I feel like I am drowning

[Sun_and_moon]

Hi everyone,

since giving birth to my beautiful 17 month old daughter, i found that my emotions have been up and down and have gotten worse when my dad passed away suddenly from terminal cancer. It took a while for me to get back to normal and I was ok for a while until my daughter had a injury and had a minor skull fracture which was traumatic for my fiancé and I. She is fine now but i recently went to the follow up appointment and now she has to get an MRI and has to get sedated which makes me feel so upset all over again, I feel like this is all my fault. After the doctors appointment that weekend, my fiancé drank so much one night that I experienced domestic violence for the first time where I was trying to put my little one to sleep and he was in the room and I said please I'm trying to put her to sleep can you leave and he threatend me to put my daughter down so he can hurt me and was trying to grab me while I was holding our daughter. I ran outside and he locked us out of the house. This brought back memories of growing up with my father drinking alcohol and abusing my mother and us kids. I went to next door neighbours house and they called the police, the police came and arrested him and we had to go through court where he was convicted, now he has a community correction order and an Avo where he cannot drink and be around my daughter and I for 2 years. We have worked things out where he is not going to drink anymore but I cannot help but feel guilt about what happened with everything's that's happened with my daughters fall, my dad's death, not coping well with sleepless nights with daughter teething, my fiancé having an alcohol problem, the incident with the police, I have been crying all the time and my fiancé is sick of me crying. I feel like I am the problem and I am drowning like there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Can someone please give me insight on what I should do, do I have undiagnosed post natal depression? I do not want to take medication, is there anything else I can do to make me feel better.

[PamelaR]

Hi Sun and Moon - warm welcome to our community

Your life over the past 17 months sounds incredibly hard. My heart goes out to you. There has been so much happening for you, it's little wonder you feel the way you do. Yes, you could have post natal depression. If you haven't already done so, I'd see my doctor asap to talk about how your feelings are all over the place. Medication may or may not be required.If it were me, I'd be asking to go on a Mental Health Plan - this entitles you to 10 bulk billed visits to a health professional (that bulk bills and has experience with PTSD) . It's important to talk through the things you're experiencing. PTSD doesn't disappear, it requires work to help alleviate the symptoms. A good health professional can give you the tools to help you manage your life.

Also, there is an organisation PANDA (Peri natal anxiety and depression Australia) 1300 726 306 that are there to help new mums. Have you heard of them? Maybe give them a call?

Have you had a browse through our forums? There are a lot of people who have PTSD who have shared their experiences. If you want, do a search of our website using the search tool at the top of the page. Some keywords include:

• triggers
• PTSD triggers
• strategies to help with PTSD

Feel free to join in the discussions Sun and Moon. You're not alone.

Kind regards

PamelaR

[romantic_thi3f]

Hi Sun and moon,

Welcome to the forums and thank you for being here.

PamelaR has given you such a supportive response I don't want to echo that too much, but I am sorry that things have been so hard for you.

I'm not sure where you originally put your post, but it's landed in the PTSD and Trauma section. It sounds to me like you have faced one trauma after another. Trauma is literally a situation that overwhelms our bodies ability to cope. So it's understandable to me that you'd be struggling after everything that you've been through.

With getting better, medication is only one option out of many - and you absolutely do not have to take it. I agree that therapy would probably be helpful if this is something that you're open to? Even just having that private space to talk things through can be of enormous benefit.