Quiet Confessions: Postpartum PTSD, Triggers, & Flashbacks Pt. 1

Trigger Warning: This episode contains detailed descriptions of medical trauma, panic attacks, and postpartum hemorrhage flashbacks. Please practice self-care while listening.

In this episode of Quiet Confessions, host Chelsea Myers pulls back the curtain on a topic that many experience but few feel safe enough to speak about: postpartum PTSD. 

Following a traumatic birth and severe postpartum hemorrhage with their youngest child, Chelsea was fighting an unexpected battle against debilitating flashbacks and panic attacks.

From the everyday sound of sirens to the simple act of holding their newborn baby, Chelsea maps out how trauma rewired their brain and body's response to safety. They share their non-linear healing journey, how they learned to navigate medical environments again as a chronically ill individual, and the practical comfort strategies they use today. 

If you’ve ever felt isolated by your own trauma triggers, or felt shame over how your body reacted after birth, this episode is a gentle, judgment-free reminder that you are not alone.

Key Takeaways

• Trauma Visualizes in Unexpected Triggers: Postpartum PTSD can cause regular, mundane objects or sounds—like a blood pressure cuff or a distant siren—to trigger intense, full-body physical flashbacks.
• The Weight of Silent Shame: Avoiding speaking about trauma triggers out of fear or shame can delay understanding and finding proper coping mechanisms.
• Healing is Non-Linear and Sectional: Overcoming severe triggers, like entering a medical environment, doesn't happen overnight. It can be approached in slow, intentional stages with a trusted support system.
• Coping in Real-Time: Preparing tangible comfort objects (a "go bag") and practicing self-advocacy can help perinatal individuals regain a sense of control during activating medical situations.
• The "What's Not Wrong" Grounding Technique: Self-care doesn't have to be grand; grounding yourself by identifying three to five things that are currently going right can shift your nervous system out of panic.

This episode discusses topics that may be triggering for some individuals. Please check the show notes for more information and be mindful of your own mental health and comfort levels.

Visit our Patreon to help support our mission to normalize the conversation and end the stigma surrounding PMADs!

Transcript

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Chelsea Myers (00:01.27)
Hey, welcome back to another Quiet Confessions. Little mini episodes where you and I get to spend some time together, and I catch you up on what's going on with me. And what's going on with me is I am intentionally sitting down and making time to start our next series together. I am feeling physically somewhat okay.

And I have a quiet space for a little bit. So I'm gonna dive in and go for it and hope for the best. So if you were here last week, you know that I sent out a poll to my Instagram and Facebook followers on the Quiet Connection accounts and on my personal accounts to see what it was you wanted to know more about.

And it was a four-way tie, which was insane. And so I took those answers and I put them in a timeline that made sense for me. And the first thing we're gonna tackle is PTSD. Yay! Exciting. Any of these things may be triggering to you, and my descriptions of my reactions may be triggering to you.

And if that's the case, you can 100% skip this episode. If you do want to listen and you do feel activated, please make sure you do something to take care of yourself afterward. whether it be whether it be like getting a warm cup of something yummy, taking a few deep breaths, just please take care of your mental health. But I'm gonna be as open and honest as

As I feel comfortable being, because that's how I roll. You guys know that. 

So I not only was diagnosed with postpartum PTSD from my birth experience with my youngest, but I also experienced PTSD following everything that came with that postpartum experience. So including like the hospitalizations, the postpartum hemorrhage, the I mean, I have PTSD also from the brain tumor and the hemorrhage of that and all of that. But I'm I'm gonna keep it

to at least for now at this part of the series, the PTSD that I experienced relating to the birth and trauma and everything that went with that experience of having my youngest. So yeah, like I said, I'm kind of like I I've got the train on the tracks and I'm just gonna keep going and I'm and I'm plowing forward and

Chelsea Myers (02:23.316)
So if this is rambly and slightly chaotic, I don't apologize, but hopefully you can buckle up and follow along with my craziness. so when I was finally discharged from all of the intensive treatments that I received for my mental health struggles.

all of the inpatient hospitalizations, the partial hospitalization, and the intensive outpatient program. The PTSD and just the continuing battle with OCD, anxiety, panic attacks, it was it was ongoing. And

For me, I've talked about this a little bit in prior confessions, but it manifested in ways that I definitely didn't anticipate and maybe surprising for some people or maybe totally relatable for some people. I guess we're gonna find out. But even wh so even while I was still receiving outpatient care.

There I was noticing certain things that would trigger a panic response in me. One of the first that I can remember is blood pressure machines. I regularly had to have my blood pressure monitored in my outpatient program because of the medication that I was taking.

And every time I would have the cuff put on my arm, or if it was a portable machine at a regular like doctor's appointment, I could hear the wheels, I would instantly flash back to being in one of my inpatient stays. And when I say flashback, I really do mean flashback. Like my my whole body

Chelsea Myers (04:48.741)
would tense. I could see in my in my mind's eye, like I don't know, whatever day it it would just pick one of the hospitals that I was in. and I and I just could see the nurse wheeling down the hall with the blood pressure machine and smell the smells. And it was like I was transported back in time and location and

I would panic. My it would get harder to breathe. I'd get really nauseous. And it was difficult. I didn't say anything about it at first because I thought it was so ridiculous. Like I still had so much shame.

And I just I it really didn't go away. This particular trigger didn't go away. I it lessened. I still experience anxiety when getting my blood pressure taken. And my youngest is about to turn four. She will be four in just about a week and a half. So four years later, and this is still something that.

changes like my body chemistry. i like I said, it's much less intense. But that that is just the first

I the first like instance of flashbacks that I can remember experiencing. And it was so fresh in coming from being inpatient, because I went from being inpatient to very quickly being outpatient, that I didn't really understand what it was at the time. And because I didn't say anything, I I didn't get a better understanding of it. But things kind of developed.

Chelsea Myers (06:49.324)
And got more intense. And as I talked about it in therapy, I began to understand that that these were flashbacks or panic attacks and that they were associated with PTSD.  So yeah, after recognizing the first trigger, God, this is awful. I very quickly started to notice that things that should be simple or things that

I in the past would not have thought twice about were incredibly activating for me. And when I say activating, it means I I would go into panic or I would go into a flashback. S more examples of this are I could not take either of my children to doctor's appointments for a very long time.

Being in the doctor's office, I couldn't even go to my own doctor's appointments alone because being in a medical environment made me incredibly uncomfortable. And I also early on, I couldn't even bring my newborn to some of her first doctor's appointments because of how ill I was. So

Chelsea Myers (09:14.111)
The doctor's appointments and and on top of all of that, their pediatrician is located right next to the hospital that I initially went to when I hemorrhaged, my postpartum hemorrhage. I ended up being transferred from there, but it just it's all part of the experience. So being in a medical environment would get me incredibly anxious, nauseous, dizzy.

Hard to breathe, all of that stuff. And then being at their doctor's office was triggering because it was in such close proximity to the hospital that I was at. and I just I couldn't handle it. So at first I just didn't do doctor's appointments for my kids. My my husband would take them. And

Obviously through with therapy, like we realized that's not sustainable. And I never did the type of therapy that some people do for OCD or PTSD, which is like ERP exposure response. I can't remember what the I'm horrible with acronyms, but I kind of did it in my own way. it's the same reason why I I seem to not be able to tolerate EMDR.

Instead of getting me to work through the trauma and move past it, it actually activates me more. So we did things in stages. So first my husband just continued taking my kids to doctor's appointments like he had done while I was gone, while I was hospitalized. And then slowly, like when I had doctor's appointments, I would have someone come with me.

And then when the kids would have doctor's appointments, my husband, I would go with my husband. And then once my husband couldn't do that anymore, I might have my mother-in-law come with me. And then eventually I was able to do it on my own. And it was very uncomfortable. That is one area that I can happily report that I tolerate much better these days.

Chelsea Myers (11:40.153)
And I I credit my kids' pediatrician with that a lot because she is phenomenal. She not only recognized my acute mental health crises after having my second and like talked to me and talked to my husband and like tried to give us resources and stuff, but she's just an amazing pediatrician and she is she's my

She's both of my kids' pediatricians. So I've been working with her in the same practice for over 10 years. And so going there no longer feels unsafe. It it feels okay. It's still not the most comfortable thing in the world because again, I'm exposed to certain things that will trigger certain memories, but I can take my kids to the doctors now.

The sound of sirens would put me into flashbacks. And that unfortunately is still something that I struggle with today. Luckily, it doesn't happen often when I'm at home because I'm in a very, very rural area surrounded by farms. Unfortunately, we're literally a straight shot.

like a three mile drive to the volunteer rescue department in our town. So all I have to do is drive straight to the stop sign and there's the rescue station and there's all the fire trucks and ambulances. But very rarely do they come down this road and actually they more often than not come down this road for me.

And of course that is tied to my postpartum hemorrhage. and having the ambulance come and I mean, I was bleeding out on my bathroom floor, and I thought that was the end. And that was that's still something that I struggle to think about. But initially hearing sirens.

Chelsea Myers (14:07.692)
I would go into flashbacks that I was hemorrhaging again. and my body would go into panic mode, which again was very physical and I I would panic.

And being now disabled and chronically ill, I I ha I mean I have to admit, I have ridden in an ambulance more in the last four years th don't think I'd ever ridden in an ambulance once. I I rode in an ambulance once prior to this. And that's it.

And then just in the last year alone, I think I've taken at least three or four ambulance rides for medical crises that I have at home. I've been in the ED way more than that. But every time I hear the sirens, it it is still triggering. I don't go into full flashbacks anymore.

But it does get me very anxious, which ties into the ED, the emergency department. I will avoid the emergency department at all costs, which is really, really hard to do when you are completely adrenal insufficient. I do not make any hormones or chemicals that are needed to sustain life. So

I think I've made this joke before, but like I say I run on synthetics. I have to take synthetic everything. I'm on thyroid medication. I'm on hormone replacement therapy. I'm on steroids. I because my body just doesn't make any of those things. And it is absolutely insane the amount of ways that you can find yourself in an adrenal crisis.

Chelsea Myers (16:15.679)
So everything has to be taken very seriously, and I do spend a lot of time in emergency departments, but because of my experiences n with the postpartum hemorrhage and with the mental health crises after having my youngest, my experiences of the emergency department in those instances were so traumatic.

That now I my body and my brain just associates emergency departments with death, panic, disregard, all the things. All the things. In the last couple of months, I have made some major improvements and I am very proud of myself. When I know that I need to go.

I used it not even not even nine months ago, I I would like to lie to myself and I would lie to my partner about how intense my symptoms were so that I would not be taken to the emergency room, even eventually I would go. But that's how much I would avoid it. Now I have a procedure. and it's kind of through trial and error, but if I know

Or if I can anticipate that, like, okay, this is not okay and I need to go in. We have a go bag. And I will bring my Kindle and chargers and my phone and a comfort object. Yes, like a stuffed animal or something. A sweatshirt because it's always cold in there. And warm socks because it's always cold in there. And shoes that are easy to put on and take off. So crocs or

Flip flops of some sort, but things that will bring me comfort. And they go in my bag and they either ride with me in the ambulance or come with me in the car and I get myself set up. And I have now become very good at advocating for myself from the moment I arrive all the way through. I I tell them that I have medical PTSD, them being the doctors and the nurses. I have my little

Chelsea Myers (18:41.618)
card that they can scan that tells them everything about me, my whole medical history, what medications I'm on, so that I don't have to go through that whole thing every time. and I have an ED preference right now. So we have like I have talked about, we have the local hospital and then the bigger state hospital. I

prefer this was not the case for a long time, but I prefer going to the local hospital more lately because since everything happened four years ago, they have done a complete overhaul. So nothing looks the same. The staff is different. Everything is updated and new. And most I think almost all of the rooms are private. and then the others are semi private. But it's just a different environment.

And I've found the staff, especially the nurses, to be so accommodating of my needs. And the bigger state hospital is chaotic and s it like literally talking about it right now is giving me anxiety. So if I can avoid going there, I do. I will go to my local hospital. But

For the longest time, I would do absolutely anything to avoid going there. Which became trickier after my brain tumor and everything. But that's a different series, right?
Chelsea Myers (20:41.145)
Another trigger very early on was holding my baby, who is not a baby anymore. Holding her this to this day still feels so horrible to say out loud, but holding her made me feel physically ill. And it wasn't because I didn't want to hold her, because God did I want to hold her.

But as soon as she would be in my arms, I would become nauseous and dizzy and I would have a hard time breathing and my heart rate would spike.

Chelsea Myers (21:23.44)
And my reaction to that was, I think I talked about this before, I became the only person who could put her to bed at night. Part of it was because I was ashamed of how much time I had missed with her and I was trying to make up for it. And part of it was because I was like, no, this is not okay. I'm not going to be sick from holding my baby.

But for a very long time there were times when I would have to call my husband upstairs because she'd be asleep in my arms and I would be actively having a flashback. It would come out of nowhere. I would believe that I was back in the hospital. And yeah, I could smell the smells. I could see everything. And it was terrifying.

yeah. PTSD looks different for everyone, and triggers are gonna be different for everyone. And I don't even know, like I'm not a mental health expert. I will say I'm a lived experience expert, and in my experience, flashbacks were common for me.

They're less common today. But my PTSD manifested and manifests as panic attacks and or flashbacks.

Those were the biggies initially, and it evolved over time. They changed. There's some I didn't even talk about today. So next time we chat, I'll dive into Yeah, the ones I'm thinking of right now were really surprising to me. Ones that really kind of blindsided me and caught me by surprise.

Chelsea Myers (23:37.162)
And again, we'll we'll dive deeper and we'll talk about how they have evolved over time, how I learned to cope with all of it, and how I'm continuing to cope with it. But for today, that's all I can handle. That's all I can handle. So remember, we're gonna do some self-care. And self-care doesn't need to be big, it doesn't need to be bubble baths or

Massages or things like that. It can literally be one of my favorite things, the what's not wrong. Find three to five things right now in your life, in this moment, in this space that are not wrong. that's what I'm gonna do. And I'm gonna drink my water and I'm gonna see you next week.