She in her madness prays for storms

Mother, 40, reveals she attempted suicide after five YEARS of agonising vaginal pain caused by birth injury that doctors refused to take seriously - and admits she ‘didn’t love her daughter anymore’ at her lowest point

A mother denied proper help from the NHS for vaginal pain caused by a difficult birth tried to kill herself after first spending £50,000 desperately trying to get better.

Natalie, now 40, had a pudendal nerve entrapment – a rare complication of labour that damages and traps the main nerve in the pelvis – and after five years without a correct diagnosis and UK doctors LAUGHING at her, went to France for help.

She says, ‘Before I gave birth in January 2016, the last thing I thought about every day was my vagina. It wouldn’t even cross my mind. Since I’ve had Selina, it’s all I think about. It started with a minor irritation and became sheer torturous hell.’

The mum-of-one from Wirral was left in a wheelchair, unable to stand, walk, sit, work, take care of her daughter or have sex, and tried to end her life due to severe pain around her vulva and inside her vagina.

Natalie, 40, (pictured), who lives in Wirral, has been left in a wheelchair after suffering from pudendal neuralgia following the birth of her daughter Selina. Pictured: Flight to Paris

Natalie claims she had no pain before the birth of her daughter and would go cycling, running and had sex with her husband David. Pictured: Enjoying life before pain,

She explains, ‘When I was finally referred to a gynaecologist and asked if it could be pudendal neuralgia – nerve pain – he laughed at me and tutted. I left in tears. I couldn’t tolerate nerve pain medication or strong painkillers given to me by an NHS pain clinic and life felt bleak and hopeless.’

Natalie suffered a nervous breakdown and tried to take her own life in 2019 in desperation to end her suffering.

Before having Selina, Natalie regularly went cycling, running, worked out at the gym and had sex with her husband, David – and had no pain. Then her pregnancy ran 10 days over, and Natalie was induced. ‘I was rolling around in horrific pain, which went from zero to horrendous in no time at all.’

During labour, the skincare aesthetician was given an episiotomy, a small cut in the perineum – tissue between the vagina and anus – to help prevent tearing. Daughter Selina was delivered via ventouse, a suction cap attached to her head. Three months later in April 2016, Natalie’s symptoms began.

Natalie had a nervous breakdown in 2019, after specialists laughed at queries that her pain could be caused by a trapped nerve. Pictured: After suicide attempt

She says, ‘Knickers and jeans irritated me down there, so I lived in linen trousers and skirts year-round.

‘The sensation grew worse around my vulva and into my vagina until it felt like my insides were being dragged out. I saw my GP, who was sympathetic and helpful, but specialists wouldn’t take my symptoms seriously.’

Three years after Selina’s birth, Natalie was misdiagnosed with vulvodynia (long-lasting vulva pain) and referred to an NHS pain clinic. She found it impossible to tolerate the medications prescribed to her, including painkillers, nerve pain tablets pregabalin and gabapentin, and anti-depressants amitriptyline and Cymbalta. She paid privately for physiotherapy and acupuncture, but her symptoms worsened.

Eventually, an NHS specialist suspected pudendal neuralgia and administered a nerve block - an injection of local anaesthetic to diagnose, and temporarily silence the nerve. ‘It was transformational, but sadly didn’t last,’ Natalie says.

Natalie’s pleas for further help fell on deaf ears, and queries about her pain being caused by a trapped nerve were laughed off by specialists. After being told she’d never sit down again, Natalie had a nervous breakdown in spring 2019.

Wheelchair bound but unable to tolerate sitting, suffering indescribable pain and no longer able to work or parent, Natalie took an overdose of prescription painkillers. Her worried husband broke down the door and rushed her to hospital.

In November 2019, Natalie flew to France where a pelvic pain specialist ran a colour ultrasound scan that revealed her pudendal nerve was trapped.

‘When I came around, I was so angry that I’d been saved. I couldn’t bear to live that way anymore and wanted it all to be over,’ she says.

Husband David, a former marine, researched specialists abroad and spoke to medics in Texas, before finding gynaecological surgeon Dr Eric Bautrant, of Bastide d'Auxium Aix-en-Provence, France; an expert in pudendal neuralgia and nerve decompression surgery.

That November, Natalie flew to France and the renowned pelvic pain specialist ran a colour ultrasound scan that revealed her pudendal nerve was indeed trapped, likely due to Selina’s traumatic birth, and was the source of her excruciating pain.

Natalie, who no longer feels suicidal, had years of delay in diagnosis which worsened her condition. Pictured: Pump in abdomen

‘He diagnosed the nerve entrapment with a quick scan,’ Natalie says. ‘It was a relief to what was causing my pain, but it was also infuriating. Why hadn’t a single NHS doctor or specialist run that test? It might have saved me from getting so unwell that I’d tried to end my life.’

Dr Bautrant released the trapped nerve in a £7,000 surgery, and when the nerve pain came back – a common trait of prolonged nerve pain – tried radio-frequency ablation, Botox injections and cryo-neurolysis to no effect.

He installed a Medtronic Pump in Natalie’s abdomen to deliver local anaesthetic 24/7 and continually numb the pain, which had been severely aggravated by years of delay in diagnosis and decompression.

Natalie said going to France for diagnoses and treatment has been exhausting and expensive.

Natalie and her husband David have spent £50,000 on her condition and have to pay £1100 every six weeks because the NHS refuse to refill the pump medication.

Now, on Natalie’s better days, she’s able to walk short distances and work. She no longer feels suicidal, and though she still has pain, it’s slowly improving.

‘Before the pump, the pain was so torturous that I didn’t even love my daughter anymore,’ Natalie says. ‘I didn’t care about anyone or anything. I couldn’t be a mum or a wife, couldn’t work anymore and just wanted to be dead.

‘Now, I am slowly getting my life back, but I’ve had to go to France to get the proper medical diagnosis, operations to release the trapped nerve, install the pump and now refill it. It’s painful, exhausting and so expensive. Why won’t the NHS help me?’

Natalie and David have so far spent £50,000 including the cost of flying and staying abroad for treatment. The NHS refuses to refill the pump’s medication, leaving her to foot £1100 bills and solo trips to Paris every 4-6 weeks.

Natalie appealed to her local MP, who advised her to request special NHS funding for the refills, but the local CCG, which oversees such requests, denied the claim.

She says, ‘At one point, an email from one of my UK specialists was sent to me in error, and said, ‘the mental health state of doctors is often forgotten in the request by patients for treatment.’

‘What about my mental health? I’m the one suffering daily here. The specialists here have failed me, and it makes me wonder how many other women have suffered birth trauma like mine and are coping alone with agonising symptoms.’

Natalie said she doesn’t expect to fully recover but she wants to be able to stand and walk.

The NHS website itself states pudendal neuralgia can continue to get worse if left untreated. Studies estimate 1 in 100,000 people suffer the condition, with women more prone than men, and injuries from labour being a leading cause.

Natalie, who lives with David and daughter Selina, five, in Wirral, adds, ‘If I didn’t have the money from my business, I’d be six feet under.

‘I feel the NHS is burying their head in the sand. They know pudendal neuralgia exists, but don’t seem to want to deal with it or its causes properly.

‘I don’t expect to be fully recovered and jumping on trampolines, but I want to be able to stand, walk and sit, maybe even have gentle sex again one day.

'I am adjusting my whole life to live around this pain. I must kneel on the floor, sit on one leg, or keep my knees up. I want normality.

'Since having the pump fitted, I’ve been able to drive the short distance to take my daughter to school, wheel myself in the airport and return to work, but I have flares of pain that makes even this much impossible some weeks.

'Other countries are making progress with this condition and the UK needs to catch up, instead of leaving women like me floundering for years.’

Kim Thomas from the Birth Trauma Association said it’s shocking that Natalie is forced to travel to France regularly because not a single NHS clinic has greed to refill her pain pump every six weeks.

Kim Thomas from the Birth Trauma Association told Femail, 'In my six years with the Birth Trauma Association, I have heard many distressing stories about women’s experiences during labour and birth.

'There have been few, however, that have upset and angered me as much as Natalie’s story. She has suffered agonising pain and mental torment for several years, to the extent of attempting suicide. Yet instead of helping her, NHS professionals have dismissed her pain, and some have even laughed at her.

'Through her own resourcefulness, she has found a French doctor who can alleviate the pain. All she needs is an NHS clinic willing to perform the simple task of refilling her pain pump every six weeks. Shockingly, not a single one has agreed to do so, and Natalie is now forced to travel to France regularly at her own expense.

'The government is currently developing a women’s health strategy, and I urge Sajid Javid to look at what has happened to Natalie and put in place measures to force the NHS to take women’s pain seriously.’

For birth trauma support, visit birthtraumaassociation.org.uk

god the medical community fucking hates women. it’s shit like this that makes me rethink wanting to be a mom one day…..

Yet more male doctors not taking women seriously, even LAUGHING at her crippling pain. Fuck men, they shouldn’t be allowed to treat women, ever.

And honestly, what an intellectually incurious set of specialists.

You get a potential medical rarity walking into your clinic, and you laugh at her? Come on, Doc, that’s more fool you.

“It could be either childhood sexual abuse or adult sexual assault,” said study author Rebecca Thurston, a professor and director of the Women’s Biobehavioral Health Laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public Health.

“Based upon population data, most women have their sexual assaults when they are in early adolescence and early adulthood,” she added, “so these are likely early experiences that we’re seeing the marks of later in life.”

Physical manifestations

The new study, presented Thursday at the annual meeting of the North American Menopause Society, adds to a growing body of research on the long-term impact of sexual assault on the body and the mind.

“We need to keep our attention on this issue of sexual violence against women and not let it fall off the radar screen of society, because it continues to be a major women’s health issue,” Thurston said.

Prior studies have found sexual trauma to be linked to higher levels of triglycerides and blood pressure in midlife, and a three-fold greater risk of developing carotid plaque, all key risk factors for heart disease.

In addition, a 2018 study Thurston conducted found women who reported prior sexual assault were three times more likely to experience depression and twice as likely to have elevated anxiety and insomnia than women without a history of sexual trauma.

Depression, anxiety and sleep disorders are all linked to poorer health outcomes, including heart disease, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

CDC statistics also show more than 1 in 3 women in the US (and 1 in 4 men) experience sexual assault at least once in their lifetimes. Considering the widespread impact, Thurston said physicians should be asking their patients about any prior sexual trauma, and then carefully monitoring the woman’s cardiovascular risk as she ages.

Women who have been sexually traumatized should also feel empowered to speak up and tell their doctors, she added.

Read More

Madder than before.

So I've been watching a lot of My 600lb Life (for reasons) and it is simultaneously shocking and not shocking at all how many women were sexually assaulted and chose food as a coping device specifically for the fact that they would gain weight and not be seen as sexually viable (read: acceptable under the male gaze) woman.

And this isn't a phenomenon only discussed in this show, too--if I remember correctly, this is a reason that Roxanne Gay cites for her own personal life.

And then we have women who feel safe in their own bodies and (in regards to the show) in exchange require a caretaker (family, or husband, or boyfriend) who then enables them to literal DEATH because they can't bear seeing their partner become mobile and confident and independent as they lose weight.

And that's not even discussing how husbands will straight up try to sabotage their progress if not straight up leave them because they're attracted to "fat happy women, not a fat unhappy one."

Weight is gained for survival and independence from the male gaze, and weight is lost for survival and independence from the male enabler and caretaker.

There's really no winning. So many women on this show become their size as a direct result of male-induced trauma and then find themselves in the care of a man who seemingly loves and supports them but leave them the second they try to do something for themselves.

It's the bare minimum here. Men hate it when we simply SURVIVE.

God I’ve read so many magazine articles where a woman had lost a lot of weight, only for her male partner to suddenly turn really nasty, because he’d specifically chosen to be with a quote unquote ‘unattractive’ woman so she wouldn’t have high standards and other men wouldn’t pursue her...

This is recognized in the study of trauma as well. Bessel Van der Kolk mentions in The Body Keeps the Score that a large percent of morbidly obese people have a history of sexual trauma.

The idea that recreating victims’ trauma as a kink is somehow good or “healing” in any way whatsoever is a dangerous lie crafted by abusers seeking to perpetually control/revictimize/take advantage of and attract a ready pool of fresh victims while absolving themselves of wrongdoing. All available evidence from research on trauma and related elements of psychology and neuroscience suggests it isn’t just useless to victims, it compounds preexisting harm.

A moment of silence for this person I just blocked.

But if anybody else is wondering:

Immersion therapy is a phobia treatment, i.e. it’s used to control irrational, disproportionate anxieties whose objects are in fact harmless. Variations on it may sometimes be used to manage triggers or avoidance issues descending from trauma—if certain loud noises cause panic attacks in a bombing survivor, or if a car crash survivor develops a fear of car travel, for example. To treat PTSD closer to its core, patients are encouraged to talk about or retell their trauma; “immersion” in this sense is immersion in one’s memory. The goal is to help curb distress during future instances of involuntary recall. The patient isn’t subjected to more bombings or car crashes.

If a doctor ever suggests reenacting a rape or similar event, CALL THE POLICE.

Hey! I’m going to pause my retching for a little bit to provide a source because apparently it’s just so goddamn important for someone to mention sources, mention their own (fucked up) stance, and then not provide their own sources, apparently. How’d we get here, again?

This is from Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score. Bessel is a psychiatrist focused on PTSD and trauma, and has done this since the 90s. Emphasis mine. Note that, shockingly, there’s not one positive implication of directly re-experiencing traumatic stimulus:

In contrast to its effectiveness for irrational fears such as spiders, CBT has not done so well for traumatized individuals, particularly those with histories of childhood abuse. Only about one in three participants with PTSD who finish research studies show some improvement. (38) Those who complete CBT treatment usually have fewer PTSD symptoms, but they rarely recover completely: Most continue to have substantial problems with their health, work, or mental well-being. (39)

…

I really, sincerely hope anyone capable of firing about ten neurons of critical thought can piece together, from that last paragraph, the implications of trying to reenact a rape or other sexual trauma through kink when even talking about experiences makes people shut down jesus fucking christ.

Here are Bessel’s citations:

33. E. Santini, R. U. Muller, and G. J. Quirk, “Consolidation of Extinction Learning Involves Transfer from NMDA-Independent to NMDA-Dependent Memory,” Journal of Neuroscience 21 (2001): 9009–17.

35. C. R. Brewin, “Implications for Psychological Intervention,” in Neuropsychology of PTSD: Biological, Cognitive, and Clinical Perspectives, ed. J. J. Vasterling and C. R. Brewin (New York: Guilford, 2005), 272.

37. E. B. Foa and R. J. McNally, “Mechanisms of Change in Exposure Therapy,” in Current Controversies in the Anxiety Disorders, ed. R. M. Rapee (New York: Guilford, 1996), 329–43.

38. J. D. Ford and P. Kidd, “Early Childhood Trauma and Disorders of Extreme Stress as Predictors of Treatment Outcome with Chronic PTSD,” Journal of Traumatic Stress 18 (1998): 743–61. (There are 3 other articles lumped into this one.)

39. J. Bisson, et al., “Psychological Treatments for Chronic Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis,” British Journal of Psychiatry 190 (2007): 97–104. See also L. H. Jaycox, E. B. Foa, and A. R. Morrall, “Influence of Emotional Engagement and Habituation on Exposure Therapy for PTSD,” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 66 (1998): 185–92.

Thanks!

PDF  of The Body Keeps Score

Did anyone mention that exposure therapy is supposed to be done by a trained goddamn therapist, not your sadistic boyfriend?

«  The word “trauma” [is] a neat summary word [that] can sanitize people’s experiences because it needn’t involve spelling out the troubling and sometimes shocking experiences people have actually had. What all this amounts to is a striking reluctance to keep people’s life experiences at the forefront of [psychiatric] theories.

The word ‘trauma’ also takes the focus off the abusers and places it onto their victims. Of course, it is vitally important to find ways of helping the latter – but there seems to be a surprising lack of social or professional curiosity about the vast numbers of perpetrators who are helping to fill our psychiatric hospitals. This is in marked contrast to high levels of concern about action to address causal factors in other medical ‘epidemics’ (e.g. obesity, heart and other smoking-related diseases; diabetes). »

— Demedicalizing Misery, ed. Joanna Moncrieff

@shipping-isnt-morality

Ship who you like. Turn away from anyone screaming at you that you’re doing it wrong. You’re not. You are not. You are good. Write, fantasise, read about whatever you like. Unless you do something that hurts people, you haven’t hurt anyone. Ever.

Don’t engage the screamers who say otherwise because they don’t actually care; they like hurting people. Turn away from them because they’re accusing you of what they themselves are doing. Come talk to us, in the part of fandom that knows fact from fiction and fantasy from fact. You are good.

—

Vednita Carter

Let that sink in - a higher percentage of prostitutes suffer from PTSD than Vietnam vets. May the men that caused this (pimps and johns) be punished, and the women forced to do such work be freed.

Happy 8th of March - accept no prostitution defense bullshit

(via slumberinthebunker)

For many survivors of childhood abuse, symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may re-occur, or never arise, until they become a parent. 

A significant number of parenting survivors do not recognize the increased depression, anxiety or onset of flashbacks as symptoms of PTSD, weaving in and out their journey to raise a family.

 Instead, many will internalize debilitating shame and question their ability,and even their right to parent.

Reblog every time. Child birth can cause PTSD. having PTDS while caring for a newborn is hell. Postpartum is hell. Caring for your baby can trigger PTSD. between the physical demands & the lack of sleep, it can be absolute hell. These things are all why I just couldn’t have another baby. I love my daughter & I’m glad I have her, but the first couple of years of her life left me suicidal. It’s not her fault, it’s just that motherhood was more than I was able to handle emotionally. And that needs to be talked about more. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows.

It’s so fucked up how mental illness being more prominent in women is seen as natural to our sex rather than an outcome of misogyny

“Misogyny” cannot change brain chemistry. You have no idea how mental illness works, do you?

Right because upbringing and socialization play absolutely no role in mental illness… If you think that MI is strictly a biological phenemona then I guess I’ll have be the one to tell you it’s not

Also the idea that experiences don’t change your brain chemistry is fucking absurd @thatsyouthatshowdumbyousound What do you think PTSD Is?

Lmao the more trauma indicators a child has (by the way, girls are more likely to experience every trauma indicator), the more likely they are to have major depressive disorder, anorexia, PTSD, and Psychosis. That’s basic psychology 101.

Melissa Farley, “Prostitution, Liberalism, and Slavery”. (via womentoadmire)

Hedges, C. 2009 “The Illusion of Love” Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle Nation Books, pp.59-60 (via pornographicmeatnightmare)