Finally at 20 weeks I started sleeping again and all of my symptoms went away. I was feeling great in postpartum until around the 5 month mark. I started to experience anxiety again after returning to work, which quickly progressed into severe insomnia and depression. I went back to the OBGYN explaining my symptoms and they diagnosed me with depression and prescribed me Zoloft. My family and I decided that maybe we should try the medicine since nothing else (therapy, etc) seemed to be working and I was rapidly declining and losing a significant amount of weight. After starting Zoloft I began to have suicidal thoughts (I had never in my life experienced this) and started searching for guns in the house. My husband took me to the ER because that’s what the “experts” say to do. The ER psychiatrist on duty sent me to an inpatient psych ward. I spent 4 days surrounded by drug addicts, alcoholics, and no one who had anything even close to postpartum. The psychiatrists changed my medicine to Lexapro and refused to release me since I was searching for guns in our home. I was treated as if I was a heroin addict and a criminal. I had grown men walking into my room using my bathroom while I was trying to sleep. I called my husband to tell him this happened and he called the facility irate- they then tried to tell him I was likely hallucinating and this didn’t happen. Finally after 4 days they decided to release me- With no plan for recovery. They just let me out of the facility and I was walking in the parking lot looking for my husband who was waiting for me.

My husband tirelessly did research and called experts in the mental health field to find out what the next step in my recovery was. Multiple people recommended PHP programs- so we decided to register for Dominion Health PHP which was marketed as a perinatal program for pregnant and postpartum women experiencing mental health symptoms. I got to the program and quickly discovered it was falsely advertised (it had formerly been targeted for perinatal/ pp women but they opened it up to a wider audience) - I was with women who had struggled with mental health their whole lives and again found myself in a situation where no one related to me. During this time I also was actively reaching out to postpartum support VA- they matched me with a mentor who again had nothing in common with me and was no help. Luckily, one of the nurses at Dominion recommended I schedule an appt with a former nurse practitioner of the program, Dr. Kasie Cassell, DNP, PMHNP-C, WHNP-C, PMH-C, who started her own practice and was also with Bloom Health Centers. When I had my first appt with Kasie I was completely numb emotionally due to the medicine I was prescribed. It took Kasie less than 3 appointments with me to realize that my body did not react well at all to any sort of SSRIs and they completely numbed me emotionally. With careful monitoring Kasie weaned me off of the medicine and I started to become more like myself (at this point in time I was also 10 weeks pregnant with our daughter). Kasie was the only doctor to ever listen to me and advocate for me. Her and I came up with multiple courses of actions should I ever experience insomnia, anxiety or depression again in any additional pregnancies or postpartum window.

I am a true example of how the system failed me and how there is not enough resources or care for maternal health. I am forever thankful to Kasie for helping me get back to myself and allowing me to be the mom I am for my kids- she has also given me hope that I can have the big family that I want and have more kids because she will be there to support me through.