PTSD after a child’s injury.

[Scaredxx]

a few days ago, I accidentally hurt my child - he’s two months old and he fell from my arms to the floor, resulting in a head injury. It was a complete accident, and I’d rather not go over what happened because I don’t think writing it out will help. he’s okay, after spending a day in hospital with monitoring and future check ups booked in, he should make a full recovery with no lasting issues.

but I keep going back to the moment it happened. I can’t escape thinking about it. It’s tearing me apart. I’m struggling to sleep and I need to be with him constantly or I’m just a nervous wreck. I love him so much and I’m so scared that something might happen to him if I’m not with him, and I can’t react. And I’m so worried that he might have underlying issues because of a mistake I made that led to him falling.

I’ve never felt this amount of shame and guilt, I know it was an accident and my husband keeps reassuring me and telling me I need to forget about it, but how can I?

has anyone gone through something similar, how do I start feeling better, all I want is to be the best version of me for my children, but I feel like a shell at the moment and even if I try to get out of my head, I just end up back there.

It’s very early days and you’re showing a really hard to deal with but normal reaction. You’ll be hypervigilant as the most precious thing in the world was harmed. See how you are in a few weeks, if you’re still the same then I’d seek some therapy about it and maybe some EMDR to deal with the trauma as you don’t want it negatively impacting your parenting journey / life.
in the meantime think about how you would support someone else in your position and then gift yourself that kindness.
some tips that might work for dealing with trauma..
keep moving (not obsessively of course) but movement sends a signal to your brain that you are not in freeze mode and the danger is over
human contact
doing things you enjoy
eat well
sleep well
journaling
mediation

take care xx

Also to add, if you start reliving the incident in your head keep reminding yourself it is not happening now, that’s just an unwelcome replay in your head, try and move your body and if you start going down this path x

You’re in shock. You feel guilty. These things happen. It is ok now, though not sure how you dropped him. Move on.

Actually, glad you are feeling like this as it shows you’re a good mum. Sadly there’s plenty of people who wouldn’t care or deliberately harm their kids.

Actually when I had PTSD after an accident I was given hypnotherapy and that is exactly what I was told to do - replay the incident over and over again until my brain just sort of normalised it and stopped overreacting to it. There was a bit more to it than that but in essence that was the therapy. It worked.

Go to your GP and ask if you can be referred for counselling, perhaps? Or if you have the money you might get a shorter wait at a private counsellor/therapist. (Check they are registered with BACP).

I think it's very normal to have difficult/intrusive thoughts after something like this happening and although it's really good to know your husband doesn't blame you for the accident, I'm not sure that "forget about it" is a helpful response (I am sure it is well meaning.)

Basically you need space to process what happened and all your fears/what ifs.

It's a normal reaction and early days. One thing that is helpful post trauma is to play Tetris while thinking about what happened. Let yourself talk about what happened and think about what happened, but avoid ruminating and keep to your normal routine including things your little one does. Over protection is harmful too.

my husband is a lot more supportive than saying forget about it. I’ve done him a disservice saying he said that - he’s more supportive than I could ever ask for. And I’m grateful for such a rock in him.

thank you everyone for your kind comments. I know it’s early days and I know I’m probably jumping the gun on expecting my brain to get over what happened, but I’m scared that it might be a permanent ptsd and I don’t want it to effect my parenting, the most important thing to me is my children and their safety and well being (so this incident has made me feel like a failure)

Try and adopt an attitude of compassion and acceptance - that you are doing your damn best, that bad things happen and are part of life, we can't control everything and will inevitably face failures, we are human and fragile and imperfect and wonderful all the same. Enjoy your baby. Treat yourself well.