Discovering Purpose in Darkness
For a few years, I have been feeling varying levels of discontent with my career. For over seven years, I have worked in branding and marketing, more recently focusing on web development and digital content creation. I love working with people and using technology to help tell the stories of small businesses and non-profits. But during pregnancy and postpartum, I feel less and less motivated to continue this work. As I have previously shared, I struggled with both prenatal and severe postpartum depression. I wrote off my apathy towards my chosen career path as yet another symptom of my depression. However, as the weight of my PPD started to lift (even just a little), I still felt an emptiness towards my work. Where projects had previously satisfied me and sparked waves of creativity, I felt burnt out and dissatisfied. One morning, I had a rush of clarity and realized that this was my sign to make a change. This was my moment.
For over four months, I spent every second of every day talking myself out of committing suicide. For over four months, I didn’t know if at the end of the day I would win the battle I was waging in my mind, fighting the urge to hurt myself or my child. Luckily, I am still here today. My child is thriving and I am finally able to look at him and say, “I love you and I’m glad you’re here.” With endless support, medication, and therapy, I was able to literally pick myself up from the ashes and start to heal. After spending what felt like an eternity in the darkest place I have ever been, I decided that I didn’t want to spend a single second of my life doing something that doesn’t matter to me. As cliché as it sounds, after dragging myself back from the edge of a cliff, all I want to do is help other new families so that if they find themselves on that same cliff, they know someone is there hold their hand and walk them back from the edge.
In August 2021, I will be completing my first postpartum doula certification course. During my pregnancy and postpartum, I connected with a few doulas here and there but did not fully realize the support they could have provided for me. I did not use one during my c-section birth (mainly due to COVID restrictions in the hospital) but honestly, I wish I had. A huge hurdle for me, both during pandemic pregnancy and in navigating not only postpartum but also treatment of PPD, was finding support and resources. My hope is that by sharing my experiences, using them to support other new parents, and pushing myself to learn and grow as a parent and (hopefully) as a doula, I can help even one person.
I have seen, and received, so much support for my child. Countless doctors, nurses, babysitters, blogs, books, etc. My goal is to be a safe place for new families, where their concerns, fears, goals, and needs are considered just as important as those of their baby. I can’t wait to share what comes next.