Birth Trauma PTSD Support Thread

[Iamjustthemilkmachine]

Hello, please point me i the right direction if there is already one of these, but if not I'd like to start it.
My ds was born almost 9 months ago, and finally two weeks ago I was diagnosed with ptsd and will start CBT soon. I have received lots and lots of support from mners in this time and know there are other people in here suffering in the same way, so why not get together and share/moan/celebrate/support etc?
Being diagnosed has helped a lot, even if the assesments have been gruelling, mainly by validating my feelings, regardless of what my experience may seem to others, and by making me feel a little bit less guilty at feelling low, down or sad.
Because ptsd happens because of your own perception of the events I have not included my story here, and still find difficult to write or talk about it, but if it helps you, share as much or as little as you want.

lovelychops that's exactly why i asked here, in the hope that someone else (even if I am not happy that you feel the same) feels the same then it's probably not to do with our relationship but with the ptsd. thanks!

Chickenchops welcome, really sorry to find you here , your therapist doesn't sound very helpful, what kind of therapy is it? Really hope the meds work, specially if you have both pnd and ptsd, that must be really hard to deal with!

btw, what's with the 'chops' ladies?

not sure what's with the chops ?!! Maybe she's my MN twin ?

Does anyone here have any experience of taking anti depressants / anxiety medication while breast feeding? I'm seeing my GP this wk and I know she's keen for me to start on them. After the way I've been feeling I'm inclined to start, but I'm worried about the potential effects on DD.

Me again, sorry!

Iamjustthemilkmachine I meant to say earlier. Perhaps our negative feelings towards DP are simply because they're the people we see the most and therefore we are more likely to be less 'guarded' with our feelings around them? And they bare the brunt of our moods or whatever? IYSWIM ? Almost as though we're more likely to take it out on those closest too us.

Hi lovelychops, yes, you must be related in mn life! re anti.ds, I looked a bit into it when prescribed the worst possible ones, and there is a good page here: www.breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk/drugs-in-breastmilk-information-and-factsheets.html
Good luck!

MrsB - I didn't tell anyone except a couple of friends. We live in a different country to family etc so it was fairly easy to not tell them anything. Maybe we should have done, I don't know, but at the time I didn't want to tell anyone. Self-preservation I guess. I was always sure that if people knew they would somehow think I was weak and that I should get over it. We've moved to a new country since I had treatment and I've told a couple of people here. It's somehow easier to tell people now than it was when I was in the grip of it all (not that I think I'm 'cured' - far from it, in some respects).

So someone tells me that there's a new series of One born every minute. Is it just me that hates seeing the adverts for it? It makes me feel physically sick when I see them.

MrsB24, so sorry to reply so late, my parents were here visiting and I didn't have a second. What did you do? how did it go?
I read your original post about your birth in the childbirth thread a few weeks ago, I cannot begin to imagine what you went and continue to go through, you are an amazing woman by just being alive! I don't mean it in a 'be glad you are alive and move on' kind of thing, just mean that i don't know if 'd survived.
My mil knows because she had pnd and mental health issues so she's understanding, my family have no experience of any of this, still believe that the baby blues is the same as pnd and 'doesn't happen in the family' so they have no idea.

timetomoveon i shan't be whatching obem either!!! no way.

Anti-ds can do that, which one are you taking? Sorry you had such a hard time at your ils, that sucks. I wonder if you could push it to have emdr rather than cbt, it works much faster in single-trauma situations (if there are not a lot of issues to deal with from before the trauma I think) and works wonders according to the people i know who know about this. Worth asking? how is your ds doing? how old is he now? I know everyone says it gets easier, but guess what, it does! I mean the looking after the babies, not the trauma.

Was at the hospital where ds was born this morning for a consultant appointment (nothing serious, a haemangioma) and felt utterly sick, then someone else had her baby and an older kid and was telling the older kid that they all were born there and how quick it had all been, I was really close to throw up there and then, how sad, such a beautiful moment to be tainted forever for us.

How is everyone else?

MrsB24 I don't know a lot about emdr, in the first page of this thread there is something about it, and also here
When I talked about my issues with a friend who is a psychologist that is what she recommended, cbt beign the second best.
Re confirmation of diagnosys I think that is quite normal, it wasn't until I started the cbt that the ptsd was actually confirmed, gps just suggest that it might be, but they aren't experts in that.
I'm glad you find joy in ds, that is lovely, it took me a long time but I am now also madly in love with him, but at the beginning it was more a huge sense of responsibility (without dread, but not really love as I expected it).
IKWYM about birth/baby pics on fb, what gets me the most are the comments like: 'the best day of my life' or similar, .
Gosh, so sorry about your friend's sister, it's so easy to forget that that still happens. Extrangely, when I was bleeding in theatre and I could see my heart rate being abnormal in the monitor and me comming in and out of counciousness I wasn't worried in the least about anything, I knew that if i closed my eyes I would not open them again, and just was determined not to close them, but not really scared or anything like that, weird, it's only now that it upsets me!

how is everyone else doing?

Thanks MrsB24, how are you doing? how was the appointment?

I had cbt today, she wants me to record one born every minute, so we can use it later on in therapy, does anyone know if they are on replay? so dh can do it later, I don't want to check just in case I see some of it!

Good luck with the therapy (cbt?) then!
It was awful to think that I'd have to watch obem, but then the thought of being able to watch it and not feel sick to the core is really appealing!

I know, I hope it works!

Even though this thread seems to be just the two of us please keep poping by to share how you are doing. Xx

I'm here too. Popping in and out :)

Hope you get some sleep tonight MrsB24.
Milkmachine - good luck with the OBEM stuff. I had to ask some friends to stop talking about it when I was around and then I felt like even more of a nutter :( You're a brave lady x

Hmmm needing the loo, eh? I'll have to try that one ;)

Sorry to hear about the nightmares. Although I haven't had any since I had treatment I went through around 6 months of having them every single night. It's utterly exhausting, isn't it? Hope tonight it better for you x

Oh gosh MrsB24 those nightmares sound awful, poor you, and your muscle thing does not sound good either! 6 months is a very long time, specially going through this and having a new baby, but I think time passes quicker after 6 months, at least it did for me, or it might have been that I set a whole lot of activities, groups and so on to do every single week so i wouldn't go completely crazy. Do you go to anything? Let us know how the debrief goes.
timetomoveon I'm far from brave! I cried when the therapist said that we'd be watching it in a few weeks!
I am much better with some techniques from the cbt, but they are just 'coping techniques', the hardcore stuf starts soon, looking forward to it somehow.