Then my senior year, I met Jeremy.
We met in March of 2011, were dating by May, and got engaged in August. In January of 2012, I found out I was pregnant. We got married that May, and by summer we had moved from Connecticut to Georgia.
Go back and read those dates again. In less than a year, I went from a girl with a career plan to a married woman about to have a baby. It was a whirlwind.
The first spiral
I spiraled into depression during that first pregnancy, and I had no idea what to do with my life. I saw a therapist every week. My psychiatrist wanted to wait on medication until after the baby came, so I waited.
Our oldest was born in October of 2012, and then the medications started. One after another, my psychiatrist tried to find something that worked. About a year in, she looked at me and said, "I would have expected to see some improvement by now. Do you mind if I pray for you?"
I would have told you I was a Christian, but I didn't have a real relationship with God. I figured I had nothing to lose, so I said sure. For the first time in a long time, something in me broke open. Did everything turn into rainbows and butterflies? No... but it was a breakthrough.
She invited me to her church. It's a big one, and I did not want to go. Around the same time, someone invited my mom to that exact church. Two invitations to the same place. Okay, fine... we'll go.
I sat in the very back row, as close to the door as I could get, so nobody could stop me from leaving.
I never left. That church became a huge part of my healing.
Better, and then the thoughts
By early 2014, I felt so much better. I was in community, I was involved at church, and Jeremy and I were ready for another baby.
I stopped all of my medication cold turkey because I felt the Lord leading me to. I would never recommend that to anyone. It was not pleasant, and my stomach made sure I knew it. But I don't regret it, and it's part of my story, so I'm telling it.
The pregnancy went smoothly. I had a planned C-section, and honestly, that helped. I like to be in control, and knowing exactly what day it would all be over was good for me.
But during that pregnancy, I had my very first intrusive thought. I didn't know that's what it was. I saw myself driving off the side of the road. I told Jeremy, and he said to call my doctor. My doctor sent me to the ER right away.
At the ER, the evaluator said I should be committed. Jeremy said, "No. I'll take care of her." And he did. He watched me ALL DAY LONG. I still don't know how he did it. By the grace of God, the thoughts went away.
Here's what stays with me. Nobody in that room knew what those thoughts were. Not my doctor, not the evaluator, and not me. We all assumed I was suicidal or losing my mind. Nobody said the words "intrusive thoughts."
The calling I said no to
A couple of years later, I was asking the Lord where he was calling me. I had been pre-med, then switched to communications and marketing, and I expected to be climbing a corporate ladder. I wasn't climbing anything. I felt stuck.
In his kindness, I believe the Lord told me I was supposed to work with postpartum moms.
I hated that idea. My first baby was the worst season of my life, and now I was supposed to relive it by talking to struggling moms ALL DAY LONG? No, thank you.
I tried to be obedient anyway. I hired a business coach and started planning how to help moms with postpartum depression. I kept saying "overwhelmed moms," and he kept telling me to call it what it was. So I did. About a week later, I emailed him and said I couldn't do this. I was done.
It stirred up too many emotions, and I didn't feel qualified. There are therapists and psychiatrists for this. Why me?
So I went back to doing my own thing and trying to climb that ladder for another couple of years.
When I tried to control everything
In 2017, we decided to have our last baby. While we were trying, I was anxious constantly. I joined trying-to-conceive groups, tracked my temperature, and watched the clock. I wouldn't have called it an obsession then. Looking back, that's exactly what it was.
Once I was pregnant, I became obsessed with pregnancy tests. I bought them at the dollar store and hid them from Jeremy so I could keep checking that I was still pregnant. That is the first clear sign I can see of the OCD side of what I was going through.
Then I decided this baby had to be a girl. I already had two boys. I bought an early gender blood test and took it at eight weeks, even though the box said to wait until ten. It said girl. Maybe it was wrong because I'd taken it too early? So I bought another one. Girl again. After that came elective ultrasounds, asking my doctor what he thought over and over, the anatomy scan, and asking him again. I got confirmation again and again, and I couldn't trust any of it. I just needed more.
When the gender question finally settled, I moved on to our health. I checked my blood pressure and heart rate constantly and noticed every little change in my body. I researched every complication that can happen in pregnancy, and every time I read about one, I was sure it was coming for me. I was exhausted from being anxious.
The delivery room
I planned a natural birth. This was my last baby, and I wanted to really experience it. But the pain was so intense that I said forget it and got an epidural. For the first time, I could breathe. It didn't last. The anxiety came back as high as I could imagine.
Right before it was time to push, I felt like I was having a heart attack. I've never had one, but that's what I thought was happening. I asked my nurse if the epidural could have traveled to my heart. She told me that if it had, I would just die.
That was my first panic attack. The room closed in on me. It felt like death.
The next day, a nurse mentioned that I had lost a lot of blood, and that most people who lose that much get a transfusion, but my doctor had decided against it. Now I was sure I was dying. Then my daughter failed her newborn hearing test. They waited a little while and tried again. She failed. They tried a different test. She failed that one too. In my head, my baby was deaf and I was dying.
And then... they sent us home.
The week I couldn't breathe
That first week was one panic attack after another. I couldn't function, and I couldn't calm down enough to sleep. I found a therapist who specialized in postpartum mental health, and because I wanted that perspective too, I found a Christian therapist as well.
My anxiety got so high that it felt like my brain was going to explode. The intrusive thoughts came all day long. I decided that someone had to fix me, and I needed help right now. So I checked myself into a mental hospital.
The hospital
I found a facility just for postpartum moms. It had five beds, and I was so thankful they had one open. My mother-in-law came from Connecticut to stay with our older two. Jeremy had to go back to work. My mom and my baby came with me, and we drove to North Carolina.
It was supposed to be state of the art, with mommy-and-me classes, art therapy, and time outside. It was... nothing like that. Every other woman there had been committed. I was the only one who came on purpose. What they were going through was so much worse than what I was going through, which blew my mind, because I thought I had already hit the bottom. I didn't feel safe, so I asked if I could leave. The lead psychiatrist told me I was their healthiest patient and I could go, but I had to stay through a 24-hour hold.
The whole floor shared one phone. I was walking toward it when a girl walked away with tears streaming down her face. She stopped me, told me what she was going through, and asked what I thought she should do. I thought, GIRL, we are both patients here. But I kept that to myself. I listened to her. I encouraged her.
I think she was the first mom I ever coached. And I felt the Lord give me a glimmer of where I was headed.
After I left, I went to the place where my mom and my daughter were staying. It was so peaceful and so beautiful. I felt the Lord say, "This is what you're going to create. A place like this, for postpartum moms who are struggling with their mental health."
What changed
I was still struggling in a major way. But when I got home, I did something different. Instead of working so hard to fix everything, I started living my life exactly as it was, without needing anything to change. I felt the Lord walk with me through it and show me the way forward. And I got to a place where I felt so much better.
I also started telling my story. I made videos on Facebook and told everyone what I was dealing with, and people came out of the woodwork. "I'm in this too." "I've been there." It was so beautiful.
At my last appointment with my Christian therapist, she asked me one question:
"Do you feel equipped now?"
That question was the thing that had been holding me back. Lord, you have therapists and psychiatrists. Why me? But the equipping had been happening all along, and it still is.
So I started a podcast, then speaking to women, then coaching them.
Where I am now
I'm Arielle. Jeremy and I homeschool our three kids: Abram (14), Luke (12), and Kyla (8). I host the podcast Defeat Postpartum Depression, and I coach moms through Peace After Postpartum.