9/12
"Getting back into a normal routine helped. Going back to work reminded me that I'm not just a mom. I have a career still. I have friends here at work, and there's more to life. I'm not only a mom.
Rita – I call her my work mom – she's this amazing mom with two daughters. I told her a little bit about what was going on and she said, 'That's normal. A lot of people feel that way after they have babies,' which reset my mind a bit. Some of these feelings are normal. I'm not a psychopath. I slowly started to climb out of it.
Rita was telling me about her niece who had a baby and had a traumatic birth experience. She actually lost her entire uterus and they had to do a total hysterectomy on her. Rita was saying her niece wasn't doing well emotionally.
I had never heard of a pregnant person or a woman with a baby saying, "Hey, I'm not okay."
It was the first time anyone has ever really shared that they weren't doing well. So it opened the window for me to confess, 'I'm not doing well.'
You only hear about these beautiful stories: 'The mom is doing so well, look at her! She's such a great mom!' and sure everyone knows about postpartum depression, but you don't really hear women's stories of postpartum depression. Rita gave me a venue to talk about it."
9/12