Post natal anxiety – lets talk!
*Based on my Lived Experience Learnings*
Battling post natal anxiety can look very different for everybody. Did ‘feeling judged’ ever trigger your anxiety?
Getting really honest with myself was the things that got me out of post natal anxiety and Ill be sharing more of that in here with you.
It’s really bloody hard and scary at the thought of getting honest with yourself, especially when your mind feels so messed up trying to deal with this new “motherhood” thing.
“Is this post natal anxiety? The over analysing, over-thinking, constant feeling of judgement😫.” I would constantly think inside my head…
I’d like to start by letting you know, that even though it’s scary, and overwhelming and just “ANOTHER” emotion/thing to deal with. I want to let you know that it’s so incredibly powerful once you start. Starting to get honest with yourself that is. In this post (which I wrote In my first year of motherhood in 2018), I share one of my hard learnings as I battled post natal anxiety when I first became a mum. (You can get to know me better here)
It’s super hard to admit that we judge, to admit that we’re not going to be one of “THOSE” people, one of “THOSE” types of mums…
It’s time for a #hardtruth, so buckle in and open your mind!!!
The fact is, we’re all someone else’s “other”. Every one of us sits in someone else’s ‘THOSE’ category. And when life changes, we all end up becoming that person that we used to judge and say we would never “become”.
And it’s fucking hard to admit that. Because we feel guilty and we “Know” it fricken hurts to be put in a category in that box. And the funny thing is, we’re the ones that have put ourselves in that category📦
This has been a huge eye opener for me as my anxiety would usually set in when I’m having one of these guilty, “I used to think that/do that” type moments. Because I was scared of being put in that box that isn’t “right”, that isn’t “cool”, that isn’t “appropriate”.
I was scared I wouldn’t fit in, like I wouldn’t belong😢
The exciting thing is. We’re the ones that created the box, so we can be the ones that destroy the fucking box. My anxiety now teaches me about the way I used to think, act and judge. It helps me to understand and have a WHOLE LOT MORE compassion, empathy, open-mindedness and most importantly, it has taught me to OWN my shit!!!
So my big hard truth and learning here, that I feel you can benefit from, would be;
If you are feeling anxious in a certain situation, if you’re scared of being “judged”, ask yourself the question – “am I scared because I too, have judged (unknowingly & unintentionally) when someone else was in my postion?”
And so now that you know where this “judgement”/”worry”/”fear” has come from, you can now make a conscious effort to be kind to yourself, and most importantly, share this bit of knowledge with other mums that are feeling the same. Because now, you “get it”, because you’ve been there.
Also, make sure you catch yourself.
STOP! before you put someone in a box, and have a think about if you really know their current situation, how they’re feeling and what they’re going through.
Because remember….
One day in the future.
You could be putting yourself in that same fucking box📦😳
In order to reduce post natal anxiety, we, as mums, need to STOP the judgement, we need to SHARE our honest stories, and start telling our TRUTH’s by getting vulnerable to ourselves and each other.
