Suddenly processing PND and birth injury

[Lonelythisxmas]

I’ve just started reading PMSL by Luce Brett. It’s about her birth injury and subsequent incontinence. I’m interested because I had a 4th degree tear with my first baby 13 years ago (although I’m one of the lucky ones with no lasting problems).

Anyway, reading it has triggered something in me that I never knew was there and I can’t stop crying. Luce suffered from PND (again, like me) and her description of the aftermath of her birth and her feelings has brought everything back. The main thing that’s upset me is the utter loneliness I felt. She describes a moment when she’s talking about the birth and her husband puts his hands on her face and tells her he remembers. I realise how utterly terrible my husband was - he didn’t comfort me, or say he understood, or help me in any way. He went back to work and I was left alone, with a severe tear, shaking legs, breastfeeding troubles and the onset of PND. I am so devastated for 25-year-old me, I just want to go back in time and give me a hug. He never even said he was proud of me for giving birth. I realise how I was just expected to get on with it on my own. I was offered no physio, no follow-up appointments, no counselling.

I don’t expect a response, I just wanted to tell someone about how I feel.

Just because you haven’t thought about it for a long time doesn’t mean it no longer affects you. Might it be work having some kind of talking therapy about it?

Dad of cerebral palsy child.

What a huge thing you’ve been through. I can relate (not to the same extent, but birth trauma definitely). It’s strange that women go through this and life just continues around us because it’s a ‘natural event’. Imagine if you’d been suddenly injured to the same extent out of the blue! People would recognise what pain you were in and how distressing it would be...but throw having a beautiful new baby into the mix and it’s all about cracking on with the task of raising your child. No time for recovery (physical or emotional). Women are carrying birth PTSD and like you say, don’t even know it’s there. Seek therapy for the wounded mother of your past, you owe it to yourself.