Institutional and systemic failure

Being harmed or dismissed during pregnancy, birth, or postpartum care

Being hurt, frightened, ignored, or overruled during pregnancy, labour, birth, or the period afterward. Procedures done without proper consent or explanation. Pain reported and dismissed. Being restrained, spoken to with contempt, separated from your baby, or left alone while frightened. Including births where everyone survived and the experience was still terrifying.

A healthy baby is not the whole measure of what happened to you, and being told it is has probably kept this quiet for a long time. What was done to your body and how you were treated while it happened both count. You will not be told to be grateful and move on here.

What can follow an experience like this

No two people carry the same experience the same way. These are some of the effects that people with this experience often describe. Having some of them, all of them, or none of them says nothing about how real what happened to you was.

Chronic pain no one can fully explain Pain that has been investigated and treated and remains. Complex or ongoing trauma and its effects When trauma happened repeatedly, over a long time, or at the hands of people who were supposed to care for you, the effects go deeper than a single event. Emotional numbness Not depression exactly. Depression Not just sadness. Freezing up or going blank when things get intense When the nervous system learned that neither fighting nor fleeing was possible, some people learned to go still. Dissociation or feeling detached from yourself Dissociation is what the nervous system does when what is happening is too much to stay present for. Survivor's guilt A persistent sense that you should not have survived, or should have done more, or that your survival came at someone else's expense. Feeling disconnected from your body Not feeling at home in your own body.

Nothing on this page is a diagnosis, and nothing here decides what is wrong with you, because nothing is wrong with you. Something happened to you. This page exists so that when you are ready, you can find people who understand it from the inside.

You do not have to carry this alone.

Bridge of Hope Recovery is a free, anonymous, peer-led fellowship for trauma survivors. Meetings run throughout the week by phone, by video, and in person. No cost, no waitlist, no one asking for your real name.

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