Perinatal Trauma/ PTSD
Helping you to see the light again.
Supporting and guiding you as you journey towards healing and hope for a brighter future.
My story
After the birth of my first daughter, I knew something was a miss. Some parts in the lead up to her birth were quite disturbing leaving me feeling unheard and voiceless. The postpartum, although she was a dream baby, was far from easy and my feeding goals were not achieved as I had wished due to a lack of support.
I blamed myself for not putting enough work in, for not trying hard enough, and for being ignorant to how birth really is. I was eaten with guilt and suffered majorly with anxiety, hypervigilence, and feelings of inadequacy. It wasn’t until a year after her birth that I was misdiagnosed with Postpartum Depression.
Again, this diagnosis didn’t sit right with me. I knew how I felt and I thought I was depressed until I began to learn that what happened to me was not my fault; something I struggled hard to believe. When I came to this realisation, I understood that I was, in fact, suffering from PTSD. I had so many symptoms and considering my experience both during birth and in the postpartum, it is no wonder I was traumatised.
Understanding Trauma/ PTSD
Trauma is very complex and shows up differently for everyone. While one person may experience flashbacks and nightmares, another person may avoid everything related to their experience and forget a lot of the key aspects of their story.
Trauma is not an illness but rather a very normal human response to an event where one felt disrespected, unheard, violated, or threatened. What happens, in short, is that during the event, the body goes into autopilot responding in a fight, flight, freeze, or fawn manner. The person seems compliant but in reality their brain has gone into survival mode doing what it needs to do as a defence, just as animals do to protect themselves from prey.
Perinatal and birth trauma is not exclusive to the pregnant/ birthing person. It is commonly experienced by partners and support people too which is something that is not ofter spoken about. However, it needs to be acknowledged that whatever the trauma symptoms, whoever the person, those feelings and emotions are real and they are valid.
When a person is experiencing trauma symptoms, it can feel as though there is no hope. However as the sun sets, so it will rise again.
Perinatal Trauma Resolution
For people experiencing PTSD/ Trauma symptoms, I offer a very gentle but hugely effective process called 3-Step Rewind.
3-Step Rewind is done over three sessions with me and is done completely at your pace and within your comfort zone. Over the three sessions, I hold space for you to share your story with me, although this is not necessary; we can absolutely continue this process, if you would prefer not to share your story. I understand that this can be a very challenging part of the process for some and I accommodate as such.
From here, we discuss how you are feeling and how your experience is effecting you which helps us to also consider how you would prefer to feel.
The process itself is done while you are in a completely relaxed state, minimising the risk of distress or triggering negative emotions.
After this process, you will feel more positive and hopeful for the future. You will still have the memory of your experience but it will no longer evoke the negative emotions or feelings it has until this point.
So, are you ready to see the glimmer of hope?
Are you ready to feel more “you” again?
3-Step Rewind is absolutely safe during pregnancy also.