This post is quite a hard one to write, and may actually be a difficult read, so I won't be offended if you skip this one. But I do feel it is so important to acknowledge what Baby Loss can do to your mental health, and what it has done to mine.
So often, as especially as Christians, we feel like we have to be strong. We have to be strong because of what we believe.
What I am learning is that actually, I am still a human. And therefore I feel just like every one else, I hurt like everyone else, I get angry and confused - just like everyone else.
Believing in Jesus does not make me immune to the troubles of the world.
Although I do believe that I have Jesus and that it is Him who is walking me through this, that it is His strength in my weakness that is getting me through, I do still want to share and open up about the hit I have taken mentally. To show you that I am human. That I am hurt, that I am broken, just as anyone else would be.
So... since I gave birth and miscarried my beautiful daughter, Summer, I have experienced a fresh new wave of anxiety about life that I have not had before. I have been diagnosed with Depression and PTSD has also been mentioned, though not diagnosed.
The trauma of losing my baby - my babies even - has hit me hard.
Anxiety wise - I am in constant fear that something bad is going to happen. I didn't even realise they way I felt until Rich mentioned some of my behaviours and I talked them through with my Counsellor. Whenever he came home after he had been out, I would follow him around the house and feel the need to constantly be with him. If he went out, I needed him to text me to let me know he had got wherever he was going safely and approximately what time he would be home. If he was late, I would panic. Not because he wasn't home, but because my brain automatically went to the worst case scenario that something terrible had happened.
I would constantly clean and I would not really leave my house unless it was to go to the supermarket, to my Doctors, to my mum and dad's or to my friend Rachel's. Or to go see Summer.
I lost all passion for seeing other people and preferred to be on my own. That way I couldn't get hurt.
My counsellor explained it to me using the analogy of a cave. She said it was like I had gone into survival mode. I lived in this cave and in my cave were a handful of people - Rich, M, Rach, Chris, my Mum and Dad and a few others. Around them, I felt safe. Even if they left my cave and came back, that was okay, because we were together in my cave and that was safe.
Anything outside of my cave was a danger, and I would often have panic attacks. Or I would venture out for a short while, and would come home and cry for hours.
I was fine going to the supermarket and I enjoyed that, or to my mum and dad's but my counsellor explained that they were again, my safe zones, and my housekeeping jobs which, in turn were how I was trying to regain control of my surroundings and things in my life. Cleaning became an obsessive compulsive activity that I needed to do to regain control. And so I would do it, constantly.
The worse thing for my anxiety was work. I didn't realise the extent of this being a trigger until I took Rich to work one day as he was going away on a Residential. As we got closer to the building I started panicking. I told him that I may have to drop him off at the gate as I was feeling that anxious. Initially, I thought it was for one reason, which I will mention in another post, but turns out it wasn't really solely to do with that.
After I dropped him off, it took me longer than normal to get home because of the anxiety I was having. The physical reaction to the place. I couldn't breath. My heart was pounding. I couldn't stop crying. I was shocked as to the extent of anxiety I was experiencing towards even just the grounds of where I work.
After informing my GP and Counsellor, together they helped me explore what the reason was for the place being such a trigger. It was there that both of my miscarriages actually started. It was there that my first miscarriage - the bleeding started, and with Summer, it was where my contractions started, resulting in her miscarriage. My brain just could not cope with the place and my body would go into complete meltdown. I was unable to control it for a long time.
Although I am back at work now, I do still have a lot of anxiety there. I am able to control it more, but it is still there. It will be a long time before it goes and I will write in another post on how I deal with and manage my triggers.
Depression wise - I was diagnosed a few weeks after Summer's funeral. I had thought that after her funeral I would feel better and I would go back to work. That did not happen. I felt worse and I quickly spiralled and things went down hill. I felt so down, so angry, so hopeless and just so bad, I could not pick myself back up. It was a few weeks before I even admitted to Rich how bad it was. I did so many things and said so many things that were completely out of my character, and reflecting now - I can't believe I did. I needed help. Badly. All I wanted was to be with Summer. To be with my daughter. The pain of not being with her was too great. Although I would not say I was suicidal, and I knew I would not do anything to end my own life, I wanted to be with Summer bad enough that I would have welcomed any other means at the time of being with her. I know this is hard to hear and I am sorry, but I just wanted to be honest. I needed help.
When I finally opened up to Rich how bad it was, we talked and I promised him I would see the Doctors as soon as possible, and I did. My doctors were super helpful, so lovely and very supportive. I agreed to medication and they agreed to see me every single week in person until my Counselling officially started. I have been on Sertraline for the past 3 months now and they are helping. I am so grateful for my doctors, as without them, I honestly don't know where I would be now.
PTSD wise - as I mentioned before, I have not been diagnosed with this, however the Doctors have said I have been showing and experiencing symptoms. These are linked to my anxiety and triggers in that area, but also my sleep. For weeks, I was just not sleeping. I would have nightmares every single night where I would basically relive the experience of the miscarriage, from start to finish. I would then be scared to go to sleep and therefore I wouldn't sleep.
Thankfully, as the meds kicked in and as my counselling progressed, I don't suffer from these as much. Maybe once or twice a week I do have the nightmares, but I am sleeping a lot more than I was before.
Although I have come a long way these past few weeks, making it back into work and managing to sleep better, managing my triggers better, I know I still have a long way to go.
Losing my baby has knocked me for six and has majorly impacted my mental health, but I am so grateful to for all my family and friends who have walked through all this with me, and not given up on me. For Rich, for my managers at work, and for my GPs and my Counsellor. 🌞💖
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