So... If you don't know me... I am the kind of person who starts something and never follows all the way through - But I believe the stories of my life are so significant to the human spirit and experience that it would be selfish of me to keep my secrets and suffering all to myself...
This specific post is very hard for me to write - especially since I am now almost done my first trimester of my 3rd pregnancy - which has it's own struggles, joys, sorrows, and scariness of it's own.
But here it is my story about being 6 weeks pregnant and forced to seek professional medical help for my mental illness at A.M.H.
It was a dark fall... as before mentioned our family had our share of sickness during this time. Our love child was conceived a day after our anniversary while my husband and I were fighting off a nasty bug. When I found out I was pregnant for the second time - I was over joyed and thanked the Lord that it was so easy to get pregnant... it might be easy for me to get pregnant - but it seems like it is the hardest 9 months of my life while going through them.
I had been seeing a Dr. Levin - out of Doylestown, PA during my last trimester with Denison( My first) and thought that he would treat this pregnancy the same. I was very wrong. I remember perinatologist telling me to get off my meds for the first couple of weeks and then after 9 weeks I could restart to introduce a higher dosage back into my body... I weaned myself off - before my appointment with Dr. Levin. He told me that was not a smart thing to do - and that I should give my body more time to adjust - but he had no intention of putting me back on any of my medication. I remember him stooping down on the floor to find his big "mental illness/med compatibility book" and reading to me all the horrible things that could happen to my baby if I continued to take meds. He was less than helpful, yet empathetic- for he shook my tear drenched hands and said hang in there...
As you can imagine I did not fare well under these circumstances - my anxiety, OCD, and Bipolar ruled my life - I was living second to second trying to make it through the next half hour- and then hour... it was one of the scariest things I have gone through in my life to date.
A few weeks went on - a couple more pep talks from Dr. unhelpful- no meds for me - and I began to loose my mind- my brain and body-- was starving for these drugs that finally had made me more like "Becca" again...
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