Month: May 2025
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The Crushing Wave: Living with Chronic, Acute Anxiety
Image Description: A woman in gray/blue tones is sitting on the ground in profile, facing to the left. Over her is a huge wave cresting, ready to crush her. “Anxiety is love’s greatest killer. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. You want to save him, but…
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More than Mama Bear Worry: Significant Anxiety in the Postpartum Period
They say that being a mother is like having your heart walking around outside your body. That. Is. Terrifying. You have no ability to control the things that happen to your helpless baby as they move through the trajectory of their life. Scary things could happen. Things you can’t prevent. Maybe scary things could happen…
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She Was Perfect
By Mary Mansbach You see her on social media. She just did that Pinterest craft you barely had the time or energy to look at online last week. Her kids were involved yet her kitchen was spotless and she executed it with precision. Every video you see her house is spotless, her kids are clean…
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Carrying the Weight: Motherhood and the Mental Load
It may “take a village to raise a child”, but, for many mothers, the burden falls squarely on them. Although the dynamic of mothers’ roles outside the home has changed, in some families, mothers are still expected, whether explicitly or implicitly, to carry the responsibility of primary caregiving, and the entire mental load of the household…
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I Think I Might Be Jesus: Inside a Manic Episode
It’s pretty commonplace to hear people use the term “bipolar” flippantly, in a way that would not be considered acceptable for other forms of mental illness, neurodivergence, or identity (e.g., it is not acceptable to use the R-word to describe someone’s silly mistakes or to call something you don’t like “gay”) People describe the weather…
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Milk Machines: Torturing Ourselves to Breastfeed
Breastmilk is truly a miracle of nature. It literally changes color when we are sick, indicating the antibodies our bodies are passing on to our babies! It even heals cuts! It provides “liquid gold” nutrition! If you have read previous posts on this blog, you will know that I survived a very severe episode of…
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Braving Motherhood After Trauma: Vida’s Story
For a long time, I grieved that I would not have a second child; a sibling for our older daughter. In fact, I was terrified that I would become pregnant, to the point where I asked my doctor about having a hysterectomy. I now know there are less extreme options, but this example illustrates the…
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Lonesome Journey: One Woman’s Reflections on Infertility
“It is one thing, I was discovering, to think, “Maybe I won’t have kids,” and quite another to be told, “Maybe you can’t.” This is how impatience turns to desperation.”- Peggy Orenstein In general, infertility is defined as not being able to get pregnant (conceive) after one year (or longer) of unprotected sex. Because fertility in…
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PPP: Postpartum Depression’s Twisted Sister
Note: This post was written in 2019. My recollection of events may, understandably, not be 100% accurate, given what my body and brain were going through. May and June are bittersweet months for me. They represent some huge milestones in my life: graduating with my PhD and the birth of our daughter, Shiloh. However, the…
I'm Not The Same 