Postpartum OCD isn’t just something that happens and you move on with your life. Postpartum OCD changes who you are to your core. It is an experience that shakes up your life. My life has been forever changed after what I went through. Some of the changes that happened to me I still struggle with, but others have helped me change for the better. OCD is a debilitating diagnosis in itself, but when it involves your child, it is unimaginable. Even in my darkest times with OCD, nothing was as bad as this. Fearing hurting your child to the point of avoiding them is a sad space to live.

Before I had postpartum OCD, I never thought twice about watching a scary movie or Dateline episode. In fact, I would sometimes watch Dateline and 20/20 as I was going to sleep. I still haven’t watched a single episode of these or a scary movie in almost two years. When I started avoiding them, I didn’t realize anything was wrong. In my mind, I was just protecting myself so I wouldn’t be scared. The sad thing about OCD though is sometimes you don’t even know that you are being triggered. I had no idea me avoiding those shows was a sign of OCD. It was a mental compulsion that I couldn’t control. I have avoiding things in the past like this but never to this level.

Another change I have noticed in myself is that I am not as carefree of a parent as I had hoped. Not that I am a carefree person anyway. It is more so in the fact that I have to worry about things that a mom who doesn’t have postpartum OCD wouldn’t. I still get intrusive thoughts sometimes, and that sucks. I know that I will always have to deal with them, but it is still hard. I can be playing with Caia and think “what if I hurt her and didn’t know it?” I kind of have to bring myself back down from those thoughts. Before, I would have never had to think twice about those kinds of thoughts. I know my mind has now attached meaning to them, which makes it hard to let them go.

Not all of the changes to my life after postpartum OCD have been negative. I have said before, and I still mean this, that I wouldn’t change what happened to me. If I hadn’t gone through postpartum OCD, I would have never known that I had been living with OCD my whole life. I got to be in therapy weekly for a year, and that helped me learn so much about myself. I was able to get my self-confidence back, and I had not had it for ten years. I now love myself when I didn’t before. That is a huge blessing and gift to my life that has made me a better person and mom. I know that it might be hard to see the good in postpartum OCD, but it is there. The good was just covered by the bad for awhile.