an open letter to a struggling mum
By Nicky Cooper
You've had a significant traumatic experience in your journey into motherhood.
This left you feeling deeply scared to your core like you had no control over what was happening to you or your baby. You know that your partner had/has similar feelings about your experiences. And the bottom line is that this made you feel REALLY, REALLY unsafe.
This is definitely not how it was supposed to be.
Some time has now passed, you're through the hardest yards, and everyone has kind of moved on. Except you. You still have flashbacks of the absolute fear and terror you felt at that time. This feels so so intense and so very consuming.
You have been having some unexplainable strong emotions and confusion about how and why you are still feeling like this because you have a beautiful, healthy, happy child that you got to bring home, so you try to suppress, almost dismiss this growing rise in unexpected anxiety.
This is compounded by the acknowledgement that you yourself had a healthy, happy, balanced, well-supported and loving childhood… or did I? Now I'm second guessing everything; why do I feel so foggy in my brain? Why is it all starting to blur? I just don’t get it. Everyone has an opinion, everyone tells me what I should/could be doing. Why is this so hard? Why is no one asking me, are you actually OK? What do you need?
It's really hard for you to understand why you still feel this way. You feel some guilt, perhaps even some embarrassment about how you really feel about, well, ALL of it.
You’ve now started to experience ongoing struggles and a strong emotional reaction to external sensory stressors such as touch and sound, causing feelings of complete overwhelm (sensory overload). This is compounded by the chronic lack of sleep that you have been experiencing and the difficulties you might have had with breastfeeding.
At its worst, it is causing you to feel unsafe, almost out of control all over again. You feel so triggered into almost re-living those intense, consuming feelings you had first experienced. Your brain is making you feel REALLY, REALLY unsafe yet again. And yet whenever you see anyone, You're doing ok, everything is FINE; why does this annoy you so much? Just keep on, keeping on. You got through another day!
But....the reality is your reaction to all of these external sensory triggers is due to your brain's survival mode, and that is debilitating for anyone to experience so often. This is actually normal; it's how we are hardwired to respond to a crisis. The problem comes when your brain and body don’t realise that you are no longer living through that crisis.
So.....what next? If you've reached that point, medications can be a really good place to start to get you out of crisis mode, to reset your default button if you like. There's absolutely no shame about that EVER. And getting enough sleep/rest to help reduce those cortisol levels. Some may TELL you the answer is sleep training, but we can help you to work through these struggles together, improving sleep without compromising your critical bond with your baby.
It's also important for you to also know that you CAN actually control your own reactions to these strong, intense feelings that are consuming you. You've successfully done it in the past and WILL have the tools and resilience to tap into them again; they are just buried under all the other stuff that's front and centre of your brain right now.
One of the biggest things is acknowledging and accepting all of this, which is hard. And then, when you are ready, start exploring and trying to release those deep internal feelings that may feel trapped inside, intensely consuming you. This is also hard. But we can do it together.
These core emotions probably come from a genuine fear and possibly even some guilt, and that's ok; it's also still normal. And, of course, when we are in our rational brains, we know all of this and can even begin to work through their significance to begin to release or be less consumed by them and finally begin the healing process.
Until you can stop being in survival mode, these emotions feel bigger, heavier and stronger. These trapped emotions are ultimately stuck. And that's ok, that really is still ok, just accept this is only your now, but that eventually you will start to uncoil.
Because, when you are ready, you will be able to let go a little, and then a little bit more, until it gets lighter and lighter. And you have to believe that you can and you will.
Because ultimately, you are enough, and you've got this, we've all got this...and more importantly, we've got you.