Sara On Postpartum Depression Stigma and Treatment as a Hispanic Mother

I’m a first time mom. I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl who is now three. I’ve always hesitated to share my story because of what people would think.

When Nicole was born, my birth plan had gone completely out the window. My cervix wasn’t doing what it was supposed to and I wasn’t dilating. I was given a hormone that would help with the dilating and I was also given an epidural. Then, all was well again.

Fast forward three days—I’m sleep deprived and I’m breastfeeding. I’m beyond exhausted. During the first few days at home, I cried all the time. My significant other didn’t understand what was going on. He didn’t understand and would just get upset that I was always crying. At the time I thought, “this too shall pass.”

I started having scary, intrusive thoughts about hurting my daughter. Some days it was all I would think about and other days the thoughts didn’t even enter my mind. I didn’t tell anyone about this because I come from a Hispanic family and they didn’t believe anyone in our family could get postpartum depression. If you did, something was wrong with you and you were not fit to raise your own child. I kept this from my significant other for same reason. To this day, his family has no idea I went through this.

Finally, after almost two years of suffering in silence, I went to an OB that was recommended to me. I told her what was going on and she immediately called someone at the hospital and told me to go right to the hospital where someone would see me.

I get there and start freaking out because I have no idea what is happening. There is a nurse watching my every move and a security guard sitting across from me, also watching my every move. I’m in the hospital room for about six hours when they tell me they are moving me. I start to cry because I have no idea where I’m going.

I’m just being thrown into this. No one is explaining anything to me. They sit me in a bed, buckle me and put me in an ambulance. The EMTS would not tell me anything, so all I could do was cry and pray. The ambulance finally stopped and they take me out. I’m crying like a baby at this point.

They take me to a room and ask me to take my clothes off. The nurse who admitted me kept asking me why I was there. I told her that I kept having these awful thoughts of hurting my daughter. She kept asking me if I hurt her and what have I done to her. I’m hysterical because she is making me feel like the worst person in the world.

They don’t really tell you what’s going on in these places. They kind of just let you be. I didn’t sleep all night. I stayed up and prayed that this was all a bad dream. The next day when I saw the “psychiatrist,” he didn’t even ask how I was doing. He just prescribed prozac, told me that I’m not okay and that I have to take the medication. This man was nasty every time I had to see him. I wanted to run. He had no empathy and didn’t care what I had to say .

Five days later, I was picked up by my brother. After being in a psych ward for five days, I didn’t even want to leave my house. But, then I saw the most amazing psychotherapist who helped me and saved my life. I was diagnosed with postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, postpartum OCD and PTSD.

During these trials I was suicidal. I couldn’t sleep and I didn’t eat. I stopped living my life because I was so scared that someone would do the same thing the OB did because it had already happened once. But, life only got better after therapy. I’m a medicated mama. I went through hell and came back stronger than ever.