I have grown accustomed to being a vessel — holding what is not mine: thoughts, emotions, sensations, energy. It’s required me to feel bravely, to go into the depths of discomfort without knowing why or what I’ll find. My relational world is visceral. On any given day, I carry experiences that are known and unknownContinue reading “Empathic Parenting: A Black Technology of Survival”
Tag Archives: Motherhood
Happy Birth Day to Me
You can always count on a doula to remind a mother that her child’s birthday is her birth day too! Every year around my daughter’s birthday my doula friends remind me that as inspiring as it is to witness our little ones blossom, we need to acknowledge our own growth. Today is my birth day.Continue reading “Happy Birth Day to Me”
Madness & Single Motherhood
I think people assume that those of us with a “severe” mental health diagnosis would be the ones in need of caretaking instead of the ones doing the primary caregiving. But here I find myself, almost three years postpartum, a single mom and a mad one at that. When I started my journey as aContinue reading “Madness & Single Motherhood”
Article Feature: It Takes a (Virtual) Village To Raise a Mom
Much of my mental health journey as a mother began with my introduction to peer support groups. I attended my first in-person bipolar support group at Mount Sinai hospital during my second trimester in 2019. When the pandemic hit in March 2020, I began attending support groups online. Now, I serve as a perinatal peerContinue reading “Article Feature: It Takes a (Virtual) Village To Raise a Mom”
Healing Journey: My Rainbow Baby
In honor of National Rainbow Baby Day Trigger warning: pregnancy loss, miscarriage, sexual trauma, obstetric violence, suicidal ideation, police brutality My rainbow baby was conceived months before she took residence in my womb. I was at a postpartum doula training learning about reproductive psychiatry for mothers with mental illness. Paige Bellenbaum from The Motherhood Center inContinue reading “Healing Journey: My Rainbow Baby”
Nadia Naomi Mbonde 