Imagine yourself being caught in a rainstorm. All of a sudden, that skies part and the sun is shining and for a brief moment, it looks as though the worst is over.
Then it starts raining again, only this time it's coming sideways and so hard that it causes you to lose your balance and you fall....but never seem to stop falling.
The sun shines again, soon followed by the rain, a little thunder, maybe some hail and a great deal of wind.
Rinse
Repeat
Postpartum depression is a vicious cycle of feeling like things are great, then feeling like your entire world is crumbling and you aren't sure why. You don't recognize yourself. You doubt yourself. You wonder if your children would be better off with someone else.
There are moments of hope and moments of despair. Moments of happy and moments of sad.
All of these moments, packed into a hormonally charged postpartum transition that can take years to navigate.
Until it happens, it feels like a far fetched idea that has a huge stigma of being wrong or bad. Until it happens, it seems like that thing that can't possibly happen to you because you've got your shit together.
Until it happens.
And it happens. And you fall. And you don't know how you're ever going to get up.
But you do.
And the sun shines and there comes a day where you feel like that storm is never going to come again because you're just not going to let it.
Postpartum depression is scary and it's real. It presents itself in so many different forms from panic attacks to anxiety, from paranoia to rage. From isolation to extreme euphoria and even psychosis.
If you're feeling that things just aren't quite right and you can't recognize yourself or you feel that storm keeps coming, there is help. Lean on your supports and know that there people out there that want to see you dominate and be an incredible parent.
It doesn't define you and it doesn't own you.
That storm will end and the sun will shine.
xoxo
Shannon
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