*Trigger warning: I will be discussing depression, birth trauma and suicidal thoughts*
If you search for “how does resilience affect mental health” you’ll view a myriad of articles with multiple statements about resilience and mental health.
“Resilience improves our ability to deal with sudden change”
“Resilience is an important part of maintaining and protecting mental health”
“Resilience can help protect you from various mental health conditions, such as depression and anxiety”
I especially liked this article on the frontiers website.
“Psychological resilience allows one to cope successfully with adversities occurring during stressful periods, which may otherwise trigger mental illness.”
After the birth of my twins in July 2020. I experienced postpartum depression and anxiety. I remember a distinct moment when it was just my husband and me. We had put the twins to bed and I was lying in our bed crying. My husband was sitting beside me, comforting me and I told him “I keep having daydreams of just walking out of the house and never coming back.”
Tears stream down my face as I write these words because it still feels like yesterday. It’s 2 and a half years later but that time is still so raw.
I experienced a very traumatic birth and was a brand new twin mom. I was also dealing with painful thrush on my boobs for 3 months straight AND I was extremely sleep deprived. I had thought at the time that this was as rock bottom as I was going to get with depression.
I don’t remember if I sought out help immediately after confessing to my husband but I do recall meeting weekly with a psychotherapist who was assigned to me through public health. I’ve always been a big fan of talk therapy so that was really instrumental in supporting my mental health. She was also the first person that acknowledged for me that I was dealing with PTSD from the birth trauma. I hadn’t really thought about labeling what I was going through with any sort of title. I just thought being a brand new mom (and a twin mom) was hard and I was trying to push through the pain.
Fast forward to the winter of 2021/2022 and I hit a further rock bottom moment. But first, a bit of a timeline to set the stage… We initially moved to British Columbia at the beginning of 2020. I was 8 weeks pregnant with our twins who I gave birth to in July of 2020. In January of 2021, I was fired from my job that had moved us from Ottawa to Port Alberni, BC. I was also still on mat leave at the time. We chose to move back across the country from Vancouver Island to Ottawa in April of 2021. We completed sleep training with the twins in June of 2021 so I was starting to feel a little more alive again. And then more lockdowns and mandates started popping up. This created a divide amongst families and communities, ostracization, and more pain.
I found a new job in June of 2021. In the fall of 2021 leading into winter, I would get through my work day, be with my family in the evening, put the kids to bed, and then I started crawling into bed with my phone and mindlessly watch shows on Netflix. I was hardly interacting with my husband. We weren’t really leaving the house because we couldn’t go anywhere and things were just hard.
And that’s when I started to think about ending my life. I haven’t put this down on paper yet so bear with me as I write this out. I don’t remember my thoughts feeling very dramatic. I just started to think about what it would be like if I didn’t exist anymore. Was my will comprehensive enough? Was it up to date? Was my life insurance information easy for my husband to find? Would my husband re-marry? Would the kids be ok? Should I film videos for them to explain why I wanted to leave the world?
I was thankfully still very much interacting with friends and family and one simple conversation saved my life. In the summer of June 2021, I recorded a series of interviews on my podcast talking to women about what the transition was like from working woman to mom to working mom. I chatted with my friend Rachelle Ganesh Bain and struck up a friendship with her that we hadn’t had in years. When we were younger we actually go-go danced together at night clubs and attended fitness retreats together. I remember we messaged one day about how we were and I told her I was struggling...
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