Posted on

Mother’s Day memories

Me on my first Mother’s Day

This photo popped up in my Facebook memories this week. Considering that it’s National Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week, it seemed an appropriate reminder of the very real issue of postpartum depression/anxiety. I’m smiling in this photo taken just a few days before my first Mother’s Day. A 3-month-old Kate looks precious in her dress and headband. At a glance, everything looks peachy. 

But when I look at this photo, I’m overcome with sadness. My heart breaks for New Mom Me. Gosh, she put on a brave face, determined to fight the overwhelming sadness and stress brought on by postpartum depression. 

I wish I could tell New Mom Me that she’s not alone. I want to tell her she has an illness that impacts 1 in 5 new moms. I want so desperately for her to know she’s not a bad mom or a horrible human and that treatment is available. 

Eventually I did get help and I did get better. I wish I hadn’t waited so long to reach out. 

I don’t share this story because it’s pleasant or fun to reflect on those dark days. I talk about Maternal Mental Health because I know there’s another new mom posing for a photo and hiding her struggles behind a smile. If I can save just one mom from suffering alone, it’s worth it. 

Support a local organization that supports moms struggling with PPD: Postpartum Support Charleston

Posted on

Dads discuss dilemmas during PPD

It’s not always easy to talk about tough times in your life, but it’s worth it knowing your story may help others. While I’ve been vocal about my struggle with postpartum depression, I was proud of my husband for being interviewed by The Post and Courier about how PPD is tough on dads too. They know something is wrong with their wife or partner but just aren’t sure what to do. In my work with Postpartum Support Charleston, we try to educate dads (and other family members) about the signs and symptoms of postpartum depression/anxiety so they can reach out for help – especially if it’s too tough for the mom to ask for help on her own.

 

Here’s an excerpt from the May 3, 2016, article by Derrek Asberry and you can read the full piece online:

 

Despite how commonplace the condition may be, there is still a lack of discussion about postpartum depression and even less openness on the trickle-down effect it has on fathers, say Holly and Clint Fisher.

 

For the better half of a year, Holly suffered from postpartum depression after her daughter, Kate, was born in 2008. Meanwhile, Clint performed a balancing act of work, caring for his daughter and wife, and wondering if things would ever return back to normal.

 
“I was lucky because I don’t think I ever fell into depression or anything,” Clint said. “But I was definitely feeling more stressed because I wasn’t understanding where all of her stress was coming from.”

Posted on

Making a mark on the Moms’ Run

I’ve spent the last several months working on the 10th annual Moms’ Run + Family Fun Day. It’s the largest fundraiser for a local nonprofit, Postpartum Support Charleston, of which I serve as board president.

 

It’s been a ton of work but rewarding and if it helps just one woman through her struggle with postpartum depression, then it’s well worth it. It’s not always easy to share my own story of PPD but then I think of all the women suffering silently and I have to speak up.

 

So, I’m sharing here a guest column I wrote for The Post and Courier.

 

“On my very first Mother’s Day, I felt like a fraud. My daughter wasn’t yet 4 months old and I already was completely certain I’d failed as a mother. I was consumed by sadness, depression and a certainty I had made a very grave mistake. And because of all that, I was ashamed and overcome with guilt. Surely, I was the only mother to have ever felt this way. People would be horrified if they knew.

 

In truth, I wasn’t a fraud and I wasn’t a failure. I was simply a new mom going through postpartum depression. That diagnosis wouldn’t come until my daughter was 9 months old when, finally, in a place of utter despair, I asked for help.

 

By no means is my story unique. Some 20 percent of women experience postpartum depression in the first year after their baby’s birth. Postpartum depression is often confused with the baby blues – those feelings of weepiness and sadness that 80 percent of women go through in those couple weeks after giving birth. Here’s the difference: the baby blues go away after a couple weeks. Postpartum depression doesn’t. It lingers on and worsens until treated.

 

The good news is that it’s treatable and suffering mothers will feel better. Fast forward a few years and my daughter is 5 years old and full of spunk and energy. I’m so thankful to have healed from postpartum depression so I can appreciate my time with her.

 

Unfortunately, our society holds new mothers to an impossible standard. They are quickly sent home from the hospital and expected to care for a newborn while recovering from the trauma of childbirth – whether naturally or via C-section. Thankfully, I have a wonderful husband and family came to visit and help with our new baby. But not all women have that and even with help, we are expected to be immediately transformed into Super Mom, able to change diapers with one hand, soothe a fussy baby in a matter of seconds and keep the house spotless and the laundry done all on two hours of sleep. And let’s not even get started on the pressures to get back that pre-baby body before the little munchkin is even sleeping through the night.

 

With those kinds of expectations, who’s going to step up and admit she’s not feeling so motherly? I certainly wasn’t. I put on a happy face and gave the obligatory “it’s wonderful” when people asked about my life with a new baby. They saw a well-adjusted happy new mom not the woman who cried every night after her husband fell asleep.

 

On this Mother’s Day, can we give moms a break? Can we encourage them to ask for help and to let them know it’s OK if they aren’t in love with motherhood or even their own baby? If there’s a new mom in your life who just doesn’t seem like herself, talk to her and give her a safe place to open up. If she is really struggling with depression, encourage her to seek medical help or make the appointment yourself.

 

One of our great local resources is Postpartum Support Charleston, an organization dedicated to education, support and healing. We provide support groups for women going through postpartum depression, education for the public and medical professionals as well as grants for women who need financial assistance getting treatment for postpartum depression.

 

The biggest annual fundraiser for Postpartum Support Charleston is coming up Mother’s Day weekend. Join us May 11 for the 10th annual Moms’ Run + Family Fun Day. What better way to celebrate Mother’s Day than by joining with others in our community to bring a message of hope and healing to mothers going through PPD. Learn more or register at www.ppdsupport.org.”

 

View this article online.

 

Posted on

How to save a life

“You’ve been a life saver.”

 

Those words will undoubtedly stick with me. As the president of the Postpartum Support Charleston board my phone number is listed on our website and often given out to people with questions about our organization. I’m happy to be that resource – especially when I get calls like the one I did Friday night.

 

A woman – let’s call her Lisa – called me because she needed help. She’d been hit by a wave of exhaustion, she’d just stopped nursing and she was having disturbing thoughts that she might do something harmful to herself or her baby – even if just because she was so tired.

 

She’d gone to the doctor and then to the ER and then to a local mental health facility, which didn’t sound like the best option for her situation. But it’s just one more example of how women with postpartum depression and anxiety are misunderstood and how medical professionals often handle these women so inadequately. But that’s another post for another day.

 

Lisa shared her story, telling me that she felt “like a monster” for the feelings she was having. I assured her she was most certainly not a monster and most certainly not the first woman to have felt this way. We spent about 20 minutes on the phone and I gave her some additional resources and suggested she continue to get some good rest (fortunately she had family in town who had been caring for the baby).

 

She thanked me for talking with her and then uttered that powerful sentence. That reaffirmed for me God’s calling to help women with PPD. If Lisa is the only woman I ever help, it would be worth it. If she can realize she’s not a monster, not a terrible mother and not a woman who needs to be locked away then my life has made an impact. I can know the months I suffered so deeply with my own bout of PPD could be used for something good.

Posted on

A new direction of influence

Next week I’m headed off to the Influence Conference in Indianapolis to learn new ways that I might have influence.  Here’s a conference description.

 

“We believe that God has given you influence right where you are, for one purpose: to make much of Him. At Influence we’re going to dig into the common thread of all of us – the Good News. We plan on doing a little teaching, talking, sharing, and celebrating concerning the ways He might want to use you on the individual platforms He’s given.”

 

I’m excited for this event for two reasons: one, I get a weekend away with girlfriends and the conference hotel is attached to a mall! Two, I want to use this time to really hone my purpose. If you follow my story, you know I’ve been devoting a good deal of time and energy to spreading awareness about postpartum depression. About two years after my own PPD struggles, I really felt God calling me to work in this area.

 

Part of me needed to find a reason I had experienced such a difficult period in my life. I needed to know something good could come from that. I also felt strongly that Christian women suffering with PPD needed a resource. My initial thought was to write a book about my experience and that of other women and give it a spiritual focus.

 

I began the book – the research and some writing. I have two chapters drafted (not a particularly stellar start). But a couple of months ago, the idea of the book became less appealing. Writing is no small task and while I’ve written hundreds – maybe even thousands – of newspaper and magazine articles, I had never written a book. And let me tell you, it’s hard. It’s also a lengthy process. The writing and revisions take months or years. Then there’s the process of finding a publisher, and I knew it could be three to five years before I had a book in my hands.

 

Maybe this isn’t the best way to fulfill my mission. And so I’m rethinking my direction. I’m leaning toward creating an online community and reaching women that way. It feels more immediate and direct – and more successful. I’m not saying “never” to the idea of a book. I’m just saying “not right now.”

 

So my desire at this Influence Conference next week is to gain more focus and direction for this idea of an online platform – how to develop and grow it so that I may have influence.

Posted on

Parenting taboos

A friend and fellow writer, Angie Mizzell, contacted me a few weeks ago about a column she was writing for Lowcountry Parent magazine on parenting taboos – those topics that parents just aren’t allowed to discuss.

 

Angie sent me a link to a TED talk by Rufus Griscom and Alisa Volkman, the founders of parenting website Babble.com, in which they discussed parenting taboos, including the loneliness of parenting. (Check out the video.)

 

Angie asked me to offer up some comments and I’m thrilled she included me in her column.

 

“I think those taboos apply to all moms (and dads) but are so applicable to women suffering from postpartum depression. Postpartum depression may be the greatest parenting taboo of all,” says Holly Fisher, a Charleston mom who’s writing a book about postpartum depression and serves on the board for the Ruth Rhoden Craven Foundation for Postpartum Depression Awareness. “As the Babble.com couple points out, you’re expected to be overwhelmed with love and your life with baby should be beautiful enough for the cover of a magazine,” Fisher says. “If things aren’t perfect, well then, surely you have failed as a mother. What a terrible burden for a new mom to carry.”

 

Read the full column, “Let’s Give Them Something To Talk About – Shattering parenting taboos,” in the April issue of Lowcountry Parent.

Posted on

Are you rushing to judgment?

Let me start by saying anytime a parent kills his or her children it is horrible. It is heart-breaking, sad, tragic and devastating. But I was saddened by the deluge of hurtful comments I read on a Facebook post today regarding whether Andrea Yates should be allowed to leave the mental hospital two hours a week to attend church.

 

I’m sure you remember Yates’ case. She drowned her five children in a bathtub in 2001, saying she thought Satan was telling her to kill her children to spare them from going to hell and that by killing them she was sending them to heaven. Her initial insanity defense was rejected and she was sentenced to a life in prison. In 2006, on an appeal, a jury found her guilty by reason of insanity and she was sent to a mental institution.

 

I recently read this article about how Yates lives with herself a decade after killing her babies and I began thinking about how we are so quick to condemn women in this situation without knowing all the facts and without understanding the significant consequences of illnesses like postpartum depression and the much more severe postpartum psychosis.

 

Just this week in nearby Orangeburg, S.C., a mother pleaded guilty to charges of murdering her 2-year-old son and 18-month-old son and was sentenced to 35 years in prison. Did this mother suffer from postpartum depression?

 

It’s easy to rush to judgment and vilify these women as horrible human beings because “a real mother would never harm her children.” But what if that mother is suffering from a horrible illness that causes her to think thoughts and behave in ways she never would have before having children.

 

Yes, in the decade since those five Yates children died, more attention has been given to PPD but it still remains in the shadows. And why wouldn’t it? What mother would want to come forward and admit she’s had similar thoughts knowing how she’ll be shamed by a general public that just doesn’t understand?

 

On all levels these situations are horrific. Tiny lives are lost, families are destroyed and women are sentenced to a life of guilt. But rather than focus our energies on throwing rocks at these women, let’s look around at the new mothers in our lives. Could they be suffering from PPD? Have you created an environment that would allow a woman to come to you with her problems? Because that’s the only way to bring good from these tragedies.