Sometimes, in moments like this, I think about the girl I used to be. She was mean. She didn’t care much about other people’s feelings. She was condescending, quick with a smart mouth, and always had a comeback loaded and ready. My family used to laugh because they couldn’t understand how I had friends.

Looking back…I’m not sure how I did either. My world revolved around one person, me. If it didn’t make me happy, I wasn’t interested. Self-preservation wasn’t just a habit; it was my personality. Then life happened, I grew up. I started recognizing that my words probably left bruises on people I never stopped long enough to notice. Somewhere along the way, I softened. Then I became a mother.

Motherhood didn’t just change my title. It changed my heart. After Harper was born, postpartum depression introduced me to a version of myself I had never met. There were days when simply existing felt unbearable. Days when getting through the next hour felt impossible. My mind became a prison I couldn’t escape.

I was terrified. My husband was terrified. He was worried about leaving me alone with our baby. Not because I wasn’t a good mother, but because depression convinces you of things that aren’t true. It whispers lies. It steals hope. It makes you question whether your family would be better without you.

I asked questions no one could answer. I started medication. I went to therapy. And even then, there were days I still felt trapped inside a box with no way out.

That experience changed me forever. It taught me what loneliness really feels like. It taught me that pain is often invisible. It taught me that the strongest people are sometimes carrying the heaviest burdens in complete silence.

When I survived that season, something inside me shifted. I became softer. More patient. More compassionate. I became the person who notices when someone is unusually quiet. The person who checks in. The person who wants to fix things not because I have all the answers, but because I never want someone else to feel as alone as I once did. People often call me an empath. Maybe I am. Or maybe I’m just someone who remembers what it felt like to be drowning while everyone else thought I was swimming.

Surviving postpartum depression reminded me that my story wasn’t over. There were still assignments left for me to complete. Hearts left to mend. People left to love. Children left to raise. Words left to write. Maybe that’s why this hurt so deeply.

Because somewhere between the girl I used to be and the woman I became, I started believing that if I loved people well enough, they would love me the same way. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they can’t. And sometimes they simply don’t. That doesn’t mean becoming softer was a mistake. It means I now have to learn something just as important as compassion: Boundaries. I don’t want to become the girl I used to be. But I also can’t afford to lose the woman I’ve fought so hard to become.

The answer isn’t becoming hard again. It’s becoming wise enough to know where my heart belongs.

xoxo

damalia