Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder – lets talk about it….. .....

When you hear the acronym PTSD what’s the first thing that pops into your mind?

Army War Vets?

War Widdows?

Well that’s probably where 99% of people go when they hear it, but what about NICU families, or mothers who suffered birth trauma or have watched their children die?  The thing is that a lot of mothers who suffer Post Natal Depression may instead be suffering undiagnosed PTSD.

The cold hard fact is that in Australia 16% of mothers suffer from PTSD, many of them mothers to pre-term babies, or those who suffered major complications during child birth. For me though every year for the past 2 years around May I start to suffer debilitating anxiety. Diagnosed as PTSD last year the very thought of me heading to the shops or inside play centre with my boys strikes absolute terror into my body that cripples me.

Ever wondered why you didn't know ?? Here's why, because the sigma mental illness carries is burden enough to break a person. They'll view me as weak I think. When now i realise that i am far from that.

My PTSD strikes as we lead into the anniversary of my babies being hospitalised with RSV (see earlier posts). The very thought of winter bugs, viruses, exposure to unvaxinated children or adults, people coughing without covering their mouths, visitors kissing my boys on the hands and lips, sitting my boys in shopping trolleys or playing with childcare toys that aren’t cleaned daily send me into a complete panic and I withdraw from everything that I believe exposes them to risk. From the months of May-August you will not see me in shopping centres with my boys, I won’t attend parties with them where there’s a chance someone may turn up unwell, I religiously tell visitors to wash their hands, cover their mouths and not kiss my babies hands or lips. I carry hand sanitizer everywhere and purify my house with burning essential oils. I stock up on hundreds of dollars of pre and probiotics, vita gummies and high strength vitamin C tablets.

This is my story of PTSD and it’s important to share, because not everyone will understand why you may withdraw from certain situations or react the way you do. They will see me for 9 months of the year completely care free, as my boys eat dirt, pick food up from the floor and chew on it, and kiss people on the face with wide open mouths. While you may think I’m completely irrational leading into winter it doesn’t matter, for me Winter triggers horrific memories and the association between winter and illness for me as someone who suffers PTSD is 100% real.

For me as my boys grow bigger I know they grow stronger, the more winters they see the more exposure to germs and the stronger their immunity gets – but sometimes knowing that doesn’t help the intense fear you feel when you recall your lifeless babies strapped to machines to help them breath playing on repeat in your mind over and over again until spring comes and the winter germs disappear.

So there it is……PTSD lurks amongst so many of us and it doesn’t discriminate, it’s just another reason why you should chose to be KIND before judgmental, to ask are you OK before shutting them out and to never assume that just because someone doesn’t talk about it doesn’t mean it’s not happening.