Healing From Postpartum PTSD Story

♡ We visited a pumpkin patch today. As I walked with my boys through dozens of little pie pumpkins & the big Cinderella ones & the classic orange ones, I thought about last October. One year ago this month, I asked for help after two years of silently denying & desperately fighting through a battle with Postpartum PTSD. On a ride at a pumpkin patch with my brave boy in October of 2018, I had the worst panic attack of my life & it didn’t stopped for almost 24 hours. It sounds funny, that’s what triggered it. A pumpkin patch. My last straw. The place I came undone. I realized I couldn’t fight it alone in my mind anymore, I had to tell my man and my closest ones how I really felt. I called my doctor, I went straight to a counselor, I started medicine, that day. I, finally, collapsed in my spirit — exhausted from the fight. I waved a white flag....”Help.” It was hard & peace-bringing to my soul, the catalyst for the Lord to heal my deepest wounds.⁣⁣
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What peace & relief today, to stand in a sea of pumpkins again & notice: my heart’s not racing out of control, my head’s not spinning with scary thoughts, my hands aren’t shaking, my breath is not short. No, I feel calm & whole & at peace, again. At last. In a sense, I feel, as I close in on a year.... as though that chapter of healing is closed & I am made new. ⁣⁣
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In some ways, my heart will never be the same after the trauma that triggered my postpartum disorder & the fight I waged through it those two long years. But slowly, each & every day, the dark memories fade, the sweet ones surface, the triggers are ever so less each time they arise, the pain is gentler & much less dagger-like....there are some things in that season that I’ll always remember or think of with sadness, & that’s okay. Yet, joyful & grateful are my pervading heart-beats these days, looking back over the valleys & mountaintops of the last season.⁣⁣
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If you’re struggling like I was, dear one, know there is power in speaking out your story, your struggles. There is BEAUTY, HEALING & HOPE in a brave, brokenhearted: “Help.” We are in these stories, together.♥️

𝘛𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘢 𝘒𝘰𝘶𝘮. “𝘓𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘨𝘪𝘳𝘭, 𝘐 𝘴𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶, 𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘦.

“The mountain where I climbed, the valley where I fell; You were there all along, that’s the story I’ll tell. You put the pieces together, made me a storyteller — now I know it is well, it is well.” (MHN) ♡