demblackmamas-blog

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Imprint & Impact: Mental Health in the Postpartum Period

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Sometimes we have experiences that stick with us. Are imprinted on us. That leave us tossing and turning at night for weeks - months even - so restless in our spirits that sleep won’t come or won’t stay. We search for meaning or ways to cope through it, make sense of it, use it for good. I’ve had a few of those moments, and some still color the way I experience and respond to the world many years later.

One of my most vivid memories from childhood has to do with a little girl I grew up with. She was a sweet girl and I enjoyed playing with her. She was in my class and also lived in my neighborhood, so we saw each other all the time. One day at school as we were walking down the hall, she collapsed suddenly, then began to convulse and twitch. It was my first time seeing an epileptic seizure. My little mind couldn’t process it. It was as if her body betrayed her for what seemed like hours, although I’m sure it was only a couple of minutes. But for however long it was, she was a prisoner to her own body. It wouldn’t allow her to lay still or to stand or to speak. This was incredibly frightening to witness as a child. How did that happen? Why couldn’t she control it? Could my body do the same thing to me one day? I became hypersensitive to epileptics. This girl, a man who lived on our street, a family friend’s son… I would watch them closely, observing their every move for a hint that it was about to happen. I couldn’t be caught off guard again. I couldn’t handle it. I read up on epilepsy until I was confident that I’d know how to respond in case it happened again...how to prepare... how to be a helper instead of running or being frozen in my fear.  I guess this was the best way my young mind could cope with what I had seen and experienced. I was terrified, traumatized. The thought of one’s body reacting in a way that was out of one’s own control was too big for me.

That was decades ago. Yet, when I think of moments that are imprinted on me, it always comes to mind. There is another more recent experience that has impacted the way I approach my interactions with new mothers. 

After it happened, my friend tried to brace me...

“Sit with it”, she said. “

Write down everything you remember so you have record, but know that that in itself is a re-living of it and will be more difficult than you expect”.

She was right. Writing this, I’m struggling with the words to paint the picture for you without infusing more of me into the story than is appropriate or accurate. Truth is, I don’t know where to start. But I know where it ended.

This one is about the time I encountered my first client in a mental health crisis. It shook me to my core.

I see parents of all sorts in my line of work. There are the stern “just the facts” types, sobby emotional wrecks who need reassurance they won’t royally F this up, and what I call deers in headlights parents who don’t even know what to ask. And the truth is, no matter how well you prepare for parenthood, you can never really wrap your mind around it until it happens. And then, it’s sink or swim. Some have a harder time swimming than others. Don’t get me wrong. Most parents of newborns that I see are struggling. They are all exhausted, confused, frustrated, overwhelmed. These are the normal emotions of managing life with a tiny human who cannot tell you what they need, yet they Need. So. Much.

But this client...she...was different. She was so much more. And I’m fighting back tears just trying to find the words.

You know how you know when something is just… off? How you have that gut feeling you forgot to do something important? It’s nagging but try as you may, you can’t put your finger on it but you’re sure there is some major important thing.

Did I leave the stove on?

Did I remember to pack my passport?

Did I forget to make a call?

Is someone somewhere waiting on me to do some... thing?

As I think back now, that’s how it felt. I knew it. She didn’t really have to say or do anything dramatic to give her secret away. And the first consultation was pretty routine as consultations go. I just had a sense. She put up a strong facade, but hidden behind her eyes was something... well, nothing actually. There was a vacancy, a mechanical way that she approached her interactions with me. As I drove home that night I spoke with a colleague. I remember saying, something was off.

Over the days that followed, a clearer picture came into focus. There was always some new thing that needed to be fixed. She requested I come back again, and again. Each time with just a tinge more urgency than the last. Each time I talked her down, did a little LC magic, and she declared me a genius who had saved her life. I went home happy and waited to see if there would be a new thing that required a follow-up visit. We had gotten into a little rhythm, as it were. I didn’t think much of it since some parents lean on us more than others. This was just her personality, I surmised. And then it happened. I went over for what I thought would be a simple, quick follow-up visit. But it was anything but simple and nowhere near quick. She hit her breaking point that night and I had a front row seat to it all.

There I was, that night years ago, my adult self in my client’s living room. I stood there, watching, listening, frozen as she shouted and cried, vacillating between anger and despair. I tried to say reassuring things, to tell her it would be ok, remove the mantel of guilt and shame. But there was nothing I could do or say. It was like watching someone collapse into a seizure, writhing on the floor, teeth clenched, and eyes rolling back in their head. She was out of control, not of her body. But of her mind.

This is what a mental health crisis looks like.

I am not equipped to deal with this.

She needs help… more than I can give.

How could I have not seen this coming?

She needs to be protected from herself.

We, the baby – oh God the baby – needs to be protected.

What am I supposed to do?

Those are the thoughts of a grown woman standing face to face with fears rooted in childhood. Of a lactation consultant ill prepared to support a mother in crisis. In over my head. Frozen and afraid, wanting to run and hide and send some responsible adult in to fix it, make it all better.

I made it out of there that night, albeit changed. But not before making sure that the mom and baby were safe and that the baby would be fed with or without mom for a few days. And then, I made the long drive home through dark and windy roads utterly shaken. When I arrived home I was happy that my family was asleep. I didn’t have any more words. But in the safety of a long hot shower, I wept. If anyone was listening, they might have said I sounded something like my client, wailing. I wept for this woman for whom it was all just too much. I wept for all the mamas out there who are exhausted mentally and physically and just trying to keep it together. I wept for a society that puts such a stigma on mental illness that even though I asked on my first visit if mom is struggling with any anxiety or depression, she said NO. I wept because when I asked if there was a friend or relative I could call to come and stay a while to help her get a break, she said, “NO. I have no one.” I wept because there was nothing else for me to do, no way to help. And that was terrifying.

And then I did the coping thing that I perfected as a kid. I read everything I could get my hands on about postpartum mental health. I did what I could to make sure I wouldn’t be caught unprepared the next time. More importantly, I learned a few tips to share with expecting parents about being vigilant and responsive in protecting their mental health in the postpartum period.  

There is no room for shame when it comes to your mental health. If you are feeling not like yourself, please talk to your healthcare provider.

Postpartum blues, postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis are elevating progressions of the same condition. Blues are very common and subside on their own in hours or days, depression is longer lasting and starts to become debilitating, psychosis is the most pronounced and has the greatest potential for harm.

Plan ahead before delivery to have your “people” available and ready to pitch in and help.

Be honest with yourself and your healthcare team if you have a history of anxiety or depression.

Do not allow thoughts of suicide or harming your baby to go unchecked. There is help available to you and those thoughts are a sign that you need it immediately.

Give yourself a lot of grace as you figure out your new role as a parent, and figure out your baby.

New parents get very little sleep. If you find that you are battling insomnia even in the quiet moments when sleeping is an option, take note. This is especially important if instead of tired, you feel energized in the first weeks.

During pregnancy if you start to feel depressed there are medications that are safe to begin taking even before you deliver your baby.

As much as I love breastfeeding and I support it as a method to stave off postpartum blues and depression, more complex mental health situations may be exacerbated by the constant waking and the responsibility of having a newborn tethered to you 24/7. Make the best infant feeding decision for you and your family.

You’ll have precious few moments to think and rest mentally. Fill those moments only with things that feed you and make you whole. Everything else can wait. 

My client and her baby were okay in the end. They received the help they needed from healthcare providers. They found their people. They took it one day at a time. I often think back on her and consider what I would do differently today. In some ways, I suppose I grappled with it for years. It’s an experience that has stayed with me, not unlike that experience with my childhood friend. We’ve all had those moments that change us, stick with us, impact the way we move through the world. It changed the way I see new parents and how I serve them. I will never again shrug off that “something is off” feeling.

Whether you’re experiencing this stuff firsthand or watching a loved one or even a client trudge through the murky waters of postpartum crisis, let my story be a lesson to be kind to yourself. Be honest with yourself and those around you. This is not a game. We need you here and we need you whole. Do whatever it takes to be here and to be whole. 

Nikki Killings is a Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC, RLC) with several years of experience in breastfeeding counseling and education.  A mother of three, she fell into her passion for supporting mothers and babies through her own breastfeeding challenges with her first baby. 

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[demblackmamas-blog]

BIG by @theamonyee

Listen Here: https://soundcloud.com/demblackmamas/big

There will come a moment

Maybe now

Maybe not far from now

When you will begin to doubt that that thing

Your thing

Has value

When you will feel the pull of your destiny less and less beneath the murmurs of the mundane and the constant chatter of cynicism

 You will tell yourself that it is normal

That dreams are for children and the rare occurrence of good fortune

You will heap earth over your fire

And silently pray for the waters and the winds to carry the ashes of your what ifs away

 And in that moment

You will recite pre-scribed hymns in chorus with the choir of those who deny that they are God

Believe that you have lost your voice because you have forgotten what it sounds like

And falsely believe that your feet no longer leave imprints because you refuse to take the next step

 And yet

In spite of every effort you make to bleach color from your being

You cannot scrub away the crayon of your existence

It is not within your power to destroy what you have not created

And since you did not create you

You cannot erase you

 Instead

You will lose sleep

Your ancestors will visit you, often, unceasingly

Appearing as obstacles to guide you back

You will lose the desire to eat

Find yourself hungering only for that which you must prepare with your own hands

You will lose your desire for things

Keepsakes will feel heavy in your pockets and the smell of the past will no longer be subverted by incense

You will move

Without warning

Without explanation

Simply because the voice tells you too

And something deep and restless and unheard inside of you will know that not listening to the voice will be fatal.

 And even then, you will pretend to find contentment in the little things.

But little things

Cannot break chokeholds

We need big things to push this earth back on to her axis

Big thinkers to remedy the lack of intention that has crippled our minds

Big hearts to heal the dis-ease that covers our children like sores

Big feet to carry us BACK to the path of being human beings

 So here I am using my big voice

The one I thought I’d lost

The one they tried to silence

To call to your bigness

To cast out all lies of littleness that you have been told

Since you last held a crayon

 Here I am

Asking you

Begging you to be big with me

Believing in that thing

Your thing

With you

Reminding you that moments fade

But purpose is never to be surrendered

Not now, not ever.

 Not when the world is waiting for you to show up

 Big.

[demblackmamas-blog]

Kellyanne Conway is the New Miss Ann & White Women’s Living Nightmare

Written by @theamonyee

Every time Kellyanne Conway opens her mouth she resurrects the damned spirit of every Miss Ann who has hidden behind massa’s face and southern drawl while abusing and exploiting black women, men, and children.

Kellyanne Conway is not new to Black women. She is who we refer to as Miss Ann.

Miss Ann is a term used to describe the mistress on slave plantations. She is poised, issues her disapproval of the “other” in hushed tones, smiles during attack, and quietly feeds the beast of racism to her husband and children on a silver spoon. Her plastered smile and powdered skin make her undetectable to her own, but to those she oppresses she is obvious and conjoined with her male counterpart, so much so that it is nearly impossible to tell where one begins and the other ends.  She is rarely discussed in present day conversations about white supremacy, the history of anti-Blackness, or even in the current discussion about the lack of intersectionality in white feminism, but she is a powerful and dangerous sociopolitical figure that we can no longer afford to ignore.

History doesn’t lie.

In 1669, Virginia law added an act concerning the “casual killing of slaves” stating “that if a slave dies while resisting his master, the act will not be presumed to have occurred with ‘prepensed malice’”. Laws such as this were not just written to protect massa and the overseer, but also to protect Miss Ann if she got carried away beating the children produced by her husband’s acts of rape against Black women.  In 1680, additional laws stated that slaves could not “leave the plantation without the written permission of one’s master, mistress or overseer. The punishment: “twenty lashes on one’s bare back.”

White women in America have had power and influence over matters of race for quite some time, in spite of their gender.  Their images are frozen at the sides of their men in every lynching, Jim Crow, and Civil Rights photo archived in this country. Sometimes you can even see them smiling.

Over the past week there has been harsh judgement and criticism from white women accusing Black women of lacking sisterhood for deciding not to join in the marches that took place this past Saturday. Let that sink in for a moment: Miss Ann was upset with Black women for what she perceived to be a lack of sisterhood...

Taking a moment to evaluate whether or not we as Black women can engage in a healthy, equitable allyship with white women is not divisive, it is emotionally intelligent and a matter of self-preservation.

We are not sisters. We do not have a sisterhood. Black women must have missed the meeting where we sat down at a table, white women apologized and provided a plan to atone and heal, and we agreed to be sisters under those terms and conditions.

How could we consider the women, who raped our men then falsely accused them of rape, beat and killed our children, fought against our human rights and punished us mercilessly for their husbands’ unwanted sexual advances and violence, our sisters?

Our bond to other women of color is comprised of similar values about family and nature, histories of coexisting cultures, and perhaps one of our strongest ties, our shared experience of being abused and mistreated by white people. Our sisters are the women who cared for our children when they were ripped from us and sold to other plantations. Our sisters are the women who watched over our homes while we were cleaning yours. Our sisters were jailed and beaten beside us, fighting for rights that would benefit the same white women who spat on us as we attempted to integrate schools and lunch counters.

Are you willing to do these things in order to earn the right to call yourself my sister?

This weekend we saw signs bearing the name of America’s newest massa: Trump. But where were the signs for your sister, Kellyanne? Hasn’t she been whispering into his ear for the past five months? Wasn’t it her face we saw immediately after he confessed to being a pussygrabber? Didn’t she appear on national news signaling to her sisters that they should believe her over their own eyes? Hasn’t she stood on the porch of America’s plantation in full support of his public verbal beatings against Black communities, Mexicans, Muslims, and the disabled? Where were your signs for Mrs. Kellyanne?

Like it or not, she is your sister.

If you are serious about making meaningful change you will have to convince your sisters to stop hiding behind the excuse of white men and to hold each other accountable for the damage they have done and continue to do. The only way to do this will be to face the fact that you might have a little Miss Ann in you. And yes, Black women see it. And no, we will not pretend that we don’t.

You want to be my sister?

Get to work.

Until then, don’t ask me to do a damn thing for Miss Ann.

@theamonyee is one third of @demblackmamas.  She is a writer and mother raising three girls and is currently repped by Dystel & Goderich Literary Management.  Follow her on Twitter @theamonyee