Following from the AFE, I was left grappling with the life changing experiences that my body, mind and family had been through. Overwhelming didn’t come close. But from very early on, I was overcome with the feeling that my little family could literally deal with anything and that as a unit we were stronger than anything life could throw at us. It took me a while to really recognised it, but the two seemingly clashing psychological and emotional responses of the feeling of new found strength and resilience whilst also struggling to get on top of pretty serious trauma responses might actually be connected and this really got me thinking.

I somehow stumbled across the phenomenon of Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG) which suggests that there is “a positive change in one’s beliefs or functioning resulting from a struggle with highly challenging life circumstances” (Tedeschi, Park, & Calhoun, 1998).

The theory suggests that in the struggle to cope with a trauma, alongside the typical impacts of PTSD an individuals assumptions and beliefs about the world can be completely disrupted. On its own, this can be extremely distressing and unsettling as these two very clashing concepts come together in your head. But when it is met with successful emotional regulation and support it can result in the creation of a new narrative and positive understanding of the trauma. Typically we hear about people being resilient in their processing of trauma, where people return to completely normal functionality after processing the adversity of their trauma. People that have experience PTG however typically feel completely different with a completely different set of beliefs and general approach to the world as well as how they relate to others. It can lead to new possibilities and appreciation for life, personal strength and spiritual change. It is however important to recognise that it is a parallel process to the negative psychological impacts of PTSD, rather than an alternative.

I think if I am being honest, ever since I woke up I felt different. It felt like there was something else out there that was a mix of something seemingly within my subconscious balanced with something that had pushed me to survive for the small person that now desperately needed me. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have any vivid memories of speaking with loved ones that are no longer here like you see in films, but the feelings were and still are very true. For people reading this that know me, go with me here for a minute – I haven’t completely lost the plot from the evidence based science nerd that I have always been. But as I went through my journey with therapy and things started to settle a bit, it spurred me on to learn a more about this kind of thing. So I started to delve into the world of trauma and learn about other people who had been through massive trauma and near death experiences, and it turned out these feelings really weren’t that uncommon.

The exact reasoning how and why PTG happens is still not very well understood, particularly in relation to birth trauma, but birth trauma in itself is very different to other kinds of traumatic events. Most traumatic events (e.g. assaults, significant illness) are generally associated with negative connotations, whereas the expectation of pregnancy and birth are usually positive where the outcome is a wanted child and the desired role of motherhood. This in itself can create some seriously conflicting feelings about what has happened to you and why it has happened, whilst being overjoyed at the little bundle you are looking down at. I found so much hope and comfort in just being her mum and being there with her, but there are so a lot of themes of PTG that have helped me to rationalise how I have processed the trauma associated with what happened to us. From the outset I had this deep desire to understand what had happened to me, rather than just run away from it. I also had a very real recognition of the strength it has taken me to survive and process everything alongside the feeling that we could literally conquer the world as a family. Ever since I have been able to regulate my emotions better about what happened I have had an ongoing want to tell people about my experiences and to find the balance between educating people in these extreme complications whilst not completely terrifying them. All of these tie in with a lot of the concepts around PTG.

The further I worked through things with my amazing therapist, and the more I read about PTG, the more it helped all the pieces to fit into place about how these two apparently massively conflicting outcomes of such huge trauma might just have shaped me into a better version of the person I was before. The more time has passed and the more my life has returned to ‘normal’, the more I hold on to these concepts. Sometimes I think they have waned slightly, but I look at how I hold my position at work differently or how I can find calm in situations I would have once found overwhelmingly stressful by realising there is some larger force at work, I and reminded that something really did shift in my brain.

My mission now, to continue to live by the positive effect this has had and to instil it into the other person that went through this entire process with me – and make sure she carries it with her through her life.