Nightmares

It’s really hard for me to be completely honest about my current situation even thought that is the purpose of this blog. When I look back at what I have written it all feels very surface. Let’s stay positive. Let’s keep on moving. My first two blog entries explained the nuts and bolts of what’s happening and something of what I am doing to get myself through it, putting my true day to day down on virtual paper is still so far away from where my writing is.

The night before last I fell asleep at about 9pm. I felt pretty good. I had taken a couple of days off work, we had been for a lovely day out with my sister and niece, and had an amazing anniversary meal. At that meal I felt so happy and free of any worry. I felt very in love with my husband and more relaxed than I have done for two or more years. I felt like I had turned a corner and my mood would now only ever get better. I got to Monday night before the tears came again. Literally I just seem to cry without anything really triggering it. A glitch I thought. I had a cuddle with Andy and fell asleep at about 9.30pm. At 11.15pm I was awake again. The light was still on. Andy must have only just dropped off. I felt okay. Not too bad just sleepy. I switched the light off and put on my iPad to watch a film to fall asleep to. I did. I woke again at 1.30am. This time things in the room were different, I felt completely different.  I was petrified. The room was dark. I had woken feeling so scared. Another nightmare. The nightmares are chronic. I am unable to breathe, unable to run, or move, or they are more descriptive, babies being lost to thieves. Me chasing them trying, to get them back. I couldn’t keep my eyes open for long. The dark corners of the room couldn’t be seen, and I felt in all the world that things might jump out at me. I hit the button on my iPad and swung the blue light around the room. Once I do this being scared passes. I am hot, hair is sweaty. I drink water. Go to the toilet and put the same film back on my iPad. I do not get back to sleep until around 3.45am. This has been the run of things a couple of nights a week since my last miscarriage in July. Just as I think I am getting past it, it returns.

Having multiple miscarriages means that after a while you kind of know what’s coming in terms of your emotional recovery. So, a few weeks back, I could feel a change in my grief. I felt, as much as I still long for the babies I have lost, that the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder I was diagnosed with after my miscarriage in March 2016 had returned. I never thought that PTSD was something that “normal” people get. What I mean by that is that I always thought that it was reserved for those amongst us that get up every day and do difficult or amazing or heroic things and while doing them have truly awful experiences that scar them. I never thought it could happen to me. An Ecommerce Manager trying to get pregnant and failing.

I am doing my best every day. I am doing so much to try and beat this. I eat well, I exercise daily, I am working, reading, meditating, having acupuncture, getting out and about. I just keep slipping back into having nights like this, followed by awful days that are mentally and physically so tough until I can finally shift the feelings my nightmares have left behind. Anxiety way up, everything I need to do seemingly much more difficult to complete. In a few weeks, I start a course of therapy. I want to be able to better manage my anxiety and if I do get pregnant again, be able to manage my stress levels in those early weeks.

So now I have be totally honest about the things I am still struggling with… I hope my balls stay firmly to the wall, and this level of honesty in  my writing continues…