276: Healing from Tokophobia, PTSD and OCD with Rebecca McMartin

We already know that the perinatal experience can be multi-layered and differently nuanced for each person. The story we’re hearing today brings several conditions into the spotlight of our attention and highlights the need for awareness and sound treatment around the world. My guest shares her experience with tokophobia, a term that may be unfamiliar. It refers to “a pathological fear of childbirth.” You can only imagine that this condition would cause a mental health crisis and complicate the perinatal experience. Join us to learn more in today’s conversation!

I’m joined by Rebecca McMartin, the host of the Perinatal Stories Australia podcast. She is a podcaster and digital creator based in Sydney, Australia, but she sees herself first as a storyteller and mom of a little boy. Following an acute mental health crisis when her son was born, Rebecca found relief in writing and stories as a way to process her pain and grief. From that experience, she decided to harness the power of storytelling to start Perinatal Stories Australia, which is a podcast, blog, and social media platform for Australian women to share their lived experiences with perinatal mental health. In today’s episode, Rebecca shares her complicated perinatal story and explains tokophobia. In her case, tokophobia led to PTSD, and her experience with intrusive thoughts and OCD served to complicate her story. We also talk about the importance of mother-baby psychiatric units, which are not as common in the US as in Australia and the UK. 

Show Highlights:

• An overview of Rebecca’s story: a history of anxiety and OCD from childhood that carried into adulthood and an uncomplicated pregnancy
• Why Rebecca “did all the work” leading up to her pregnancy to avoid anxiety getting in the way of her experience
• How dealing with anxiety comes down to holding onto the bits of life we can control and feeling overwhelmed by seemingly simple decisions
• How everything changed for Rebecca as her third trimester came along with unnatural fears of childbirth and dying, fears of leaving her house, and tokophobia
• How Rebecca’s doctor suggested a C-section because there is a certain level of control
• How Rebecca found comfort through her Ob, the attending midwife, a social worker, and the hospital staff
• Why a lot of self-blame and guilt accompany mental illness
• How her anxiety changed during the postpartum to other fears, worries, and health anxiety
• How Rebecca experienced PTSD shortly after her son’s birth, along with nightmares, insomnia, intrusive thoughts, and medication that wasn’t helping—all in the first week 
• How a health professional suggested that maybe she didn’t want to be a mother anyway, and that’s why she was struggling
• How Rebecca’s social worker got her into the mother-baby psychiatric unit for help–and she finally felt SAFE 
• How local mental health crisis services helped Rebecca after her hospital stay and release
• Why remedying sleep disturbances should be the FIRST step in helping new moms
• How Rebecca realized (after her MBU stay) that she had tokophobia
• Why self-compassion was a big piece of what Rebecca had to learn
• Why Rebecca decided to start her podcast to tell her story and the stories of others–and to provide the resource that she once needed

Resources:

Connect with Rebecca: Website (and podcast), Facebook, and Instagram

Visit www.postpartum.net for resources and support! 

Visit www.postpartum.net/professionals/certificate-trainings/ for information on the grief course.  

Visit my website, www.wellmindperinatal.com, for more information, resources, and courses you can take today!

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