This is, “The Stories We Tell,” a weekly series of true accounts in all things motherhood. These 100% vulnerable, raw and ferociously honest tales are from the LA-based storytelling event, Mothers Unleashed. This is Heather’s story about her battle with postpartum anxiety and mood disorders. Heather is an actress, writer, and mother living in Los Angeles and created a short film titled, ‘postpartumm…’, based on her experience.

It’s hard to keep secrets in a small town.

When we were little, my Oma & Opa had a party line - now, that’s not nearly as exciting as it sounds. (Or maybe it was.) No, a party line - for anyone who didn’t grow up in a small southern town in the early 1980s - was when all the houses around the block shared one telephone line... so, everybody knew everybody’s business: Pauline told Maxine that Geraldine’s new hair wash turned her hair blue and that’s why she couldn’t come to the church potluck. Pat & Mary’s dog ran off again. Little Laura Beth Thompson is dead. They turned off the machines this morning… If there was a piece of mail addressed to you and you didn’t get to it first, chances are it would be opened and read - if not by everybody, at least by Mom. Your secret camp boyfriend? Not so secret anymore! That application to Carnegie Mellon’s drama school? Dad says with a small, yet final pat on the back, “I think Pittsburgh’s a little too far away, don’t you?”

Everyone in Pocahontas, Arkansas knew Matt’s name, knew he was a long-haired Yankee and knew we were living ‘in a loft’ together - unmarried - in Chicago. They called him my friend. “How’s your friend doin’? Did he not come with you this trip? Well, bless his heart.” (Which in this case was code for: “That Yankee heathen.”) Three Christmases ago, when I turned down glasses of wine offered before, during and after dinner, my sisters looked at each other, and that’s when I knew they knew we were expecting… soon, there’d be a new secret making the rounds.

Matt and I definitely weren’t “gender reveal” people. He wanted it to be a surprise - his birthday present - since our due date was so close to his own birthday. We had decided on a girl’s name, but were at an impasse with a boy’s. When our son arrived, his eyes were open wide, piercing blue, and with jet black hair, he looked just like my Pepa… so the choice was made for us. Welcome, Rex. The pediatrician checking his motor functions declared, “Wow, is he strong!” No surprise - every ultrasound showed him punching, kicking, dancing… he did flips every night, ensuring my nausea continued throughout the nine months. He loved tummy time, crawled early, pulled up, sat up, started climbing at an almost alarming pace. Our home, literally covered in industrial grade foam and gaff tape, looked like a dilapidated set from the original Lost in Space.

When he was ten months and one day old, Rex started walking. He was an agile little fellow, short and stout - my little Mary Lou Retton. He was full on running at eleven months. His favorite place to play was West Hollywood’s Plummer Park, where “all are welcome and fabulous.” We especially liked the homeless woman who lived behind the preschool. We saw her and her little dog every day, said hello, she was friendly and warm, talked to Rex, laughed with him, always said, “Have a blessed day.” I don’t know why, but one morning, she left her backpack in the middle of the playground, and Rex spotted it. He made a beeline straight for the bag, and before I could catch up to him, just as he reached it - BAM! - it exploded.

A few days later, we were crossing the street, and in the middle of the crosswalk, a car plowed into us. Weeks after, we were coming down the top of Runyon Canyon, I was pushing him in the stroller. I tripped, the stroller left my arms and went careening off the side. Another afternoon, we were at the Hollywood/Highland metro stop. Rex dropped a toy onto the tracks just as the train was pulling into the station. He lunged for it… the lights were bright, impact imminent. This one, I somehow blinked away… I was aware the thing was happening. We let the train pull away, didn’t get on. Reclining in our nursing chair back at home, as he nodded off, I sipped a glass of wine, staring at my reflection in a blank TV screen, wondering who I could talk to about what was happening to me who wouldn’t think I was going crazy and try to take my child away. I held on to this secret, with all my might.

The thing about postpartum anxiety is that you don’t know when you’re in it. If you’re like me, you don’t even know that postpartum ‘mood disorders’ exist. Everyone’s heard of PPD (depression) but if you don’t have those symptoms, you probably just think you’re going crazy. And that you’re totally alone. No one else feels this way. I was so angry and so afraid and so isolated. I did what any new mom with a half-free hand and a solidly latched, nursing baby in the other does… I went down the rabbit hole called Google. I came to understand that there is a spectrum of postpartum mood disorders, that at least one in ten mothers experience some form of them and that they can manifest as late as a year after giving birth - which is where I almost was when mine began. I also learned that a) most women don’t report symptoms to their doctors, so that “one in ten” is a grossly understated metric and b) no one had ever talked to me about this possibility… which seems odd, because it just makes sense that a new mom is going to need extra emotional, mental and physical support. The first few years of parenting, it’s like you’re always one moment away from disaster. SIDS, choking, falls, car accidents, drowning… balloons. Laura Beth Thompson. Second grade. The Pizza Hut balloon in her throat. Dr. Lombardo, emergency tracheotomy in the street. One block over, on Carter Street, Oma’s party line rings: “They turned off the machines, little Laura Beth Thompson is gone…” It’s hard to keep secrets in a small town.

I did think about confiding in my little sister, Holly. But she’s an R.N., very smart and pragmatic. I knew she’d send me to the doctor for help, and that would mean admitting something I wasn’t ready to, going on record as having these terrifying visions. I wanted to tell my big sis, Ivy, but her recent news of advanced stage metastatic breast cancer kept me from sharing my petty burdens with her. My mom was wrapped up in my sister’s treatment, and I just wasn’t sure how much more she could take. Every time there was a new ‘hallucination,’ I suppressed it more, feeling ashamed and stupid, hating the lack of control. The first time I tried to tell Matt what was happening, it just didn’t register. Saying out loud - the bag exploded - felt like a farce. I think he took my experiences as exhaustion, being overwhelmed as a new mom, something you just get past. That is a sentiment that would be repeated to me, that is still repeated to me, by many who simply don’t understand what this is. This is complex. It’s clinical. And it’s common.

I put on a decent show, until the holidays last year (2018)... months of intense mood swings, sleepless nights and constant bickering had left me raw. I’ve learned that when you mix those states with family and holidays, and add a sprinkle of booze, an inevitable result is Momma cracking open. My secret was no more. No one in my family had ever spoken of experiencing postpartum… anything. I could tell they wanted to be supportive, but this was unfamiliar terrain. Yes, we knew everybody’s business, but there is a history of not talking openly about certain things in southern families. When my mother, who is a writer, mistook my description of postpartum anxiety as exhaustion, I said, “Here - read this,” handing her the first draft of a short film I had written on the topic. That seemed to bridge the divide.

I had begun sketching out my experiences into this medium a few weeks prior, when I was at a particularly low point. A Facebook suggestion had popped up: “Trystan Reese, The Pregnant Man.” I clicked on his story from one of The Moth episodes. He was charming, one of those instantly likable personalities. Trystan, who is transgender male, spoke frankly and earnestly, with humor, about his and his husband’s decision to have a child. How he went off steroids and watched his body change again. How he received death threats and endured the most heinous things said about his family and unborn child. But he kept on sharing with the world - refusing to keep his joy a secret. When he spoke about his actual birth story, it was unbelievable how closely it resembled my own… that moment before ‘the push’ when lives are literally changed forever. His honesty inspired me, and I began writing. I didn’t know it at the time, but that process would lead me to actually make that movie and share my secret very publicly.

Once I leaned in, so many fellow moms - some new, some who are now grandmothers - shared their stories, their own secrets. Turns out, almost every mom really does experience something along the postpartum spectrum. I crowdfunded for the film’s production, and guess where most of my pledges and words of support came from… Everywhere. Everywhere. I guess it’s hard to keep secrets in any town. And maybe that’s just how it should be.