Postpartum anxiety. The silent sister of the largely talked about postpartum depression. I had it, and it took a long time for me to recognize it, to admit it. I've rarely told ANYONE, even my closest friends. So why share something so personal now in a public forum? I wish there were more people who were brave enough to share their stories and their struggles. I often felt that I was the only one who didn't feel blissfully happy. I was one of the few who couldn't find the time to work, care for my child, make homemade baby food, enroll her in music classes while also finding time for my social life and finding my pre-pregnancy body.
So other new moms don't feel inadequate if they aren't doing all 100 million things. I want new moms to know it gets better. There is hope. That dealing with something like excessive worrying does not make you less of a mom or a bad mom.
While my story and the some of the causes of anxiety are unique to past health scares, anxiety and the challenges after having a baby are very real. For perfectionists such as myself struggling and admitting that motherhood is not perfect bliss brings about shame. And in that shame so many women remain silent. Silently battling a war with ourselves in some ways because it's hard to admit that we do need help, that our days are not perfect Instagram images. That in fleeting moments we urn for our lives BC (before child) when we were independent. Because doing so, especially in such a public way, would destroy that perfect persona we try to convey. It might suggest to others we are somehow less of a mom, and we aren't as perfect as we want to be.
This is my story. My journey through those first years of motherhood in which I did struggle but never wanted to admit it. It's ironic that when you finally find a place of acceptance with your faults, there's a part of you that finds peace. I hope that by sharing both the messy and bright spots of life with a child brings other moms some peace that perfection does not exist and that is perfectly okay.
