The Afterglow: A Perinatal Mood & Anxiety Disorder Support Group Curriculum is live on Amazon…and I feel like I’ve given birth, i.e. elated and like I’ve been run over by a truck!
It’s been a long journey to get all the way here. Last June at the Postpartum Support International Conference, I looked around the bookstore and realized I didn’t see a support group curriculum. Hmmm, that seems odd. I know there are people out there facilitating support groups…What are they using? A few conversations with social workers running groups confirmed they didn’t have an evidence-based tool. And others that I talked to had the desire and were highly qualified to lead support groups, but didn’t have the confidence to do so because they didn’t know where to start.
That’s when I got the bug to write this. Oftentimes in life, when you look around and think, someone should do this! The answer is: YOU do it. I read, researched, interviewed others, and drew from my own experience. What I realized along the way is that parenthood requires a complete reinvention of the self and the whole gamut of coping skills: holistic, Cognitive Behavioral, mindfulness, meditation, art, music, finding your parenting tribe, and yes, sometimes medication. And as I facilitated this group with many mamas (and a few papas), we thought about and discussed what that process of reinvention looks like while also trying to figure out how the heck to parent. At the same time. Did I mention…it’s a lot.
Why the Afterglow, you might be wondering? As I went through Postpartum Depression and Anxiety myself, the image kept coming to mind of the light that lingers after the sun sets, radiant yet casting shadows. Expectations weigh heavy on new parents, especially the expectation to be the “perfect parent” and to happy all the time. Society seems to expect a mother to bask in the afterglow of having given birth, but for some, it is traumatic; and while it is an accomplishment beyond words’ ability to express, it can also leave some parents feeling like a shadow of their former selves. The afterglow is not enough. What is required is reinvention of ourselves as parents… and a continual choice to turn towards the light. No small feat! But the afterglow is hopeful, too, for though the sun sets each night, leaving us in the dark, it also promises to rise each day. So this group is about sitting in the shadows together, taking the small but necessary bits of time to grieve their dark presence. Only by properly grieving losses can we create space to learn new tools so that we can appreciate, harness, and bask in the light again.
My hope in publishing this resource is to place it in the hands of people who will use it to help as many mothers with a PMAD as possible. Together, we can lighten their burden, give them hope, help them realize they are not alone, and guide them as part of a comprehensive treatment team towards 100% recovery— not merely surviving, but thriving together with their partners and their little ones.
“[Motherhood is] the biggest gamble in the world.
It is the glorious life force.
It’s huge and scary—
it’s an act of infinite optimism.”
-Gilda Radner