Quote:
Originally Posted by BipolaRNurse
That reminds me of the postpartum psychosis I experienced after my fifth child was born, almost 21 years ago. I had these horrid fantasies about allowing some sort of harm to come to him, but in these daydreams I always died with him.....Lord, I went through SO much guilt because of this, I tried to stop the thoughts and just couldn't.
(That was long before I knew this was a precursor to bipolar d/o. In those days PP depression/psychosis wasn't really talked about, and mothers who suffered from it generally did so in silence. Mine started with the very first child and got progressively worse with each one, and I never told a soul about it until about 10-12 years ago, when the issue came to the forefront because of the woman who drowned all five of HER kids in the bathtub.)
It's terribly frightening to think thoughts like this and be unable to stop them. You have my sympathies, hamster-bamster.  |
Nurse, thank you for the post and the hugs. I am making connections now. When the child described here was born, I was all happiness and ease, with no imagery. But when the older children (btw I have deep parenting issues and none of them live with me now) were born, I had worse imagery - like you, I was causing harm or putting them in harm's way. What haunts me now is "just" a thought of harm happening to the child and my not being able to rescue - I am not at fault or ever careless. But yes, it looks like I have a history of such intrusive thoughts. By the way, when I complained of such thoughts, many years later, during my neuropsychological assessment (and the thoughts were really terrible, I wish I could describe them to get them out, but I want to protect the sensibilities of people reading the thread), the psychologist said that such thoughts confirm that in reality you do not want any harm to your child but are in fact caring. To what extent what he said is true in case of a frank psychosis, I do not know. What was the name of the woman who drowned her 5 children? I remember she lived in Houston.
Glad to hear that it has been almost 21 years since the nightmare for you!