Do you feel like everyone else has it all together in motherhood while you’re downing your third iced coffee of the day and trying to fend off another panic attack?

Becoming a mother is one of the most profoundly difficult changes a human being can go through.

In addition to the major hormonal and physical shifts that your body went through during pregnancy and childbirth – your identity as you knew it completely changed overnight.

You are not only expected to take care of a tiny human that you just met, but you are also abruptly thrown into the process of getting to know someone else completely new: yourself.

New moms can experience an identity crisis after having kids, and this struggle can last for years after the initial postpartum period.

Whether you’re navigating wake windows and feeding schedules with babies; riding the waves of big toddler emotions; or helping your child learn life skills when they are school-aged; the demands of motherhood can be utterly exhausting.

Taking care of others’ needs constantly leads your own mental health to come last – and you’re feeling the effects of this.

Most moms (if not all) experience heightened anxiety after having kids.

From an evolutionary perspective, this makes sense, because our job as parents is to keep our kids alive.

It is adaptive for your brain to be on the lookout for potential danger and threats as you are introducing your baby who has been safely nestled inside of body for nine months to the big world out there.

However, as you acquire more distance from pregnancy and childbirth, this anxiety should eventually wane in its intensity.

If your anxiety remains high to the extent where it is impacting your ability to live your life as you would like to – this could be a sign that the challenges you are experiencing might be indicative of either postpartum anxiety or postpartum OCD.

The physical and emotional vulnerability factors that begin during pregnancy and continue after childbirth create the perfect breeding grounds for anxiety or OCD.

For some new moms, they experience significant anxiety or OCD for the first time in their lives after baby arrives.

The experience is terrifying and foreign to them, leaving them to question: “am I going crazy?! What is happening in my brain?”

For others, they are all-to-familiar with anxiety – but now it has grown into something much bigger and less manageable than ever before.

Regardless of when your anxiety first started, here are some common categories of intrusive thoughts:

Intentionally harming your child

Accidentally harming your child (dropping down stairs)

Child getting critically ill or injured

Contamination (bottles, pacifiers, etc.)

Pedophilia/sexual intrusive thoughts

Child not getting enough milk/gaining weight

Child not meeting milestones

“Messing up” your child or not having a positive relationship with them

These intrusive thoughts can lead to obsessions and compulsions.

Obsessions occur when we latch on to intrusive thoughts by treating them as though they are relevant, important, or even an emergency.

As anxiety or OCD grows, obsessions can eventually lead to compulsions, which are either mental or physical behaviors done in response to an intrusive thought.

While compulsions may provide short-term relief for anxiety, the unintended consequence is that they fuel anxiety in the long-run.

While the types of compulsions that can exist are truly endless and dependent on the person, some common compulsions include the following:

Checking Behaviors: baby’s temperature; baby’s breathing in the middle of the night; baby’s weight; excessive Googling; etc.

Mental Review and Rumination: mentally reviewing/assessing the quality of the relationship you have with your child; internally checking for potential thoughts about harming your child; imagining potentially negative future scenarios; and the list goes on.

Most moms have intrusive thoughts and some compulsions from time to time – especially in the initial transition to motherhood.

Having intrusive thoughts does not mean that you are diagnosed with clinical anxiety or OCD! Everyone has intrusive thoughts from time-to-time.

Whether you’re transitioning to solids and Googling things like “how to do CPR;” watching your toddler climb up to reach the tallest slide at the playground; or dealing with the general stress of balancing parenting demands, work, and your personal life, periods of high anxiety are absolutely going to be there in motherhood.

However, there are a few more objective indicators that can demonstrate a need for additional support:

You are experiencing a high degree of distress because of anxious thoughts.

You are struggling to sleep at night because you are worrying.

Your ability to focus; complete job duties; and be present in relationships is impacted.

Your stress levels are showing up as physical symptoms: headaches, stomachaches, etc.

You spend a good deal of your time thinking about the things you are worried about, or doing compulsions to try to make these worry thoughts go away.

You don’t feel like yourself.

Moms often ask me: how do I know if this is “normal” anxiety, or something bigger that warrants more help from a therapist?

My first response to this question is this: instead of wondering if your anxiety is “normal,” I would ask yourself: am I feeling the way that I want to feel?

If you are struggling in any way – when in doubt, reach out for help. There is no problem too big or too small for therapy, and you do not need to wait until things feel “bad enough” to ask for help.

In fact, getting support before things feel unbearable is the best thing you can do for yourself! It is best to acquire resources to better support you in your postpartum journey before things get to that point of crisis.

You don’t have to suffer in silence anymore – I am here to support you!

If you need to sob into a pillow for the first five minutes of session, you can do that.

If you want to tell me about how much you hate certain things about motherhood because it’s so hard sometimes – I won’t judge you (I know you love your kids).

If you want someone to tell you it really is going to be okay – I’m here to tell you that PPA and PPOCD are so treatable with the right support.

In addition to being an anxiety and OCD specialist, I’m a mom of two boys.

I get it, I’ve been there, and I’m here for you.

You can, and will, make it to the other side of your anxiety and feel true happiness again.

Want to learn more about treatment methods for anxiety and OCD?

Click the link below.