Pagan Parent Confessional: I Had PPD & No One Knew

Full disclosure: I didn't have adequate time or insurance coverage, so I was never diagnosed. This is my assessment of my own mental state after both of my pregnancies, with three years of pre-med college, two years of working in the medical field, and a healthy respect for the fallacies of self-diagnosis.

I plastered on a smile when I went to work every day. I spent most of the day ignoring my co-workers, skipping breaks, and seeing how many days in a row I could get away without speaking a single word to anyone. I maintained a strict daily schedule to be able to get to work on time, wash laundry, and occasionally get groceries.

Speaking of groceries - for nearly five years, there wasn't a single trip to the grocery store that didn't end with me crying in bed for an hour.

Symptoms of PPD

• Anxiety - Like being either terrified or just numb every time I went out in public with my kid(s).
• Depression - A complete lack of motivation to do anything 90% of the time. Habit was my only friend.
• Mood swings - Crying jags, rage, fierce protectiveness.
• Irritability - Oh, yeah. I broke up with my now hubby because I found out I was pregnant again.
• Loss of interest - In people. In activities. In living.
• Thoughts of harming self or the child - Let me be perfectly clear. The first year, for both kids, this was a DAILY thing. Every single day. Either I wanted to be dead, or I had thoughts of hurting my kid(s). Every. Single. Day.

But How Did I Hide It?

Oh, I'm good. See, I'm the ultimate altruist. When I decided to go through with my pregnancies, I formally accepted the obligation to see these children into adulthood to the best of my ability. I literally made an oath.

Because of that, my feelings on the matter didn't matter. I shut the emotions away and made a schedule to keep us going even when I could barely string two words together without sobbing, and that was that. Score one for dissociation.

Years of being an introvert stuck in customer service jobs taught me how to fake a real-looking smile. Compartmentalization allowed me to enjoy brief moments of interaction in the midst of nearly constant emotional self-abuse.

It probably also helped that my friends never visited and seldom called, so how would they know? My parents helped, but got frustrated, and I simply accepted what was offered, seldom even asking for more.

And I just plain didn't speak about my pain. To anyone. If I spoke to anyone at all.

How Did I Get Through It?

Well, one could argue that I didn't. I still have flashbacks and crying jags over this stuff, which is now close to 8 years gone. I can't talk about it without feeling guilty because 1) I chose to keep my kids, 2) I actually do love my kids, 3) I was never diagnosed, and 4) nothing bad actually happened.

Secondly, I reached out once, to one person, and he responded. After my second was born, I found myself struggling once more. And I realized I missed him. I talked to him online and looked for signs that he'd grown a bit - I really couldn't tell you if he had or if I'd just been hoping - and I offered to let him move in with me.

I have since been slowly working with the pain - shadow work, the never-ending cycle of shadow work. I occasionally find a new detail or depth that I'd missed. And it all comes up again.

Mostly, I just feel disappointed. I feel cheated about my pregnancies, about my birth experiences, about my kids' infancy. Like, I could have enjoyed all of them more, if only...

So What?

So... help new mothers. It doesn't have to be much. Visit for an afternoon. Take her a meal. Hold the baby while she showers. Call. Talk to her about her, not the baby. So many women feel like their identities are overwhelmed by their new role as baby's mom. Visit again.

Even a new mom who doesn't have PPD needs these connections. Someone to listen to them. Someone to help them remember themselves. Someone to care about them.

This is sacred work. This is caring for the newly born Mother. This is mourning the Maiden's passing. This is celebrating life cycles in all their dirty, messy, chaotic, natural state. This is community and priest/essing.

This is Paganism.

The Nine Noble Virtues: a Modern Take - Self-Reliance (Cross-post)

Originally posted HERE.

The Nine Noble Virtues are a modern invention, so it seems my title is redundant. However, little seems to have been done to bring the concepts themselves from the past into the present.

I do not consider the NNV to be a historical reference. I do consider them to be a modern way of understanding cultural and even subconscious values that were stressed, if not perfectly, by those peoples lumped together as Norsemen.

This series will explore my thoughts on these values and, hopefully, start conversations about them in a modern context.

Self-reliance may be one of the most misunderstood concepts, in my oh-so humble opinion. We look at it from the highly individualist perspective of western culture, rather than the tribal lifestyle that the Norse peoples lived.

This means that we like to take the Libertarian road, where we would all do just fine so long as we were left to our own devices. But that's not how humanity has ever survived. We are horrible at being on our own.

Did you know that the top two factors in surviving in the wilderness are 1) being able to create fire, and 2) having someone with you? Even one other person can be the difference between life and death. So why would we need self-reliance?

Because self-reliance doesn't mean going through life alone. It has more to do with not being what is often referred to as a "sheeple." (Read Ralph Waldo Emerson for more.)

That's right. This isn't about growing your own food and building your own homes. Barn-raisings were a thing, and for good reason. That's a lot of work, and many hands make it better.

But if you don't think for yourself - understanding the group's mindset, but still looking at it critically - you are just a mindless body for the society. Mindless bodies don't make history. Mindless bodies don't make a society grow. Mindless bodies don't call out injustices and point out logic holes.

Thinking for yourself, being able to use your mind as an individual, makes you an invaluable part of any group. It doesn't replace the group, and the group doesn't replace it. Society isn't a machine, needing virtually identical cogs to function. It is a living, growing - dare I say enlightening - structure that should be promoting growth from all of its members.

Growth doesn't come from conformity. It comes from being slightly different. Small mutations in genes lead to new species. Small mutations in thought lead to new ideas, inventions, better ways of living... and, of course, STORIES!

Because stories feed us in ways that cannot be explained by biology. Stories feed our souls, and new stories are not created from static thinking.

So be self-reliant, not in some crazy, build-your-own-roads kind of way (unless that's what you really want...). Be self-reliant in that you consider ideas in your own way, you look at messages from the media and political propaganda with a critical eye. Those things that you've been fed by social conditioning? Think about them again, and be your own self in your beliefs.