“I don’t feel like myself”.
Not feeling like yourself is a common statement that describes what anxiety and depression may feel like. However, depression and anxiety shows up differently for each person. Postpartum Support international indicates some of the most common but this list is not exhaustive. (https://www.postpartum.net/learn-more/pregnancy-postpartum-mental-health/):
Are you feeling sad or depressed?
Do you feel more irritable or angry with those around you?
Are you having difficulty bonding with your baby?
Do you feel anxious or panicky?
Are you having problems with eating or sleeping?
Are you having upsetting thoughts that you can’t get out of your mind?
Do you feel as if you are “out of control” or “going crazy”?
Do you feel like you never should have become a mother?
Are you worried that you might hurt your baby or yourself?
The weeks and months after the birth of a child are known as the postpartum phase of motherhood. It is a time often mixed with change, joy, transition, challenges, and growth. A moment in a woman’s life that can feel bound by expectations and longing for their own journey. Often times, a variety of factors combine to add to a new mom’s stress that leave her feeling not quite like herself. Society can minimize this postpartum period’s great transition as something that all women must struggle with. However, you don’t have to listen to those who say you’ll get through it, just power through. Supportive counseling and therapy has been shown to help new moms manage stressors and feel more like themselves again.
During pregnancy and motherhood, there are so many books and well intentions from family members and friends offering advice and experiences of motherhood. While they offer insights into experiences of those people, these intentions and portrayals are often not perfectly aligned with our own experience of birth and motherhood. That is because every mother is unique, every child and birth unique, and thus the journey unique. There is not one guidebook or woman who can pave the way for you or offer what will work for you, your child, and your family. This can be an overwhelming and exhausting realization. However, it can also be freeing. If you are able to allow yourself to connect with the journey as it as for you, and not how you envisioned or expected it to be, you can begin to create a path of motherhood that works for you.
The path of motherhood is paved with stones from our own upbringing, messages from society, and expectations of ourselves and our identity as women and mothers. Often times, we don’t even realize we are walking along a path until we notice that it isn’t working and something feels off. Perhaps you have felt this way: alone, unsure of if you were doing the right thing, overwhelmed with the daily obstacles of caring for a newborn and figuring out how to live in a new body and a new identity. You might have reached a point that you don’t feel like yourself anymore. Therapy can help.
The transition to motherhood can bring up issues from your childhood that are unresolved. It can stir up issues of body image, self esteem, and anxiety that you weren’t even aware of. Talking to a therapist about your anxieties, your fears, your insecurities, and your ups and downs can help to create a place of nurturing for you and your journey. It can help you to make sense of everything you are experiencing and to not feel alone. Therapy is a non-judgmental and supportive space for you to grow into this new phase in your life.
Are you feeling overwhelmed by all of the changes and wondering how to manage? Meeting with a therapist can help. Reach out for support by contacting Ma Zen Space and Megan Bousquet by emailing info@mazenspace.com and schedule your free initial consultation. www.mazenspace.com/contact
