Giving birth is supposed to be an exciting, exhilarating experience. After the challenges and pain women go through with pregnancy and childbirth, welcoming the baby to the world is thought of as the "fun" part of the experience.
For many women, though, the joy of bringing a new life into the world is accompanied by postpartum depression. PPD isn't just the "baby blues" that many new moms experience — it's actually a mood disorder that can interfere with daily life.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, "Mothers with postpartum depression experience feelings of extreme sadness, anxiety, and exhaustion that may make it difficult for them to complete daily care activities for themselves or for others."
One young mom, Krysti Marie Motter, recently took to Facebook to share a post about postpartum depression. Her post got a lot of attention — it now has over 81,000 reactions and has been shared more than 120,000 times.
Krysti Marie Motter welcomed her son, Liam, on August 6, 2016. The young woman has loved being a mom to her baby boy. She recently took to Facebook to write about the difficulties of struggling with postpartum depression.
She wrote:
“I get it. I finally get it. You see moms committing suicide. And I couldn’t understand it. How do you leave your kids behind like that?”
“Postpartum depression is what they call it. You don’t feel like the world would be better off without you, you feel like you’d be better off without this world. And then everybody posts, ‘oh, I never knew. She didn’t say anything. She seemed okay.’ ……. She told you.”
“And it seemed small to you, you didn’t get it. Behind on life, can’t get anything done. Everything is expected of her and she’s drowning. She lost herself taking care of others.”
“She’s told you, ‘I can’t today. I have too much to do’ Don’t offer to help with her kids because then the guilt sets in. She won’t let you take them because she feels like she’s already not spending enough time with them. I see it. I see you. I understand you.”
“Y’all wanna check on somebody? Stop by and visit, let her take a shower, help her in some way so she feels like she’s not so behind. Like she’s not alone. Like she’s HUMAN. There’s your signs. Stop saying you didn’t know. Because she told you.”
When Krysti's post started gaining attention, she got criticism from others for "borrowing" parts of her post. Krysti then edited her post to include an update about the messages she'd been receiving.
“EDIT: Since people are big mad and threatening me over a FACEBOOK post, I’ll just say this. Yes, some of this came from someone else’s post. I added a lot of personal things to it and corrected errors. I shared it to my small group of friends and multiple people were asking me to make it public so I did.”
“I never claimed to have written it, I just shared her idea. But whether you agree with it or not, 101k people have shared this. That means 101k people are finally TALKING about it. And that’s huge! As moms, we need all the support we can get.”
“And like one of my friends said,
"'Everything everyone writes is copied from someone else. The whole point is, that everyone needs to be more aware of PPD.' I have struggled and struggled and struggled with post partum depression for two years. It needs to be talked about!!"
No matter who wrote the content of the post, the message is the same: We need to look out for new moms.
Many people responded to Krysti's post with stories of their own experiences with postpartum depression.
Some people tagged their sisters, mothers, and friends who have experienced PPD to remind them they're not alone.
Postpartum depression is a serious disorder that affects women all over the world. Make sure to check in on the moms in your life and remind them that you love them.
