Robin describes how being able to share her story helped her to recover from PPD/A
Transcript:
I definitely think that the beginning of the healing was, was the post- the Pacific Post Partum Support Society and that, you know, I’d had a day when I just was, I was just crying and I just, nothing was working, I couldn’t, I was not functioning, I couldn’t even get myself up and I, so I just picked up the phone and I made a phone call and .. talking about how I was feeling for the first time .. things changed in that moment, you know, just because I hadn’t talked about it at all, at all, none of it. And I hadn’t, I hadn’t talked about being afraid of, of, of, I hadn’t talked about being afraid of my, you know, things might happen to my children. I hadn’t talked about even how isolated I’d felt, I hadn’t I never spoken of the struggles that I was having so the minute that I started talking about that I feel like that was the beginning of it.
And then, with the support group, having time to myself with two hands, sitting with a cup of tea was like a moment of self-care that I hadn’t had in, in months and months. And, and being able to listen and hear other women tell their stories and it, each story was different. But inside of each woman’s story was a piece of my story. And so hearing those stories being told, I didn’t even have to talk and those things I, it was, it, I started feeling better in those moments.
And it, in that space also was a safe place to cry which I hadn’t done either and that was, that was huge, just being able to just cry and cry and sometimes I would come to group and I would sit and I, and that’s all I would do would be listen and to cry because I couldn’t actually talk because it had been a whole week of just pressure and stress and that’s all that, but that’s all that I needed. And I would leave feeling a hundred percent better because that was just I just needed a safe space to do that. Hands free, with a cup of tea, crying my face out (she laughs) and it was awesome, you know, being able to walk away that way. So that was a big piece.
I guess within the group it was just the idea that .. I was responsible for me and my own healing and that I, that I, that I had the power within myself to do that;
