Quiet Confessions: Postpartum PTSD, Triggers, & Flashbacks Pt. 2

If you're feeling stuck, frozen, or like everything around you is chaotic right now, you're not alone. 

In this week’s Quiet Confession, I’m diving deep into a raw and rarely discussed side of postpartum PTSD: the "mundane" triggers that blindside us in everyday life.

Four years into my healing journey, I'm opening up about how my favorite comfort shows—like Friends and the Great British Bake Off—morphed from coping mechanisms into intense, OCD-driven rituals during my darkest postpartum moments and subsequent psychiatric hospitalizations. 

I’ll share how these pieces of pop culture became deeply tied to my trauma, what it feels like to be unexpectedly activated by a theme song or a clip in the wild, and how I reclaimed my love for reading by learning to put the remote down.

We’ll also look at the practical DBT skills and grounding tools I use today to pull myself back to the present moment when a flashback hits. It’s a messy, honest look at the biological and mental hurdles of postpartum recovery, but a reminder: your feelings aren't silly, they're valid, and we’re walking this path together.

Key Takeaways

• Trauma Can Hijack Comfort Culture: Safe spaces like beloved TV shows can easily become tangled with trauma when used as continuous survival tools during an acute medical or mental health crisis.
• Compulsions Offer Only Temporary Relief: For perinatal individuals dealing with comorbid OCD, repeating specific rituals or keeping certain media on loop doesn't cure anxiety; it simply feeds the cycle by temporarily dampening symptoms.
• Letting Go Brings Grief and Glimmers: Dropping toxic coping skills requires facing a unique layer of grief, but it also creates room to rediscover old, healthy passions, like getting back into reading.
• Shame Is Unwarranted: Feeling intensely triggered by mundane aspects of pop culture can feel "silly," but physical and neurological trauma responses aren't something you can consciously control.
• The Power of Radical Grounding: Utilizing Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) tools like "dead end thinking" stop signs and the "what's not wrong" exercise can effectively break a trauma spiral.

Transcript

Chelsea Myers (00:33)
Hey, welcome back to another Quiet Confession. Little mini episodes where you and I hang out and I catch you up with what's going on in my life. life has been lifing. I think I said that last time. And I'm realizing that it's not just me. so many people that I am connecting with right now on social media or even just

friends in life are all kind of reporting the same thing that like I don't know I said we should blame the planets because apparently that's the trendy thing to do right now. But like everything feels chaotic. We're all feeling really stuck. Like our momentum is just frozen and that we're not doing enough. And so there's some

Validation and knowing that it's not just me and that my frustrations are I'm not alone. I'm not alone. So there's that. So if you're feeling that way right now, I don't know if there's some like cosmic shift happening or if we're all just in a phase right now. But anyway, we're gonna roll with it and we're gonna

Give ourselves grace because that's what we do here at Quiet Connection. And when you catch me crying and having a little comfort snack, we'll call those coping mechanisms. Anyway, continuing on with my series on postpartum PTSD. When we connected last time, I sort of ended.

Talking about the triggers that I didn't anticipate. And I have alluded to these before. I've even done a mini episode on one in particular, but I'm gonna dive deeper into it and I think explain it a little bit more. But if you go back in my quiet confessions, very early on, I did an episode about why I can't watch the show Friends anymore.

And I realized as I was thinking about this and really looking at the more what I would consider mundane triggers to my PTSD. It's not just friends. There are a lot of shows that were comfort shows to me that are comfort shows to a lot of people, and some that were just random, but they are so heavily tied to trauma.

that I I can't watch them anymore. Hearing theme songs will trigger a physical reaction. Like if I'm scrolling through reels or I'm not on TikTok anymore, but if I'm like just scrolling through reels on Instagram or Facebook, like seeing clips from these shows will get me activated. And

It seems so crazy, but I am blindsided every single time. So we're gonna talk about it. We're gonna talk about it today. I will get I'll get into what my specific shows are. And if this is something you can relate to, I I mean, I'm gonna put a poll up or a question in my Instagram stories, and you can share with me like.

Do you have a show? Do you have a song? Do you have a place? Like things that just unexpectedly put you back into that trauma head space. And even if it seems silly or mundane to you, I'm sitting right here with you and telling you it's not silly. It's not crazy. It's valid. And and we can share space together. But

Yeah. So during my manic episodes, where my delusions were kind of running wild and I was either not hospitalized yet or between hospitalizations, I would focus heavily on distractions, but those distractions became compulsions and rituals and it

really all started with the show Friends. And that was because the night that I hemorrhaged at home and then was rushed in for surgery and blood transfusions and all of those things, I did not sleep that entire night in the hospital. I stayed up all night long watching Nick at night reruns of Friends all night.

Long. I just I could not sleep, no matter what I did. And when I was discharged finally a few days later, I continued that habit. Whenever I started to feel really anxious or really sick, which was literally all the time, or I couldn't sleep, I would turn on friends. So friends was on in the background at my house.

nearly all day every day. and not and at night. My poor partner slept with a sleep mask and earplugs. He still does, but that's a story for another day. but friends being I felt like friends had to be on. I don't want to say like in order for me to be safe, but like if friends was not on, my anxiety was higher.

I still to this day cannot pinpoint why exactly. But i I mean, I was I was so sick and delusional and out of it anyway. But it would be even worse if I didn't have friends to rely on.

And then that mentality sort of shifted and continued with me a little bit when I was hospitalized. So during my first hospitalization, I still tried to watch Friends, but the day room was not easily accessible and the TV was certainly not easily accessible. it kind of shifted a little bit to the show The Office.

But I I really didn't spend a lot of time in front of the TV at my first hospitalization. So I don't think that one's set in long enough for it to be a trigger to me because I still freaking love the office. I that does not trigger flashbacks or PTSD symptoms. But beyond that, when I went to North Carolina.

I did have access to a TV, not in my room, in the day room, or in the larger day room. And I would watch Friends again. And then in the evenings with my fellow perinatal patients, we would every night we would watch Jeopardy and we would watch Wheel of Fortune. Every single night. And it became again.

A ritual, which then became an obsession. And if I didn't do it, or if something got in the way of me watching those shows, my anxiety would skyrocket. Even to the point where there were nights where we would be offered like game nights. We would have like recreation therapists come and there would be game nights, and I would be encouraged to go. And I did go to some.

But the whole time I'm like, I'm supposed to be watching Jeopardy right now. I'm supposed to be watching Jeopardy right now. and so the only thing that I can sort of reason this around is that I myself, like a lot of millennials, were raised with the TV on. I was very much a kid who with

the TV on constantly, whether I was watching it or not. It was background noise. It was either that or music. Music is huge for me. But again, like my parents worked very late hours. They worked on weekends. They the TV was my buddy. And so I guess I mean that's the only reason I can think of that maybe that's where I sought comfort in these moments. I never watched Jeopardy or

Or Wheel of Fortune before this, but th I mean, I watched Friends before, but and I mean, it just continued to evolve. So when I came home from North Carolina, I was not home for very long.

I it was longer than the first time, but we we don't have cable. We have streaming services, but I really wanted to watch these game shows. I felt like it was very important to me that I maintained this ritual. And so we like bought a little I don't I don't know what you called it, like an antenna thing. I don't know. We mounted it on our wall so that we could pick up local channels. And I continued the habit. I would

Turn on Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. And my poor husband and my in laws, because they were staying here at the time, like they they just had to kind of sit through it. and it wasn't helping anything. Like I want to be clear about that. It was not making me feel any less nauseous, it was not making me any less fidgety, manic.

J I was still experiencing all of the same symptoms. I was still in a very heightened place of anxiety and fear and all of that and physical illness. But they were slightly dampened when I would complete these things. Because, as you know, I am diagnosed with OCD. And when you have OCD, you do things.

You participate in these obsessions and compulsions in order to temporarily relieve a stress or an anxiety. And that may be as temporary as just a few seconds or a few minutes, but it doesn't make it go away. It just reinforces it. but at the time, didn't realize that that's what I was doing. After my third hospitalization.

I was so ill. I mean, during that hospitalization, I was so ill and the the the circumstances were so horrible that I did try to continue watching my game shows, but I couldn't I couldn't focus on anything. I I talked about this during the psych inpatient series, but most of what I did was just pace and walk. and when I came home and I was doing outpatient therapy,

I have no idea how we decided to start doing this, but my mother-in-law and I tried to watch the Great British Bake Off. And that became a little ritual between the two of us. So we would watch it after dinner, and I would sit with my daughter, my youngest daughter, again, trying to work on tolerating holding her and not feeling sick. And

We would watch it and we would comment on it and sometimes my mother in law would like bring home little treats that we could eat while we watched it. but it it just became another another compulsion that I had to do.

And as time went on, I dropped those things because as I was healing, I was realizing that these shows were not actually helping me in any way. They were reinforcing unhealthy coping skills. And there was grief that came along with that.

I had to learn to put the TV remote down. I had to learn to find other ways to occupy my time. I that is, I mean, eventually that is when I got back into reading and I started devouring books again, which I think is incredible. I was a huge reader as a kid and a teen. And then I I became a parent and I just kind of stopped reading, but

the sort of glimmer in this is that I rediscovered my love of reading through having to let go of these shows.

But what that means now, as I'm still going through the healing process, this is four years later now, is that these shows pop into my life because they're part of pop culture, right? They're part of just the society and the culture that we live in. They're not going away. They're still very popular. Everybody knows friends, everybody knows the theme song.

The Great British Bake Off is still doing very well. And it's a great show. I wish I could watch it. I don't know that I'm necessarily sad about Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune, but they exist in our culture. And when references come up, or when clips of them come up, or when the songs are played, my body shifts into a very uncomfortable state of being.

Being. I am activated and I don't have control over that. What I do have control over is how I cope with them. And that is a learned skill. That is my DBT skills being put into action. That is me talking about it in therapy with my therapist, like this happened this week. This is how I dealt with it. And these were the uncomfortable feelings that came up, but I did work through them.

There have been times when these references will come up when I'm with family members or like when I'm with my partner, in other things that we're watching, in other things that we're listening to, other podcasts, other things like that. And we'll he will look to me and be like, Are you okay? And I'll say, I just need a minute, like, can we pause this? Or I I

Don't need you to say anything. I just need you to hold my hand. because reassurance seeking is still something that I actively work on. But in terms of PTSD, when these instances happen, I actively have to like shut down, close all the tabs, pick a coping skill, and I'm gonna talk about a few of those, use those and then come back.

To the present moment.

I wanna just take a minute and validate for myself and for you that it still feels silly. It feels silly that a TV show and the things associated with it can make me feel the way that they do so intensely.

I feel like it shouldn't affect me in the way that does that it does. But that doesn't mean that it's not valid. And that doesn't mean that that shame is warranted. It's not. I do not need to be ashamed of the things that I cannot control. But like I said, what I can control now is how I move forward. So

For me, honestly, there are shows that I avoid. I do not watch Friends anymore, which makes me sad in a way, but I have seen the entire series all the way through more times than I can count because of this experience.

I do not watch Jeopardy. I do not watch Wheel of Fortune. but that is more like I'm not even interested in those. I don't know why I chose those things to begin with. and I don't watch Great British Bake Off anymore, which sucks because it's such a wholesome show. And I also used to absolutely love baking before disability took over my life and made that more challenging.

And maybe someday it's something that I can explore again, but I don't watch it. I don't avoid media altogether. It took me a long time, but I slowly was able to start watching things that would bring me comfort in the past, which are weird things when you really break it down. Like I love a good true crime documentary, I love historical documentaries, I love a good true crime podcast.

I like just drama shows. Not like I don't like reality TV or things like that, but like things that are heavy. I I will often choose a documentary over a comedy any day. but a sign that I knew that I was on the path to healing was that I could start watching shows with content that may be uncomfortable and not.

be triggered by them.

So that is a positive, but it took time and it took like the first time I finished a documentary, I called my husband and I was like, I'm okay. And he's like, What are talking about? I was like, I just watched a documentary about this trial that they had and I'm okay. I feel okay. And so I don't 100% avoid media. Obviously, I can't do that, but I I do to this day still avoid.

Specific shows. The coping mechanisms that I use when I'm unexpectedly triggered out in the wild. again, I sometimes have to pause. If we're out in public, I may have to step away. And it's really just having an inner dialogue with myself and using those DBT skills. So

One that I repe a mantra that I repeat to myself is dead end thoughts. So if I start spiraling like, my God, like this is gonna start happening again, I'm gonna start feeling like this again. I don't have any control over this, and it just goes and goes and goes and goes. I literally throw up a stop sign in my brain and I say, dead end thinking. This is taking me nowhere. This is not serving me. this is not going to determine my future.

These are all what ifs. This is dead end thinking. Another one is grounding myself, doing a grounding exercise. You know, my favorite is what's not wrong. There's also the 54321 senses check-in. but bringing myself back to the present, reminding myself, I am not in the psych ward. I am not bleeding out on my bathroom floor. I am not

On my third night of no sleep because I'm so manic. I'm here. My children are ten and four. They are not seven and newborn. I safe. I'm safe. And then sometimes it just takes having someone there that I trust physically touching me, holding my hand.

Or letting me put my head on their shoulder. I do this with my partner. I've done it with my mother in law, who is like the least touchy feely person. but physically grounding myself to the present moment to remind myself that just because I'm hearing these things and seeing these things does not mean that I am living in twenty twenty two or twenty twenty three anymore.

So I yeah, that was a little rambly, I feel like. But the unexpected trigger in this example are TV shows. And it's because they were a coping mechanism then and now they are associated with that time in my life which was filled with trauma. So

Yeah, let me know when when this comes out, visit my Instagram, check out my stories, or leave me some comments, send me some messages. Did this resonate with you? Do you have unexpected triggers in life that bring you back to moments of trauma or moments of discomfort that you really when you stop and think about it, you're like, what the heck? Like, why? Why this? because

You know what? Who cares? Who cares why? It's valid. It matters. And what also matters is that we are here today. We are not in those moments anymore. And if you are still in those moments, you will not be forever. So whether you are navigating life's chaos right now, whether you're feeling stuck, whether you're feeling stagnant, or whether you are

Going through your own healing journey from perinatal mental health disorders, PTSD, traumatic birth, whatever it is. You are not alone. I am not alone. We are going to walk this path together. I'm gonna go get a drink. You should go do the same. Water. Drink your water, clarification. And I will see you next week.