Back from the Abyss: Psychiatry in Stories | Psychotherapy, Trauma, and Psychedelics
May 1, 2026 · 1 hr · 19 segments
Amidst a long catalog of previous BFTA stories featuring complex or developmental PTSD, today’s story is one of classic DSM-style PTSD, it’s a story of both medical and parenting trauma, of facing the…
Tracy's first child, a daughter, ended up in the NICU with fever and presumed meningitis.
She then had two painful miscarriages, and finally her son, who turned out to be her biggest challenge of all.
Um, I was put on hormones to maintain the pregnancy because of those previous miscarriages.
And then at, at, uh, one of my last prenatal appointments at about 37 weeks, our s- our son was determined to be small, like inner uterine growth re- retardation.
And, um, the, the urgency around this, you know, included a last-minute amniocentesis to check on lung development, and then I was induced with Pitocin, which, um, is...
It was extremely painful and like a-- felt like a, like a violent sort of way to give birth, you know.
And I... at one point I asked for an epidural, but it was too late because the Pitocin was so fast-acting.
[chuckles] And, uh, he was four pounds, nine ounces, so pretty tiny, but had good Apgar scores and, um, we also brought him home, I think, a couple nights later.
[chuckles] When we got home, he also spiked a fever, like our daughter had, um, but we had a, a fantastic new pediatrician at this point, and she came over to the house, unswaddled him, put him by the wi- walked over to the window, and just the, like, breeze brought the fever down, and he was fine.
You can also give him water," which, you know, none of this we, we knew for our daughter.
I think he was sort of catching up on development, so it was, like, quite a peaceful month, you know, with our second child and feeling like, "Oh, this is, this is easy 'cause it's our second child." [chuckles]So and then, but then, you know, he, subsequently he was missing developmental milestones, like sitting up and crawling, et cetera.
Tracy's first child, a daughter, ended up in the NICU with fever and presumed meningitis.
She then had two painful miscarriages, and finally her son, who turned out to be her biggest challenge of all.
Um, I was put on hormones to maintain the pregnancy because of those previous miscarriages.
And then at, at, uh, one of my last prenatal appointments at about 37 weeks, our s- our son was determined to be small, like inner uterine growth re- retardation.
And, um, the, the urgency around this, you know, included a last-minute amniocentesis to check on lung development, and then I was induced with Pitocin, which, um, is...
It was extremely painful and like a-- felt like a, like a violent sort of way to give birth, you know.
And I... at one point I asked for an epidural, but it was too late because the Pitocin was so fast-acting.
[chuckles] And, uh, he was four pounds, nine ounces, so pretty tiny, but had good Apgar scores and, um, we also brought him home, I think, a couple nights later.
[chuckles] When we got home, he also spiked a fever, like our daughter had, um, but we had a, a fantastic new pediatrician at this point, and she came over to the house, unswaddled him, put him by the wi- walked over to the window, and just the, like, breeze brought the fever down, and he was fine.
You can also give him water," which, you know, none of this we, we knew for our daughter.
I think he was sort of catching up on development, so it was, like, quite a peaceful month, you know, with our second child and feeling like, "Oh, this is, this is easy 'cause it's our second child." [chuckles]So and then, but then, you know, he, subsequently he was missing developmental milestones, like sitting up and crawling, et cetera.
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