route for a psych evaluation and referral to your local perinatal mental health team. You can also reach out to the hospital maternal triage.

I want to reassure you that nothing you are describing makes you a bad mum. It is very common standard procedure for women/families who seek mental health support to be notified that a social services/safeguarding referral will be made. This absolutely does not mean that anyone thinks you are not a good parent, or that anyone is trying to remove your child. I know how easy it is for this to become another worry so I really want to get ahead of that, in case it makes you reluctant to be honest or reach out for help.

If you really want to get well you need to realise this is your mental health talking all this fear, you need to speak to your partner and call your gp in the morning, there is help available and they can fix this, yoh don’t need to live like this, irs your mental illness making uou. Just do it. Tell your partner now.

its not going to get better on its own, and if you don’t seek help now. It could get worse.

Bless you it does sound like you have OCD tendencies. If it helps, I got into a massive Pure O type rumination cycle about something when I was 23 that caused me to absolutely spiral. I’m 31 now and I have no symptoms of it at all. Completely back to normal. So it’s absolutely possible to recover. But not without the help of your partner and health professionals.

Speak now and you’ll already be starting down the road to feeling better.

I'm autistic and have had severe episodes of OCD and linked panic disorder. I think I understand what you mean about feeling locked in. From my experience, it's like a constant waking nightmare, that also carries a huge weight of shame, and an almost phobic response to my own behaviour.

I'm now what I would describe as in recovery. I'm able to regulate and moderate.

I think you might be quite unwell. If you're able, show your partner this thread. You could also contact your GP and provide copies of your posts. I don't know how safe you feel at the moment, but if the answer is not very, then it's a good idea to contact your GP.

Sending gentle hugs.

Could I just add that there is no such diagnosis of ‘Pure O’ OCD. This is not a recognised condition within DSM or ICD.

People who do not respond to intrusive thoughts do not have any anxiety or a mental health problem.

People with ‘pure O’ nearly always are engaging in cognitive compulsions such as thought suppression, thought neutralisation, rumination etc. they are still rituals and compulsions just more covert.

This is a really important distinction as believing one has pure o can trick them into thinking they need to get rid of their thoughts or solve them.

nonetheless OP what you are struggling with is distressing but relatively common!

please speak to your midwife or gp asap and they will refer you to your local perinatal mental health team or primary care team and you’ll be prioritised for CBT.

@Reanne1were you able to speak to your husband and show him this thread? I hope you are able to get help in real life soon.

OP, my heart goes out to you.

Please, do be as brave as you have been posting so honestly here and reach out to your partner and/or accept the mental health help offered - regardless of good days. The suggestion earlier that you share your posts here may make this easier to do?

If you don't feel ready to do this yet (or as well as doing this) could I also suggest the below? These are really simple, discrete, concrete steps you can take by yourself towards recovering from this horrible phase. And you will recover from it.

1. Gradually diminish and ultimately aim to stop the AI use. It's unreliable, and it sounds like your use of it is feeding a compulsive need for reassurance. If you have OCD, this need is itself part of the illness. It's not as simple as resisting it, of course, so in addition...

2. Order these books from Amazon - they can be with you in a few days, in unobtrusive brown envelopes - and read them instead of the AI.

Overcoming OCD and Overcoming Intrusive And Disturbing Thoughts.

3. Perhaps also google OCD charities and try a helpline. They're often manned by people who have been through similar, which can be immensely reassuring and helpful.

I hope this is useful. You can do this. Xxx