Relationship between childhood trauma and Post Partum

For those of us that are pregnant, just had a baby, or suffered a loss from pregnancy. You might be worried about Post Partum. This could be Depression, Anxiety, OCD anything that isn't your normal. For me it was Post Partum Depression, after my second. Then Post Partum Anxiety after my third. Post Partum is no joke and it sucks. It feeds off your lack of sleep, nutrition, vitamins. It eats you alive. However aside from the lack of sleep, nutrition and vitamins, what actually causes Post Partum? The answer, ALOT of things. Your hormones, history of depression/ Anxiety in the family, Trauma. No matter the case the truth is, you truly wont know if it will affect you until you have that baby. It can be subtle, and it can hit you like a ton of bricks. For me It started subtle then once I had my third, WHEW it hit me like a ton of bricks.

Research and study's show that if you have had childhood trauma you are at a increased risk to develop Post Partum Depression/Anxiety. Especially if you have not sought out treatment to deal with that trauma before having kids. Honestly before I had children I thought I didn't have Childhood Trauma. I figured since everything that I witnessed in my life never happened to me, That it wouldn't effect me. Boy was I wrong.

With my first I had a massive case of the baby blues. I remember I couldn't stop crying " I can't do this, I have no idea what I'm doing, I'm not worthy of this little persons love" This little beautiful Princess, I was so in love with her I just wanted to do right by her. How did I do that? I was 19 with just enough money to provide for our family. No extra money to take her places and enjoy life. I'm aware she was a newborn and would never remember that time. It still hurt not knowing how to get out of this rut. Knowing I had so much love for her, and I only wanted the best for her I cried almost everyday the first 4 weeks of her life. I cried because I had no clue what I was doing, no clue how to give her the best life. However after 4 weeks, I stopped crying. I got the hang of this mom thing. I could tell which cry meant what. Was she hungry? wet? needed some mommy time? I could tell you by her cry. This is what they call Baby Blues, where you feel overwhelmed, exhausted, and maybe cry a lot. Baby Blues go away after six weeks. Anything that lasts longer needs possible medical treatment.

About 9 months go by and we are living in my BF's ( now husband ) parents house. He has a decent job. With low rent, we are able to get caught up with our bills. Or so we thought. Yup, I got pregnant again, at 20. I told my husband (bf at the time) he needs to get a better job, one that could support us as a family of four isn't going to survive in one bedroom. So he went out and got a steady job. No one would hire me pregnant. We finally saved enough to get our own place 4 months before my due date. It felts so good. The last trimester of my pregnancy I had to go to the hospital every week for a non stress test. A non stress test is where they monitor the baby for an hour, count kicks and the heartbeat to make sure baby isn't stressed. The reason I had to do this is because He was missing a vessel in the umbilical cord. Meaning he only had 2 instead of 3. One of the vessel's had to work double time, In some cases this causes the baby stress the bigger they grow. Luckily he was fine and healthy.

After he was born, I felt fine. I guess. Looking back I had no emotions. I was never sad, never happy, never really upset. I thought this was normal. At least I wasn't crying. I stayed up late nights watching tv, not feeling tired. At my 6 week check up, my doctor expressed some concerns and prescribed me a SSRI. I never took them, I was fine. Spoiler alert, I wasn't fine. When my son turned about 6 months I went to the walk-in clinic seeking help, as I finally realized I felt nothing and it wasn't normal. She gave me a number to call. That number told me to go to a doctor. Funny. So I dealt with it. Just moving on in life. I went to school made friends, got into relationship fights, almost broke up and took the kids. Graduated, got a job in the field that I studied in. Life was good, for a bit. We moved into a bigger house, meaning higher rent. We both had good jobs. Until we didn't. So many events happened in two month, New jobs, another almost breakup, a move. Finally life had settled. Or not.

A year later, we felt we were in a good place for a third baby, we had grown and worked on our relationship so much, we felt secure. Got pregnant the first try, moved about 3 months before his due date. Settled in, life was good. Had our son when I was 39 weeks. Then my life went upside down. Post Partum hit me literally 2 hours after I had him. I was still in the hospital and my anxiety was so high. I had pain in my ribs from a) my child that was abusing my ribs while in the womb b) pushing out a 8lb baby boy. My anxiety didn't see it that way, My anxiety saw it as " you have a blood clot and you're goin to die" Every time I brought it up to the nurses and doctors they all said " it's normal you just pushed out a baby". I understood that, however I never felt like this after my first two. Doctors said it was fine so it must have been right? If only my brain understood that. The next Couple of days at home were rough. I was crying non stop. I Thought I was going to die, I had a fear of abandoning my kids. That if I died they would not have me anymore. SO I went to a walk-in clinic (again) and they did blood work, the doctor called me the next morning " you need to go to the hospital, your d-dimer it double what it should be" We went to the hospital with my 4 day old and when I went to the intake nurse and told her I was 4 day Post Partum and my doctor said my D-Dimer was too high and to come here, no lie she snickered. She said " of course its high, you just had a baby" confused I asked what does that have to do with it. She explained after surgery and delivery its your body's way to help stop the bleeding. I felt dumb. I still requested to get labs and test, as that was the only way to put my mind at ease, to ensure I didn't have a blood clot. I didn't.

I felt better, for a couple days. Then It all came back. NON stop crying. Feeling that I'm going to die. Constant fear. At my six week check up with my OBGYN she prescribed me zoloft. My anxiety convinced me it was right. It took me two weeks to try this out. I felt like a zombie. My head felt so weird. So like any normal person I stopped it. Only thing is I didnt go and get a different drug. Not for about a year. After I found out I too had adhd and Post partum anxiety.

So, how does all this depression and anxiety relate to my trauma? Even so what trauma did I expeirence?

Well, it started when I was in about grade 6/7. Honestly aside from some memorys I dont remember my life before grade 5. Don't get me wrong I remeber maybe 10 moments from my life. Mostly bad. Like how my only friends mom was an alchoholic and used drugs. How my uncle would hand with them then threw needles on our balcony. How he ended up banging on our door at 3 am trying to get in, and starting abusing my mother. After he was arrested and thrown in jail, my mother still visisted him. I never knew why. He was a bad guy and not worth our time. This was her toxic trait. Giving those who dont deserve it a second chance.

When we moved out of the province, my life changed. For a bit. My life was semi happy. I had friends, felt like I fit in. Met my best friend, sister from another mister. Life was good untill it wasnt. This is where me being responsible for my brother comes in. If you haven't read that blog post you can go read it. So after that summer my mother started dating a guy. He was a crack head with no job. But always talked about big jobs. Lived at our house basically rent free. Did drugs, drank, got my sister into drinking. Then tried to kill my mother by suffocating her. Oh lord this was only the begining.

In grade 8 I changed schools, met some friends. One of them eventually made an arrangement with my mom to chill their till her dad got off work. He worked till 7 or 8 at night and they lived about an hour away. Eventually my mom started getting friendly with her dad, at that time there were no red flags. Untill a weekend sleepover where he full on attacked his daughter in front of me. Blamed her, because she wouldnt clean up or something. When I say attack I mean attack, he slammed her head in the wall and hit her over and over. I felt helpless and scared an hour away from home. That was the last time I went over there. When I got back I told my mother everything, thinking she would back off from letting her stay here untill he got off work. Nope. Instead she decided to full blown date the guy. Knowing he has an abusive tendacy. I was betrayed. She didnt care. She could have prevented this. She didn't. He had money.

Theese are the events that accured in this relationship, you ready;

Muttiple break ups,

Multiple abuse events on my sister including smashing her head into the wall

Multiple calls to the police

Scared for my life and my sisters life

More abuse on my sister while me and my vrother watched.

A break up (finally)

My mother lying to me and me finding out that she took him back and has been hiding it. Lying to my face! The anger and betrayle I felt seeing that.

A secret move while he was at work only for her to...yup you guessed it take him back again.

Followed by more screaming matches and abuse. Yet another breakup, and another get back together.

Then he finally did it, he finally pushed her over the edge, she finally broke free never to talk to him again.

As I write this out I wonder, what set her off, all of a sudden she finally wants to leave? Did he start drinking again? Was that the final step back? Not the abuse but the drinking. She always had an excuse for him. This was only the trauma I saw thar my mother caused. We havent even gotten to my sisters.

My sis started partying young, got into the wrong crowd at 13 years old. Her first boyfriend did drugs, got her drinking. Eventually she spiraled. Like mother like daughter. Yup she had entered her own abusive relationship around the same time my mother did. She had not on by two men beating. At times I feel bad, but I continue to wonder how theese women take so much crap. How do you put up with it. They did. For years. And when my mom would break up with her boytoy, my sister would do the same. Then when they all got back together, they fought and blamed eachother. They egged eachother on like little 8 year old. Eventually they both broke free, but not after multiple calls to the police, multiple times me and my brother witnessing them beating them up. Constant fear for my life. Drugs and guns being brought into my house, where I was supposed to feel safe. The abuse of my sister bf made her abuse me verbally. " your fat, go on jenny crackwhore diet, nobody likes you" words hurt. And my mother did nothing to stop her. Well thats not true. She put me in councelling. Yes you read that right. My mother put me in counselling to stand up to my sister. Laughable.

All of those events, led me to post partum depression and anxiety. It led me there by the fear of my childrens lives following their footsteps. I couldnt leave my first born alone with no one for the first year and a half of her life. I felt nothing after my second was born. When my third was born it was like all theese emotions were flooding in and my brain was so overwhelmed. I also had the biggest fear of dyinh and not being there to protect them. Thats my job. Protect my kids. I was never protected, like hell I wont protect my kids.

As parents we need to be aware of the damages our actions can out on our children. Thats a lot of responsibilty I get it. That being said, my mother shoud've done better. Could've done better. I needed better.