Author Archives: LHale

About LHale

Sassy, outspoken, laughing, football loving, F1 & MotoGP fanatic, coffee and beer snob, bacon addicted Mama blogging about Postpartum Mood Disorders as she tries to figure out her new place in this world. C'mon along for the ride, won't ya?

Mawwiage, Mawwiage is what bwings us twogether twoday

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This post is part of a week-long celebration of the wedding of a dear friend of mine. I hope you’ll go check out the other celebratory posts too!

“Mawwiage. Mawwiage is what bwings us twogether twoday…”

This weekend, a dear friend of mine is getting married. A’Driane will tie the knot with her beloved Bert. I’m honoured to call A’Driane friend. She is a force with which to be reckoned. She is passionate, dedicated, and tenacious. She is fierce.

Like me, Addye has faced her own challenges and is vocal about them. She also knows when to pull away and take time for herself. Getting to know Addye has been a blessing. I am truly excited for her this weekend and am wishing both her and Bert all the best. I will be there in spirit.

Marriage is a blessing, a continuance of the journey of two hearts who have found each other and decided to cling to the other as they go through life. It’s not an easy thing, it’s not a simple thing, but when you find the right person, as Addye and Bert have, it is a spectacular thing. It is worth fighting for, worth aching for, worth rejoicing for, and worth celebrating. That’s where the wedding comes in – the ceremony celebrates love and the joining of their hearts.

As you join your hearts together for eternity tomorrow, may both of you be blessed with all the happiness and tenacity the world has to give. May you lose yourselves in the passion you hold for each other and never forget what it was that brought you together in the first place. May you always love as if you are in a state of perpetual youth. May you always face whatever life throws at you with hands held, looking forward and never back. May you both be filled with continuous awe of the precious love you hold for one another.

May you always hold hands, laugh loudly, love deeply, and above all else, cling to each other fiercely even when times get tough – and cling to each other just as fiercely even when times are not so tough.

Congratulations to you both.

Addye Heart

Call for Voices of #PPDChat

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Hey, y’all!

I did something way out of my comfort zone a couple of weeks ago. I went to NYC and auditioned for the Listen To Your Mother show there. I carefully re-worked a piece from the blog, made sure it was under 5 minutes, printed out copies, and then went to NYC with J to audition. I won’t lie and say it was easy. My voice shook the entire time with emotion (it’s a powerful piece) and I was in awe that I was in NYC auditioning, something I never thought I’d ever do.

Why did I go?

Because a few months ago, J bought me a magnet I saw at the local art museum. It looks like this:

Life begins

It’s so true. Life DOES begin at the end of your comfort zone. Reading things out loud, particularly things I’ve written, is WAY the heck out of my comfort zone. I don’t even read what I write here out loud before I hit publish. The voice in my head reads it for me.

I didn’t make the cut for the show, and I’m okay with that because what’s important is that I still stepped out of my comfort zone.

Now, I want to challenge you to do the same here.

I challenge you to write a piece, maybe 2-4 minutes or so in length about your postpartum experience. Any aspect of it – your choice. No censor either, just raw, honest, and beautiful true stories. Then here’s the even bigger challenge – I want you to record yourself reading it. Video or audio. Whatever you’re comfortable with the most – totally up to you. You can either identify yourself or not, again, up to you. But what is required is the title of the piece at the beginning.

Email it to me at mypostpartumvoice(@)gmail(dot)com. Call for pieces is open until May 7th. I will then get everything gathered together to post at some point on Mother’s Day Weekend. This is a new thing for me and again, is me stepping outside my comfort zone because I’ve never done video before. I’ll be reading the piece I prepped for LTYM on video. (EEEK). They’ll be uploaded to my YouTube channel for the blog (yes, I have one but I haven’t used it… I’m changing that this year) and tagged with Voices of #PPDChat. (If you’re not comfortable appearing on video and would prefer to just submit Audio, that’s fine – that will probably just be hosted here at the blog).

Are you in? You know you’re in. Ready? Set. WRITE.RECORD.SUBMIT.

Let’s bust stigma together.

Anderson Cooper, Meds, Parents, and Responsibility

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Today, in 20 minutes from now, where I live, at least, Anderson Cooper airs. He’s doing a segment about Moms & Medication – Mothers who take medication to be a better parent. Anti-anxiety pills, specifically.

I want to be happy they’re covering this but after last night’s initial tweet which has several people I know up in arms, I just can’t. I’m holding my breath and will be tuning in to watch just to see if they cover things properly and make a clear exception that there ARE parents out there who do need medication for mental health issues just to live, not to be a better parent.

Last night, Anderson’s Twitter account for his show tweeted this gem:

Taking mood stabilizers to be a better parent? What do you think of this new trend? Tweet back: #ALParenting

— Anderson Live (@andersonlive) March 3, 2013

Wow.

If there are parents out there truly doing this, yikes. And if this is just Anderson’s way of spinning the situation into a hype, then shame on them. There are multiple reasons a parent would legitimately need psychiatric medication – not just to be a better parent.

Watch with me, follow along on Twitter (I’m @unxpctdblessing), and follow the hashtag #ALParenting.

I’ll be tuning in and pushing back, using both the #ALParenting hashtag as well as the #ppdchat hashtag. Please join me if you can.

This post will be updated with reactions – and if you write anything or have any comments, please do not hesitate to share them here as well.

Update, after watching the show:

Overall, it went much better than I thought it would. However, as with all discussions about mental health, particularly ones squeezed into short segments and sensationalized for daytime viewing, things did go wrong. Below is a short list of what I was happy to see and then a few things I wasn’t happy to see:

Happy to see:

  • Dr. Michele Borba emphasize the seriousness of maternal depression and getting treatment for it. (Also emphasizing that depressed mothers will and should do anything to get help for their illness)
  • Emphasis, again, by Dr. Borba, that we, as mothers, need to get to know our hot points, learn how to deal with them, and how to deal with winding down as a family so we pass on practical de-stressing techniques to our children.
  • Anderson Cooper emphasize, at the end of the discussion, how important it is that if you have an issue with depression or mental illness, to see a doctor about your issues.

Not happy to see:

  • The anti-med member of the panel ask a member of the audience this question: “If your son were to come up to you and say he had a bad day, would you just tell him to take a pill?” The audience member was stunned. Absolutely stunned. So was I. Just because I took medication after I had my children did not mean I only coped by taking a pill. A pill is merely one part of therapy, there are many facets to caring for yourself. There’s a line you can cross into addiction and yes, that is absolutely unhealthy (the anti-med member’s parents had crossed this line), and it doesn’t allow room for healthy coping methods while in the midst of the addiction, but it doesn’t mean you get to toss a blanket of your experience on everyone else. I am sorry that was your experience, but you absolutely do not get to judge me based on that at all.
  • Failure to mention mental illness in any serious way until halfway through the segment. Most of the discussion involved the emphasis on “taking pills to be a better Mother.” No mention of diagnosis was made, nothing. I understand privacy but if you’re on a national talk show to discuss taking meds, make sure you mention why otherwise you’re just feeding the stigma that Anderson put forth last night which is Moms taking pills to be a better parent as part of a trend. Postpartum Depression and Maternal mental health issues (paternal too) are not part of a TREND. They happen, they are real, and they deserve honest and informed coverage.

On to this afternoon when Katie Couric will have a segment about Moms and mental health as well. Today is gonna be fun, isn’t it?

Share your opinions below!

Being Me

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Growing up female is tricky business. There’s so much we’re expected to do, expected to say, nod, smile, grin, hide the negative, put on your happy face, kiss ass, kick ass, love this because everyone else does and OH MY GOD don’t do that because it’s not lady like.

I’d like to take a second to thank my parents for not raising me to bow down to those around me but instead taking the time to encourage me to question everything, dig deeper, be strong, to foster my desire and passion for writing, and above all else, raising me to be HAPPY.

Sure there are things they wish I was doing instead of what I am doing right now, a vision they probably had for my life but they have always supported me…or at least made me feel supported in whatever I chose as my path.

So for me, when I’m not happy, I have failed. When I’m not myself, I have failed. I haven’t failed when I don’t kiss someone’s ass just because I should. I haven’t failed because I haven’t achieved some sort of materialistic goal. I haven’t failed because things aren’t in some sort of perfect magical sublime order (although my OCD disagrees vehemently with that statement).

Things could be better, sure. I’d really love to be employed. That would rock. But I’m not. What I am is fulfilled. There’s not a paycheck with that, no, but there is peace, happiness, and a strong sense of self. I am doing, right now, exactly what I am meant to be doing.

What anyone happens to think of that does not matter to me.

It doesn’t matter to me that someone thinks I *should* be getting paid. Or that I *should* be doing this or I should have tried harder at that. Wanna know why? That worry is theirs to bear, not mine. That worry is not on my back.

I’ve survived hell more than a few times. Yes, others have gone through worse hells but this one, this one is mine. Filled with potholes of chronic pain, Postpartum Mood Disorders, loss to cancer, addiction of a spouse, a special needs baby, divorce, and the struggle to redefine myself after living an a hostile environment for so very long – an environment which I allowed to completely turn my sense of self inside out.

I’m writing this in response to a post over at Schmutzie’s place entitled “We Can Become Known”. Go read it. I guarantee you’ll be empowered to write a post of your own. If not, it’ll give you something to think about for a bit.

When I was in therapy, one of the TOUGHEST things my therapist asked me was “Do you know who you are? Really know who you are?” Then she challenged me with this beauty…”I don’t think you’ve ever truly shown your true self to anyone, not even to yourself.”

Wow.

You try sitting across from someone who has just said this to you and stay tear-free as you realize, “Fuck. No. I haven’t. FUCK. Who the hell am I???” Yeah. That session rocked my world.

Do I know who I am now?

Yeah, sorta, kinda, okay, maybe not but sorta…um… what was the question? I’ll be figuring out who I am until the second I take my last breath because I believe every experience, every exchange, changes us to a certain extent. Maybe not to our core (although there are those type of experiences out there – trust me – I’ve had a few) but they change us ever so slightly.

For the first time in years, and I do mean, in YEARS, I am comfortable in my own skin. I am comfortable in my own head, in my own soul. I’ve hit the trifecta and baby, can’t nobody stop the trifecta.

The best part of all of this? I’m with someone now who loves me for ME, supports me, and is happy to just BE himself with me. Seriously, y’all.. this is the hollywood ending. I’m not gonna lie and say it’s not work, because it is – but when it’s honest, compassionate, filled with trust, and adorned with love – it’s a hollywood ending even if there is a lot of behind the scenes work.

All that hell I’ve been through makes it worth that much more.

I’m growing bolder in lifting the veil off the person I’ve become over the past two years, figuring out how to translate it all into words which sit on a page (or the Interwebz). Like a giant glacier, I am thawing in the ever-warming world, water oozing into a waiting and welcoming ocean.

I may not be perfect, but I’m me.

And in the words of Amy Poehler (via Tina Fey via Schmutzie’s blog):

“I don’t fucking care if you don’t like it.”
Because I’m done bending over and making people happy just because that’s what the world expects me to do – I’ve never been very good at it anyway.
Besides.
As Laura Thatcher Ulrich once stated, “Well-behaved women seldom make history.”

Just Talkin’ Tuesday: Breastfeeding & PPD – What Advice Would You Give?

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justtalkingtuesdaybuttonBreastfeeding is such a rocky road for those of us who struggle with a Postpartum Mood and Anxiety Disorder, isn’t it?

We worry if it’s not going right. We worry about being put on meds. We worry if our babies are getting enough, we worry what people will think if we stop, we measure, we pump, we wonder about working, supply, the additional frustration of it all can really wear us down. Sure, a lot of our concern is the same as a mom who isn’t struggling with a Postpartum Mood & Anxiety Disorder but we also have to worry about how it’s affecting our PMAD or how it will affect baby if we decide to take meds.

I’ve been invited to participate in a telesummit with an organization focusing on encouraging breastfeeding mothers to take care of themselves properly. Of course they want to encourage and foster the breastfeeding relationship but you and I both know that sometimes, it doesn’t work out when a PMAD hops aboard the Motherhood train. Before agreeing to participate, I asked if they would be open to discussing the possibility that breastfeeding doesn’t go well if a PMAD shows up. They were very open to it, happily.

This is where you come in – of course I can share my own experiences and talk about how I know it’s gone for others in the past, but I’d really like to have the community chime in with their tales and share what worked for them, what didn’t work for them, and how to deal with the issues that crop up when it doesn’t work (because that guilt is like no other!) well.

Breastfeeding is one of two things when you have a PMAD, the one thing that’s going right, or the one thing that’s really exacerbating the issues at hand. I always advise mothers to do what’s best for THEM and their situation – and above all else, put their mental well-being ahead of themselves.

If you have any practical tips, ideas, stories, etc, to share, please post them in the comments. Tips on how to talk with your partner, doctor, a lactation consultant, etc, would be particularly welcome.

Can’t wait to hear from y’all!