Nightmares

[dkb15164]

I'm 20+4 weeks at the moment and really I'm quite lucky to be lacking from a lot of pregnancy symptoms (didn't realise I was pregnant until 11 weeks as since I'm 19 I'm not very regular). I've had a mood swings and crying jags etc all within reason but my main issue is the nightmares. Websites out there say scary nightmares can occur during pregnancy but I feel totally traumatised by mine. Other people's nightmares seem to exist of "dropping the baby" while mines are on a whole new level of things like "chopping my teenage brothers hand off with a knife while sleepwalking and sewing them back on backwards while blood spurts all over my mums white carpet" in graphic gory detail. I'm not a big fan of blood and guts and rarely watch crime or murder shows as I have to turn away from the screen whenever the body comes on so I don't know how my imagination is going so wild. When I wake up I don't want to go back to sleep because I feel so traumatised

I can't stop seeing the images flash every time I close my eyes. I don't want to tell my midwife as I had a bit of depression when I was younger and the fact I'm 19 paired with the fact I look like a 12 year old (I've travelled the globe more than most 50 year olds, started university early and have an IQ of 142 but hey I've got a young face so I get treated like imbecile child) means I have a lot of anxiety over the midwife taking my baby off me and putting them into care. I don't know if I need psychiatric help or if the nightmares should die off, I've been having them since roughly week 14.

I've had some fairly horrendous ones, and some of them have been fairly obviously old anxieties resurfacing, for example I've had a few about my ex, even though we've been split for over three years now, after a fairly traumatic split. I've also had some quite violent and distressing ones, I had one about my mum dying which was awful, and some of the really nasty ones have stayed with me for a day or two.

I would say that if you're not managing to shake off the really nasty ones after a day or two, then you should seek help, no one is going to take your baby away on the basis of struggling with some really nasty dreams, and now more than ever you do need your sleep.

If you don't want to talk to your midwife, maybe you could speak to a GP, or perhaps even book an appointment privately with a counsellor? I find that talking about the really nasty ones, even just with my other half, helps me to move past them because I see the bizarreness of them in the cold light of day and that takes some of the sting out of them for me. Bottling it up and dwelling on it just results in me getting more upset later.

I'm 33 + 1 and I'm still getting them by the way, so I'd definitely recommend you get some help with them, I doubt mine are going to go away until the baby is born at least.

Thanks Katmarie! I've had the one about my mum dying too, I called her at 6am as I knew she'd be up by then just to hear her voice as she's a good 2 hours drive away. My partners also been pretty good but I feel bad waking him up sometimes - I let him sleep a few times and afterwards he told me he 'appreciated it' so don't want to bother him too much with it as he's already supporting me in so many other ways and I don't want to overload him. Some private counselling might be a shout - I would have to do it at a time when I'm not ready to burst into tears for no reason though, nobody wants a sobbing emotional women on their hands though. Do you think that might be expensive though? I'm in university at the moment and the budgets even tighter than usual saving up for a baby. I wonder if a routine for when I wake up from it might be good. I don't really want to be taking a shower to calm down in the middle of the night but maybe a cup of hot chocolate or decaf tea to soothe my nerves - at the moment when I wake up from them I'm literally shaking.

Haha I did exactly the same, my mum was a bit surprised but lovely as always, and perfectly fine, which was very reassuring.

If you're in university why not speak to student support services? Most universities have some form of mental health support or student counselling service, some are better than others obviously, but it might be a good way for you to access some help and someone to speak to in confidence. It's in their interests to support you in getting a decent night's sleep, to give you the best possible chance in your studies, so it's a good use of their services. You may even be able to access that support for free.

Also any counsellor who can't deal with a sobbing emotional patient is probably in the wrong job. I'd imagine it comes with the territory, so please don't worry about that too much! Just let them help you :)

The routine sounds good. I find that I need time to decompress from a bad night, so getting up and coming online, with a cup of tea and some breakfast, or a late night snack, rather than just lying there and dwelling on it. I tend to let my DP sleep as well, but I do make sure I find time to talk to him later if I need to, otherwise it does get on top of me.

It's good to know I'm not the only one. The university support services aren't great at my uni - something shocking like 1 counsellor to every 4000 students so I feel baby would already be walking by the time they reply to any emails or phone calls. My mum would offer to pay for it if she knew the difficulties I was having - she's a midwife and counsellor herself so she knows the NHS wrongly identifies "at-risk" mothers by their age and she is definitely one to promote the benefits of counselling. Nobody likes telling their mum they're struggling though so it's just working up the courage to do so.