Perinatal Mental Health

We are pleased to be sharing the first part in a series by Anne Marie McKinley on the theme of maternal mental health. Anne Marie is a Midwife and Birth Trauma Specialist at Afterthoughts NI who, over the coming weeks, will be introducing us to maternal mental health and its related aspects.

For every year of births, the estimate long term cost to society of Perinatal Mental Health in the UK is 8.1 billion pounds (Bauer, 2014). 1 This estimate is based on the costs of mental health care of women through pregnancy and beyond, and it follows the trajectory of the cost of health-related ‘quality of life losses’ over the lifetime of mothers and their children’. [Read more…]

Self Ghettoisation

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I ‘tweeted’ and Tim wrote…

I make no apology that this piece is about gay men. A gay man annoyed the bejasus out of me this morning. Since I am also a gay man, I found an immediate rant coming on. Now, you know I write pieces here when I’m angry… In the wee small hours today [25 February 2019], on Twitter, Bob sent this tweet. I am not angry at Bob.

[Read more…]

Birth Trauma: Part 3 of 3

We now join Anne Marie McKinley (a Midwife and Birth Trauma Specialist at Afterthoughts NI) for the final part of this sub-series and take a look at various trauma therapies available to both mums and dads.

Which Therapeutic Approach?

When either parent attend counselling in pregnancy, or post birth, several pathways may open up. If a woman is searching for a therapist herself, there are a number of things that may not be immediately obvious.

Therapy or counselling is often known to first time seekers through TV or film representations of how therapy works, or through reports from friends and family. Entering the perinatal timescale may also be the only space in the next number of years where parents can freely allocate time to heal old emotional wounds, deal with anxiety or depression, and come to terms with the journey of birth which may, for them, have been less than they had hoped and dreamed. It can be hard to prioritise self-care later on when there are little ones around your feet. [Read more…]

PTSD: What to do if you face discrimination

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We welcome Louise Fraser from DPP Law who guides us through the subject of discrimination of those dealing with PTSD – what constitutes discrimination, what to do and the steps you can take.

As anyone who struggles with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) will know, the condition itself provides enough challenges without additional troubling issues being created by individuals who refuse to take the steps required to understand it, or support those who suffer from it. In the worst cases, those living with PTSD will experience discrimination that not only makes day to day life difficult, but also exacerbates symptoms of the condition, creating a vicious cycle.

So, what should you do if you face discrimination at work, or in any other part of life, as the result of a diagnosis of PTSD? [Read more…]

Trauma: It does not occur in isolation to the community of a traumatised individual

We now take a break from Anne Marie McKinley’s (a Midwife and Birth Trauma Specialist at Afterthoughts NI) mini series (focusing on the various aspects of birth trauma) by delving into the whys and wherefores around history and developments in this sixth part.

In 1992, Judith Lewis Herman published her book Trauma and Recovery. “The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma.” 1

I live in Northern Ireland, born in the South. In 1998, I was in Stormont, waiting with family and friends for the signing of The Belfast Agreement (also known as the Good Friday Agreement because it was reached on Good Friday, 10 April 1998) and I remember my 3-year-old daughter escaping under the barrier to greet the politicians. There were stark predictions, by academics after the agreement was signed, of concern for the mental health of the next generation in Northern Ireland. In 2016, The Mental Health Foundation reported that Northern Ireland had a 25% higher overall prevalence of mental health problems than England. Previous to this, in 2014/15, according to the Northern Ireland Health Survey, 19% of individuals showed signs of a possible mental health problem. More women (20%) than men (16%) reported signs of mental health problems.2 [Read more…]

The Importance, or Not, of Sex

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An interesting look at us as human beings by our resident writer, Tim.

Some days I listen to the various pressure groups who have an opinion on a person’s sex and wonder why they feel that they have the right to dictate things to us all. This ‘men are men and women are women’ stuff is strident. ‘She’s not a proper woman’ or ‘He’s not a proper man’ all seems intended to put the speaker first, not the person who is wondering about who they are, who they are inside. [Read more…]

Birth Trauma: Part 2 of 3

Friend, Flight, Fight, Freeze, Flop? Anne Marie McKinley (a Midwife and Birth Trauma Specialist at Afterthoughts NI) now takes us through the why and how in her fifth instalment in this series.

The Trauma Response and Childbirth

Bessel van der Kolk has spent over 30 years training psychotherapists to work with psychological trauma. Taken from the 28th Annual International Trauma Conference:

 

For almost three decades this conference has examined the evolving knowledge of how trauma affects psychological and biological developmental processes, and how the damage caused by trauma and neglect can be reversed. 1

 

We live in a world where teachers, more frequently, educate small children in the skills of mindfulness and self-regulation early in their little lives. However, many adults will often only find this need to engage in such activities when they are pregnant. [Read more…]

Queer Me!

How do we commemorate Tim, our resident guest writer, sharing his family history, relationships and feelings for the last five years? By asking him to share more with us.

Actually, I prefer the sub-title, Halfway Between Flying and Crying, because that is how I have felt all my life, that I have been halfway between the exhilaration of flying and being in tears of despair. I don’t mean the flying to be inside a plane. I think of it as just me, flying, as in a dream. What am I talking about? Don’t worry, I’ll get to it. I’m working up to it in my head. You don’t seriously think these pieces are planned, do you?

That ‘flying’ thing – you know I’m weird already, if you’ve read the pieces I’ve penned for Bob before.

No, not weird. Angry. Somehow unfulfilled. Seeking the thing that is just around the corner, the thing I can’t see, the thing that, if I catch a glimpse of it, runs away on silent feet. [Read more…]

Birth Trauma: Part 1 of 3

The fourth from her series introducing us to maternal mental health, Anne Marie McKinley (a Midwife and Birth Trauma Specialist at Afterthoughts NI) focuses her next 3 parts on various aspects of trauma response in birthing.

Birth trauma is still represented as though it is a surprise in some parts of the world. Even with pain relief, and the intention towards active management of normality, women still develop PTSD in the postnatal period. These next three (4-6) contributions will focus on various aspects of the trauma response in birthing and suggest some very practical interventions which may assist in prevention or amelioration of symptoms.

[Read more…]

Mental Health Stigmas in the Workplace

We welcome Beth from BooksNest sharing her personal experience of having obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and the stigma surrounding mental health issues within the workplace.

In 2019, we hope that we can be more open and honest about our mental health. We hope that terms like depression, anxiety and OCD hold less of a stigma around them. But is this really how mental health is being perceived or are we still experiencing prejudicial thoughts in the workplace? [Read more…]

Happiness

In part three from her series introducing us to maternal mental health, Anne Marie McKinley (who is a Midwife and Birth Trauma Specialist at Afterthoughts NI) guides us through ‘happiness’ – some of the research done, how it affects our lives and how it can shape our future generations.

Happiness has been studied in many ways. One study which looked at the biological factors that influence happiness and health and concluded that both biological and health factors underlie happiness. Genetics play a role too, and have a clear and significant effect on happiness (Dfarhud et al., 2014). 1 Another study demonstrates that about 33% of the variation in human life satisfaction is explained by genetics (De Neve etal., 2012/2013). 2 [Read more…]