When Faith and Postpartum Depression Collide


Faith. The belief that your life will unfold as it was meant to, even when it unfolds into something painful and difficult to navigate. I read that sentence in chapter 10 of Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis. This line saved me from myself this weekend.




Let me start off by saying this weekend was rough. Postpartum depression kicked in to overdrive and nothing, nothing made me feel good about myself. I made myself believe that nothing I was doing was going anywhere. It was all a waste of time. I was a waste of time.

I have all of these dreams. I even shared them all here on the blog. This weekend, in my mind, they did not matter. I would never, ever, ever achieve any of them, so why do I even try anymore?

Postpartum depression is not a very nice person. It makes you believe all of those negative things that get put in your head. I sat on my couch and cried. I sat on my couch letting myself believe I was a bad mom. Letting myself believe that I would never achieve any of my goals that I've set.

At that moment I also had no friends. There was no one in the world I could count on. It was all me or nothing. If I couldn't figure this out, no one could. Postpartum depression is lonely.

I sat there for what seemed like hours trying to come up with some form of motivation to get off the couch. Do something with my time. Prove to myself that I was worth it. That my dreams deserved to live and be achieved.

That's when I thought about having faith and remembering to be grateful. Grateful for what I have already. Grateful for the people who do care for me and cheer me on. Grateful to have a loving husband who was there to listen and take care of baby bloob when I needed some space to figure things out.

Somewhere in that dark hole that I fell into Sunday morning I found just a tiny little glimpse of hope. That tiny little bit of hope helped me to reach out to a friend who then drove almost 2 hours to come be at my side.

I am not going to tell you everything is that simple and it will all work out immediately, but in that moment I felt better. I felt like for just a few hours that I mattered. It motivated me to get up and do something with my day.

I let faith take over and it put depression in it's place. It made me remember who I was and what I was trying to achieve. Am I healed completely? No. But it reminded me that everyday can be a battle, but that doesn't mean I have to participate in it.

I choose to love me no matter what. I will get through this depression and I will get back to the person I know I am, but as a reminder, I am not the only one battling this, and neither are you my friend.

Every day is a new day and today I choose to be happy. That's all I can do. One day at a time.

Namaste.



Trish List signature

No comments