Constant anxiety

[MTMFH]

This might be long. Bear with me!

In the Summer our first DD was born and since then I can't stop worrying something bad will happen to her and I'll lose her. To give this some context, it took over 4 years, 4 surgeries, the loss of a tube, a miscarriage and a round of IVF to get her. My pregnancy was plagued with bleeds and a Subchoronic Haematoma. She was born 10 weeks early for no obvious reason other than my waters broke. She spent 6 weeks in the Neonatal Unit and other than prolonged jaundice, some bleeds in her eyes and initially struggling to gain weight, she did really well. I was starting to get better and a bit more of a handle on my anxiety. But then in December she caught a cold and ended up having her first trip ambulance and a 5 day stay on oxygen because of Bronchiolitis.

I spent my whole pregnancy worried about losing her and when she came early I felt like a huge failure. I was so angry at myself and the world.

I've realised I worry literally constantly about everything. If I take her out I worry she'll get ill again or get too hot or too cold. I worry about meningitis. I spent the whole of Tuesday worrying she'll choke (she's not even weaning yet). I worry about frostbite. I wake up and panic she's not breathing despite the fact she's absolutely fine and we have an angel care monitor. I'm driving myself (and my poor DH) mad and I worry I'll never properly enjoy this beautiful, miracle baby I've been lucky enough to get.

Any advice appreciated. I've had counselling and CBT a few times which helps temporarily but then it all comes back again full force.

I would definately speak to your GP and health visitor about how you are feeling. It sounds like you've had a traumatic time of it.

Based on personal experience of trauma related anxiety (PTSD ) I highly recommend something called Eye Movement Integration ( EMI ) which I found amazing. It resolved all my symptoms in 1 session. There is another similar therapy called EDMR which seems to be more mainstream.

The only thing that helped my anxiety has been medication.

Some antidepressants are better then others at helping it, the other option is beta blockers that stop the physical symptoms.

You have my sympathy anxiety can be soul destroying. I know some people don't really want to go on meds but mine saved my life. It's worth talking to your GP and keeping an open mind.

Congratulations on your DD.

Thank you for your replies, I will look into that and see if my GP can help.

MTM I have bi-polar and I've suffered PTSD in the past. I think anxiety is far worse then the two put together personally.

Good luck with the GP

AnxiousCarer - where can you get EMI please? I searched online but can't see any practitioners. x

Thank you UnbornM - it's just exhausting isn't it?

Hope you can find some medications or something that will help, I'm also ridiculously anxious all the time, and just started escitalopram to try to deal with it once and for all. It's so hard. Good luck seeing your GP.

MTM I don't think you realise how bad it is till your recovered.

It's horrible I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

Thank you PB and UM - I hope you can keep yours under control too

countyhall EMI falls under the bracket of NLP ( neurolinguistic programming ) so look for an nlp practitioner or master practitioner. It would be worth checking that they do EMI as Ive done the practitioner training and it wasn't part of the course I did. I've seen it advertised as an additional add on course to the one I did. The therapist I saw was in the north west if thats any help I could PM you details.