"Eight miscarriages & a traumatic birth led to PTSD & depression"

Meet @forever.learn.lindsay sharing her #yogasavedmylife story ❤

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"When I was 22 I was diagnosed with a chromosome abnormality called a translocation. It causes miscarriage, a “lethal abnormality”. I ended up having 8 miscarriages in total; 3 live births

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I was sad & isolated, but I never saw a therapist or understood it to be any type of trauma.

The birth of my 3rd son was quite an event. He was stuck in my birth canal & there was a point where we thought one of us wasn’t going to make it.

I came home with a healthy son, but

I was no longer myself

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I'd had bouts of depression before, but this time I didn’t want to get out of bed, my brain was overloaded & sometimes I couldn’t read or form my thoughts into words. Eventually I felt like I didn’t want to live. At that point I called a therapist who told me I had postpartum depression & PTSD caused by the traumatic birth experience & trauma endured over a long period of time due to the miscarriages

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I started attending a public yoga class for the first time because I thought being around people might help.

I told my teacher about my depression & I wanted fixing & she said maybe I just needed to be sad & I needed to let myself feel that sadness. I think it was the first time anybody ever gave me permission to really feel pain. She taught me that I needed to acknowledge what hurt, & somehow that was healing

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Before yoga I wanted to escape my story. Yoga taught me to be with my pain, before I was trying to escape my pain & my body, it was impossible & caused suffering. Now I teach.

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Of course, there's still dark days. Yoga can’t show up for me like it did the first time- because yoga has taught me I have to start showing up for myself. So somedays, hard days, I crawl to my mat. It’s not exciting, it’s not new, part of me doesn’t want to go, but there is some peace in the familiarity it, my practice feels like home. Yoga says- “hey I helped you, now use the tools I gave you.”It isn’t easy, but it does depend on me... and that's where I find my power in yoga 🙏