What Postpartum Depression Gifted Me

Transmuting pain into power.

POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION STRIPPED AWAY MY IDENTITY, SO A NEW ONE COULD EMERGE.

A literal burning down to the ground so that I could rise again from the ashes.

I grasped on so tightly to my previous identity, the carefree, outgoing, spontaneous, exciting and impulsive girl who, in reality, didn’t actually value herself or see her true power, didn’t take her business seriously or have truly deep connections.

That girl was fun, she was desirable, alluring, and inspirational on a surface level, but she was afraid of truly being seen, of truly feeling deeply, and didn’t show that true depth to those around her.

She was a girl.
And motherhood is the transition from maiden to mother.
From girl to woman.

Once I released that grasp I had on who I so badly still wanted to be, rapid transformation started occurring and I was invoked with inner power like never before.

IT LIT A FIRE UNDERNEATH ME.

I was so significantly and impossibly held back from any of my inner potential and aspirations for that first year of motherhood.

I lost my entire identity, I lost my dream relationship, I lost all of my weight, I lost my sense of purpose, my drive, my passions, my sleep, my mental health.

So when I started to choose me? Man, did I shoot off like an arrow.

Any opportunity I received, I was rebuilding myself. I was investing in me, learning new skills, new tools to add to my arsenal of helping others heal too, sharing my authentic experience and journey, with absolutely zero time to spare for concern of what others may think or how I may fail. None.

Launching a podcast, recreating my entire website, launching new services, creating new products, moving into my own home as a single mother, buying myself a new car, and having opportunities flow to me.

I’d been burned. I’d been buried. I’d been trampled on.
And I was the one to pull me through that.
I became unstoppable.

POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION MADE ME VALUE MYSELF

When I finally emerged from the darkness, the depths, the never-ending storm... The skies cleared, the trees dripping with raindrops, the earth soaked with moisture, finally feeling sunshine on my skin again...

... And I saw myself in an entirely different light.

I realised how much potential truly was within me. I looked back on the work I had offered the world before all of this, and realised that I truly have some inherit gifts that strongly impact the people who did receive my offerings. And that was when I was playing small!

I’d chosen myself instead of begging for a love and effort that was not reciprocated, setting the bar for my daughter to witness, to know that we are deserving of a love that is supportive and will stand against all odds. In sickness and in health.

I stood by my mantra “if not this, then something better” and chose to step up into becoming a vibrational match for a partner I truly align with, desire, feel supported by, and is worthy of my deep and loyal love.

I stopped asking “what’s wrong with me, how can I be better for him?” and instead asked “how can I be better for me, how can I be better for my daughter?”

THERE IS A LESSON IN EVERYTHING.

And I held on to that. It kept me from truly going under. To know that this was a transformative experience, one like I’ve never had before, that everything falling away was only to serve my highest good, if I trusted.

So I trusted.

And it was hell. There were days I didn’t think I could survive, and in all truth I only held on because I was my daughter's mother and she needed me.

It was long. It was so long. It was excruciating. It was dark, and suffocating, and exhausting, and beyond lonely.

But I’d never be who I am now without it. And we always have the oportunity to transmute pain into power. We are the alchemists of our own lives, and at the end of the day it is up to us, and only us, to pull ourselves up out of the darkness.

Because there is wonder to be found on the other side. And joy, and expansiveness, and a love to be felt like no other once you weather that storm.

Love, Caitlin.
Writer, mother, alchemist.