As I prepare to graduate with my Master’s degree in Strategic Communications and Public Relations, my capstone focuses on postpartum depression. I invite you to listen. Note: This is not about my capstone—this is simply my Sunday reflection.
To be continued.
SPEAKER_00
Today is a m is a magnificent day. August of twenty twenty three, I decided that I wanted my PhD. And in order for me to get to that, I would need to get my master's. Now, I must confess the PhD is on hold. But without interruption, unlike my undergrad degree, without interruption, I was able to successfully take class after class. I think it's 36 credits. And as of a few minutes ago, I refined for the last time my 25-page capstone and added earlier today, I added all the narrative to my PowerPoint. I've practiced at least once and I will rest today, but I've taken off Wednesday, so Wednesday all day I will practice and I will just read my paper, you know, more than a few times to feel even more familiar than I do already. But I am prepared to graduate, people. I am prepared to graduate, and I am so proud of myself. I am so proud of myself. Now this is the thing. Once upon a time, I would have sent a text out to everybody. I've done it, I've done it, I've done it, I've done it, I've done it, I've done it, I've done it. And while everyone would, majority of the people would respond kindly, what I've discovered over the years is that people do the best that they can with what they have, with who they are. You know, my capstone is about it's entitled Reframing Maternal Mental Health: A Strategic Shift from Intervention to Prevention. And in this paper, research paper, I discuss the formative years of a child's life and how, if you have a mom who is experiencing postpartum depression, that affects the bonding process and the very important bonding period of a child's of a newborn's life. That if you have a parent who has mental health issues, challenges during your formative years, it affects the trajectory of your life, it affects your development, your cognitive, physical, emotional, mental development, I can tell you that as a neurospicy person, that my mother was depressed all of my life. I can tell you that I was one month old when I was sent to live with her mother. There was no bonding. And when I laid eyes on my mother for the first time, when it was time for me to go to kindergarten, and my maternal Abuelita, grandmother, my mother's mother, pointed, I was in JFK Airport and she pointed up to the next tier and said, There's your mom, there's your mom. And I'm looking and looking, I'm looking for a woman that I thought I remembered. And when I laid eyes on her, not only did I not recognize her as she was pregnant with my brother, as I didn't recognize her, and it had been established that we did not, I looked at her, and even at that young, tender age, I later would identify that what that was is that I didn't feel a connection or a bond. That lack of bond, coupled with the perpetual dysfunction of watching my father try to beat my mother, then my mom having me do things to revenge my dad, like write a letter and then have me rewrite it and defend it, or tell me that I can't, I have to call my grandmother and my uh aunt by her first name. And um, and that lack of bond put me in a position where I did everything that my mother said to do, which is a natural order of things, right? Um, even though it made me uncomfortable, put me in very compromising positions, and ultimately wasn't worth it. But I can tell you that I see the lack of I see my dysfunction as a result of that, and I know and I'm connected to, I've drawn, I'm related to people with similar stories who also have various levels of dysfunction, similar, you know, different, all disrupted by dysfunction, depression, and the like. So when because of that, I recognize some person's inability to fully celebrate my wins, I recognize now because for some reason when my father died, the veil was lifted off of my eyes, something magical happened to me. And I was able to see clearly that although I had done work to rid myself of people who had attached themselves to me, that really mainly wanted to use me and suck the life out of me because they their spirit spirit could recognize someone who wanted bonding, wanted someone they could trust. Really, whether I realized it or not, I was looking for my mother. I was looking for my mother in the energies around me. I can tell you now, as the author of the mommy toolbox, that I am mommying myself and it feels so good. So, because of that, I no longer have the need to call people to cheer. Now, of course, it's natural to want to celebrate with someone else other than yourself. It is natural, but I'm very careful because so many people are not happy, so many people are have formative year stories, have mothers. There, it's it uh the Mental Health Association deemed of Maryland shared that one in seven women, and there's been peer review articles that shared that one in seven women suffer with postpartum. So that being the case, it's possible that some of my friends also, in addition to other dysfunctions that I know of, experience the disconnection that happens when you are not loved and cared for by a mother who's mentally healthy and welcoming and able to bond and breastfeed and all that stuff, all that good stuff to help your mental health, your physical well-being. And as you know, uh a three-part entity, spirit, mind, and body, what affects one aspect of your being affects the other. So even though I'm extremely excited, I'm so proud of myself. So proud of myself. Because three years ago I started on this journey of I started on the journey of this master's degree in strategic communications and public relations. You know, I've I started this journey and again without interruption, I powered through, powered through uh heartache, estrangement, my father dying, planning his his self-less celebration of life, uh, getting certifications for future projects. Even though I powered through all of that, or not even though, as I power through all of that, I stay the course. And uh I present to the student body and faculty on Wednesday and then I'm free. I'm free. I don't know if it if that's perhaps temporarily, because as I said at the beginning of this year, I decided to get my master's with the intention of getting my PhD. However, I have a plethora of projects to and and goals to work through first. These next seven months are significant. So I just wanted to, rather than getting on the phone and calling everybody and saying, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I figured I would just share it with you. Thanks for listening and to be continued. Peace and love.
