I Didn’t Ask For Help As A New Mother… and it wasn’t because I was strong.

I didn’t ask for help as a new Mother – and it wasn’t because I was strong. 

Calling all mommas out there. I want to tell you a bit about my story because as unique each of us is with individual circumstances, i want to remind you and myself we have more in common than we may think. Postpartum, I didn’t want to ask for help. I developed a crippling postpartum depression, anxiety and OCD. And I knew that I “shouldn’t” be feeling “this way”. I had intrusive, unpleasant and scary thoughts. I had envisioned feeling completely different feelings than I was dealing with, when I brought my brand-new beautiful baby home. And The feelings changed; they got worse and worse as my depression became profound. I didn’t ask for help. Not because I was strong, or had it handled, because I knew I didn’t have it handled.  

But what did it look like at the surface level? Besides my partner, nobody else knew that I was suffering. And in part, to protect my partner, I never divulged fully, the depths of my despair. I was functioning (technically). I was doing all the things mothers do. I was keeping it together at surface level without breaking into tears when I wanted to. From a distance, I appeared “capable”. I did this to such a degree that I was actually complemented on how well I was doing postpartum! Another mother in a park saw me with my son and after finding out I was only 2 weeks postpartum, compared me to “other mothers” and reiterated how “amazing” I was. Little did she know that I was feeling soooo far from amazing.  

People can assume independence, strength, or that somehow, “she’s got this”. And to be fair, I absolutely felt I SHOULD have this. And I knew deep down that I really didn’t. What I was feeling and considering was that I didn’t want to be a burden. I may have had a baby, but I also had a 3-year-old who needed me. I had a partner who needed me to be present and participate when all I wanted to do was to crawl into a hole. I didn’t want to interrupt the flow, or the sweet chaos of our new baby days with ... me. I knew I needed help. There were some invisible standards I was trying to meet. And I even slipped into wanting to be in control, masked as care – taking. I wanted to do everything for him, myself. I knew I would do it faster than explaining how I wanted it to be done.   I didn’t want to be challenged. Having a child who challenged me depleted my non-existent reserves. I was irritable. Very irritable. It got so dark so quickly that I realized that I was going to have to ask for help, or I didn’t know what I would do. Thoughts could be frightening.  

I say this out loud because I want very much to let moms know that many of us have been touched by postpartum mental health struggles. It is the most common complication of birth and there is a high cost if it goes untreated. Women who experience it also have an increased risk to experience depression in life in general. Many, like me, know depression like a well-worn sweater and have dealt with it many times before. The cost includes exhaustion, isolation, and disconnection. It can look like you are holding everything together at surface level while internally, you are slowly unraveling.  And sometimes, when the depression hits and your behaviors adapt to look like a “super mom”, it isn’t that you aren’t strong. It could be that it was self-protection, habit or simply not knowing another way to be. It was “doing the best we could with what we had” at the time. 

I just want to remind you as a mom, as an OBGYN who has worked with many, many women experiencing postpartum mental health challenges, that you don’t have to suffer alone. There really is no shame in falling into that well and having difficulty pulling yourself out. Finally, asking for help in a safe space is what saved me. I was so ashamed of my symptoms and thoughts that nobody would understand. I thought I would be judged as harshly as I was judging myself. I thought that my particular feelings were so much worse than any other moms out there. But they weren’t. And postpartum depression can look like someone is doing “great” on the surface but suffering silently.  

If this is you, reach out. Say something. Tell someone. Confide in someone safe. Surrender to getting the help, it is worth it. I get it. You can get stuck in the “shoulds” and “shouldn’ts”. For a long time, I didn’t think I really had the option to ask for help. I was convinced my story was the story of the one person that a provider wouldn’t be able to save. I thought my brain was the one brain that had gone too far down the “road of crazy” postpartum. There was a part of me that felt un-helpable. I kept waiting until it felt reasonable enough to ask for it. It never did. I asked when it felt unreasonable and I’m glad that I did. It was not an easy journey back to the sunshine, but I got there.  It's okay to need help.  We are here to hold you through it. Let someone in. Allow yourself to be supported. 

Postpartum depression can look very different than more common depression and anxiety. I had what I like to think of as “Supermom Syndrome”.