One of the things I'm looking forward to writing into in my own book is the experience of labor as a huge trigger for reliving trauma, which literally no one gave me even a glimmer of expectation about. From my first contraction I just left my body.
On the list of psychological symptoms that I exhibit, pathological denial isn't generally on the list, but it was that day. I told myself I wasn't in labor for 19 straight hours, until I was 9 cm dilated. It was the most crazy pants I have ever been. But then, why wouldn't having something that painful, intimate, and out of my control happening to my body not trigger that sort of response, given a lifetime history of sexual trauma?
One of the things I'm looking forward to writing into in my own book is the experience of labor as a huge trigger for reliving trauma, which literally no one gave me even a glimmer of expectation about. From my first contraction I just left my body.
On the list of psychological symptoms that I exhibit, pathological denial isn't generally on the list, but it was that day. I told myself I wasn't in labor for 19 straight hours, until I was 9 cm dilated. It was the most crazy pants I have ever been. But then, why wouldn't having something that painful, intimate, and out of my control happening to my body not trigger that sort of response, given a lifetime history of sexual trauma?