My PPD Story

May is Mental Health awareness month. Which is kind of a coincidence, because since having a baby almost 8 months ago, this month has kind of been a breakthrough for me in feeling comfortable enough to talk openly about my postpartum mental health experience.

I have Postpartum Depression. It’s in the present tense because I am not completely out of the woods yet, but I am in a much better place than I was even 1 month ago. I see a lot of people talk about PPD when they are finally out of the darkness, and I understand why. I could not have talked so freely about this in my deepest, darkest moments (though I alluded to it here in early March). But I wanted to share some things while I am still in it, so that I don’t write about it later with too much of an optimistic ‘looking back at it now’ point of view.


In the weeks leading up to giving birth, I made sure to talk with my husband, Nate, about how I was a possible candidate for postpartum depression. I knew it existed, and I have a history with sad days and anxiety-driven moments, so PPD/PPA was in the back of my mind.

But then I had our baby. And I was fine. I was happy! And so in love! The first two months of motherhood were definitely a roller coaster, but the type of rollercoaster I had prepared myself for. My baby and I were learning how to breastfeed. My husband and I constantly snuggled our sleepy Julien, and we all slept in 2 hour increments. I was enamored with how cute and small my baby was. Friends were bringing us dinner 3 times a week. I got a little fresh air every day. I even worked a little. I did have anxiety around having visitors over too often, but what new mom doesn’t? Overall, our first two months were pretty honeymoon-y.

And then about 10 weeks in, something changed. Not with how much I loved my baby, but with my levels of anxiety and overwhelming sadness. They skyrocketed. It may have had to do with our baby’s skin problems we couldn’t figure out, and it may have had to do with breastfeeding still being a big (mental + physical) struggle, but I have a feeling the PPD would have happened even with out those factors. Because PPD doesn’t need a reason. Over the next weeks, things felt increasingly out of control. Everything. Nothing was mine anymore. My brain wasn’t mine. Pretty much every day I felt some type of either overwhelming sadness or overwhelming anxiety. The amount of times I told myself “I love my baby, but I hate this. I hate being a mom.” is too many to count.

I couldn’t admit to anyone I was feeling this way. I wanted to be a mom! We planned! We tried! We miscarried! And we tried again! And we got our precious rainbow baby who we loved! But I couldn’t tell people how sad I was all the time, how I lived in a constant state of either really sad or really rage-y. When people looked lovingly at my baby and commented “ohhhh it’s just the best, isn’t it?” I’d cringe inside, but smile and tell them yeah, it’s pretty great. When they said “motherhood looks so good on you.” I’d say a quick thanks and change the subject. When they said “how are you doing?” I’d tell them about how Julien’s skin problems were frustrating or how we weren’t sleeping well, but other than that everything was really good. But my actual thoughts looked more like “Motherhood is the worst thing I’ve ever been through.” and “I want to leave. Nate is such a good dad, they don’t need me.” and “I dread the start of every day. I am so sad, but I don’t know why.” But there was no way I could say any of that out loud. (And if I haven’t made it clear, at no point did I resent or hate my baby. The feelings were all towards life with a baby, but not Julien himself.)

My mind felt like this (and so many other feelings of anxiousness, unworthiness, sadness and frustration) for a solid 2 months. Through holidays and getaways. Through get togethers and through social media “highlights”. Even while sitting in church, listening to others worship God.

Even in the earlier days, I knew I was probably experiencing PPD, but I didn’t want to admit it myself. I wanted to be ok!! I wanted to love this!! And even after I did admit it to myself, it was hard to really believe that it would get better. It’s a sadness that, when you are in it, can’t be solved. And for me, my heart became very cynical. Everything made me mad. I couldn’t control being so mad about everything. I felt dark. There is no light. I remember telling Nate that I could not see a light at the end of the tunnel. The idea of feeling good, feeling like myself, was foreign to me. There were multiple weeks when I, a lifelong Christian, did not believe in God. Straight up. It wasn’t even a question to me. God did not exist.

The worst of it were months 4 and 5. In my true deepest moment, I remember thinking “I am not going to kill myself, but I understand why people do.” When he got home from work, I told Nate that exact sentence, and his face was scared. I promised him that I was not going to do anything destructive to myself, but I truly felt the darkness of why people do. It was a state of living/thinking that I wanted to get out of, and that is how some people do it. And I now, and forever will, understand why.


Sitting here, almost 8 months postpartum, I can tell you I’m definitely feeling more like myself, but I’m not fully back to ‘normal’ yet, back to me. Around 5 months postpartum, I stopped breastfeeding (sharing that story soon) and started going to therapy, which I’m super thankful to have as a resource (fyi: it took me about a month to even do any research and set up my first session). I do believe those two changes have helped me start this healing process. But I still have days when I have to fight to stop the sad thoughts. Just recently I fell deep into a hole of “Julien deserves better than what I can do for him. He is so happy. He deserves a happy mom.”. I know that is the PPD. Generally, now, I know when I’m ‘in it’, but I’m still learning how to get myself out. When I’m in it, fighting to grab hold of the good thoughts is hard. It’s so hard.

I’m not glad to have experienced this, and I certainly do not wish PPD on anyone, but I do have 100% more empathy and understanding for people who live with depression every day.


I share my story for 2 reasons.

The first reason is to kind of come clean? I feel like maybe I have been a little dishonest about how this motherhood journey is going. Too highlight-y? I feel like I have been hiding the truth, and writing this has helped me feel free and open and honest. I promise to be more open and honest in real life, as well.

The second is to hopefully help people realize that postpartum depression doesn’t always show up the minute your baby is born. It can develop over time. I took the postpartum depression ‘screening’ (12 questions about how I was feeling) at my 6 week postpartum appointment and passed with flying colors, only to start experiencing signs of it 4 weeks after that.

I also want to emphasize the PPD isn’t only about not connecting with your baby, or not loving your baby, or thoughts about wanting to harm your baby (as a lot of PPD stories talk about). It can definitely be about those feelings towards yourself as well.

I read so many PPD stories (like Chrissy Tiegen‘s) before I was even pregnant, and while I was pregnant, but I didn’t truly understand until I was in it. Once I realized it, I went back to those stories and cried from the relief that I am not alone, that I am not crazy, that I am not the first person to experience this.

If you’re reading this and you’re in the deepness of PPD, tell someone you trust. Soon. Don’t hold it all in. It’s, of course, easier said than done, but the sooner you tell someone, the sooner you can navigate the steps to recovery (I know “steps to recovery” sounds so mentally exhausting, and it is. Focus on just one step a day.) Read this. And this.

Also, if you are pregnant, please don’t let this scare you. Every woman is different. You are reading this, so you know PPD exists, and that’s good. It’s good to at least know.

Everyday is better. Not every day is the best. There is never a day I don’t love my kiddo. But I’m only now learning to love myself in this new role of mom. One day at a time.


Real Talk: It’s OK to take time away from social media

One of my 2019 goals is to spend way less time on social media. When the idea to take every other week of 2019 off of Instagram came to me, it felt like such a not-normal idea. Not normal for what life says is normal these days, and for me, as a social media loving human. It seemed hard. My excuse for always being on socials was “but I have a business I need to tell the world about!”. Yes, I would do social media marketing, but honestly, I mostly was constantly scrolling with no real plan in mind. So this challenged seemed challenging, as challenges are. But then I remembered the time in 10th grade when someone dared me to be a vegetarian for a week and I lasted an entire year. So I guess challenges are kinda my thing.

My first #InstaOffWeek was a little tough. It was basically a time to retrain my brain to not immediately click on Instagram and start scrolling when I grabbed my phone. It was second nature to do that. I actually think I had become addicted. I’ve had 3 “off weeks” so far, going into my 4th, and it gets easier every time. Here are some positive things I’ve noticed my time away from Instagram has taught me:

  • There is WAY less comparing my day/kid/life/business to other people’s. Space to live my own life, ya know?
  • It gives me time to clear my head. I process the day’s events without feeling the need to talk about it on social media while it’s still happening. Similarly, the time away given me perspective on what and how much to share.
  • This is the best: I’ve been SO productive. The time I usually spend on Insta (and by now you realize it was a LOT of time), I’ve instead spent reading more – my own books, but also to Julien. I’ve been leaning into my hobbies like embroidering, blogging (HI!) and journaling. And also just resting my brain more! These are things I’ve always wished I had “more time to do”, the difference now is I’m intentionally choosing to use my time to do those things.
  • I think this is the most interesting finding so far: The time away has given what I DO share during my ‘on’ weeks much more purpose and focus. I don’t feel the need anymore to post something to just to have SOMETHING there. I’m thinking about my content more, and honestly, it gives me more satisfaction knowing that I am creating this quality feed verses throwing random stuff up just to stay in the algorithm. Yeah, I know, it’s weird that I even had to think like that it the first place. That’s social media, I guess.

So among all the Pros there is also one Con to not being on Insta as much! I obviously follow a lot of my longtime friends, and though we don’t communicate personally every day, it IS nice to keep in touch daily via socials. I always pick Instagram over Facebook to do this, so I definitely feel like I’ve been missing out on some moments over these last weeks.

That being said, I plan on sticking with my plan of being off Insta every other week for 2019. Maybe I’ll add Snapchat and Twitter into the mix one of these weeks (though I do find that those generally aren’t as big time sucks as the ‘Gram is.)

Let me know if you end up doing your own “time off” challenge! I would love to hear how it goes and what you learn!

Consuming / Creating

Lately I’ve been living my life as a consumer, especially when it comes to the internet. I’ve been feeling the exhaustion from all this consuming and only a few days ago did it hit me as to why. I’ve been watching and invested and curious about the awesomeness of other people’s lives and art, but completely forgot about creating something awesome for my own.

I’ve become someone who only consumes. And as a creative person, consuming so much of other people’s art, life, and content has had a negative effect on my own creative process. I haven’t truly created anything I am super proud of for a very long time. I’ve been so consumed with consuming that my own self expression & my own creative process has been at a standstill.

That ain’t healthy!

There is value in consuming for inspiration, yes. There is inspiration in seeing how other people live, how other people create. But there is a time when it becomes a distraction and an overload, or straight up overwhelming. There is such thing as too inspired. There is also such thing as too MUCH.

My point is! I’m taking a step back from some of my social media accounts, from some of the websites and blogs I read. I am taking a minute to myself, to create a life I want, instead of wishing my life looked like that person’s. I’m planning to create some things that suck, but also some things that are really good. Things that matter to me.

I suggest you evaluate how much you consume versus how much you create and take a step back from the ‘inspiration’ if you need to!

Married for Life

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Last year I did an in-depth blog post of cute/important things Nate and I learned during our third year of marriage. This year I barely posted about our anniversary on social media at all. Not because I wasn’t excited to be married for another year, but because this year was hard. I was hesitant to be super lovey-gushy-dovey about it, like anniversary posts usually are, because I wanted to be really real about it.

I wanted to post something like “every year gets better and better!”, but I had to get real. Year four wasn’t all roses and love notes. It honestly was a big kick in the “welcome to the non-honeymoon stage of marriage” butt. Maybe we had it really easy the first three years, or maybe this is what marriage is really like. Even though it was tough, year four was also an incredible adventure to Italy together. We joined a church planting team together, and celebrated birthdays and promotions together. And together is the only way I ever want to do it. So here’s to year five – and the rest of life together – and all the crazy adventures it will bring!

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P.S. We spent our anniversary driving 5 hours up to Syracuse for a college friend reunion (more on that soon). I was cool with that plan, because we don’t do anything over the top for our anniversary anyways. But! When we got to our hotel room, there were pretty flowers waiting for (I thought) us, but really for me! N had ordered them and had them delivered to our room to surprise me. Sweetest ever. <3

Doing Our Best

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There’s a phrase I repeat over and over to myself whenever I’m either A) being judgmental towards other people or B) being really hard on myself. That phrase is “We’re all trying to do our best.” It is never meant to be a way out of trying hard (in the “hey, at least you’re trying” vein). Instead it’s a firm reminder that everyone is fighting a different battle, everyone has their own way of doing things, and that we have to trust that every person really is trying their best in life. When I say it to myself, it’s a reminder that I am not ‘them’. I am me. If I am truly trying as best as I can, then I can’t be mad at myself. Try saying this phrase to yourself the next time you’re feeling judge-y or putting yourself through the comparison trap. It definitely helps me get my head back in the right space.

image by stephen grigoriou