How to Stop Falling into Postpartum Depression
If a pregnant woman walked up to me and asked, “What is the most important advice that you could give me regarding new motherhood?” I would say:
“You might have all kinds of feelings all across the board, from the most horribly painful to the most blissfully positive. The most important thing is to understand how common your feelings are, and to talk about them.”
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One of our biggest problems in postpartum depression is that we “feel bad for feeling bad”. :(
We aren’t supposed to feel bad as a new mother.
We aren’t supposed to have difficulty adjusting to our new role.
We aren’t supposed to grieve our old free time.
And our partner isn’t supposed to be acting the way he is.
We are supposed to feel elated, have a great relationship, and have this ideal joyful life.
And since all the other mothers appear to be feeling so great, we feel isolated, we feel alone in their feelings, we feel ashamed... and we fall deeper and deeper into depression.
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So, How can we can protect ourselves from falling?
We can acknowledge how common our feelings are, and talk about them... all of them...
It is so incredibly empowering to talk about the most shameful feelings that we would never want anyone to ever know about.
It is those feelings that are the key.
Once we turn that key and see that our experiences are perfectly normal...
We can stop descending, and we can rise to the surface. <3
To Your Happy Mother LIfe...
Marni Penner
A Kanadai Coach :)