Perinatal Mood & Anxiety Disorders (PMADs)
PMADs are “perinatal or postpartum mood and anxiety disorders.” They encompass an array of mental health challenges that can cause a ridge in parenting. It can affect parents during pregnancy or after child birth, whether you carried the child or not. Once only considered the “baby blues,” PMADs can significantly affect a parent, child, and family’s well-being.
Are you pregnant or recently had your first, second, or third child and are feeling “not normal?” By not normal I mean, maybe you’re feeling sad, angry, rage, or worse, alone?
I remember my first pregnancy, it was planned and I felt like “everything was perfect!” But It wasn’t. I caught myself pregnant in my tub crying and feeling so alone. I had a supportive husband, I had my friends, and I had my family, but I was still feeling alone.
It didn’t make sense.
Maybe you’re feeling something like it…It makes sense…there’s lots happening in your body, but these feelings are often NOT talked about…
Maybe you are experiencing a lot of worry, preoccupation, and you fear something bad may happen to your baby.
Or maybe you just had your little baby and you’re catching yourself experiencing these “scary thoughts” that are coming out of nowhere…
There was a point in my life, where my first daughter was around 6 months old, and I had uninvited thoughts of something bad happening to her. A recurring thought was that she would fall from the second floor of our home… this soon created some compulsive behaviors that to me would prevent my thoughts from becoming a reality. I would hold my infant child super close to my arms as my body rested along the wall as I walked downstairs ensuring that we were nowhere near where she could fall from the second floor. These thoughts came to me so often that I thought I was “going crazy.” The worse thing of all is that I felt so much shame for experiencing this, I thought, “how could I, a licensed therapist that has had training in post partum depression be going through this?” But I did. At the time, I did not share it with anyone. Not my friends, not my family, not even my husband. Again, I felt all alone.
If this is you, YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
If this is you schedule a 15 minute consultation so we can discuss further. If I am not a good fit for you I can help you find someone else that has experience in working with perinatal mood disorders.
