I know that many women have traumatic births and would describe it as horrific and horrendous etc. but would most women say this, and if so why aren’t most women having to have counselling for trauma after having each baby? I have probably got tokophobia but then I am just living in fear all the time, and have all my life. I have been shut in a room on my own as a toddler and neglected, and then sexually abused by my brother in the room and then bullied and tormented by him and threatened with a knife. Compared to these things is labour as bad a trauma or as horrific as being sexually abused as a child for most women? I have had a fear of labour since I was a child probably because of women screaming in films and thinking that it is a terrible trauma like the trauma of being raped or having your world totally fall apart like mine did when my mum shut me away and left me to the devices of my older brother. My friends tried to help me by reassuring me about labour and none of them had very traumatic births, and I tried to reassure myself by thinking that people who had kidney stones often had the same amount of pain but they didn’t get fears and nightmares and trauma after, but now I think that labour is a major emotional trauma and even if kidney stones is as bad physically labour is much worse emotionally than having kidney stones or any other physical pain and that puts all the fear of emotional trauma back in my mind. It seems most women are terrified of birth and yet they are going along having the nightmarish horror each birth, and not needing extensive therapy. I spoke to a psychiatric nurse and she said that any other emotional trauma you would remember but not birth but that made me feel worse. If birth is as bad as say the experience of being sexually assaulted or being in a terrifying train crash and being trapped in twisted metal for hours, or being kidnapped with the threat of torture how do women just forget it because they are so happy they have the baby, surely they would need counselling too, and their mind would be reeling in trama despite having a baby. I read that many yummy mummy’s wear their horror stories like a badge of honour, do most mother’s feel that labour is a horror, like having been in a horror film, like the previous things I mentioned? Is it as bad for them as being sexually assaulted or the other things? I feel mocked by them because they are so proud they have suffered pain, but I have suffered horrors that I feel sure are far worse for my whole life and yet feel nothing but shame for having been polluted mentally physcally and emotionally.
I said that I think i suffer from tokophobia but it is only the fear of trauma. I read that other women think it’s disgusting, but I don’t feel that, things like blood, faeces and the idea of being pregnant don’t worry me at all.

Well I didn’t read all of that it hurts my eyes but in reference to your original question I can tell you that after a particularly painful or traumatic experience the brain releases a hormone that dulls your memory of it. So during childbirth if you asked a woman, ‘So when do you plan to have the next one?’ they would reply something along the lines of ‘Are you freaking crazy? Never again!’

But later when the hormone has kicked in they won’t remember the pain, although they will probably remember thinking ‘this is way too painful’, that isn’t as potent. So they’ll get pregnant again and not remember until they are giving birth again.

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