One of the first questions I get asked when someone learns I had postpartum psychosis is “what is it exactly?” With today being international postpartum psychosis awareness day I thought I’d dive into explaining what it is. If you would like to read about my experience you can read the blog series ‘what brought me here‘
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Have you, like myself, ever looked at your husband peacefully sleeping through the night while you’re up feeding the newborn? Of course, I’m sure you have. Did you feel that resentment boil up inside? Frustration, anger even, that once again you must feed the little one?
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I saw a picture on Facebook time hop this morning. It was of my youngest, the baby who triggered the postpartum psychosis.
For so long I thought God was crazy for sending Graysen along. I knew God saw the full picture but this time I did not want to come along willingly.
Back to the point, I saw this picture, it was of me kissing him and he had the biggest smile, the one that makes smile wrinkles even on a 7 month old. I could almost hear his baby giggle as I looked at the picture of me kissing him over and over.
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I’m reading back through my journal. I’m so glad I kept one so detailed through my journey. I came across my struggle of owning my story. It’s funny how sometimes when you look back you don’t remember things to be as hard as they really were.
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It is an interesting time we live in. To travel we had to show medical forms every step of the way. Even in Salt Lake City airport. It is not easy currently to leave the country, and I’m not really sure why someone would want to leave without a good reason. Every person traveling was asked why they were traveling.
Traveling was really hard on my body. The pressure change during take off and landing sent shooting pains through my head. Not being able to lay down for so many hours. My head was just too heavy to hold up anymore.
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Nothing can go smoothly when it comes to unknown conditions. Especially lots of them, not just one. Conditions that are just recently starting to be studied, looked at.
Even so, things were falling into place. Apartment booked, airplane tickets purchased.
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“There’s no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a good one.”
– Jill Churchill
Mothers Day. It’s a day of reflection for me. It wasn’t always that way. Traumatic experiences seem to change us as a person. For worse, or the better.
As I reflected this year I just was surprised at how far I’ve come as a mother. Through every child I’ve been molded, I’m sure mothers everywhere can relate to that one.
I should be struggling to sleep right now. Full of nerves and excitement for the morning. I suspect there’d be butterflies in my stomach as I thought about the beginning of my new adventure.
Or maybe I’d continue to feel that overwhelming peace I’ve felt from the beginning and be calm about being rolled back for surgery in just a matter of hours. Continue reading
Sometimes I just feel that words bubbling up. Needing to try and escape this cage. Sometimes it’s hard to find words for what I’m feeling and going through. But I have to try because I need to break the Silence.
There’s so much they don’t tell you about postpartum. I wish people prepared for postpartum like they do packing for the hospital. Continue reading
Much like listening to the same song over and over I feel like I can get stuck on repeat in recovery. Finding the same issue resurfacing again and again. It can hurt. It can be frustrating and it most definitely has made me feel defeated at times.
I’ve started to compare my mental recovery to healing from a surgery (appropriate, I know.) It’s really painful in the beginning than slowly the pain comes down as you do things to help it. After that as you heal from the outside people no longer think of your recovery but you still feel the incisions brushing against your clothing, irritated and sometimes painful but most definitely uncomfortable. Continue reading
Mother Hidden 