Exploring UP journeys among women with psychiatric vulnerability using interpretative phenomenological analysis 173 "I don’t always want to sit there just like talk about my feelings because my feelings are very negative. So to feel positive, I need to look outward of myself. So that’s why talking doesn’t really help but uhm coping I think is better if I get to uhm kind of do things that I still enjoy and love doing. And stop thinking about all the bad." (Participant 8) Additionally, participant 6 described it as "just focusing on the positive". She commented on another helpful aspect of any pregnancy: its duration. The passage of time helped her in accepting the pregnancy and adjusting to the new reality. "I was super, super weak, he [her partner] was depressed and it was like, completely, you know, ups and downs all the time. So that was not very pleasant, to be honest. But that passed for both of us. And more or less since the second trimester started, it's like I started to feel better. He also started to feel better emotionally. And right now, we are looking forward to everything." (Participant 6) Breaking old patterns Pregnancies made participants reflect on their own childhood and their parents’ parenting skills. As all participants and one partner spontaneously mentioned an unsafe upbringing, they were motivated to meet their babies with unconditional love, safety and healthy parenting skills and to break the chain of intergenerational trauma. Participant 1 comments on doing so differently. "We both have this feeling that we just don't want to do it the way our own parents did, actually." (Participant 1) For participant 2, the most difficult part was that she never experienced unconditional safety. She was aware of that and would love to provide it for her child. It frightened her that she has not had an example of this. "I don't know how it feels to have, sort of unconditional safety, um, because I've never experienced that, and I know; I'll never feel that. Um, and in that aspect, that's something I would really want, so I'm working very hard on that. At the same time, it's very frightening that you don't know how that feels. So, planning to give something you don't know." (Participant 2) Although women had often previously sought or received professional help for psychiatric symptoms, the current pregnancy acted as the instigator of help-seeking behavior. Participant 3 illustrates that for herself, she would be less motivated to seek
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