Scary thoughts come at night

Last night was rough. I rolled over again and again a hundred times. I just couldn't sleep. I had a thousand thoughts in my head spinning around. And I just could't keep my legs still. I felt the need to move or shake my legs. It calmed me a little. 

What were those scary thoughts that made my night sleepless about? They were about the future. I am so afraid that I will fall apart when I will have a baby. I am scared I will not love him and I will not want to hold him or I will not want to be with him. I am scared I will not feel I am a mother. Sometimes I even think I could leave my baby and run away. I could just leave my baby for my boyfriend and my parents and go somewhere abroad to start a new life. Of course, these are just fantasies. I understand I cannot run from myself. Wherever I go, whatever I do I still have to live with demons in my head. 

I am afraid that taking care of my baby will be too much for me. I can feed him or change diapers, but in my head such a big responsibility can be just too much for me. 

Where do those fears come from? I think I have just never believed I could have a baby. Healthy beautiful babies do happen to people. It happens to someone, but not me... I have always felt like I was not normal, I do not deserve such happiness like having a healthy beautiful child. So now when a baby is happening to me I just feel I am not myself. Like I am living someone else's life, but not my own. 

Sometimes I lay at night and stare at my boyfriend sleeping. Why does the idea of being a father is so natural to him? Why does he want to marry me? Why would anyone want to have a family with such a confused person like me? 

I dream those questions could just go away. I want my nights to be calm. But the reality is I have to be with my scary thoughts. Night after night. My only hope is that everything will change after I will give birth.

What don't women tell about pregnancy?

When I became pregnant I felt betrayed by the women. I felt like the whole world has been lying to me about what it's like to be pregnant. Every day I can see on TV or read on the internet about the magical pregnancy time in woman's life. I see pictures of  glowing pregnant women in mass media every day. And it seems that all the negatives during pregnancy are just small inconveniences. I have sincerely believed in this fairy tale. And when I became pregnant reality hit me hard. 

Now I understand that pregnancy can bring ambivalent feelings. It can be very exhausting both mentally and physically. It can be very difficult and not so joyful. But women do not talk about it. It is completely normal if you sometimes wish you were not pregnant. It is absolutely normal to grieve that the life you have lived is over forever. It is normal to miss times when you were not pregnant. Unfortunately anyone has told me that. So when I started having doubts I felt alone. I felt like I was the only one in the world with those scaring feelings. I blamed myself I was not happy enough. I felt weak because I was not heroic enough when dealing with vomiting and other unpleasant pregnancy symptoms.

But now I understand that most women have some kind of struggles during pregnancies. They mostly suffer in silence. Even my friends who have babies started openly talking to me about their struggles during pregnancy only when I told them about my challenges. 

So do not believe in fairy tales! Life is not just black or white. It is mainly grey...

Tired of being pregnant!

I am so tired of being pregnant! So many uncomfortable senses in my body! I am not even talking about incredible mood swings! Yesterday I felt very unhappy in the morning. I had a sore throat so I got nervous that maybe I caught a virus and I might have fever and it might harm my baby. But it has passed and today I have no symptoms of a flu or of a cold. But the fact that sore throat made me so unhappy I almost cried is very frustrating. Yesterday I was also very angry that now I am on maternity leave but I am so big, so exhausted and so uncomfortable that I cannot enjoy my free time. I barely can go out alone. Sometimes I get dizzy and I am afraid I might faint.  

I am so tired of feeling a strange sense in my stomach. It's like my stomach is always full or squeezed. Sometimes I even feel a light nausea.

So being pregnant for me is really difficult. I became very impatient. And most of the time I am very frustrated and angry too. How do you deal with mood swings and uncomfortable senses in your body?

Generalized anxiety disorder

During my pregnancy I received a new diagnosis from my psychiatrist. Apart from having a depression episode (I am bipolar), I also have a generalized anxiety disorder. The later is new to me. I hope it is not for life. I hope my anxiety is just a part of my high sensitivity during pregnancy. It is so tiresome to feel anxious all the time. I cannot stop thinking scary thoughts. I worry about everything. I think about giving birth, about the health of my baby, about how difficult is to be pregnant, about words someone said to me that were not nice, about money, about being a good mother etc. But the most scaring thoughts are about my mental health after I will give birth. I am so afraid of falling into severe depression again! What if I will not be able take care of my baby? What if giving birth will be so mentally traumatic to me that I will not recover? What if I will not love my baby?

Those thoughts are so tiring! I just dream of feeling calm. I just crave for spiritual peace of mind. What if it will never come? What if I am condemned to feel anxious for the rest of my life?

If you can at least vaguely understand my confusion and my hard feelings, you probably can understand why sometimes I want the pregnancy to disappear. I just desperately want to feel myself again. I just want to relax. I am so tired...

Scared of giving birth

My due date is in two months. On February 20th I am having a baby. I have just started realizing how real it is and that it is really happening. It is so strange when I think that one day I will be still pregnant and the next day I will be holding my baby in my arms. Giving birth have just become so real! I am so scared! I am trying to calm myself that giving birth is the most natural thing in the world. My body should be capable of giving birth. But it does not calm me down. I imagine how painful and scary it will be. I can see blood and I can see the baby tearing me apart very vividly in my imagination. I am so scared of giving birth that I sometimes get dizzy and I feel I can faint even when I am reading about giving birth or thinking about it. I am very angry at myself that I cannot make these scary thoughts go away. I understand that they are not useful to me in any way. They just make me nervous. But I cannot control my fears. I even talked to my friend who was also very scared of giving birth. She assured me that it was not so scary as she had imagined. But still I don't feel any calmer.

Today I will go to the lecture about giving birth. I hope I will be able to concentrate and I will not faint. Wish me luck!

How does my family deal with my depression during pregnancy?

My depression during pregnancy is a serious challenge for my family. I live with my fiance and my parents. They have seen me at my worst. For them it is very difficult to understand how I can be depressed when I am pregnant with a baby who is wanted by all the family. 

The truth is I tried to pretend that my depression did not exist just to make them happy. It would have been easier for me if I would have been honest with my family from the beginning. But I was afraid they could judge or condemn me. 

How did my family react when I finally admitted what was going on? It was hard for them to understand. They tried to convince me to try harder and to pull myself up. It is sad for me to admit that my family did not see how much I was suffering and how much I needed professional help. I have to admit that they saw my depression as my weakness, not a disease. It is sad. They are not insensitive or unconcerned, they do what they think is the best for me. They try. As my therapist explained sometimes for them might be too difficult to admit that someone they love and care about could be suffering so much. And they are not psychiatrists so they are not able to recognize depression.

So dealing with my depression I was mainly on my own. My family helped me a lot by taking care of all the housework, taking me to the doctors or taking care of me eating at least something. But emotionally I was mainly on my own. I can not blame them. They are who they are and they do what they think is the best for me.

Disturbing feelings during pregnancy

The main thing I have learned in psychotherapy is that wrong or forbidden feelings do not exist. You are allowed to feel whatever you feel. Even when you are pregnant. You can feel so angry at someone that sometimes you want to hurt or to kill him or her and you can even have fantasies about doing it. It is completely normal if you do not do it in reality. It is completely normal to have such feeling for... your baby. It may sound very harsh, but it is the reality. The world is not just black or white. It is mainly grey. We can love and be angry at someone at the same time. I can be very angry at my baby when I feel nauseous all the time for days. At the same time I can love my baby to the moon and back. I know that some women can condemn me for my words. But I am not a bad person. I just have the courage to talk about difficult things. Most pregnant women do not allow themselves to have ambivalent feelings or they block them unconciously. Sometimes such moral filters we have can result in depression or can cause various psychosomatic symptoms. For example, for me vomiting during pregnancy stopped as soon as I stopped trying to be happy about my pregnancy and said loudly that sometimes I was so exhausted I wanted the pregnancy to disappear. 

Did I make a mistake?

Yesterday I had a thought that hit me hard. Did I make a mistake? Was my decision to have a baby a mistake? Is it a mistake to get married? These questions are very frightening because when I think about them I feel the foundations of my life shaking. 

Even though my pregnancy have been very difficult emotionally and physically, I have always calmed myself repeating to myself that having a baby will be the best thing that has ever happened to me. But what if it won't? What if it is a mistake? My calm, simple and plain life is over. Everything has changed. What if my suffering during pregnancy is just a beginning of life long struggles? How should I believe that having a baby will bring not only struggles but joy as well? I know that probably all these scaring and negative thoughts are just a part of my depression. But today knowing the facts does not help me feeling better emotionally. Today I'm terrified of what's coming.

I am engaged. I also sometimes think if I should get married. Having a life long commitment seems overwhelming. Don't get me wrong. I love my fiance very much and I cannot imagine my life without him. I just don't feel safe in the relationship. I am afraid he will not be able to take care of me and the baby or he will leave us. He proved me wrong a thousand times but I still don't feel safe. Deep down I know it is not about him or about his behavior. It is about my general feeling of insecurity. And it is very difficult to live with this loneliness. I have a very supporting family but I still feel so alone with my pregnancy.

As i read what I have just wrote I can see my depression speaking. I want to believe depression will be over one day and I will be happy, I will get married and I will love my baby extremely. But for now I just need to survive this difficult period and not to make any big decisions in my life. I am very grateful to my fiance he agreed to wait with the wedding. I want to feel happy and not overwhelmed or confused on my wedding day. And for now I just need to get through another day. 

How morning sickness is related to depression?

Morning sickness is a common pregnancy sign. But sometimes it is more than just hormones and body's reaction to pregnancy. Sometimes you can be sick and vomit because of ... emotions! It did happen to me.

I started experiencing morning sickness when I was just 5 weeks pregnant. In a few days my morning sickness became severe vomiting which continued all day long. I believe at first it was just a common pregnancy sickness, but after I had to be hospitalized because of dehydration when I was 13 weeks pregnant, I started questioning myself. Why was I still vomiting at the time pregnancy sickness usually starts fading? And my pregnancy sickness was really extreme. The strangest thing was that I was throwing up mainly after drinking fluids, but rarely after eating solid food. Usually during pregnancy morning sickness women do not throw up after drinking water, but they do after eating something body rejects. So doctors became suspicious if I am really experiencing usual morning sickness or if I have psychosomatic symptoms.

For me the turning point was the moment when I started throwing up in a hospital when my roommate went to labor. She was only 34 weeks pregnant and it was frightening for me to watch her starting giving birth so early.

Then I finally understood I was not experiencing morning sickness, but I was vomiting out my emotions. My psychotherapist explained to me how it happens. If we unconsciously stop ourselves from experiencing some negative emotions, our body might start acting out. In my case, I was depressed and stressed and I had mixed feelings about my pregnancy. But I was trying to suppress all the negative emotions and not to feel fear, sadness and anger. I was trying to be a super pregnant woman we see in mass media every day. In our society it is believed that pregnant woman should be anything but happy and glowing, when in fact a person could experience a wide range of emotions.  

I remember the day vomiting stopped. It took me one hour with a good therapist for extreme morning sickness to pass. For the first time I told anyone that I was so tired of feeling constantly sick, of crying and of suffering, that most of the time I just wanted not to be pregnant. I admitted that I dreamed of turning back the time and of never becoming pregnant. I even confessed to my therapist that pregnancy is so hard for me that sometimes I secretly think of termination of pregnancy. It was a very intense session. I cried. I shouted. And surprisingly the sickness I was feeling for weeks started fading away. 

Of course one session of therapy did not solve all my problems. I still felt sick for some time but I stopped throwing up every day. As I continued psychotherapy, vomiting finally stopped. 

I never thought that our emotions can affect our bodies so much before it happened to me. I believe I am not the only pregnant woman with such an extreme body reactions to suppressed feelings. If you have experienced any psychosomatic symptoms during pregnancy, please, share with me by commenting this blog entry. I believe it is very important in our situation to find understanding and support.

Taking medicine during pregnancy

I have bipolar disorder for ten years now. Most of the time I was taking medicine and I did not have any manic episodes. But I had a few depressive phases. Before I decided to have a baby I had a very good period of three years  in my life without any signs of depression. I got a job which I liked and I was good at, so I made a career. I even decided to study at the university again and got a master's degree. I had a boyfriend I loved and I felt he was the one for me. So the next logical step seemed to have a baby. 

When we started trying to make a baby I stopped taking the medicine. I was taking Depakine Chrono (Acidum valproicum et natrium valproatum) and Cipralex (Escitalopramum) at the time. My doctor  approved my decision. It was especially important for me to stop taking Depakine Chrono because it is a drug which can cause serious birth defects in a baby.

I got pregnant very soon. I was hopeful I would not have to take any drugs during pregnancy. Unfortunately as soon as I got pregnant depression hit me hard. I was having panic attacks. I felt very scared and anxious. I could not sleep. Most of the time I was afraid I will die or I will go crazy. But I was very strong and patient and I managed to survive first trimester without taking any medicine regularly. Only occasionally when I could  not take being in a constant nightmare anymore I took half of a pill of Lexotanil (Bromazepamum) or a few drops of  Haloperidol (Haloperidolum). My doctors encouraged me to be patient. They emphasized that the first trimester of pregnancy is the most important for the development of the baby and that as soon as it would be over I could start taking medicine regularly.

So at the beginning of the second trimester of pregnancy I started taking Cipralex (Escitalopramum) again. Unfortunately my condition at the time was very bad and this medicine alone did not help me enough. I started having episodes of a severe fear and sometimes could not stop crying all day long. My doctor decided that my suffering is more harmful to my baby than medicine and prescribed me Olanzapine (Olanzapinum).

Now I am at the third trimester of pregnancy and feeling much better. It is still difficult to live but at least I am not suffering all the time. I sometimes have moments of anxiety but they pass by. I take Cipralex (Escitalopramum) and Olanzapine (Olanzapinum) now. I can feel medicine helps me a lot. I also have intense psychotherapy wich helps me a lot too. I will tell about it more in my upcoming posts. 

My baby seems to be developing just fine. I hope and I pray he (it's a boy!) will be healthy and strong. 

How to be pregnant if you are a control freak?

This topic might sound very strange. What do pregnancy and the need to control the situation have in common? Before I got pregnant I never thought that I was an absolute control freak. But only when I lost the control of my life and my own body, I began to understand how difficult it was for me to trust that some things could just happen without my conscious efforts. Being pregnant just happens. I do not have to do anything specific. I have just to trust my body. It knows how to grow a baby. But for me trusting nature and my body is a challenge. I am trying to believe in natural processes, but I cannot get rid of the feeling that being pregnant is a difficult job and that somehow I have to be "seriously" pregnant. 

It might sound very strange. It is very difficult for me to explain what is happening with me. But I am trying to find the right words to express feelings and struggles I am going through. I feel that for the first time in my life I absolutely lost the control of my body. It is changing. My belly is getting bigger. And the only thing I can do in this situation is looking at myself in the mirror and waiting for the baby to be born.