The other day I walked in on Caia and Emmi playing in Emmi’s room after I got out of a work meeting. Caia was sitting at her play desk and she said, “I am in a meeting like mommy!” She said it so proudly with a huge smile on her face. In that moment, I realized my daughter was proud of me and wanted to be like me. I couldn’t believe it. Her saying that made me cry. I am so happy to be able to show my girls how to turn a negative moment in their lives into a positive one. My girls are my inspiration for everything I do in my life.

For the longest time, I felt like a failure with my daughter, Caia. Before I was diagnosed with postpartum OCD, I felt like a huge disappointment as a mother. I couldn’t understand why I didn’t like being a mom. Each moment of my day was filled with extreme stress and anxiety surrounding motherhood. All I could think about was how Caia didn’t deserve me as a mother because I was consumed with intrusive thoughts and fears. My deep rooted fear of harming Caia on purpose made me feel that I shouldn’t be a mom. My inner critic told me everyday that I was a failure as a mother.

Each day in the first months of Caia’s life, I struggled with the feeling that I was disappointing her. As I laid in my bed at night, unable to fall asleep, I would think of all the potential ways I failed her as a mother. I lived in the space of “what if I did this,” and “what if I had done that?” It made me question my entire life, and I felt so sad for myself and for Caia. All I had wanted to do was live to make her proud of me, and I felt that I wasn’t with my anxiety and obsessions. I just wanted to be able to enjoy motherhood, and I couldn’t understand why I didn’t.

Getting diagnosed with postpartum OCD truly helped me see that I was never a failure as a mom. I was going through a really tough time, but it never made me a bad mother. Postpartum OCD changed me so much that I have made it my life’s mission to help other moms going through this. The fact that I have been able to turn my life’s work into something so positive after what happened to me, has been a transformative experience for me and my girls. When Caia said that she was being “like mommy” in a meeting, showed me that I have already made a positive impact on her. I am so proud that I can show my girls the importance of never giving up, even when life gets hard.