07/05/2025
Maternal Mental Health Awareness Day.
I feel so conflicted when people ask me, “did you have post-natal depression?” Because I know I didn’t fulfil the whole criteria for diagnosis, but it was far from sunshine and butterflies.
The paradoxes of life never felt so apparent, it was the most magical of times in one of the darkest chapters of my life. As the pillars of my identity, work, relationships were shattered and rebuilt, in tandem learning who my new baby was and what she needed. Learning the term Matresence and what was happening to me and my life. On sleep deprivation. Recovering from birth.
I know I’m not alone in being blindsided by this experience. Where was my mental health training when I needed it? How had we not covered this in depth, especially since everyone comes from a mother?! I was coming up short, so I turned to research and dug deep into what was already out there. Like a lot of things with women’s health, not enough.
Which is why I have become so passionate about addressing post-partum mental health. It is far more complex and nuanced than a binary matter of PPD/PMAD (post-partum depression/perinatal mood and anxiety disorder) or not. There are many shades and stories of postpartum.
It has been fulfilling to work with mothers in therapy and hear them say “I felt so alone” and to acknowledge they are so far from that place now emotionally.
As a social species, when we share stories, communicate honestly with one another, we are feeding a biological need of community and support. Stigma can only be broken once we turn in to one another.
