Sometimes I plan what I am going to share here and other times life presents a moment (or in this case moments) that catches my attention. Dots appear. And then, all I have to do is connect them.
Dot one: Yesterday I watched the premiere live showing of the documentary Anxious Nation. This is an essential film. I am so glad it exists and will do my best to encourage as many people (parents, teachers, caregivers, family, anyone) as I can to go see it. It’s essential because it’s a real look at anxiety in kids, anxiety in youth, anxiety in parents, anxiety as a family legacy that is passed down from generation to generation, anxiety in tweens/teens (and adults) that is being fueled by craving unattainable realities perpetuated by untethered social media use, anxiety that was amplified and fueled during a real life global pandemic and anxiety that is keeping the collective us from being, loving and enjoying the present moment. The whole project started in 2019 when mom/director Laura Morton reached out to her friend community on Facebook and asked “Kids and anxiety, who is struggling with it?”
May is Mental Awareness Month and if you happen to know truth warriors or read their words or follow them on social media (I know I just lambasted it in the previous paragraph - it’s a messy contradiction this tech space) - you may be noticing that many people are sharing their own mental health journeys to raise awareness and bring that which we keep just below the surface into the light. These month observances in every year that we have allocated a space for in our collective calendars, on topics or issues that need observing and highlighting are a way to see and understand that which may seem foreign or buried and needs unearthing.
Dot two: Yesterday I also read something that I can’t stop thinking about. A woman/writer/mom/community creator who I met during the pandemic through Instagram (I know, there it is again!) Tiffany Madvig shared her journey with post-partum depression through her beautiful writing on her Substack newsletter. I have read all her posts and most ring so true that I find myself nodding yup, yup, yup as I am reading along. But yesterday, I yupped, then paused, then cried because her story isn’t just her story, it’s mine too. Not the details or the timing or the healing or the insights but the bigger story of navigating the complicated, devastatingly lonely, widely still taboo and misunderstood journey of post-partum depression and anxiety.
What connected these two dots for me last night was the comments and responses from other readers of her newsletter and other viewers of the documentary. Comments about being brave for speaking the truth, comments about being courageous for being vulnerable, comments about gratitude for bold enough to talk about hard things and I thought: “Why do we connect truth telling with being brave?”
“I know some people think it’s brave that I am talking about this so publicly. I get it. But they don’t understand. It’s not brave, it’s a matter of survival.” - young man who lives with anxiety, telling his story in Anxious Nation
We connect truth telling to being brave because so many of us learned that there were just things you didn’t and don’t talk about. Whether due to family norms or societal norms or religious norms or community norms - many of us learned to keep it in, keep it to yourself. Many are still learning that. But one little glimmer of hope that I have in this big mess of life in 2023 is that more people are sharing, more people are speaking, more people are saying hey this is me.
In this month of May where Mental Health is at the head of the table, there is a week dedicated to Maternal Mental Health Awareness. 1 in 5 women who give birth experience some form of maternal mental health crisis and these numbers change drastically across different socio-economic levels. Post-partum Depression is a small part of Maternal Mental Health but I am still so discouraged that we still think PPD looks a certain way - not connecting to your baby, stopping all self-care and hygiene, not getting out of bed or eating, etc - or that it only happens after the birth of a first child and only in the first months. For me, it crept in like the fog in San Francisco, sometime after our son’s first birthday and then hung around until well after the birth of our second.
Other friend moms didn’t understand - they seemed more overwhelmed by the mothering part of a new baby which I actually felt quite confident about. My mom didn’t understand because in her experience everything about her three pregnancies and births and being a new mom was all rainbows and unicorns. My husband didn’t understand because we had had this picture perfect home birth that I had convinced him we should do and then had a perfectly healthy baby and then another one and we had support and resources. And from the outside there was no reason to believe that in the quiet of the night hours when it was just me and one of these warm little bodies, that much of what I felt was emptiness in me but at the same time overwhelming love for them.
The tricky thing with mental dis-ease is that you can’t see it most of the time. It’s not itchy and red like a rash or causing a limp or easily measured with a stethoscope. An expert in the documentary said it often takes parents 2-8 years to seek actual mental health treatment for their children. For new moms, it’s easy to dismiss the mind games as a result of tumultuous hormones and erratic sleep and almost dismiss them as a rite of passage that is just part of the package. For some medication can’t be prescribed fast enough while others can’t even get in to see a practitioner.
We still don’t pay attention to our own mental health or the mental health of our children they way we could. We still don’t seek care for our own mental health or the mental health of our children the way we could. But we’re learning and I do think that in many families and in many communities, with each generation and perhaps even with each new technology, we are given the opportunity or creating the opportunity to be more real and more truthful and that might actually give more people and more youth the message that it’s ok to not be ok.
Sometimes all it takes is for one person to say “Oh yeah me too” or “Hey, anyone else?” What I know is that it makes me a healthier person when I can share what is really going on for me. What I know is that it makes me a better mom when I can really listen and create a space for all their big emotions and experiences. What I know and firmly believe is that we can create community and connection when we talk about our hard things. And that’s how we heal. Together.
Love,
This is so beautifully written and I am so glad my words resonated and inspired you to share your own, this is such a life changing topic. That emptiness inside is so hard to capture but you did so beautifully when describing the love you had for your boys warm bodies, next to your own empty vessel. Sending so much love!