I’ve been looking back at some of my posts recently and thinking, “Did I really write all that personal stuff for the whole world to see?”
Yes, I did.
I’ll admit some of my older posts make me cringe. There’s something so vulnerable about them, and that’s not a feeling I’m especially comfortable with. But I was aware of that in the moment and each and every time I hit ‘publish’ knowing I was putting my rawness out there. And I haven’t taken down a single post.
My experience is what it is and those were my feelings at the time. Writing about it here is how I chose to express it, and as time went on I continued for a reason beyond using it as my own cheap therapy.
On an increasingly frequent basis I’ve had people contact me – usually by email or Twitter DM – to share their own experiences. Some of them ask for help, in which case I refer them to the PPD resources I know and trust. Some of them need someone to listen. And others just want to say thank you.
That was particularly the case after I posted about my experience with postpartum rage. In the short time since, I’ve had so many people contact me to say, “me too.”
Late last week I got an email from someone who was dealing with something similar who said, “…just had to stop by and say thank you for giving me one of those ‘oh thank god, I can survive this’ moments, and lending me some faith that maybe I can repair what’s been sent asunder.”
The thing I hate about emails like that is that I just want to hug each person (yep, I’m a hugger) and tell her it will be okay. Because it will.
But all I can do is offer virtual hugs and keep talking about my experience.
So that’s what I’m doing.
You will survive.
