Postpartum Depression

Postpartum Depression within the African American Community

LaShonta Edwards, mom of three, describes her experience with postpartum depression.

*Uploaded to youtube to enable Closed Captioning and the ability to access in multiple languages*

By Planet Grande Pictures with Postpartum Support International on Vimeo

Natachia Barlow Ramsey; Postpartum Psychosis Survivor and Loser

~Be Loud, Be Purposeful, Be Strong, Be Courageous, Be Creative, Be Something~

Postpartum Psychosis - Dad's View

Fathers Talk About Postpartum Psychosis

Three fathers share their perspective and describe their experience of how they were affected by Postpartum Psychosis. 

*Uploaded to youtube to enable Closed Captioning and the ability to access in multiple languages*

By Planet Grande Pictures with Postpartum Support International on Vimeo

Natachia Barlow Ramsey; Postpartum Psychosis Survivor and Loser

~Be Loud, Be Purposeful, Be Strong, Be Courageous, Be Creative, Be Something~

Postpartum Psychosis

The Real Tragedy - Watch Now

This is beautiful and I love how Carol calls Postpartum Psychosis a murderer because she knows first hand what it truly robs you of and how heartbreaking it really is

"Carol Blocker describes her experience watching her daughter struggle with postpartum psychosis."

*By request, I created a link so we could have it with closed captioning and also the ability to have it translated into other languages*

By Planet Grande Pictures with Postpartum Support International on Vimeo

Natachia Barlow Ramsey; Postpartum Psychosis Survivor and Loser

~Be Loud, Be Purposeful, Be Strong, Be Courageous, Be Creative, Be Something~

The Dark Silence of the Night

When the Loneliness gets to you

I am very much having all these thoughts and feelings right now. I really wish I had paid better attention to and heeded my own warning about allowing people into my life. 

I already kept people at arms length and hadn't allowed anyone in my life intimately in five years. I thought my husband was sincere when we met. To find out I was nothing more than anyone else he was trying to get to marry him to keep him in the country feels like a level of betrayal I don't know how to describe. 

I know we do and say things in the heat of the moment, "Dino Brain" as the Imago Therapist called it. I get that and I can understand that. But to plan and scheme ahead of time. To be so malicious and try to use this against me and tell others about Hunter. 

To keep coming for me. 

------------------------------

-Originally Blogged on January 23, 2016 

I'm used to being alone. Even when I have others physically near me, I am usually alone. I can't remember the last time I was able to let someone into all facets of my life and with each passing day, month and year I become less and less hopeful that will ever happen. I've become really good at keeping people at arm's length. It's one disappointment after another and that's when I am reminded of how lonely I really am.

Life is hard. Some days are harder than others and I keep trying to leave people better than I found them. It's not always possible, but I am trying. 

I sit here crying, alone and this is where I turn. Because I am expecting a virtual hug at best when I am finished. 

I tell myself it's okay if someone else hurts my feelings, I will always reach out or attempt to make the extra effort. I don't ever want to regret how I left a relationship. I would rather make sure I did what I could. 

As I keep trying to date, I know I push people away. I am afraid they will leave, they will hurt me and I just don't have it. I couldn't take that kind of emotional blow in my life. 

I have gotten better at not allowing myself to be taken advantage of though and set better standards for how I allow people to treat me. There comes a place in the middle where with some men I can't tell if I am pushing them away too quickly or I am practicing better standards for how I am treated. At times I know it lies somewhere on the middle. I have little hope to find someone to walk this journey with me.  

I am puffy faced with a pile of tissues beside me. I cannot breathe out of my nose. My cheeks and eyes are swollen and it almost looks like I've been slapped around. An emotional beat down. 

Amazing Grace just came on my playlist. The tears started again. I know self forgiveness is the toughest of all. Because even as I type this words pop into my head all the time like penance, paying my dues, lifelong sentence, this is what I deserve.
Now I can tell anyone else besides myself that is not true and have compassion for them. But I don't feel that for myself. I have given myself a life sentence of guilt and grief that comes in waves. On nights like this, it feels overwhelming, as though the weight of a thousand grieving mothers sits upon my heart. 

You are good, you do deserve love, you do deserve people in your life who love and care for the whole you. All of you; your past, present and future. I am going to say this to myself and I encourage any of you who need to say this to yourself to say it as well. Because it is true and I promise it will feel like it eventually, even if it doesn't in this precise moment. In this dark silence of the night.

Natachia Barlow Ramsey; Postpartum Psychosis Survivor and Loser

~Be Loud, Be Purposeful, Be Strong, Be Courageous, Be Creative, Be Something~

Depression is a Black Hole

The Ballad of Lucy Jordan ~

The evening sun touched gently on
The eyes of Lucy Jordan
On the rooftop where she climbed
When all the laughter grew too loud

Natachia Barlow Ramsey; Postpartum Psychosis Survivor and Loser

~Be Loud, Be Purposeful, Be Strong, Be Courageous, Be Creative, Be Something~

*Always Try to be Something and be Kind*

Take Me To Church

There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin

Gentle sin is without malice or intent. You cannot want to do harm to someone before entering a room, that is intent. You cannot break down our apartment door with an audio recorder in your pocket, already recording and while breaking things throughout our apartment tell me I am "destroying our apartment" all so you can let people listen to that recording later.

That is premeditated and malicious.

You cannot assault me and then claim you don't know what I am talking about and that you were never here.
You cannot bring an audio recorder into our private marriage counseling sessions, so not even the counselor is aware that you are recording the three of us. All of this was done with intent and malice and has insidious qualities. You kept telling everyone that all the things you were doing to me, I was doing to you. You kept taking my car keys, my debit cards, my phones and hiding them. I just found a pile of cards a week ago when I went to move a pile of your stuff I had never been able to lift because it was too heavy and last week I was finally able to have it moved. A stack of cards I'd had tucked in the front pocket of my purse, that I left sitting on the kitchen table went missing one-day last summer... I asked you if you took them and you told me I must have lost them. 

So, so many things you took and hid of mine on purpose. 

It makes me feel horrible, scared and so bad about myself. That this person that I believed loved me, never loved me at all.



That a person who claimed they loved me, a man who should have been protecting me, was trying to hurt me in one of the worst ways possible. 

You knew about my son.You knew that I lost my mind 20 years ago and it almost killed me. You knew that it tore me up every day and I shared with you how much this website meant to me.
How far I've come.
How much talking to all these women meant to me. How I honor my son with this website. 

How lost I was for so long.

You took the very things that caused me more pain than anything else in the world, the one thing that scarred and scared me more than anything and you tried to make not just me believe, but the people around me believe that I was losing my mind.

You were telling me daily that I was losing my keys, my phones, my debit card, my storage card. You were locking me out of our apartment and wouldn't let me in.
You were making me stand in our hallway and call you over and over, texting for all hours and pounding on the door... the entire time claiming you couldn't hear me. Our dog was barking the entire time. I stood out there for over 20 minutes trying to get in through our door and couldn't. 

When you left, you wouldn't tell me or our therapist where you were staying but the truth was, you were staying at the hotel next door. All these games. 

You told so many people I was having a psychotic break. You tried to tell them I was having a "ppp" episode.
I am just so thankful you were never as smart as you thought you were.

You were someone I thought I could trust. I would never have hurt you like that. I tried to help you.

I have nightmares every night. I have nightmares every night about being attacked, about being assaulted. I wake up in the middle of the night panicked thinking I am being assaulted. I feel like I am being held down on the bed. Like someone is on top of me and I can't move. 

There are times I am so scared I wake up frozen and it feels like there is the weight of a body on top of me.

I just want it to stop. You have done these things to me. Even right now, all you want to do is continuing taking things from me. 

You are sending your attorney after me right now to try and take the dog and cat. No matter how nice and no matter how much I try and compromise on anything it's never enough.
I can't afford an attorney.
I am trying to be practical, genuine and compromise. It feels, as usual, it's all about what Karl wants all the time, any time, no matter what.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Take me to church
I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies
I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife
Offer me that deathless death
Good God, let me give you my life

In the madness and soil of that sad earthly scene

Only then I am human

Only then I am clean

Ooh oh. Amen. Amen. Amen.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Natachia Barlow Ramsey; Postpartum Psychosis Survivor and Loser

~Be Loud, Be Purposeful, Be Strong, Be Courageous, Be Creative, Be Something~

Razor's Edge; I will get back up

There will always be times in your life when someone wants to keep you down when you are down instead of offering a hand when you could use one. It's unfortunate that people don't practice paying it forward more often. It's easy to get caught up in the pettiness going on around you when you are surrounded with it everyday. 

I practice telling myself sometimes dozens of times a day that the job I have selling vacation packages is the minutiae of life when moms and their families struggle with their lives and existence every day. I love my "job" for the simplicity of it and the mere fact that it takes almost zero brain power to do it. People are happy talking about vacations and I get to spend a few hours every day just talking about sending people on vacation.


Then I get to leave all that behind and focus on things that will change someone's life. I remind myself that this is what's important. This feeds my heart and soul. I save all my emails and messages I get from moms and families out there. I cannot tell you how much they mean to me, especially when I am struggling myself...

Below Originally Blogged - Monday, November, 26th, 2012 - 9:56pm

Are we measured by the worth of the words we speak? Or the words whose ears we reach.

I can remember in a strange foggy, yet with surreal clarity, the moment I gripped the razor in my hand and pushed it down into my wrist. I still have the scars. I remember watching the blood flow behind the razor and it didn't really feel like anything. I recall thinking I could see inside of my flesh. The veins and at some point realizing I wasn't bleeding very much and I would have to cut deeper. So I did, this time I could see what I thought were tendons.

AMHI After Closing 2005 - Front Admissions

I wasn't afraid. I just remember it didn't look like me. It was a part of me I had never seen. Apparently I wasn't aware of how to cut my wrists the most efficient way. I would learn that After I was admitted to AMHI. They had plenty of tricks to teach you once you got there.

I have a terrible head cold right now. I am listening to Johnny Cash "Hurt". One of my favorite artists and songs. The lyric in this song that says "everyone always goes away in the end". I've said that for a long time, even before I heard this song. It doesn't seem like people keep their word anymore. Once upon a time that used to mean something. I don't promise anything to anyone because I don't want to be able to not keep my word. *Sigh*

On the day my son, Hunter died, I thought I kept hearing him make noises. I know now it was just my mind playing tricks on me. Some kind of sensory tricks. I kept going back in to check. Even when I think back now to the memories I have, I have them in two different ways. Seeing them from my point of view and seeing them as a bystander. -

Giving him CPR... that's about the only thing I can see is a brief snippet. Holding him, in my hands for a moment before laying on the bed. Then I'm back out. Looking from behind us. Shaking, my hands are shaking. I'm desperate again in my head; desperate. My thoughts are racing. I put my mouth on his, but it's wrong. Over his nose and mouth. Push, push, easy on his little chest. I am trying to breathe for him. Over and over. I'm not there anymore. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. It's just not working. I keep going back to it being from my point of view to being a bystander. That doesn't stop for weeks. Maybe months.

My memories have faded and sometimes that's a blessing. But I'm so afraid some day I'm not going to have any real memories of Hunter left. The memory of his first smile I can't see in my mind anymore. I certainly don't have the pictures because there never were any.

I couldn't even begin to count how many nights I have stayed awake or how many hours I have spent in therapy trying to understand and get to a place of acceptance. Forgiveness, tolerance. People on the outside, who often think they have a front row seat into your life, want to judge and throw stones for all of your abominations instead of taking a closer inspection at their own lives.
I've made a lot of mistakes. Knowing myself the way I do, I am pretty sure I will make more. My biggest hope is that I just won't repeat many of them.

It's difficult to get your feet completely under you when everytime you try to stand up, someone comes along and decides it's up to them to give you a little push back down.

~Bonus just added~ If you've never heard this Warren Zevon "My Shit's Fucked Up" do it and listen twice. Anyone who's reading this blog should love this song. I find some kind of solace and I just heard it as I was finishing up this blog so I added it.
Now there may be times when I just take a breather and lie there on that floor for a day or two. But Postpartum Psychosis be damned; I will always get back up!

Natachia Barlow Ramsey; Postpartum Psychosis Survivor and Loser

~Be Loud, Be Purposeful, Be Strong, Be Courageous, Be Creative, Be Something~

Go Ask Alice

Didn't we meet in the night in my sleep somewhere? (Yes)

They say that you are the king

Of this whole damn thing

Now they got me believin'

Said I don't stand a ghost 

Of a chance with my host

God, I wish I'd believed them

So let's drink a few

Here's lookin' at you, I swear

Didn't we meet in the night in my sleep somewhere?

Didn't we meet 

In the night in my sleep?

Didn't we meet

In the night in my sleep

Somewhere?

Natachia Barlow Ramsey; Postpartum Psychosis Survivor and Loser

~Be Loud, Be Purposeful, Be Strong, Be Courageous, Be Creative, Be Something~