Mental Health Support

This group is specifically for women who have or know someone with mental illness.

Creator: Mary

Members: 1m+

How do you forgive??

Hi ladies, I've been having a very difficult time healing and forgiving myself. So my son was born at 21 weeks in November 2022. It was my first pregnancy and I had just moved to a new city and i knew no one besides my husband. On top of that i knew NOTHING about pregnancy. The week prior to my son being born I was gushing water in my underwear. I went to an emergency room and they checked me and the stupid resident doctor told me iam good to go home that my baby just kicked on my bladder. I knew deep down in my heart that didn't make sense but I just did what they told me as they are supposed to be the experts right. Fast forward 1 week later I began having what I think now were contractions but instead of going to the same emergency room again I decided to go to another hospital for a 2nd opinion. Which I now know was the biggest mistake of my life because that emergency room kept me in their hospital for 8hrs then told me at the last minute that they only treat women over 36weeks pregnant and they dont have the proper equipment to treat me. According to them i still had some of my cervix still in tact at that time. They didn't offer to transfer me to a different hospital they freely just let me walk out the hospital and go home. By the time I got to my original emergency room hospital later on that night, they asked me why I didn't come to their hospital first because they said my cervix was completely open and it couldn't be stitched back up. 2 days later I ended up delivering my son that was stillbirth. This happened over 1yr ago and iam still filled With so much anger. A lot of the time I blame myself for trying to seek a 2nd opinion but my discernment and lack of trust with the resident doctor led me to doing so. It was a new city and I knew nothing about any of these hospitals. Sometimes I even blame my husband for making us move to a new city smh. I always blame both hospitals for the roles that they played in my son's death as well. Anyways fast forward to now feb. 2024 I have had 1 miscarriage since then and no live births/babies. Iam already 37yrs old and my hubby is in his 40s so every pregnancy really mattered as we wanted a big family and we have no kids yet. How do I forgive myself for making the biggest mistake of my life and how do I forgive others as well? My perfectly healthy son not being here and us STRUGGLING since then to get pregnant again does not help me to heal, forgive and move on it makes the pain and hurt and anger stronger. Sorry for the long rant.

Last reply Apr 16, 2024

Sorry to hear about your loss. I hope as life moves you are finding some peace. Forgiveness is hard especially when the person or people who hurt us have caused such a deep wound that’s unforgettable and unforgiving.Thank you for sharing this. I hope and pray that in this type of situation when relying on our own strength can make us weak I hope you’ll turn to Christ who will carry that burden for you. God calls us to be merciful to those that hurt us. It is hard to do yes but God knows and sees the bigger picture that we can’t. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. You should forgive yourself

Death Anxiety

So I haven’t been working much recently due to circumstances but I realized that when I have a lot of free time, my anxiety spikes. A little backstory, I lost my father at 14 years old due to cancer and my step dad at 17 years old due to a heart attack. I currently work as a first responder so death should be an easy topic for me to handle. It’s not. I’m always worried about death and dying. Myself and my family. I worry that something bad will happen to me and I’ll never be able to have children like I’ve always wanted and I’ll never get to do the things I want to do. I worry about my mom who is sick. I’m worried something might happen to her and what I’d do if it happens. I worry about my boyfriend who is also a first responder. When he goes to work I worry about if something were to happen to him on duty. Now, you’re going to call me crazy for getting into the line of work I’m in. It’s chaotic and the risk of injury/death is more than a regular 9-5 job so if I’m so worried about dying, why am I in this job? I don’t really have an answer. The job is what I really want to be doing. Nothing besides my job interests me. Back when I was working consistently my anxiety levels were low. I never worried much about anything. Now I’m full of anxiety. I’m not sure what to do about it. I had a therapist last year but when I left for military training they must have forgotten and said I needed to make another appointment or my services would be cancelled. I haven’t been back nor have I looked into another therapist because I’ve been feeling better with this job and her sessions didn’t help me much. Does anyone have any advice on this? Working out doesn’t help the anxiety much but increases my anxiety. I feel like working out makes me more tired and the more tired I am the more anxious I become. I’m sure my boyfriend being on night shift isn’t helping me much either. Please let me know if you have any advice or tips for me. Thank you!

Last reply Jan 29, 2024

Honestly I would go to therapy and discover your thoughts about death. I deal with anxiety and my therapist really helped me with thinking and talking through worst case scenarios and what was the worst case scenario about each fear. So death is kind of extreme but also what is the worst case scenario? If your boyfriend dies what does that look like? do you grieve but then move on, heal, and meet someone else? if you die, do you have certain beliefs that you want to explore like reading about peoples near death experiences and having some comfort knowing that most people see their loved ones while they pass so you know that we don’t just end we actually go on? I guess talking it through with a therapist could help you discover what the worst case is, and get to the very bottom of the fear. Once you dissolve the fear by exploring the worst thing that can happen, it’s not as scary anymore and it doesn’t give you anxiety. At least that’s how it’s worked for me. I was scared I was going to die during childbirth (And I nearly did interestingly), but when I worked through therapy, I actually accepted the idea that me dying wasn’t even the most awful scenario, and the fear just went away and I didn’t think about it anymore.. anyhow consider therapy. I’m not an expert so these are just my thoughts.