The Heard Project

Behind every experience with perinatal mental health is a person, a family, and a story that deserves to be heard.

The stories shared here reflect different experiences of pregnancy, postpartum life, loss, and supporting someone through it all. Some offer hope. Others are still unfolding. Each is shared in its own words and deserves to be met with care.

To everyone who has trusted us with their story: thank you. We hope that reading these experiences helps you feel seen, connected, and less alone.

Your voice belongs here, too. Share as much or as little as you wish, with your name or anonymously.

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“I never had a mental health diagnosis, but about 2 months after I had my first child, I had extreme feelings of suicidal ideation. It was all I could think about. I felt compelled to commit suicide. Luckily I mentioned this to my husband and we went to see a doctor - I was prescribed my first anti-depressant and the thoughts went away. I am now an RN and 1 year away from graduating as a Psych Mental Health NP. My hope is to somehow help mothers postpartum and bring more education and light to the struggles women may experience after childbirth.”

— Anonymous

“I had postpartum anxiety/depression with my firstborn. I tried to take him for a walk once. It was the first nice/walkable day since he was born (he was born in December). He was about three months old at the time. I think I needed the fresh air more than him. He cried the entire walk. I had to turn around and go home. When I got home, I took him out of the stroller bassinet, put him in the pack and play, and I threw the empty bassinet across the room. It was so scary.”

— Anonymous

“I was pregnant with my first baby when I first heard the news about Cora, Dawson and Callan. The story was so heartbreaking and painful to hear but it stuck with me. 4 months after my daughter was born I wasn’t getting sleep and having terrifying intrusive thoughts and I immediately remembered your family and the next day found a psychiatrist. So I wanted to say thank you for speaking out. It gave me the courage to seek help.”

— Madison

“After I had my 2nd child, I felt like it was unsafe for me to be alone with her. I felt such overwhelming anxiety that I didn't know if I could take care of her, I was worried I might hurt her. I had lots of help from family, but I was honest with my husband about how I was feeling and he made sure that I was never alone. After a few days, the thoughts and feelings subsided and I felt more normal - but I can only imagine how difficult it would be to live months and months with those feelings. My heart goes out to every Mom and family struggling with postpartum symptoms.”

— Anonymous

“There was a long period of time when I couldn’t function and didn’t want to be here anymore at all, but I just had to fight very hard to stay. It was all a very long, hard road to get to where I am today with an 8-, 6-, and 4-year-old. I absolutely love and adore them and am so grateful to be a mother. I just want to say that motherhood has been a beautiful and messy ride, but so worth it.”

— Kadi B.

“Those years were horrifically difficult navigating the mental healthcare nightmare that exists in the US. I’m honestly not certain how I managed to make it to the other side but I did. But I know many other mothers do not.

— B. Sorenson

“I had postnatal depression 31 years ago, and it still haunts me. I had no sleep for months, became underweight, and l felt disassociated from myself, as if I was floating alongside, watching. I had terrifying urges to hurt my baby, which thankfully I was able to not act on; instead, I overdosed. Thanks to God, I woke up in hospital. I have been taking medication ever since and will never consider coming off it, as I’m terrified of returning to that place. I have grandchildren now and am grateful but haunted every day.

Please, if you feel like this, don’t be scared; seek help and take medication. This is more common than you’ll ever know; you will get better, and you will love your baby. Life is worth living.

These beautiful babies will help others to survive. Thank you for allowing me to share my story after all these years.”

— Anonymous

“ I have three children who are so very special to me. I struggled with debilitating mental health issues after my 2nd and 3rd child. I sought out a lot of help, especially after my 3rd child. I had all 3 children close in age, as well as two miscarriages. After my first child, I felt okay, but I did end up taking one medication to help. I ended up having the two miscarriages, then my second child, and things went downhill for quite some time after my second baby. Once I felt a bit better again, I had my 3rd and last baby. Things went even more downhill after that, but I was able to get a lot of help through a psychiatrist, therapy, and a mental health hospital stay. My husband also supported me, and I stayed close to God. There was a long period of time where I couldn’t function and didn’t want to be here anymore at all, but I just had to fight very hard to stay. It was all a very long, hard road to get to where I am today with an 8-, 6-, and 4-year-old. I absolutely love and adore them and am so grateful to be a mother. I just want to say that motherhood has been a beautiful and messy ride, but so worth it.”

— Kadi B.

“When I became a mom, I expected the sleepless nights and the exhaustion. I didn't expect to lose myself. After having my babies, I experienced postpartum depression and postpartum anxiety. My days were filled with sadness, worry, and a mental fog that made even simple things feel difficult. I constantly questioned whether I was doing enough or being enough. Along with the anxiety and depression came postpartum rage. I became overstimulated so easily. Small things felt enormous, and I would react in ways that didn't feel like me. The guilt afterward was overwhelming because I loved my children more than anything.

For a long time, I thought I just needed to try harder. I believed that if I were a better Christian, a better wife, or a better mom, I wouldn't feel this way. But I eventually learned that what I was experiencing wasn't a lack of faith or a personal failure. It was a real illness that deserved compassion and treatment.

Healing has looked like therapy, medication, honest conversations, and learning to accept help instead of pretending I was okay. I won't pretend that everything is perfect now. It isn't. I still have hard days. I still have moments when anxiety creeps in, or I feel overwhelmed. But I'm doing better than I was. I have more hope, more joy, and more peace than I once thought was possible.”

— J.M.

“My suffering began with the birth of my second child. I now have three beautiful, wonderful young adult children.

My second baby was born in 2000. The anxiety and questioning of my worth and life choices began almost immediately after bringing my baby home. I remember sitting in the nursery nursing while uncontrollably sobbing that first night home with my toddler sleeping in the next room. The next FIVE years were spent in a blur of anxiety, therapies, medications, and hospitalizations. Nothing really worked - I was unrecognizable to myself and my family.

Those years were horrifically difficult, navigating the mental healthcare nightmare that exists in the US. I’m honestly not sure how I made it to the other side, but I did. But I know many other mothers do not.”

— B. Sorenson

  • "A lot of my son's infancy is blacked out, and that kills me, but despite how I struggled, I took tons of pictures and videos. NO ONE knew I was struggling the way I was, not to the extent that I was. If I hadn’t gotten help, it terrifies me to think about what could have happened. I got lucky that I found my psychiatrist, but I know not every woman is that lucky. If you're struggling, it’s okay. You will make it through. It’s okay if you have to be on medication. Some of our brains and hormones react much differently than other women, and that’s okay!!!!! You will get through this.”

    — M.P.

  • “After giving birth to my brother, my mom had a quick but strong urge to throw my brother out the window while she was driving. It went away quickly, but for some reason it happened and she definitely loved him and would have been destroyed had she acted on it. I myself had to to be hospitalized when my daughter was 6 months old because I was so depressed thinking I was a 'bad" mom and overthinking everything - like her sleep schedule - I thought I had permanently damaged her because I had not been following a sleep schedule. The stress was so much!”

    — Hope

  • “I didn’t want to be left alone because I knew I didn’t want to kill myself, but I was scared I would. I also did not want to tell anyone, fearing my kids would be taken. I privately sought help, and the psychiatrist really did care; he also had a lot of experience. He assured me this is normal for a lot of women and prescribed me a medication. I don’t know what it was, but within a week everything was worse, and I couldn’t even function at work. He immediately had me stop and prescribed something else, and things slowly got better. I had one to address my mood and one for panic attacks. He was on me to get a therapist too. I stayed on until I felt like me again, it made me feel very hungry and I gained 40lbs and I didn’t care because my mental health was my priority'. This was 8 years ago, and it made me never want to experience pregnancy ever again.”

    — M.P.

  • "I suffered in silence, and the outside world thought I was ok. I did my best to look ok and to try to get through. i now sit here as an advocate to share my story and to hopefully help others not suffer in silence, know you are not broken, you are not alone, and you are not exempt from having a PMAD because you are in a helping profession, are a doctor, are a therapist, or should know better. We are all susceptible to PMADS, and some of us have greater risk factors, and there is support. My youngest child is 5 and a half years old, and though I am no longer in the official perinatal time period, I am still processing everything that I have been through and continue to experience. The support is ongoing and the healing process needs to continue."

    — Alli K.

  • “I was mildly aware of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders and that the sleepless nights would be challenging, but I was wildly unprepared for the turbulent storm of postpartum anxiety, OCD, and depression. My birth experience was traumatic, with a challenging recovery; she struggled with breastfeeding, and I spent countless hours pumping milk for others to feed her. My internal thoughts were scary, unlike myself, and crippling. I didn't sleep but somehow looked "ok" to the world. I smiled, attended the appointments, and answered the questions, then cried alone in the middle of the night, wondering if things would ever be ok. I ended up moving in with my parents, hours away from home, when my husband returned to work due to the fear that I could not be alone with this baby. I loved her completely, but I didn't feel like she was mine, and I didn't feel like I could do this on my own." 

    — Alli K.

  • "I wasn't sure I wanted to have children when I was growing up but my clock started ticking around 30, I decided I wanted to have a baby. In October 1992 I became pregnant, my son was born on 7/23/1993 which is my birthday also, what a gift! It was not a simple delivery, after 18 hours they had to do an emergency C-section, Tyler's monitor showed he was in distress. It was extremely difficult to recover from the surgery for me, my husband had an injury during my pregnancy and became disabled and was unable to help much. I did not want to breast feed, it was too difficult with the medication I was on for C-section and I was going to have to return to work within 6 weeks, my job was our only source of income. Other women really made me feel inadequate about this decision even though my doctors supported it. After I went back to work I was exhausted most days and began to feel extremely depressed. I went to my family doctor crying telling him I did not think I was a good mother and if anyone even looked at me it could make me cry for no reason. I explained to him I did not feel like myself, he informed me I had post partum depression, which I had never heard of. He put me on an antidepressant named paxil, and weaned me up to appropriate dose. I was fortunate this worked for me, I informed him that he saved my life!!! After 6 months he slowly weaned me off until I no longer needed it. Post partum depression is very REAL, I lived thru it and survived it. There is so much stigma in regards to mental illness, it is no different than any other illness such as heart, diabetes and cancer, it effects your brain which is part of our body. There is no pulling up the bootstraps and getting thru this. Some people may need medicine like I did, or therapy etc. everyone's journey is different. It was a long time ago for me but it was extremely scary and I will never forget it."

    — Kathy

  • “I suffered from postpartum psychosis 32 years ago. It started during my pregnancy. It was very painful, exhausting and terrifying. I had paranoid thoughts, but not suicidal or homicidal. I thought I was going to prison because I lied on my cv. I had 50 plus friends that supported me but my gp did not recognize the signs and kept brushing it off while my husband was desperately seeking help. I was taken to emergency and they said if she is not suicidal we can’t help you. I was bouncing off the walls and was in full psychosis when I gave birth. I was admitted to the psych ward after birth and my daughter stayed with me in the hospital for a month and then was brought home. I stayed in the hospital for 2.5 months and ultimately had electroshock therapy which lifted this profound weight and dark cloud. I remember waking up from a session and saying to my husband with a big smile “Did I think I was going to prison”? My care in the hospital in Canada was excellent and I had so many friends and family taking care of me. I have been able to be a mother and went on to have a second child. However, I suffer from long term bipolar disorder which is very well controlled by low dose anti-psychotics. I have had a full life and feel grateful everyday that I could be a mother. This illness must be recognized but I understand psychiatry is very tricky and getting the right dose of medication is very difficult and so much is unknown about the brain.”

    — Nita C.

  • "I am a mom, a therapist, a perinatal mental health certified clinician, and a person with lived experience with postpartum depression, anxiety, and OCD. I suffered in silence, and the outside world thought I was ok. I did my best to look ok and to try to get through. I now sit here as an advocate to share my story and to hopefully help others not suffer in silence, know you are not broken, you are not alone, and you are not exempt from having a PMAD because you are in a helping profession, are a doctor, are a therapist, or should know better. We are all susceptible to PMADS, and some of us have greater risk factors, and there is support. My youngest child is 5 and a half years old, and though I am no longer in the official perinatal time period, I am still processing everything that I have been through and continue to experience."

    — Alli K.

  • "After a couple of months and my return to work, the clouds lifted slightly, and my subsequent pregnancy seemed better than the first. When my second daughter was born, those same clouds came but morphed into intense fear of germs and the need to protect her from the world. My older daughter served as a helpful distraction from the depression but left alone with my new baby, I was crippled with fear and continued to complete rituals to keep her safe from any danger, sometimes thinking the biggest danger of all was actually me. I was pregnant again in the Fall of 2016 and lost my daughter in a second-trimester miscarriage. I was beyond devastated and finally sought help for my postpartum battles and the grief from this loss. I went on to have two more children, my boys, and was supported by therapy and a greater understanding of my needs and what I needed to do to take care of myself. With my 4th pregnancy, PTSD set in, and I was so afraid of losing this baby after I lost my daughter just months before. Every ache, headache, cramp, or sniffle became a rush to the emergency room and an immensely exaggerated thought that I would lose him too. It was not until I held him in my arms that I was able to actually process that trauma of the loss and how afraid I was of losing him. No one mentioned that perinatal PTSD could be at play until after he was born. With my final baby, he was born in Jan of 2020, and in a strangely warped way, COVID allowed me to be with him 24/7 with my husband and our other children at home with the goal of protecting them all from the world, and though this certainly inflamed my perinatal OCD, it also allowed me the space to be with him and know what we were all ok together.” 

    — Alli K.

  • "My experience with it started as we started cutting back on feedings…around October/November after a July birth in the late 80s. I started experiencing feelings of anxiety and nausea. When I asked my gynecologist about it, he asked if we were weaning and said the nausea was my estrogen starting up again. He admitted he did not know anything about the anxiety. The worst part of it didn’t hit until my milk suddenly dried up when she was 6 months old. My baby was struggling to feed, and I realized she was not getting any milk, so I handed her off to my husband and told him to give her a bottle. The whammy hit pretty much the next day and lasted for an entire month, lifted away, then started back a week later. I could not watch the news, as I called it the daily death toll…and could not hear words like suicide without this strange feeling coming over me, and an anxiety attack starting. Anything I heard on the news, I would have nightmares about all night long, as sleep was very restless. My heart would jump start at 4 a.m. with anxiety so strong that I had to pace the floors until I wound up hugging the toilet and throwing up. It felt like morning sickness by then. Anxiety would last most of the morning, then the afternoons would be lethargic, with sometimes dizzy spells and fainting. I had what I think were hallucinations, but I referred to them as flashbacks…of being yelled at as a kid, any horror movie I ever saw, anything I saw on the news reports."

    — Anonymous

“When I became a mom, I expected the sleepless nights and the exhaustion. I didn't expect to lose myself.

In November 2017, I was a postpartum nurse in Boston. I had just passed my boards as an Internationally Board Certified Lactation Consultant and gave birth to my only daughter, Eliza. Living in Boston was hard because we had no family there, but we thrived for the first 6 months. I loved being a mom and had no signs of postpartum depression besides the normal baby blues. When I had to go back to work at 6 months to work the night shift, that's when things changed. I accidentally and involuntarily started weaning because I could not pump often enough during my nursing shifts. I became withdrawn, had intrusive thoughts and compulsions, and would get set off by the smallest things when I had otherwise been a pretty easygoing gal before that. After my husband's postdoc was finished, we moved back home to Maryland, and things only got worse. I finally confessed to my husband and got treatment because I was constantly thinking I needed to remove myself from this life to protect my daughter from myself. I often had visions where I felt like I was on an island alone with her, and other people couldn't hear or see us, and I was worried I was not able to protect my daughter on that isolated island. Later, I would find out that my involuntary weaning triggered a hormonal shift that manifested as postpartum OCD.

I didn’t start to feel normal again until almost 2 years after my daughter was born. I wish more healthcare providers actually knew about the mental health effects of involuntary weaning, and I hope my story helps someone out there and that they know they’re not alone.”

— Annie G.

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