Essays
NARRATIVELY: How My Panicked Trip to the ER Exposed a Major Flaw in Mental Health Care
I'm lying in an emergency room bed, wires and sticky pads clinging to my chest. My pulse zigs and zags across a screen. Fluorescent lighting illuminates my blue-and-white-striped hospital gown; my hands are folded neatly across my belly. My husband Dan is sitting with our sweet four-month-old baby girl in his lap. Claire is still wearing the white fleece pajamas with pink roses that I zipped her up in last night. They’re my favorites.
Tonic: ‘Black-ish’ Addressed Postpartum Depression Better Than My Doctor
It's the postpartum PSA of my goddamn dreams—one I wish they would play in place of the over simplified, condescending crap most women hear before exiting the hospital with a new baby.
GOOD HOUSEKEEPING: I Was Starving Myself — Until I Found Out I Was Pregnant
When I found out I was pregnant, something shifted in a way I had never expected: I fell in love with my body for the very first time. At 30 years old, I found myself proud of my body's strength and its ability to grow another human being. I caught my reflection in windows and grinned. I marveled at each stage of pregnancy, my rounding belly, my sturdier legs.
SHEKNOWS: My Postpartum Depression Didn't Look Like What I Expected
But I’m sitting in a rocking chair clinging to my newborn baby girl. I rock back and forth, and the room seems to be closing in on me, like the already dim lights are growing dimmer. Like I am featherweight, but also heavy, and I will either be sucked into this black hole that seems to be growing larger by the minute or else I will be flattened to the ground by the unbearable weight of dread that is sitting atop my chest.
“Her small, dimpled legs hang over the side of the chair and her rounded belly pokes out from under her shirt. I think about my 15-year-old self standing in the bathroom mirror, lamenting my too-soft tummy. I chipped away at my flaws with an eating disorder that left me counting calories on a small piece of paper I hid inside my dresser drawer. ”