Happy Mother’s Day – 2013

I’ve written a Mother’s Day blog post each year since I started up this blog in 2009.  After a while, my posts from one year to the next start sounding the same.  I’ve blogged in the past about mompetitions, just as I have blogged about the fact that all too many mothers (i.e., one out of eight) are suffering from postpartum depression (PPD) but you wouldn’t necessarily know that because they can hide their suffering so well, feeling too ashamed to talk about it.  Or like me, they don’t even realize they are suffering from a postpartum mood disorder because the vast majority of our population is lacking in knowledge when it comes to mental health awareness–especially as it pertains to motherhood.  As I’ve mentioned countless times before, the public seems to keep on thinking that the birth of a baby can only be one way–i.e., a beautiful and joyful experience.

May is Maternal Mental Health Awareness Month, as most if not all of you know from reading my last post which is part of Postpartum Support International’s very first blog hop.  If you haven’t visited some of the blog hops posts from PSI’s 2013 blog hop, I recommend that you do so.  If you are experiencing PPD and feel alone…please know that you are far from it.  Take celebrity moms speaking up as an example.  These brave women have gone public with their experiences so that others would not follow in their footsteps in terms of feeling alone.  Now, if only these celebrities can get more involved with PPD advocacy.  We need more moms with a public platform speaking up and helping to combat stigma and spread awareness!

Now, for my Mother’s Day message:

For all the moms out there, remember self care
Is the single most important piece of advice I can give you.
If you are a brand new mom, just remember that
Without adequate rest and nutrition after childbirth
And with exhaustion and physical changes–
Not to mention sleep deprivation and getting up every couple of hours for feedings–
You are opening the door wider for PPD to sneak up on you.

If you are a mom with older children like me,
You may feel the way I now do about this Hallmark occasion.
No more do I need to eat at a fancy restaurant and receive a nice gift from the hubs.
Instead, I look forward to the simple pleasures of
Spending time with family and extended family.
Maybe even visiting a garden or two and take in the spring  flowers
Blooming all around us….nature can have a very calming effect.
I also look forward to just chilling because–
If you are a working mom like me–
You just want to do nothing, really, but relax and
Do something just for you and don’t normally have time for,
Like getting a pedicure or going shopping.

For all those who have a mom (or two) you care about
And will be celebrating Mother’s Day with her today,
Please remember (especially if this is a new mom) that the greatest gift
You can give her is emotional and practical support.
Don’t provide advice unless she asks you for it.
Do provide a shoulder to cry on if she’s having a rough day.
Do provide help so she can get the rest she needs
And/or time to do something just for herself.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there!

Here’s a wish from one mother to another!

xx

Postpartum Support International’s 2013 Blog Hop – Maternal Mental Health Awareness Month

May is a special month for postpartum mood disorder (PPMD) survivors.  Why?  Because it is Maternal Mental Health Awareness Month!  And I’m participating in the very first Postpartum Support International (PSI) blog hop!  The topic of the blog hop is maternal mental health recovery and coping skills.   If you are a blogger who has experienced postpartum depression (PPD) or any other PPMD, please consider joining the blog hop to help spread awareness!  All you have to do is go to the two blog hop host blogs, Kathy Morelli’s Birthtouch and Dr. Christi Hibbert’s blog, and read the guidelines.  There, you will see all the other blogs who are participating in this blog hop.  A great turnout is expected!

I’d like to segue into this particular topic with the following overview of my first ever speaker event.

A week ago, I was a speaker for a PPD event that was co-hosted by St. Clare’s Behavioral Health of Denville, New Jersey and the Partnership for Maternal and Child Health of Northern New Jersey.  For a couple weeks leading up to the event, I was a nervous wreck.  I’d never spoken in front of a group larger than a dozen people, and there was supposed to be 40-50 attendees, some of whom were mental health care practitioners experienced in the topic I was speaking about and some were PPD survivors.  There is nothing more anxiety-provoking to me than standing up in front of a room, being the center of attention (which I’ve always hated) and feeling the 40-50 sets of eyes staring at me and formulating opinions of me.  Friends tried to be reassuring by saying things like “You know your topic well.  It’s your story.  You will do great.”  Well, sure I know my topic well, and I have been trying to forget how horribly isolating and desperate I felt–not to mention fearful that I would never get well again–during my PPD days.   All my thoughts, which flowed effortlessly and passionately all those years onto virtual pages that became my manuscript, are now forever memorialized in my book “One Mom’s Journey to Motherhood.”

A couple times while practicing my excerpt reading, I would get to this one point where a certain passage–so reflective of how I felt while in my darkest of PPD days–would cause me to choke back tears.   Never in a million years would I have ever expected to actually CRY and not be able to stop crying while reading this same passage to my audience last week.  I was taken aback.  I struggled for a few minutes to try to get the tears to stop, but I couldn’t.  I was so embarrassed.  This has never happened to me before.  I have never even cried in front of friends before.  Now, my emotions were completely exposed to this whole roomful of people who, with the exception of two individuals, I’d never even met before.  I asked the audience to excuse my–quite literally–slobbering mess, wiping at my nose and eyes with tissue after tissue.  I believe I saw the table of PPD survivors crying along with me.

Finally, the faucet stopped running.  What a relief!   I’m going to have to put a note to myself on the page where the passage appears and make sure this doesn’t happen again.  But you know what?  The participants insisted that my emotions further authenticated how powerful my words were at moving people.

Why do those words have such an effect on me even today, more than 8 years after my experience?  Because of the deep, dark tunnel I found myself trapped in, alone, and with no real emotional support other than my husband.  He was there for me, helping with the baby and the housework.  He tried to be there for me emotionally, but he had no idea what I was going through.  Heck, I didn’t even know what was going on with me and why.  My OB/GYN and his staff and my GP only made matters worse for me.  I had to suffer through insomnia, panic attacks, weight loss and loss of appetite without any sort of reassurance that I would ever return to my old self.  I was not referred to anyone experienced in the treatment of postpartum mood disorders.  I didn’t consult with a therapist or PPD support group.  I didn’t have any online resources.  I did not have such resources like Katherine Stone’s Postpartum Progress blog or #PPDChat on Twitter.  I didn’t have any friends who had been through what I was going through.

Nothing.  Nada. Zero. Zilch.

That’s why I cried.

I didn’t have friends who understood what I was going through and who could provide a shoulder to lean on and provide non-judgmental advice–ironically, it wasn’t until after I had completely recovered from PPD that I met my PSI friends–friends like Kathy Morelli–who inspire me with the work they do each day.  Even though Kathy is extremely busy, she still found time to appear at the St. Clare’s event to provide me with moral support.  Thank you, Kathy!  If only I had known you while I was in the depths of my PPD experience!  But better late than never, that’s for sure!

I walked into the event a nervous wreck, but came out of it marveling at the warmth of everyone there.   From the wonderful ladies who set up the event to the attendees–everyone was just so warm and welcoming!   The group of PPD survivors there were a close-knit group–they were members of the St. Clare’s PPD Support Group, and I could easily see myself a member of it….if only I had had this kind of support during my own PPD days.  It would’ve no doubt made such a huge difference for me.  I would not have suffered the way I did.  In fact, I had a very nice chat with members of this group after the event was over.  I will never forget this experience, and I can only hope that future speaking engagements like this will have a similar outcome!

And now for my message to you about PPD support groups…..

PPD support groups are led by either professionals or PPD survivors who are using the knowledge gained from their experiences to provide the kind of support that they themselves were unable to find when they were new mothers experiencing PPD. Such groups are usually open-ended, which means there is no start or end. As such, there may be women at different stages of their PPD experience. A support group can be beneficial but will not on its own cure women who are suffering from clinical depression. It can serve as a complement to therapy and/or medication.

The purpose of the PPD support group is to facilitate peer-group support where mothers with similar PPD experiences can share thoughts/feelings with each other in an informal, nonjudgmental setting, and in the process empower one another through education—where information and ideas are exchanged—and support.  PPD support groups are:

• A great deal of comfort and encouragement to women with PPD to see that they are not alone in their experience and, like other PPD survivors who had at one point felt as bad as they did, they will get better. It can be such a relief to hear other mothers describe experiences that are very much like your own. Seeing mothers who are on their way to recovery is encouraging, and, most importantly, provides hope. The mere knowledge that there is at least one other woman who has experienced what you are experiencing can serve as a light at the end of the dark tunnel.  Hope is a necessary ingredient of the recovery process. 
• A forum for sharing thoughts, anxieties, and coping mechanisms.
• A forum for mothers to give each other advice, support, and encouragement to stay on their recovery tracks, including exercising regularly and sticking with medications. This is especially important for those who have no other support system in place and have not been able to lean on their husbands, relatives, friends, or neighbors.

Through the network that PSI has set up across the country (and around the world!), it is encouraging to see more and more postpartum resource centers and PPD support groups forming locally. For more information on these resource centers and PPD support groups, please click here.  But we still need so many more!

Here’s Another Example of How Extreme Thinking is Never a Good Thing

Wow, has it really been over a month since my last post?  Where has all the time gone?!?!  These past couple of weeks, I have been preoccupied with preparing for an event I will be speaking at this coming Thursday.  Most people with no issues with speaking in front of people tell me “Well, you know your subject matter well, so it should be a breeze for you, no?”  But for someone who is petrified of speaking in front of any-sized group, the thought of being in front of, oh, 50 or more people is making me quite anxious.  And I can’t even drink any wine to help take the edge off at this event.  Ughhhhh.

Well, onto more positive things.  The days are now longer, sunnier and warmer.  And that is a really EXCELLENT thing.  And I am going to write my first blog post in 40 days!  The longest break I’ve ever taken since I started my blog in February 2009.  Yikes.

The Fearless Formula Feeder’s latest FFF Friday post really moved me.  A lot.  It’s a detailed account of how a mom named Amy was determined (6 years ago) to try to breastfeed but met with one obstacle after another…the most important of which was the fact that there were quite a number of physiological barriers to breastfeeding that–if the baby were to thrive–gave her no other option but to feed her baby a hypoallergenic formula.

Reading this, one cannot help but feel angry toward the healthcare professionals who do nothing but make a mom’s first attempt at breastfeeding an awful one.  That includes lactation consultants, nurses, OB/GYNs and pediatricians.  If you are going to be of the view that breastfeeding is the ONLY right way to feed your baby, then the least you can do is be supportive.  There should be no room for extreme thinking when it comes to supporting a new mother.  I shouldn’t have to say that being one-sided (or extreme), condescending and mean are not behaviors that  people in these fields should exhibit.  Instead, they should be empathetic and centrist (this is a word that I have grown fond of since I’ve started to pay more attention to politics).  Centrist in that people in health care need to be objective and take into consideration the situation at hand–i.e., in this particular situation, suggest that the baby try (hypoallergenic) formula because the negatives of breastfeeding happen to be outweighing the positives.

What is wrong with a mom trying her darndest to get her baby to breastfeed, but can’t (at the end of Amy’s story, you’ll see what the baby was finally diagnosed with after one extremely trying hurdle after another that had me gritting my teeth) and then is referred by a pediatric GI to a hypoallergenic formula that finally has her baby happily feeding without any difficulties?  NOTHING.

What is wrong with a mom (like me) who initially tries to breastfeed but after a traumatic childbirth and postpartum week in the hospital, doesn’t succeed other than to pump and supplement with formula….and then succumbs to postpartum depression (PPD), has to go on a medley of medications to recover, and has to stop pumping altogether because she doesn’t want the baby exposed to any of the medications?  NOTHING.

What is wrong with a mom who tries to breastfeed but due to physiological issues (this is not an excuse but an actual condition) just doesn’t produce enough milk for her baby?  NOTHING.

What is wrong with a mom who must take medications for a postpartum mood disorder (not a make-believe illness or cop-out) and does not want to expose her baby to the medications?  NOTHING.

What is wrong with a mom who prefers to bottle feed from the get-go for whatever reason she may have?  NOTHING.

Amy’s experience clearly shows that extreme ways of thinking, like breastfeeding is the only way to feed a baby, are FAR from the right way of thinking.  Amy’s daughter and my daughter are but two examples of countless children who were bottle fed…. and yet our girls–now 6 and 8, respectively–are healthy and able to read beyond their years.  Not to mention that a good number of people in my generation (including myself) were all bottle fed.  Are you going to say that we are maladapted and physically and intellectually inferior to everyone who was breastfed?  C’mon, now.  Let’s remove them blinders, alright?

What matters is that the baby is fed.  Everyone has their own viewpoints and preferences.  As long as we are happy with our choices and our babies are happy and healthy, that’s all that should matter.  Trying to push our viewpoints and preferences onto others and insisting that one way is the ONLY right way to do something isn’t right.  Organizations like the American Pediatric Association and La Leche League can continue to make their recommendations, but people really need to stop it with self righteous attitudes and condescension, as well as guilt tripping, bullying, and judging others.  Let’s try to be a bit more supportive and helpful to new moms, especially first-time moms who can use the support.  Okay?

Repeat after me.  THERE IS NO ONE RIGHT WAY TO FEED YOUR BABY.

A Must Read: Emily Bazelon’s “Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy”

Well, I am at a point in which I’ve got so many ideas, but not enough time to post anything.  Until, that is, I spotted in my Facebook news feed this morning the New York Times article by John Schwartz titled “Words That Hurt and Kill: Lessons for Society From Bullying and Its Psychic Toll” about Emily Bazelon’s book titled “Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy.”

As the title of this book suggests, the author touches on bullying–a far-from-new-phenomenon–and the importance of empathy,  defeating the culture of bullying by acknowledging its complexity, and encouraging bystanders to be upstanders (those who stand up for victims).  Laws alone will NOT prevent bullying from occurring.  I hear all the time the lament that “Well, I don’t understand why everyone is making a big deal out of bullying.  Bullying has been around forever.  I grew up with bullying.  My parents grew up with bullying.  Back then, we just dealt with it.  Nowadays, kids don’t seem to want or know how to deal with it.  Instead, they’re copping out by killing themselves.”

Well, as I’ve mentioned in prior posts, don’t forget that we are now in the age of social media.  Back when I was a kid, there was NO social media.   Heck, there weren’t even cell phones.  With text messaging, Youtube videos, Facebook, Twitter, and a whole host of sites you don’t even want to know about but are popular among teens, the impact of bullying can be extremely devastating to a young person who hasn’t mastered coping, self care and real-world survival skills, may be lacking in self esteem,  and may not get much in the way of support and encouragement from family members and friends.  The bar has been raised in terms of the extent of cruelty that individuals are capable of carrying out because these are no longer face to face confrontations.  Take, for example, trolls.  We have all witnessed at least one troll in action in our interactions online.  Usually, it’s in the form of a nonsensical and completely outrageous and completely off-tangent remark that is filled with hate.  You wouldn’t normally see these comments spoken to someone in person, right?    Yes, it’s so much easier to be cruel online than it is in person.

In terms of the in-person bullying, the isolation tactics and backstabbing of cliquey girls, the racist remarks, the physical intimidation tactics, the verbal intimidation tactics….these still occur in school.  If schools and home life are anything like what I experienced back when I was a teenager–i.e., lack of school counselor support and awareness on the part of school staff, lack of support at home, lack of upstanders, lack of empathy–these behaviors (with or without the social media) can result in a very detrimental experience for the bullied child.  I believe depression rates are higher now than they’ve ever been before.  Maybe because more people are speaking up about their experiences and with the aid of social media, news and information on bullying incidents are much more accessible to everyone than ever before, there is the perception that depression rates are higher.  At the same time, access to mental healthcare services in this country is still so sadly lacking.  And then you have the extreme situations, like Columbine and Virginia Tech, in which the bullied exact their revenge.  I don’t remember incidents like those growing up.  Nope, I don’t.

Ms. Bazelon touches on some points that I have previously touched upon:

• Some individuals are more resilient (via a combination of genetics and environmental factors) and will tend to come out of bullying and cyberbullying incidents much less scathed than those who are more susceptible to depression, anxiety and other mood disorders.  It would be nice if we can figure out just which students fall into each bucket to increase the likelihood of preventing situations from developing and/or getting out of hand.
• It was only in the past decade that states put the first anti-bullying laws in place, in the aftermath of Columbine, Phoebe Prince’s bullycide (MA), Tyler Clementi’s bullycide (NJ).
• There seems to be a tendency to label non-bullying behaviors as bullying.  In other words, people are using the word “bullying” so much that this overuse is diluting true acts of bullying.  We need to stop overusing the word because it is not helping matters.

Ms. Bazelon is clearly objective in her presentation of situations she writes about in her book, even as far as showing what I refer to as a neutral take for the sake of presenting the science behind teenage behavior (i.e., the part of the brain that manages impulsiveness and judgment, referred to as the frontal lobe, is not fully developed as of yet) and why the punishment of teenagers is meted out in juvenile rather than adult terms.  Though that is far from an excuse for certain atrocious behaviors that bullying can all too often entail (and believe me, when I read about some of these bullying cases, I wish for every last person that has anything to do with a child’s bullycide to be punished to the FULLEST extent of the law), as they become adults and as long as they are provided counseling (instead of jail time), bullies can see the error of their ways and shed their bullying selves completely.  Some bullies have even gone as far as becoming anti-bullying activists with a mission to speak to schools around the country.

This book needs to be read by not just middle and high school staff, but by all parents.  I fervently believe as many people as possible should read it so there is a widespread understand of the culture of bullying, how to prevent it, how to support the victims, and how to inspire bystanders to become upstanders.

The article leave us with this nugget to chew on as we look at the road before us.  A road in which we need minds to come together to figure out how we need to handle bullying, given all the complexities Ms. Bazelon mentions in her book:

“Ultimately, Ms. Bazelon wisely warns us, we still have to try to let kids be kids.  [Otherwise] ‘We risk raising kids who don’t know how to solve problems on their own, withstand adversity or bounce back from the harsh trials life inevitably brings.’ And so, she says with a sigh: ‘It’s a tricky balance to strike, the line between protecting kids and policing them. But we have to keep trying to find it.’”

Please click here and here to previous blog posts for more links on previous posts relating to teen angst, depression, and bullying…and why I write about it so much on this postpartum depression blog.

Guest Post over at Mama’s Comfort Camp: Happy First Birthday!

My friend Yael Saar is a mama on a mission to remove guilt and shame from parenting in order to make room for joy and love. She is the Founder and Keeper of the Mama’s Comfort Camp, a Facebook community that functions as a safe haven and refueling station for hundreds of moms from around the world. This community is free and open to moms of kids of any age, and we share our laughter, tears, and triumphs, all the while normalizing motherhood struggles and bridgeing the gap between expectations and reality in a uniquely nurturing environment.

I’m so happy to be one of the Campers, and I would love for you to join us.

Please check out my guest post written to celebrate the first birthday of the wonderful community that Yael and her Den Mothers have created.

Perinatal Mood Disorder Survivor Stories Over at Home Life Simplified

A very, very short post from me today to let you know that my fellow Mt. Holyoke alumna, Debra Dane, is featuring a monthly series of interviews with perinatal mood disorder survivors over at her blog, Home Life Simplified.

To check out my interview, which is posted this month, please click here.  Last month featured an interview with my friend Andrea who blogs over at Postpartum and Pigtails.

Check out these other interviews that have been done thus far.  More to come.

Jane from Life on Planet Baby

Debbie from Aspiring Mum

Tina from The Duepners

If you are a perinatal mood disorder survivor, please consider opening up to others about your experience.  It will definitely help other moms who are currently suffering from postpartum depression (PPD) or any one of the other illnesses that comprise the spectrum of postpartum mood disorders that are experienced by more new moms than you would think…since there is a tendency for people to stay quiet about any less-than-positive-experiences at a time that society believes should be nothing but peachy keen.

I’ve found, just like you may very well find, that helping other moms and sharing your experience with others can be extremely cathartic and fulfilling.  Had I known about all the blogs and survivor stories I know now, I would not have felt so alone and helpless during my own struggle with PPD.  The more survivors speak up, the more the public (including healthcare practitioners) will realize the true extent of the prevalence of these postpartum mood disorders and perhaps, just perhaps, there would be more resources to help new mothers cope with and recover from their illnesses….and less stigma!!!!

Thank you, Debra, for interviewing me and for spreading awareness in your mission to share survivor stories!

If I Survived PPD, I Can Survive Most Anything

Since the new year began, I’ve had several situations loom over my head like a dark, ominous cloud.   All sorts of situations that I won’t get into detail here.  I’ve posted recently about and shared with friends in recent weeks the fact that I seem to have reached a turning point with the publication of my book.  A turning point in which I promised myself I would no longer let ghosts of my past continue to keep their stronghold over me.  My personal mantra has become “If I survived postpartum depression (PPD), I can survive most anything.”

In essence, ever since the start of this year–and it’s merely a coincidence that I’m vowing to stay on this path right now, at the beginning of 2013, but this is NOT any kind of new year’s resolution because I never make any–it’s like I’ve been self administering cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) by realizing how certain ways of thinking and behavior are self-defeating and highly detrimental to me and then telling myself to think and respond differently.  Basically, I’m going to be more self nurturing.  Because, you know what?  I’M WORTH IT.

So, what exactly am I going to do differently?  Well, for starters:

1. I am going to say what’s on my mind when people say obnoxious things to me. I used to hold back, only to kick myself afterwards for doing so.
2. I’m not going to let old crippling thoughts take control of me, like automatically thinking “Why me” and retreating under my covers (both figuratively and literally) in despair.
3. I’m not automatically going to cower in defeat like a dog with its tail between its legs when I experience ANY kind of bullying–whether it be at work or online.  By “any” kind of bullying, I mean isolation tactics too, as excluding people deliberately is a form of bullying.
4. I am going to continue my mission in maternal mental health advocacy, of helping moms feel less alone in their PPD experience through this blog.  I may be writing less frequently because, as time goes on, the anger that ignited the passion in this blog is waning.  Yes, anger used to fuel the stream of words that easily appeared in my blog posts.  Without anger, there is no passion.  Without passion, words fail me.
5. I would like to increase my efforts when it comes to anti-bullying advocacy and providing support to teens struggling with issues of self esteem and bullying (support I needed but never got when I was a teenager).  For example, on January 30th, I learned about Noah’s struggle, and I immediately started to write a letter to him and didn’t stop that evening until I completed it.  I know and am very happy that so many caring individuals have written to Noah.  You can still do so.  He is turning 13 on Friday, February 8th.  Click here to see the Letters for Noah Facebook page where you can find out how you can help.
6. And last, but certainly not least, I am not going to let my fear of speaking prevent me from speaking in front of people–be it on PPD (and my book) and/or on bullying.  They say some people fear public speaking more than they fear death.  Well, while that may not necessarily be the case for me, it comes pretty darn close.  I’ve been and will continue to keep the valuable tips I gleaned from Nicole of NWK Consultants in mind during speaking opportunities.

Basically, I am determined not to have any reason for karma to come biting me in the a$$ one day.  I want to live out the rest of my days knowing that I will do the best I can for my family, myself and whoever else I can help along the way.  I want to provide the kind of help I didn’t have when I was a teen and then a new mom struggling with PPD–both situations in which I felt alone and desperate.

This sign, which I stumbled across on Facebook and pinned a couple days ago, says it all for me.  I keep these words firmly engrained in my mind whenever there is a hint of thought that wants to derail my self esteem and put me on the glass half empty train.

If the words of this sign pertain to you, may it give you the strength to carry on as it is helping me.

BE PROUD OF YOURSELF.