Join us today on Twitter as we get nitty and gritty with the signs & symptoms of Postpartum Mood & Anxiety Disorders. Have questions about just what goes on inside a PMAD? Catch up with us at 1pm ET and 830pm ET on Twitter using the hashtag #PPDChat. See you then!
Hey, y’all!!!
Perinatal Mood Disorders are a lonely road to travel. We have all been there and we have all heard other mothers say the following phrase:
“I felt so alone.”
Thing is, we are not alone. So.NOT.ALONE.
With this approach in mind, I am expanding #PPDChat to include guests in addition to the regular supportive chats. So, in addition to using #PPDChat for support throughout the week, community members will be able to chat with experts, survivors, and advocates.
Guests so far have included but are not limited to:
Karen Kleiman, founder of Postpartum Stress Center
Claire, founder of Life With a Baby
Cristi Comes of Motherhood Unadorned & AFSP of Washington
Text4Baby and Board Member Colleen Craft
and many other knowledgeable and compassionate folks dedicated to supporting women and families as they navigate the perinatal period. It’s been a blast chatting with them and sharing additional insight and knowledge.
Are you an expert, an advocate, survivor, or representative of an organization supporting families through Perinatal Mood & Anxiety Disorders? Know someone who would be a perfect fit?
Talk to me about chatting with #PPDChat. We are a volunteer run peer-based support chat, talking every Monday at 1pm and 8:30pm ET via Twitter. Read more about #PPDChat guidelines here. Typical guests join us in the evening but if day is better for you, we can accommodate your schedule. If you’re new to Twitter, we have a quick start guide and are willing to work with you to get you up to speed.
How to throw your hat in the ring:
Email me at mypostpartumvoice(@)gmail.com with #PPDChat Guest Request as your subject line and we’ll get the details ironed out.
Looking forward to this new chapter of #PPDChat with you!
That’s right, we’ll be talking about Suicide and Perinatal Mood & Anxiety Disorders on Monday, given that Tuesday is World Suicide Prevention Day.
There will not be a 1pm chat as I’ll be joining @AFSPNational at their chat. Please feel free to join me there as well.
AFSP, USA Today and the Mayo Clinic will be conducting a TweetChat on Monday, September 9th at 1pm ET. Please… http://t.co/sVeQCdjaba
— Suicide Prevention (@afspnational) September 4, 2013
Suicide is something we haven’t touched on enough as a community, particularly one which deals directly with mental health issues.
So please, join @AFSP_WA, @MotherhoodUnadorned, and me as we discuss some important issues, myths, and facts surrounding suicide and Perinatal Mood Disorders. You can also mosey on over to Motherhood Unadorned’s wonderful post about what she’s got going on during World Suicide Prevention Week. She’s a tireless advocate for bringing awareness to the topic of suicide and has a lot going on at her place. Check it out!
This one is FAR too important to miss.
PS. One VERY important note – this chat will happen at 8pm ET instead of 830pm. Adjust your schedules accordingly!!!!
We recently moved. Believe me, I want to tell you why because it was hell, but I just am not ready to do so yet for a couple of reason. First, I’m still recovering, and second, we haven’t quite wrapped up the final details of the move with our former residence yet. Once we’re free, I really look forward to sharing everything. Because whoa.
One of the things that the last place we lived did to me, particularly over the past couple of months, was give me a case of near-agoraphobia. I hated going out because I never knew what I’d come home to and if I’d be able to make it from my car to our door without running into someone.
Now that we’re at the new place, we can go places. I can go places by myself. I still force myself to get off the couch and go, though, because the memories are so fresh and the fear is still bubbling just below the surface that if I go out….
But today I forced myself to get up and run errands. I needed to return a couple of things plus I needed to pick up a couple of things. So I got ready, gathered the returns and the receipts, and got in my car.
After I merged onto the interstate, a car flew past me. One of the bumper stickers caught my eye.
It looked a lot like this:
The reaction was visceral. Tears welled, my heart raced (more than it already was thanks to minor anxiety), and I was MOVED. The car continued on its way and I realized that had I been even 2 seconds later, I would not have seen this perfectly apropos message.
And then I pulled into Sam’s Club for my first return.
I was greeted by this lovely sight:
The owner came out before I got out of my car (the club wasn’t open for us non-business folk just yet). On my way in, I stopped and talked with her for a few minutes. I told her how I had just seen a car with a bumper sticker that said “Don’t Postpone Joy” and how shortly after that, I pulled in to see her van. She was very friendly and open to talking.
She said a lot of people smile at it. “Why not put it on the side of my van? It’s a free billboard!”
She delivers phone books, she said, and sometimes that can irritate people. But when they see the cheerful message, it kind of neutralizes her throwing the phone book in their driveway, etc.
Her inspiration?
Her son received a bracelet with the saying on it and she was quite taken with it. “Why NOT?!?” Her daughter also has a tattoo of the saying on her ankle. (Her son walked up whilst I was talking with her and made a point of telling me about his bracelet. They all seemed quite used to discussing the saying on the side of the van. SO grateful I had the opportunity to talk with all three of them.)
Live. Love. Laugh.
Spray painted on the side of a rickety old van parked in a handicapped spot.
If that’s not proof that there IS joy everywhere you turn…
Don’t postpone your joy.
Go out and live, love, and laugh.
That’s the message the universe sent me this morning.
What an amazing Monday.
On Monday, we’ll be talking about a very important aspect of Postpartum Mood & Anxiety Disorders with Claire of @lifewithababy. Claire is the Executive Director of Healthy Start, Healthy Future and Founder of the Life With A Baby program. Life With A Baby is a three-tiered peer support system for parents. It offers local, community-based social events to build relationships, online support, and multi-lingual parenting programs. Claire founded Life With A Baby after her own struggles with social isolation and depression. Life With A Baby serves over 5000 members across the province of Ontario. Claire is involved in innovative initiatives and partnerships focused on peer support, parenting, newcomer supports, parent engagement, and financial literacy. She is passionate about supporting parents, developing collaborations, reducing social isolation, and building healthy and strong parent-child relationships. Claire was nominated for the 2013 Citizen of Character award in York Region.
Our discussion will focus around the concept that if you struggle with a Postpartum Mood & Anxiety Disorder, you don’t love your baby. We know that’s not true. Many of us love our children more than we are capable of expressing. Sure, we may be exasperated with them, with the issues we face as a result of our PMAD, but simply having a PMAD is not indicative of not loving your child. It can take time to bond, time to get to what other mothers seem to have so easily, but it doesn’t make us less of a woman or less of a mother. It also doesn’t mean that we aren’t in love with our child simply because we aren’t expressing it how we are “supposed” to according to society.
Join Claire and myself as we talk about this very important aspect of PMAD’s and attempt to remove some of the stigma around the assumption that mothers with a PMAD don’t love their children. (Because we do!)
Also, if you’re in Claire’s neck of the woods, check out their pledge – they’re working to reduce isolation. If you’re able to host just one peer event, sign the pledge. End the isolation of new mothers and help decrease episodes of Postpartum Mood & Anxiety Disorders.
We will be chatting at 1pm ET about the same topic but Claire won’t be joining us until 8:30pm ET. Look forward to seeing you there!!!