[ SECRET POST #3332 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3332 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.


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02.
(David Bowie)


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03.
(Great British Bake Off for Sports Relief, Ed Balls)


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04.
[Pokemon]


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05.
[Star Wars: TFA]


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06.
[Damian Lewis, Dick Winters, Band Of Brothers]


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07.
[Daughter of the Lilies]


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08.
[David Eddings]


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09.
[Sengoku Basara]


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10.
[JJBA]


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11.
[Men In Black I, II, III]
















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 022 secrets from Secret Submission Post #476.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: Rant/vent thread

[herpymcderp]

If it makes you feel better, I actually hear this all the goddamn time from women who feel exactly like you. Maybe because being a man sort of omits me from the Cult Of Motherhood that can be so infectious and dogmatic in this society. Maybe because people just tend to talk to me about things like this.

And... also maybe because the in the medical field it's pertinent not to tell the entire truth about how dangerous pregnancy can be or give expectations about the results. It's hard to justify laying out every single risk to people who are already going through a sea of worries and expectations and hormones. Beyond educating about PPD, it's also hard to justify telling an expectant mother that actually... she might not immediately love her child. Maybe it might even take months for her to care about it.

It's not really what a lot of people want to hear.

Re: Rant/vent thread

[a_potato]

Being a man is probably part of it, because there's a lot of defensiveness and one-up-manship and denial among mothers, and it's tedious and stifling. Because of it, I have very few friends who are moms.

But, you know, I think there is justification for telling the expectant what might actually happen. There is so much guilt and so much sorrow among new mothers, and it stems from the fact that they're told things that are not true for them. PPD is exacerbated by women not knowing that what they're going through is completely normal.

If I had known what cluster feeding truly entailed; if I had known that it was okay for me to not instantly bond with my son; if I had known that 15% of pregnant women encounter a life-threatening complication, I would have been empowered, and I would not have felt nearly as depressed as I did early on. Granted, some of my ignorance is on me, as the information is all available online. But I bought books and read them, thinking that they'd make me educated, and they only gave me half the picture, and I trusted my doctors and midwives, and they also only gave me half the picture.

Man, I'm bitter about it. It's so crazy to me because it's something I wanted and I'm so happy when my little guy smiles and giggles at me. But I almost died and no one seems to give a shit.

Re: Rant/vent thread

[(Anonymous)]

I give a shit if the anonymous word of a stranger on the internet is any help. I've seen what my friends have went through and both pregnancy and motherhood look gruelling.

If I'd nearly died during childbirth I'd be an utter mess. You're coping incredibly well from my perspective and you should be proud of yourself for getting through all this stuff.

Re: Rant/vent thread

[herpymcderp]

Well, I see and understand both sides of the picture. Midwives benefit from publicizing the happiest, most natural, most "beautiful" picture of birth that they can because it increases patronage and increases the chances of that actually being their client's experience. Physicians are limited professionally because angry patients are not complicit patients, and the very last thing you want to do is to have an expectant mother who doesn't trust your judgement.

I really think the best thing to do would be to treat birth like any other huge, traumatic surgical procedure and have before and after psychological consultations. Let a psychiatrist be the one to educate about hard truths if a patient is experiencing them or even if they might experience them.

But then I've also said for years that all physicians should have mandatory psych training and only now is that starting to become a partial reality. ...At least it's starting to change?

Also, fuck the Mommy cult. It's so toxic that I and the SO don't have kids and we've already decided not to be friends with parents if we ever do. Present company excluded, of course. :)

Re: Rant/vent thread

[a_potato]

Oh man, I somehow missed this.

You make a good point about the limitations placed on and faced by professionals. And I think you're spot-on re: psychological consultations. I consider myself lucky in that both the practice I go to and the practice I take my son to actively monitor for PPD, but more could definitely be done.

There's got to be a change in the wider culture, in how we approach the entire process as a whole. I have a good friend who gave birth 4 months before me and, despite our closeness and despite the fact that she normally has a low tolerance for bullshit, she edited the nature of her experience. And she didn't even realize she was doing it until after the fact! There's a narrative, and it's strong as hell, and we all feel compelled to perpetuate it.

As for the rest, man, I don't blame you. The only friends I have who are parents are either those whom I knew before they had kids, or those whom you don't know are parents until someone asks.