In honor of Maternal Mental Health Week, I wanted to share my original story that I sent to my therapist before I was diagnosed with Postpartum OCD. Reading this actually made me really sad, but it also shows how far I have come since I wrote this three years ago. This story is for all of the moms who are/have been where I was. You are not alone.

The summer of 2021 was the best time of my life. I finally got to have my wedding reception after coming out of Covid, just had the most beautiful honeymoon in St. Lucia with my amazing husband and finally got my old job back. Life was great. The only thing that could make it better was being a mom. It was all I could think about. I wanted to be pregnant so badly. I went off birth control right after my reception at the beginning of June. 

At the beginning of July I had my period. I was so upset. Maybe I couldn’t get pregnant? I had only been off the pill a month. My husband didn’t want a baby right then. He kept saying we would lose our free time, our lives. I let that go in one ear and out the other. All I could think about was getting pregnant to have my baby and take off work to be together. Fast forward to getting home from our beach trip, I found out I was pregnant. I saw a faint line on the first response test. When I took the picture on the app, it said “pregnant.” I could not believe it. Finally, I got what I had wanted. I jumped up and down so excited. I called my mom and my sister. Obviously, they were both so excited. When I told my husband all I got was “ok.” But that didn’t matter to me because I was finally pregnant. 

The first trimester was the hardest. I spent 6 weeks straight throwing up all day and night. I couldn’t eat most foods. I lost 7 pounds. The only thing keeping me distracted was teaching. My students were so excited when they found out I was having a baby. Once I got over the hump of the first trimester, life was great. I could eat whatever I wanted, I was doing great at work, my husband and I were so happy. I was the happiest I had ever been. I was preparing everything to be a mom. My third trimester was easy. I was tired but that was about it. I still got up and went to work every day. Toward the end of my pregnancy, I couldn’t work anymore. My body was just tired. I was sad to leave my students. They had been my number one supporters and threw me the most amazing baby shower. 

My baby came on the most unexpected day. I was supposed to have my maternity shoot that afternoon. I was going to my house to get ready but knew something wasn’t right. I went to the hospital only to find my baby was coming three weeks early. My mom and husband got to both be there. Covid only allowed two support people. I wanted my sister there more than anything. My labor was so easy, and my beautiful baby was born. I was so excited. I had waited so long to meet her. 

Coming home from the hospital is the hard part. I made it home and had my whole family there to meet my baby. My mom was staying at my house to help out with the baby. Unfortunately, while I was breast feeding, I had some issues. I thought my baby was eating but actually was not. On the day of her first appt, she almost had to be hospitalized due to low weight. I could not have felt more guilty. That was obviously my fault for not being able to do the one thing I am supposed to do to provide for my baby. She had to be put on a strict 2 hour feeding schedule. I was not prepared for waking up every two hours. My husband really stepped it up in that time. 

My mom ended up staying for only a week. She really helped me out during that time. However, she also wanted things to be a certain way. Bottles had to be out for a certain amount of time before it was thrown away, baths had to be done a certain way. It made me feel like I could not live up to her expectations of being a mom. My mom was the most amazing mother. How could I do that? When my mom left is when the emotional side of me came out. I felt the weight of this new responsibility. I cried every day. My husband once again helped me in this moment. If he did not have the first month of my baby’s life off from work, I would not have survived. 

During that time, he was off, my husband was with the baby at night, and I was with her during the day. That worked for us, we both got to sleep. This is when I first started having the “scary thoughts.” Like what if my baby was accidentally left in the cold, or what if I dropped her then got hurt. Or worse, what if I hurt her on purpose. At the time I would just think, why did I think that, and move on. I was not aware those were intrusive thoughts at the time. Those improved in a few weeks. I’m not sure why, the only thing I can think helped was the IUD I got. 

 My baby started sleeping around three months. Once that happened, life was great. I had about two months where I was mostly a single parent. My husband works day shift and night shift. They rotate every two weeks. His shifts are also twelve hours. During those two months, my baby was up every couple hours to eat. I was not sleeping at all. My husband would come home and not really help with the baby. I was drowning. Not only that, but my lack of sleep made me nuts. My family seemed to hate me. They would get mad at my emotional outbursts. I had never felt so alone. My siblings are all younger and not parents. They have no idea what I’m going through. My mom was the only one who understood at the time. 

After my baby started sleeping, I felt better. I felt finally at peace with being a mom. My husband still wasn’t helping that much, and that was hard. But I could manage it. Then something changed. When my daughter was almost four months old, I was woken up out of sleep unexpectedly to feed her. It was 11 and I had just fallen asleep. I was half asleep and angry. I shook the bottle too hard while I was holding her. Nothing happened, but I had never felt so guilty in my life. How could I be so careless and let myself get angry around my innocent daughter? I didn’t sleep the rest of the night or nights after that. I basically just stopped sleeping.  I had to take a Benadryl to sleep. If I go to sleep, then there is a possibility that that could happen again. It took me a while to forgive myself, and that was when I spiraled. 

I decided in September when my baby was almost 6 months old to get my IUD removed. I was having insomnia and thought that was why. Once I got it taken out, I felt pretty good. I was sleeping a little better. Then my family’s 12 year old yellow lab started having health issues. I had never been so stressed. That was when the problems started. I started having intrusive thoughts. They were a little similar to when my daughter was first born. Mainly I kept worrying that I would become a murderer. It was a lot of “what if” scenarios. My number one fear was becoming like Andrea Yates or the girl of shutter island. These worries caused me to start having panic attacks. I remember the worst one was when I was feeding my daughter. I was holding the bottle and became so overcome with panic of being a murderer that I started shaking and couldn’t breathe. I had to put her down. I immediately left and went to my parents’. From that point on I could not be alone. I had to constantly have someone with me because if I had someone, there would be no way I could be a murderer, right? I started avoiding things that would trigger any kind of fear. I stopped watching 20/20 and Dateline, which used to be one of my favorite shows. I was terrified to sleep because I watched a documentary on a guy who killed his best friend while claiming to be “sleepwalking.” I could not let myself lose control in that way. That’s why I stopped sleeping. Trying to be with someone at all times is hard and embarrassing. I am almost 30 years old. The hard part too is my husband works all the time, and I am alone a lot, contributing to my worst fear of being alone with my daughter. I have spent a lot of time at my parents’, and I am worried they think I am crazy. 

I knew I needed help. I had been researching and discovered I most likely had postpartum OCD. I know I had OCD in the past because when I was 12, I had an intense fear of throwing up. It caused me to not be able to go to school and do intense rituals at night to “prove” I wouldn’t throw up. My mom should have gotten me help then. I somehow came out of that, but the OCD popped up in other ways. Most recently, it was at work. I felt obsessed with being the best teacher. I had to have complete control of everything: my classroom, the students and even other teachers and admin. If something deviated from what I thought was good, I would go home and obsess for days. I had no idea this was OCD. 

I finally made an appt with the OBGYN. I was prescribed Zoloft 50mg. Within two days I knew this was a mistake, I was having intense feelings of panic and anxiety. I decided to make an appointment on Talk Space to talk with a therapist. The guy gave me no help. Instead all I got was more fear. He asked me if I was having hallucinations. I knew that I wasn’t but I got a fear that maybe I was. I couldn’t stop worrying that I was having that like Andrea Yates. I felt more miserable than ever. I stopped taking Zoloft and made an appointment with my regular doctor. I started taking Prozac at the lowest dose, 10 mg. The medicine seemed better at first. I wasn’t having intense panicking moments at first. Then after about two weeks, it happened.  I tried to stay alone at my house for the first time in months. I could do it. I had Prozac. The truth was I could not. I had a terrible panic attack. I called my husband in the middle of the night, hysterically crying. I got the response of “get it together, you have a baby.” I felt so sad for myself. What had happened to me? 

I spent the next day crying hysterically and feeling suicidal. I did not want to be here anymore. I would have rather died than hurt someone else. The next night my mom agreed to stay with me. I was so embarrassed to admit that I needed that kind of help. I had another panic attack. What if I was a murderer? I literally hid anything that could potentially be a weapon in my house. I hid a gun and baseball bat. I just laid in my bed that night praying god would take me, so I didn’t feel like this anymore. 

I have been on Prozac for almost three weeks. I have only had one good day. My husband has been so supportive once I finally told him what was going on. He helps in any way he can. My sister and mom also do anything to help and that’s partly why I feel so guilty. I am causing so much stress on them. I have never felt this low in my life. It’s hard to get better because I have to wake up every day and be present for my daughter, and all I feel like doing is lying in bed. I wanted nothing more than to be a mom and be pregnant, but now I am trapped in these terrible feelings. Sometimes I want to run away. Mourning my old life has been harder than any loss of my life. I miss my job, waking up freely, going anywhere I want. This has been the hardest life change I could imagine. I would do anything to go back to normal. I wished I loved being a mom more and wouldn’t feel the intense guilt and dread I feel every day that I can’t be like my mom was to me. My daughter deserves better than me.