PTSD

It isn’t over.

I typed those words at the end of the long essay I wrote about my first two miscarriages, Expecting, the one thing I have written that drew some real attention. I know a few long term readers found me then. I remember a few comments about they would stick around to find out what happened, since I said it wasn’t over.

The thing was—the thing I knew then, the thing I know even more now—is I was never referring to the journey of having a child and becoming a parent.

I meant I didn’t think the aftershocks would ever truly end. That it would always be just a goddamn awful thing that happened. That I would never forget the parallel timelines that could have been.

I have PTSD.

I sit in a dark room looking at a projection on a wall in blobby greys and a tiny flickering heartbeat. It looks perfect to me, but behind me, I hear the ultrasound technician lean in for a closer look at her screen and say ‘hmmm.’

It’s funny, I have such different standards for myself than others. If you had asked me a year ago if I was aware people could get PTSD from non-warfare type things, I would have said, yes, of course I know that. If you had asked me a year ago if I knew it was possible to get PTSD from medical or pregnancy trauma, including miscarriage, I would have said, sure, those things can be super traumatic. If you’d asked me a year ago if I thought I might have PTSD from my multiple miscarriage experiences, I would have said, oh, I don’t know, it wasn’t that bad, it’s not like I nearly died or anything, I mean unless you count that haemorrhage after number four but I don’t think it does count because the ER were chill about sending me home after it stopped, obviously emotionally it all sucked but it wasn’t like it officially traumatised me, and sure, now I have intrusive memories, weird adrenaline freak outs, nightmares about pregnancy and pregnancy loss, memory and concentration problems, issues with feeling detached, overwhelming guilt, lack of interest in things I used to enjoy and …

… oh no.

Which was about when I checked with my therapist about the possibility.

So apparently, yes, and such an obvious yes everyone assumed I already knew.

I don’t start crying until partway home when I look out the car window and see a boy with a school bag waiting at a bus stop. There are other kids at the bus stop too, mostly goofing around together. He stands by himself, but he doesn’t look sad or alone. Just going through his day.

I learned since being diagnosed with PTSD that we don’t process traumatic memories the way we do regular memories. Usually, when we file something away as a memory our brains include a timestamp. This means, whenever you access this memory your brain has a strong understanding of when it happened in the timeline of your life. However, when we file traumatic memories, our brains don’t do that bit so well. They aren’t timestamped properly. Your brain files them as ‘ongoing’.

Forever.

So whenever you access them, it’s not as a memory you know happened back in the day, it’s as a current experience. Kind of like having a hundred tabs open in your browser, but all of them filled with snippets from the worst thing that ever happened to you, and every now and then you accidentally click and bring up the wrong one.

I step over a gutter full of water and leaves. The leaves are big stars. Orange even though the world is cold and colourless. We are killing time by getting food before we see a doctor who will explain the ultrasound. I hope eating something will settle my stomach because I still have morning sickness. I know it won’t be good news, but I still hope.

I don’t realise those orange leaves will be the last colour I truly see for years.

I’ve gone back and forth on how much detail to give. Some things make a lot of sense and are straightforward to explain, like pictures of early ultrasounds. These were the images that came with the worst moments of my life and my biggest traumas. Similar images hyperlink right back to them. Most people see the logic in that if I tell them about it.

Some things make less sense. For example, I struggle to watch new (to me) TV shows and movies without having hypervigilant episodes.

There isn’t an obvious link to pregnancy loss. I think what’s going on is my brain has programmed itself to anticipate the worst outcome whenever there is any question, because for years that’s all that happened to me. So even that melodramatic tension of HOW COULD THE HERO POSSIBLE GET OF THIS?!?! FIND OUT NEXT WEEK being manipulated in fiction is kryptonite to me.

There doesn’t even have to be a risk of actual harm or death to the characters for it to hotwire my adrenaline. I spent the whole last two seasons of the The Good Place absolutely shitting bricks that the characters, who were already dead (and that’s not a spoiler it’s the entire point of the show), would not end up as happily as I wanted them too.

Like I said, doesn’t make much sense. When I try and explain it to people, they usually don’t get it. I wish that wasn’t a thing and I could still enjoy TV and movies the way I used to, but it’s not how my brain works just now. Perhaps I’ll get there eventually.

And other things are personal.

It was an interesting experience having miscarriages and being very open with not just family and friends but also the wider internet about what was going on. I think there needs to be more discussion about these things, that they should not be swept into the shadows, that there shouldn’t be pressure to cover them up and act happy and pretend it never happened. But my belief there is just about removing the stigma, making supports more accessible and helping people going through pregnancy loss not feel so isolated. I don’t think there should be any pressure on anyone to reveal things they are not comfortable revealing. I do not think any individual or the world at large has a right to your medical information.

That is to say, there’s other stuff, but it’s my business. Besides, I don’t want to sit around talking endlessly about upsetting moments.

Morning light streams through the leaves of a hanging plant. My baby sleeps swaddled next to me in bed. She didn’t sleep there through the night, since we practice safe sleep, but after she woke and I got her from the cot for a feed, she fell back asleep with little milky snores.

I know I won’t sleep again; I’m fully awake. I could move her back to the cot and get up, do some stuff around the house.

I don’t.

The new light, the white crumply sheets, her sleeping face. It’s too perfect to be anywhere else.

I think when I had my daughter it began to retroactively time stamp some of my miscarriage trauma. Because it put a line in the sand—that was before this—and my brain could work with that.

It hasn’t been a quick fix. In fact, at first it was almost worse. Everything was so fresh. Birth brought it all up. Looking after a baby brought it all up. But having her there also helped the miscarriages take their place in the past.

That was before this. That was then. This is now.

It is getting better, but it isn’t over.

I make bubbles with a swishing plastic sword stick for my daughter. She runs around our small lawn in the swirl, hands up to catch them. Suddenly she stops. She is done, the bubbles pushed from her mind completely although they are still settling on the grass all around.

Grabbing my hand, she leads me behind the garden shed to the upturned wheelbarrow. She rushes to spin the solitary wheel and demands ‘bus!’ so I know to sing The Wheels on the Bus for her as it spins round and round. It’s one of her favourite kid songs.

Toddlers don’t really do temporal stuff. Everything that happens now is forever. Everything that happened then is all but gone. They can’t really process ‘that will happen, just later’. They don’t really get ‘this has to happen now’.

It helps them be so happy in the moment, cheer up quickly when distracted from disappointments, and to forgive and forget easily. It also contributes to them demanding snacks ten minutes before dinner and then not eating dinner and then demanding snacks ten minutes after dinner. Or refusing to do boring getting ready stuff like putting jumpers and shoes on to go out but then getting really mad you aren’t out jumping in puddles already. And generally having big feelings over small things.

Life his hard. Even when it’s good. Especially when you’re two.

Everything is a moment. Moments don’t last.

That’s what I tell myself.

I sit in a dark room looking at a projection on a wall in blobby greys and a tiny flickering heartbeat. It looks perfect to me, but behind me, I hear the ultrasound technician lean in for a closer look at her screen and say ‘hmmm.’