My son was born in 2009 via emergency section while I was under GA. His birth affected so much and I suffered with PTSD and anxiety as a result. But life goes on, and this is what it’s like sometimes.
At first it is raw and oh so ugly. There are dreams when you sleep and dreams when you are awake. There are night sweats and flashbacks and anxiety attacks and panics. There are feelings of suffocation and of desperation. There are days when you cannot cope alone and the sound of your baby’s crying just cannot continue any more. There are days where you want to hide, to stay hidden and at the same time want someone to find you.
And then time moves on.
And then it is like all of that, only less intense. Like all feelings, emotions and responses have been sucked dry. Like the earth around you has breathed it’s last breath for you. Like it is time to move on. And your first thought when you wake is not how crushingly sad you feel or how prickly your skin feels or how desperately you want a different existence. That comes later. When it’s quiet. When your thoughts are whispers and your mind is still.
And then time moves on again and life picks up new interests for its enjoyment. Your memories of what happened are scooped into balls that get pushed to the bottom of the pile. What is important? Life. And it moves on, so you have too I suppose. But life after birth trauma is not so simple.
It creeps up on you. It waits around corners for happy moments to destroy. It is selfish. It is dressed in white when it should be in black; it should be clear for all to see. But it’s not. It is a marker. A point in your life where the world took a breath and did not dare to breathe out again. Where silence echoed and emptiness tried to suck you in. And you climb back; of course you do. But that climb changed you. And you won’t know by looking at me. You won’t remember.