Testimonial: “My pregnancy with anxiety disorders”

What is anxiety disorder?

I have Anxiety Disorder. It does not matter, it is simply handicapping at times in certain (variable!) Situations. It started when I was 19, with severe panic attacks and agoraphobia that made my social life extremely difficult for a few years. It triggered a kind of alarm that rings perpetually in my head (the “fear of being afraid”). My brain was almost constantly in “danger alert” mode, but for no reason. When you are in this situation, you try to understand what the identified danger is, you can’t find it, you go into “what if?” »And then you get lost….

Impulse phobias

I don’t come from a family where you can easily talk about these things. So I could only count on myself to get out of it little by little. So I conquered agoraphobia, but another anxiety disorder developed: impulse phobias *. If you don’t know what impulse phobias are, it’s the fear of hurting others (or yourself). For my part, I could not be alone with someone without being afraid of hurting them. Not being able to talk about this with anyone, I read on the subject to understand that I was not a danger to anyone, that my phobia was not dangerous and that acting out does not exist in this phobia.

When love knocks on my door

Time has passed, I have experienced different more or less interesting love stories and I have met Man. The one who changed my life. He is already the father of 2 children, whom he has in joint custody. It’s hard for someone with an impulse phobia to find themselves living with 2 children! So I had to confess my trouble to him…. I was very scared to tell him about it, but he accepted it perfectly and encouraged me in my process to get better. Before moving in with them, I therefore started psychotherapy. It lasted 2 years (in the meantime I had moved in with them). Frankly, I haven’t seen the best, but being exposed to children on a regular basis has nevertheless reduced the phobic episodes. But the alarm bells continued to ring. We built a family balance between four and the desire to have a child began to appear. But how can you imagine having one when you’re already tense all day for nothing? How do you know if you were not going to “pass” this on to your child? What if it was in the genes? What if because of this he was unhappy all his life? Then I read that a percentage of mothers who had just given birth had phobias so what was going to trigger even worse in me? 

A psychiatrist listening

So I decided to go see a psychiatrist. I was lucky, I fell very well. He agreed to follow me and explained to me what I had. He told me that my disorder, no one would know where it could come from or if it was transmissible. Probably a personal fragility towards anxiety coupled with life experiences. But no possible certainty about the origin. However, he did not think that my baby would be automatically anxious because I was, nor that he was therefore more likely to become so. He also explained to me that my disorder was not my fault. Where the psychologist who had followed me previously explained to me that if things were not going better it was for lack of effort, he explained to me that I was doing my best and that I could not make it disappear by my will alone. But that it was absolutely not a barrier to a desire for a child. That you just had to learn to live with it and find a way to reduce the symptoms. Do not struggle, accept thoughts and emotions for what they are and the disorder can only diminish.

Generalized anxiety disorder: drug treatment

It relieved me, enormously. So I could consider having a child without being a danger to him and maybe even that I could be a good mother. Very good news for me! At the same time, we resumed exposure exercises and then started a light drug treatment. Revolution thanks to drugs: the alarm in my head only sounded in case of “real” need. Real comfort. It’s an understatement to say that it changed my life. When you no longer have the fear that sticks to you, your other emotions take up more space. Your life has a new flavor. It was truly a liberation.

We launch the Baby adventure

One year after starting the treatment we decide with my partner to start the baby adventure. Being afraid of the drug risks for the fetus (although very minimal) I decide to stop the treatment. I do not hide from you that I was still worried about embarking on such a human adventure with my disorder. What if it made it worse? What if I am not handling well? What if I became a burden on my uninsured spouse? Okay, the alarm came back. Unfortunately. And the pregnancy finally arrived quickly (in 4 months).

The alarm goes off

And there, instead of rejoicing, I have my internal alarm which got carried away. It was horrible. I told myself that it was a crazy mistake, that I was not capable of it, that I was going to disappoint everyone, that I did not deserve it, that our couple would not hold, and if we were cheated in our decision? And that made me feel very guilty. Why wasn’t I enjoying it? Why didn’t I react how in all these films, these commercials? My companion tried to reassure me but it also strongly destabilized him because he was sincerely delighted by the news. It led us to a small, understandable crisis. I do not control my anxieties and he is not my doctor, and it is unsettling when someone does not experience common news as well as you, I understand that we are still humans.

Feel nothing at the first ultrasound

My gynecologist gives me ultrasounds every month. The 1st month ultrasound did not trigger any emotion in me. The alarm was ringing too loud, and when it’s like that, you don’t feel a thing. I just had a lot of pain on the pelvic echo, and I saw a clump of cells on a screen. Really that’s how I experienced it. I couldn’t see who to talk to. My parents ? No. My sister ? I broached the subject a little but timidly and she knew how to listen but my modesty prevented me from going any further. Talk to girlfriends, cousins? No, fear of judgment too … Finally, it was on the web, or in various magazines, that I found testimonials from women who had experienced the same panic when they did not suffer from any underlying disorder.. So yes, you can panic when you hear the news. Even if it is desired. It’s not the trouble, it’s your life that’s turned upside down. We must accept that this is scary. The midwife I saw in the 4th month also told me: “Me, it’s more those who don’t worry throughout their first pregnancy that I find weird!” She explained to me that many mothers had the anxieties that I had experienced earlier in the eighth month. Me, I just realized earlier, and it was very healthy.

The psychiatrist’s words: it’s normal to be afraid

My psychiatrist, whom I saw every month, was able to reassure me. He saw nothing abnormal there. He said to me: “This is a real upheaval, don’t worry if you are afraid. Your disorder does not make you a different person; all fear is not related to it. The adventure you are embarking on is dizzying. Of course it’s unsettling and ambivalent at times! ” The midwife also told me “I have seen as many pregnancies, deliveries, and reactions to motherhood, as I have seen women.”

I dare to talk about the subject around me

After a few weeks my alarm eased a little, thanks to the testimonies that I had read, to the appointments with the psychiatrist…. We were able to start again on a good basis with my man. At the 2nd ultrasound, which I performed at a little over 2 months old, I fell crazy about this little bit on the screen. And I started to feel much more at ease. And to tell me that it was necessary to take the lead on the pregnancy and take an interest in it to avoid suffering it. So I started to broach the subject of anxiety with the mothers I had around me, and whom I knew “open”, people who are not in judgment. I discovered that she was not the only one who was afraid! If I had had the courage to talk to them about it at that time, I would have saved myself a few weeks of terrible anxieties and questioning!

A second trimester on a cloud

To all those who are very anxious by nature and who are pregnant or want a baby, I have a message to send: you are not your trouble. It doesn’t define you. And you have the right to be afraid at times during your pregnancy. It’s just that you realize the change that’s coming and as the midwife says: It’s healthy! I was told that the second trimester was very nice to live on the moral side, that is confirmed for me. I was completely “high” on hormones. For example, when I went for a walk in nature, I was “in communion with the flowers and the trees”. This had never happened to me before. It happened quite quickly: announcing to relatives, to work, purchases of necessary items for the baby. Three months on a cloud, savoring the first movements felt in the stomach, the body which changes a little, the ultrasounds where we see that everything is going well. Really that happiness. 100% of the time. I do not know which hormone causes this state but I will like it intravenously for the rest of my life! And I was pretty fit.

A darker third trimester

At the start of the 3rd trimester everything changed. We were reconfigured and being a “person at risk” I had to telecommute. We don’t live next to our families, so I found myself quite isolated all day. This is not the situation that suits me best already in normal times. I need to see people and share, I’m not a loner, the body really started to look very different at the end of the 6th month and I’m not one of those women who feel good about themselves with it. those curves. Some are lovely, I find myself hideous. I put on a butt even though I am very careful about what I eat. My chest takes the weight. Fortunately (for the moment !!) no stretch marks. (At the same time, by dint of spreading myself with oil every evening, it’s rather better for the result to be good). Every night at bedtime I have the impression of being a sardine in oil. Do you feel the sexy study of the fat oiled cow lying on the bed who moans as soon as you have to get up? You touch the daily life of a woman in the 3rd trimester!

Any movement is more complicated

I have trouble moving, I often suffocate (due to reduced lung capacity), my perineum often hurts, putting on socks is a nightmare. I’ve come to a point now when I put on a pair of socks for an exit from the house, I make sure that the exit is well maintained because I find it painful as a movement. I can get annoyed if I was made to put on my socks for nothing (yes! Yes!). So I was alone three quarters of the time with this body that I do not accept. You might as well say that there is not an atmosphere of madness from a moral point of view.

My concerns for the postpartum period

I am also starting to wonder if I would be a good mother, as I already have trouble coping with this situation. And that makes me feel guilty. So I will see testimonials on blogs, I see that the 3rd trimester is often a source of small blows of depression and anxiety. So I repeat, “No: pregnancy is not always magic. Yes: the pregnancy is ambivalent. No, questioning yourself about your abilities does not question them. No: it is not because of your disorder ”. Well, no matter how often we repeat it, I won’t hide from you that when you start to cry without really knowing why (thank you hormones !!!) you have a hard time putting things into perspective. But I take a step back, it calms down.

In short, for the moment the 3rd trimester is not very pleasant to live with, and the delivery is as long as I fear. Normally more than 6 weeks….

(To be continued, Céline’s testimony after the birth of her baby ….)

* Some studies show that 70% of young postpartum mothers have impulse phobias… and all of them will never harm their babies.