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Post by K on May 14, 2007 10:58:44 GMT
Hi everyone, I know it's been a while since anyone has spoken on here, but I'm new and wanted to add to it.
I suffered child abuse when I was very young for about 3 years. When I had my son I had an overwhelming fear someone was going to hurt him the same way. This fear never left me.
When the health visitor and midwife checked on me I never mentioned this because I thought it was 'normal' to experience these feelings becuase of what happened to me - If I'd have understood PNI and there were more sites like this - I may have been treated before. I believe that if you have any underlying trauma you don't easily recognise the signs for PNI as say for someone who hasn't had any.
I don't think that PNI is more severe for me than anyone else but I do think that if you have a history of problems you won't recognise what is happening to you as PNI you would, in most cases I expect, just believe it was a relapse rather than something new.
I hope I haven't offended anyone - I also hope you can make sense of what I've wrote. Thanks Kelly
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Post by Veritee on May 14, 2007 16:58:54 GMT
Hi K Of course you have not offended anyone - this is an interesting question and one we all have different views on.
I do agree with you - as while I too have quite a few of the factors stated as 'possible' causual factors at the beggining of this debate - I have never personally considered it caused my PNI until I read what the expert from Marce said and then I did wonder if it may have been part of why I had PNI?
I am still explorhig this as for me I guess it could have been a contributing factor as perhaps any past extra stresses may contribute in some way to PNI, but this does not explain why many women with PNI have never experienced any mental/emotional distress before
And PNI was VERY different from anything I had ever experienced before - it just did not feel like the sort of anxiety I had had in the past due to my childhood, abuse etc
I do so agree with you that it took me longer to identify what was wrong with me than it might if I had never had any past issues - because at first I thought that I must be feeling this way because I just was not coping/adjusting to being a mother very well!
but gradually I realized it was much more than this, yet very different from the anxiety I had had last when I was 17 till my early 20s ( I was at the time I had my daughter 38 ish so their had been a long gap since I had felt unwell mentally) but I still at first thought it maybe a recurrence of this.
So this is a good point! i.e does it take longer to recognize you are ill with PNI if you have experienced mental/emotional distress in the past? rather than this being a completely new experience for you?
In my case also - I feel that it may have
All the best K
love Veritee
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caz11
New Member
Posts: 1
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Post by caz11 on May 15, 2007 0:17:55 GMT
Hi i'm new to this forum. i have been looking over the net to find some answers for my pni, which amazingly enough, this topic has been something i have been trying to figure out. I know there are some issues on this one. But for me my pni actually did come from a past memory of mine which has always hurt me throughout the past 5 years. Maybe i never really dealt with it but i would like to know if it's a contributing factor. To cut a long story short me and my family had some trouble a few years back with some neighbours who didn't like us very much, it came down to namecalling in the end because they didn't like my family very much and it really did hurt me inside. I guess i never showed anyone how much it hurt me, and when i had a the stress of becoming a mother that memory came back and i got myself depressed over it. i think it contributed to my depression, because the minute i started feeling low was when that memory came back to haunt me, and now i have been told i have postnatal depression. does this sound like postnatal depression or just an issue i haven't dealt with properly? i really need advice. im so confused, and think im going mad because my thoughts scare me because i worry too much. please help
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Post by jolene on May 15, 2007 20:44:30 GMT
This is a big one for me. I'm not sure whether I think all cases of PND are related to past problems but I certainly wonder if mine did.
I had a delinquent episode in my early teens where with hindsight I believe I was depressed. I was also adopted as a baby and have had a difficult relationship with my adoptive mother for lots of reasons. I wonder whether I made my relationship difficult with her for my own reasons and think my past contributed to my emotional instability before ever conceiving.
Would I have ended up so ill if I'd had a stable happy past? I don't know. One thing I do believe, and I work in mental health so see it every day, is that one diagnosis affecting one person can manifest itself in very different ways when developed by someone with a different personality. If personalities are formed partly by our pasts, then it stands to reason that no two individuals with different personalities will react the same to PND.
I'm sure I have just confused everyone completely!!!!
Sorry
Jo x
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Post by caroline11 on May 16, 2007 21:36:41 GMT
i hope i don't upset anyone when i say this, but if pnd doesn't come from a certain undealt issue, or horrible past then what gives the people with no past problems pnd in the first place? There must be something their not happy with to make them get pnd in the first place or am i getting it wrong? i don't really understand what the core is, im sure no one really does but we must make sense of it some way surely. please no one take what i've said to offence. Any advice?
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Post by yoyo on May 17, 2007 8:02:57 GMT
I guess we all want a cause for pnd/pni don't we so looking back for some can give them a factor that contributed to it.
For me I had no issues at all - a very straightforward previous PNI life really - for me just giving birth seemed to be the trigger?!? Not sure .
So much more research needs to be done eh?
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Post by caterina on May 17, 2007 9:38:30 GMT
No offence taken but I'm with yoyo on this. No past issues here, I could have been a Walton! I think the birth is a trigger and that's it. No other reason needed x
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Post by caterina on May 17, 2007 9:39:46 GMT
Meant to add thats just in my case. I'm sure there are others here that feel their past was a contributing factor to PNI x
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Post by K on May 17, 2007 15:18:15 GMT
Hi all,
I've read through what everyone has written and I agree that you do not have to have had a traumatic life, I just believe that PNI, in my case, was harder to recognise purely because I had some amount of trauma in earlier years.
I knew something was wrong but I thought my fears and anxieites came from the fact that people tend to believe that bad things would never happen to their kids and in my case, I knew they could.
I have never been able to lose the fear and because I thought it was 'normal' I never sought treatment - now my situation is worse and I'm only just recognising my problems as being PNI rather than anything else.
So, to sum up, ha ha - I do believe that it takes longer to actually settle on a diagnosis of PNI if there is a past truama but I do believe anyone can have this illness purely because of how much stress, change and pressure there is.
Thank you Kelly
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Post by sadmum39 on Jun 6, 2007 20:57:43 GMT
I have many, many issues, and have suffered from poor mental health through depression, anorexia, etc etc in my past. IT IS ABSOLUTELY nothing like the illness that is PNI. I believe that PNI may manifest itself through our previous experience eg illogical fear of harming our children, if we ourselves were harmed, or self harming because our self worth was damaged in our early life. BUT ITS NOT THE CAUSE in my view PNI shows its poisonous, ugly head through our weak points, our 'buttons", our damage and insecurities. But they are most certainly not the cause. I am making sense in my head. Am I making any sense on here? ? SadMumxxx
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vicky
Full member
Posts: 47
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Post by vicky on Aug 14, 2007 19:55:23 GMT
I think we are all looking for reasons why we were the terribly unfortunate ones to suffer such a horrible illness. In my case I had no history of anxiety/mental health before my pregnancy. I can see now I was very depressed while pregnant as I was very poorly and also felt like I was dying and would never have a healthy baby. I expressed my fears to every health professional I met (which was at least 10) and this was never picked up on.
I think there are factors that make some of us (ie ME!) more suceptible to any mental health condition such as being a perfectionist and setting very high expectations of what motherhood should be. But overall I do think it is hormonal and that it is just a lottery and we are just unlucky.
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Post by southerngirl on Oct 10, 2007 10:22:15 GMT
Ok so where do I fit in. I am on my second marriage. First was a nightmare, never got PNI after any of my children from that marriage although I was living in hell. No support, physical and mental abuse. Second marriage , great husband, life getting better and looking back I had PNI slightly after my first child with new hubby. Last 2 children were homebirths and a great experience but it is since first of these that I have really suffered with it. Seems like I have gone against most of it. Saying that it could be a throw back of what I have gone through coming out now. All I do know is a I have a great hubby supporting me now and that is great for recovery There are so many experts out there who think they know it all, like those who say that it doenst matter how you give birth as long as you have a healthy child. Yes the childs health is our first consideration but a lot of professionals have basically said stuff it to mums emotional welfare. Can you tell its a pet hate of mine. Maybe shouldnt have sat on here looking through threads I hadnt read lol. Liz x
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Post by winegirl on Oct 10, 2007 12:08:17 GMT
Hi Southerngirl,
My baby was conceived with lots of warning, we had tried for 2 years as I have PCOS. I don't feel as though any past issues have affected my life now, my partner is wonderful, my baby girl is a delight! So I am a believer that it is all chemically related somehow.
So I am in agreement, i think perhaps for some these other influences so affect pni, but for some it has to be a hormonal imbalance brought on after the birth
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