Parenting with Bipolar 2 and ADHD: Sarah Sherman’s Story

What happens when your mental health journey starts long before you ever consider becoming a parent? In this episode of Quiet Connection, host Chelsea Myers sits down with author and mental health advocate Sarah Michelle Sherman. Sarah opens up completely about living with Bipolar 2 disorder and ADHD, and how those diagnoses shaped her path to motherhood.

From the terrifying reality of early pregnancy loss to the agonizing decision to stay on psychiatric medications instead of breastfeeding—and navigating the public backlash that followed—Sarah shares the unfiltered truth of her experience. 

This conversation is a beautiful, stigma-smashing reminder that taking care of your mental health is a fundamental part of taking care of your children. If you have ever felt isolated by intrusive thoughts, grief, or the heavy expectations of parenting, this episode will make you feel profoundly seen.

Key Takeaways

• Correct Diagnosis is Game-Changing: Sarah spent nearly ten years being treated for general depression and anxiety before receiving an accurate diagnosis of Bipolar 2 and ADHD, which completely transformed and saved her life.
• Prioritizing Parental Mental Health is Best for the Child: Choosing to stay on necessary mental health medications rather than breastfeeding is a valid, loving choice that allows a parent to remain stable and present.
• The Reality of Pregnancy After Loss: Experiencing a miscarriage can fundamentally change how a subsequent pregnancy feels, replacing typical milestones and excitement with intense anxiety and fear.
• Holding Two Truths Simultaneously: A parent can love their child completely while also finding the daily reality of parenting to be exhausting, overwhelming, and incredibly difficult.
• Writing and Truth-Telling as Healing Mechanisms: Sharing your story, vocalizing intrusive thoughts, and refusing to hide your reality can quiet the mind and build a vital community of support. 

This episode discusses topics that may be triggering for some individuals. Please check the show notes for more information and be mindful of your own mental health and comfort levels.

Visit our Patreon to help support our mission to normalize the conversation and end the stigma surrounding PMADs!

Transcript

Chelsea Myers (00:01)
Hello! Today I am here with Sarah. Sarah, how are you?

Sarah Michelle Sherman (00:07)
Doing well, how are you?

Chelsea Myers (00:09)
doing pretty good. It's a Monday after daylight savings and you know all things considered ⁓ I'm surviving.

Sarah Michelle Sherman (00:17)
Yeah, the sun

is out today, so I'm happy.

Chelsea Myers (00:20)
⁓ I'm so glad for you. We don't have the sun here today in Vermont, so you can have it and then

just send some our way eventually. ⁓ So yeah, I'm really excited to get to know you today and to get to share some space. I'll ask you what I ask all of my guests. I'd love it if you could introduce yourself. Let us know who you are today and who you were before starting your parenting journey.

Sarah Michelle Sherman (00:51)
So ⁓ yeah, I'm Sarah Michelle Sherman. I'm a writer and a mother and a mental health advocate, I guess I would consider myself. I write a lot about my struggles with mental health and how that intersects with parenting. ⁓ I'm a big believer that we need to talk more about the things that are.

causing us pain so we feel less alone in the world. So I like to just be very honest in my day to day and in my writing. Prior to being a mother, God, it's hard to think about that, right? So, I mean, mental health has been

Chelsea Myers (01:34)
I know, it's the tricky question.

Sarah Michelle Sherman (01:43)
a big part of my story. think I've had a lot of struggles since I was a teenager and I have been working really hard for a long time to manage my mental illness and I think that my struggle with that is a huge part of who I am and sort of my ⁓ what I feel compelled to do in the world with my writing. ⁓

is just giving, ⁓ you know, holding space for these voices that are scared to speak the truth, I think, ⁓ especially when it comes to parenting. There's so much shame associated with some of the things that we feel as mothers, and we just all need to be there for each other.

Chelsea Myers (02:34)
Yeah, I mean, you hit the nail on the head. That's like our whole goal here. So like, um, so you're in the right place. Um, we're on the same vibe here. Um, and from what very little I know about you, there are, there are a lot of questions that I have that I think are going to be so helpful for, like you said,

Sarah Michelle Sherman (02:37)
Yep.

Chelsea Myers (02:57)
who have had a prior history with mental health, because not only is there a stigma associated with mental health, like with perinatal mental health disorders, but there is such a stigma around just parenting in general while dealing with mental health challenges. It's just, so we're here to smash that stigma. Yes. One question that seems so simple but tells me so much is, did you always plan,

Sarah Michelle Sherman (03:00)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yes, absolutely.

Chelsea Myers (03:27)
to have kids. Were they always part of your plan?

Sarah Michelle Sherman (03:31)
So it's interesting. Whenever I think when I was young and I envisioned my life, I always thought I would be a mom. But then when it got, as I got older and started to date and wanted to get married and had this idea of what I thought my life should be, I thought it involved being a mother. But then as I...

got into a serious relationship and eventually got married. I thought it would click. I thought I would be like, okay, now I'm ready. ⁓ And I remember wanting to want to have children. I was waiting for that, the feeling that so many women talk about having, this, any desire to be a mother and to take care of a baby. And I didn't have that.

⁓ which I felt guilty about for a long time, not only because of, you know, the man I married was very much wanted children and was very upright about that from the very beginning. ⁓ So, you know, I was struggling with, you know, not only do I feel like I sort of owe this person who I, you know, made this commitment to, ⁓ you know, the...

you know, I have to try to have children. But I was still missing what I thought was I was supposed to have, you know, which was that just, I don't know what it is, but I didn't have it. And so it scared me a lot. But I think, you know, in getting married and wanting to build a family, I got on board.

Chelsea Myers (05:13)
Yeah.

Sarah Michelle Sherman (05:24)
with the idea, think, you my mental health stuff was a big part in all that too, because I felt very strongly that I had to have, ⁓ you know, a good handle on myself before I had any business bringing a person into the world. ⁓ And so I wanted to wait until I had gone, like I've had a very long stretch of time without any big, you know, drops in my mood or any, you know, manic episodes, things like that.

so it was hard. then, ⁓ when I came around and we decided we're going to, ⁓ try to have a baby, ⁓ I had a miscarriage the first time. and that was, you know, horrible because it, know, you go from this person who's unsure and then you go into being super excited and planning and

feeling like you have, you know, you're growing this life and then it's, you know, everything changes whether you are taking it slow or not. Your mind is skipping, you know, days and months and years ahead and it, yeah, it, I worry about everything I think in life but for some reason when I got pregnant the first time I didn't worry about having a miscarriage which was a strange thing to me.

you know, to realize afterwards, like, how had I not even thought about that, especially, you know, and after going through it, you know, learning how crazy common it is and how many people are going through it and how many people are not talking about it. ⁓ Really, it just opened up a whole other area for me to explore.

Chelsea Myers (07:15)
Yeah, you touched on so many things, so many things that I want to explore a little more. One, and I'm so glad that you mentioned it, is that miscarriage is so much more common than is talked about. And I think just like you said, especially as first time parents, when you're trying, you don't go into this journey with that thought in your head. And especially for you, and this resonates with me deeply, the like,

Sarah Michelle Sherman (07:18)
Yeah.

Great.

All

Chelsea Myers (07:45)
I didn't feel that innate like, all right, it's time I want to make a baby like it's time to do that. But then

Sarah Michelle Sherman (07:52)
right.

Chelsea Myers (07:54)
when it happens, right, like you do you plan a future you kind of can't help it. ⁓

Sarah Michelle Sherman (07:57)
Good

Chelsea Myers (08:01)
So I'm so glad that you brought that up. And I'm so glad that you mentioned too, that it was after the fact that you

learned how calm and it was, because it just seems to be every mom that I've talked to that has experienced a loss says like, why don't they tell us this? But we're all taught, we're all taught in like middle school and high school, right? Like don't have sex, you're gonna get pregnant. But no one teaches us like how complicated that actually is and how complicated it is to maintain a pregnancy. And so.

Sarah Michelle Sherman (08:16)
Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Myers (08:30)
Yeah, it's definitely something that needs to be talked about more. And then I was absolutely going to ask you about the impact of your mental health in terms of your decision into starting a family. What I know that you did say you said that played a part and you wanted to become stable. ⁓ I guess two part question. One is, do you want to talk a little bit about what mental health challenges looks like for you and and and how

Sarah Michelle Sherman (08:48)
Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Myers (08:58)
that kind of impacts your daily life. And then two, ⁓ I lost two. So we're gonna stick with one. So do wanna talk a little bit about specifically what mental health challenges you face on the day to day?

Sarah Michelle Sherman (09:13)
Yeah,

yeah, absolutely. So I'm diagnosed with bipolar 2 and ADHD. When I first started having symptoms, I was about 17 and for a long time was treated ⁓ for general depression and anxiety and went through several years of trial and error with different

SSRIs and anti-anxiety meds and sleep medications for insomnia and, you know, a whole mess of stuff. ⁓ You know, starting stuff, weaning off of it, trying another one. It was a long struggle. ⁓ Eventually ended up finding my way to this psychiatric nurse practitioner who was the first person to ever really, or I felt to really ever listen to me and get

The whole picture was extremely thorough and she was the person, this was almost 10 years after I had first started taking medication for depression. She gave me the diagnosis of the bipolar and the ADHD and that completely changed my medications and it changed my life. I think it saved my life getting the correct diagnosis and

Therefore getting the right medications was game changing. But it's a struggle. ⁓ I have a lot of, most of my ⁓ stuff is presented as real bad bouts of depression. do have some, ⁓ I've never had like what they would consider like a full blown manic episode.

but I've had a lot of hypo mania, ⁓ which presents in all sorts of different ways. It can be shopping too much, it can be rearranging my furniture in my house, it can present as many different things. So makes it hard to recognize sometimes. ⁓ But in terms of how it all kind of plays a part in my parenting, ⁓

I mean, even just the decision, I remember when I had to talk to doctors if I was going to breastfeed, you know, and they told me that there was, you know, not a lot of studies done on, you know, the types of medications that I was taking and how it affects babies, but there were some that suggested, you know,

the medications that I was taking, which were anti-psychotic and a mood stabilizer could be passed through my breast milk to my baby. And, you know, they weren't sure what the effects of that could be. ⁓ There just isn't enough research. No one wants to be a guinea pig for that, you know? So I made the decision to not breastfeed. ⁓ And even that in itself ⁓ brought

Chelsea Myers (12:23)
No, yeah.

Sarah Michelle Sherman (12:35)
a lot of judgment, you know, from a lot of people. ⁓ I actually wrote a piece on that for Parents Magazine about my decision to remain on my medications rather than breastfeeding. And it was, ⁓ it was one of the first times that a piece I wrote got like a lot of negative comments. And it was, you know, and everyone's so don't read the comments, you know, but I can't help myself. ⁓ But people are

Chelsea Myers (12:56)
Mmm.

Sarah Michelle Sherman (13:04)
brutal. mean, and it's, was really, really upsetting ⁓ to read some of these comments from women who told me, you know, I had no business even becoming a mother because of my mental health issues. And the, you know, the judgment from the world is one thing, but you know, judgment from other mothers and other women, I always find particularly

painful or, you know, just it's gutting. I think it's, I just think we have to do a better job of supporting each other and lifting each other up. And it's, it's the most impossible job to do, even if you have the healthiest mind, you know. And I think that we're all just, we're just trying, like we're just trying every day to

to show up and help our children become good people and kind people. And it's impossible. It's the hardest thing ever. ⁓

Chelsea Myers (14:10)
It is the hardest thing ever. It is

the hardest thing ever. And I feel like there are so many parts of motherhood that everybody has an opinion on. But I think one that just comes back and comes back and never seems to go away is the whole feeding. How you feed your baby for some reason. That one just will not go away. ⁓

Everything else seems to come and go in cycles. Like you should co-sleep, you shouldn't co-sleep or you should swaddle, you shouldn't swaddle, but feeding, everybody's got an opinion on it. I so admire you writing your piece about it because it's, and that's the thing. It wasn't just about, should I bottle feed or should I breastfeed? It was, I need to take care of my mental health so that I can be a good parent. And this is why I chose the path that I chose. So.

Sarah Michelle Sherman (14:39)
Okay.

Yeah.

Right. Exactly.

⁓

Chelsea Myers (15:04)
⁓ And I also feel you with the don't read the comments thing. I have a very hard time not reading the comments. So Yeah, I just I applaud you for writing about that I also like I said, I'm super I was so drawn to you because of your advocacy and because While a lot of the parents that I talked to Have experienced things either during pregnancy or after birth ⁓

Sarah Michelle Sherman (15:09)
Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (15:31)
It's not as many that I get to talk to who have a prior history of mental health challenges and then continue that into their journey. So I love getting this perspective. I'm also a mental health warrior. so I mean, again, it's not about me, but it hits home. So I'm taking us back again a little bit. You mentioned when you did have the initial miscarriage, there was that

Sarah Michelle Sherman (15:50)
Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (16:00)
shame and there were these just like opinions that came in from all over the place, I'm curious how you navigated that ⁓ and how your mental health was impacted by that experience.

Sarah Michelle Sherman (16:13)
Yeah, it was, it was really challenging because, you know, like I said before, like it was something I wasn't even sure I wanted. And then when it happened, it was all I wanted, you know, and I just wanted, you know, I wanted to be a mom. I wanted to have a full pregnancy, you know, and it totally caught me off guard. And I wanted to just

you know, hide away. And that's the thing about, you know, particularly early miscarriages, you know, I was, it was 12 weeks and, it, know, you can't take time off work. You know what I mean? Like there's not, you know, and even just, I wanted to like shout it from the rooftops, you know, like I just went through this, you know, and it's because it's

Chelsea Myers (17:08)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Michelle Sherman (17:11)
It's a horrible thing to, you you go around for weeks thinking you're taking care of this growing, you know, thing inside of you and then it's just gone. And then, and then you're like, now what? You know, ⁓ and then on top of it for me, it was, you know, I was married to a person who, ⁓ he

he really wanted to have a family, you know, and, ⁓ and of course the miscarriage was a loss for him as well, but ⁓ he was kind of, you know, he was ready a lot sooner than I was to try again. And, ⁓ and that took, it took me a really long time. And then when I did get pregnant, ⁓ I have a son now who's four and

The pregnancy was awful for me. ⁓ I was, I think the miscarriage ⁓ took my mental health back. I was really depressed for a long time. ⁓ It was hard to pull myself out of that. ⁓ A different sort of feeling than...

random bout of depression where I can't like pinpoint the reason, you know, because of course there was a reason. ⁓ But it was debilitating in some ways. And it's, I think what's so hard is that you have to just keep going because the world doesn't really care because it is, you know, it's happening all the time, unfortunately. ⁓ But then when I got pregnant again, it just, made the pregnancy ⁓

horrible for me. ⁓ just every appointment that I went to, I thought they were going to tell me the baby was gone. You know, I didn't want to, you know, plan, you know, a big announcement. I didn't want, you know, there was this whole, you know, situation around ⁓ when I was pregnant at Christmas time and I, you know, said I didn't want any gifts for the baby, you know.

Chelsea Myers (19:34)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Sarah Michelle Sherman (19:35)
⁓

because that had happened the first time. People had gotten little things, like gone on a trip and knew I was pregnant, so buy me a little something for the baby. And so the second time around, I said, I don't want any gifts. I kind of wanted to pretend it wasn't happening as much as it was all I was thinking about. ⁓

It was, it was hard. It was, ⁓ it was really scary. I hated being pregnant. I hated every second of it. I hated it physically. I hated it mentally. It was not. Yeah. I was not one of those women who loved her pregnancy by any means. but you know, and then it. It's a long, long nine months and then, then he was here and, he was healthy and, ⁓

You know, I've been very fortunate ⁓ with my son. And then had another miscarriage after my son, which was an entirely different experience than the first one. ⁓ I think more painful in a lot of ways ⁓ because of just what was going on. ⁓

you know, in my marriage and it was, it was, I didn't want to be pregnant that time. And that was a horrible feeling to have. So, I mean, I think I knew at the time that my marriage was on its way out. And

this came as a very big shock and I was devastated because I was so aware of the state of my marriage and ⁓ just, you know, I had so much fear ⁓ and but then, you know, decided to embrace it and got excited and got hopeful and thought it would change things and, you know, ⁓

then again, like had the same, you know, overwhelming fear that something was gonna go wrong. And it did. ⁓ And that was, that was crazy in itself because, you know, I'm like, did I manifest this? Cause you know, it's, wasn't something I wished for, of course, but it was like, I knew I had those thoughts at the beginning that,

it wasn't something I wanted, you know, and I felt horrible about that. ⁓ And that took a real toll on me. So that was hard.

Chelsea Myers (22:40)
Yeah,

I can imagine. And I so appreciate your honesty and your vulnerability. And it's, as you were saying it, I think a lot of people who struggle with any sort of mental health disorder, especially related to anxiety, there is, it's like that magical thinking, right? Like when something goes wrong, you think you created it because you think you manifested it.

⁓ and that's such a heavy, heavy thing to carry. And there, in this space, I'm telling you, there is no shame and there's no judgment in being, feeling your feelings. And if, especially with where you were at the time, like if a pregnancy was not something that you felt was what you needed in your life at that moment, no shame, no guilt. And at the same time,

Sarah Michelle Sherman (23:36)
Right.

Chelsea Myers (23:38)
I hope, my hope for you is that you can look back now and know that you didn't manifest that. But that's also really hard, When, especially when you've experienced multiple losses, it's like, what did I do? So many moms are like, what did I do? ⁓ Yeah, I can't imagine and to be going through

Sarah Michelle Sherman (23:54)
Right. Yeah. Yep.

Chelsea Myers (24:05)
⁓ just everything you were going through in your personal life and you had a little one to take care of at the time. Yeah. ⁓ so let's, I mean, I guess I'm curious. You've talked a little bit about feeling judged by other moms. Did you have anyone in your corner at that time? Was there anyone in your village?

Sarah Michelle Sherman (24:07)
Amen.

Yeah, I definitely do have a village behind me. I have a few really good friends ⁓ who are also mothers. ⁓ I think one thing that was hard was I didn't really have anyone that I was super close with that had gone through a similar experience. ⁓ So that was...

That was definitely hard. like, I remember even my mom, you know, saying things to me like, you know, I, you know, I feel so awful for you. I don't, you know, I haven't been through this. I don't know what it's like, you know, people don't know what to say, you know. ⁓ And I don't really know that there's much people can do or say, ⁓ but I did have people that were, that supported me and

I needed more help, I think, just raising my son when I was going through the second miscarriage because he was so little. mean, he's still little. And I just was not, I didn't have the strength at times, not to mention my marriage was falling apart. So I relied heavily on

Chelsea Myers (25:36)
Yeah.

Sarah Michelle Sherman (25:52)
a few close friends and very grateful for them because even though they didn't necessarily understand, they couldn't relate, they carried my pain. They listened to me and let me cry and yeah.

Chelsea Myers (26:17)
Yeah. Yeah. And that, again, another common theme, like ⁓ people, think because it's not talked about, and even if you do have those moms in your corner, if they haven't experienced it, it's so hard to know what to say or what to do. But ⁓ it sounds like you at least had people to sort of sit with you in your grief. ⁓ Yeah. I'm going to let's pivot like a little bit, I guess, because like you said, you talked about

you relied on people, especially during your second miscarriage, just with where you were in life. ⁓ What are and were some of your coping skills ⁓ as someone who had experience with dealing with your own mental health? ⁓ I guess coping skills through the difficult pregnancy, coping skills through the second miscarriage and everything that was going on in your life. How did you navigate?

being Sarah, showing up for Sarah and showing up for your son while also leaning into that support system.

Sarah Michelle Sherman (27:24)
Yeah, I think for me, mean, what first comes to mind is my therapist. I go to therapy weekly and have for years. ⁓ It's, I wouldn't survive without it. I've been

to a lot of therapists over the years. I've been with my most recent therapist for about two years and she helped me through the second miscarriage, helped me through leaving my soon to be ex-husband and she keeps me afloat. And I think in terms of, I have to...

like maintain a commitment to that. ⁓ And, you know, there's some, you know, there's sometimes, you know, I'm like, you know, day before a session or a couple hours before a session, I'm like, I start feeling like overwhelmed with like what I'm going to have to talk about. And I want to kind of, I want to cancel the appointment or I want to, you know, or I'm feeling like, I just won't tell her that because I'm ashamed of that. But luckily,

I pushed through that and she's really great and she's ⁓ helped me. I can't even explain how much she's helped me. ⁓ But I think one of the biggest things ⁓ that she sort of taught me or reminds me of often is that ⁓ two things can exist at the same time. So I can...

love my son more than anything in the world and want nothing more than to be a good mom to him. But I can also find it extremely hard and I can, know, like all these things can happen at the same time. Like you can, you know, I can have all these horrible intrusive thoughts, ⁓ you know, imagining the worst and imagining these, you know, unrealistic situations. ⁓

but that doesn't make me a bad mother, you know? ⁓ And so I think just in terms of coping, was just like, I had to keep reminding myself that, for one, that there was things I could do for my pregnancy, of course, you know, but I could, you know, try to eat the right things, take care of myself. You know, there's all the obvious things that you can do, but I also had to sort of...

let myself, ⁓ I kind of just let myself be free in terms of like, don't know what's gonna happen. I felt like I didn't have complete control. So I think just like giving up a little bit of that desire to feel like I can control it all ⁓ was a little bit freeing ⁓ and allowed me to get through it. ⁓

but I think it's in terms of coping like things, I still really struggle to ⁓ find, you know, specific things that I can do to take me out of, ⁓ you know, about of depression or an intrusive thought. kind of just have to let it play out. ⁓ But I think maintaining a commitment to therapy and just

being committed to telling the truth is kind of what saves me ⁓ because I don't, you know, I don't pretend that I'm okay if I'm not, you know, and I have become pretty good about recognizing when I'm starting to, you know, my mood is starting to drop or if I'm starting my, if my mind is starting to speed up a little bit more, ⁓

I've become very aware of when that's happening and I'm quick to reach out for help, ⁓ which wasn't always the case, but I do feel, especially since becoming a mom, ⁓ I just have to, you know, it's so important to me that I'm as good as I can possibly be so that I can be there for him. so I just, yeah, I think just like this commitment to my

mental, you know, my mental health and going to, you know, weekly therapy, going to my monthly appointments with my psychiatric nurse practitioner to adjust meds if necessary, you know, it's like, just doing these, you know, taking my medication every day. It's like these, these are the things that I have to do. and yeah.

Chelsea Myers (32:37)
Yeah, I love how you pack so much into every response. Because no, really, because it leaves it well for for people who are listening and not watching. I'm doing these huge head nods because it's, it's so relatable and it's and it and it resonates so deeply. I think

Especially what sticks out to me is like, what you were talking about, like when you are approaching a therapy session, and it's you're like, Oh my god, like, I don't know if I want to talk about this or like, I've had a good day, I don't need it today. And like, all you want to do is cancel it. And it's like, No, you have to do this. You have to stick with this. And so recognizing that for yourself, that's something I struggle with, too. That's so that's so relatable. And also, you are

Sarah Michelle Sherman (33:11)
Right.

Chelsea Myers (33:27)
you you when we initially connected you something you said over and over again is that you're passionate about telling the truth and and being truthful about this thing and about the about these things. And that's what makes you such a stellar mental health advocate and especially like a parental mental health advocate is because we have to tell the truth. And the truth becomes less scary and easier to tell.

Sarah Michelle Sherman (33:41)
Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (33:57)
the more we do it. ⁓ So yeah, you you saying like, you may not have always done that in the past. And that could have been to your detriment. Now it's like, why would I not? Just like you said, when you had your miscarriage, you wanted to shout it from the rooftops, like this happened to me. And I have this like mental image of like, all of these moms coming up to you, like you're on the rooftop and everybody said, you're like, they're like me too. You know what I mean?

Sarah Michelle Sherman (34:25)
Yes.

Chelsea Myers (34:26)
Yes, so-

Sarah Michelle Sherman (34:27)
Yeah, exactly. that's, yeah, that's always like the most rewarding thing about, you know, any of the pieces I've had published is, you know, feeling a little scared. You know, I'm about to, you know, talk, you know, put something out there that people will have opinions about. People will think I probably should have kept to myself, ⁓ you know, but if there's one person that reaches out afterwards and says, you know,

I couldn't believe you felt that too. Like I thought, you know, that's, it makes it all worth it, you know? Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (35:04)
Yeah, yeah.

That's that's 100 % it that that's it. And I think so many of us have just had it culturally driven into us that we we keep these things locked down, right? Like we don't talk about these things we you you deal with it and you move on and that's we were not actually meant to do this by ourselves. Very early on in our conversation, you talked about how motherhood is an impossible job. It is an impossible job when you're doing it by yourself. And then you compound that

with with mental health struggles yeah that is yes that is impossible to do by yourself ⁓ so yeah i'm always i'm always i mean i'm grateful for every every person i get to share space space with but i'm also ⁓ even more grateful for people like you who are out here even when it's scary advocating for yourself and advocating for others too

Sarah Michelle Sherman (35:39)
Right.

Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (36:05)
I'm curious, your little guy is only four, but I'm curious how you approach or if you approach the subject of mental health with him. And I mean, in age appropriate ways, of course, like emotional regulation or understanding your feelings. How do you sort of navigate that with him?

Sarah Michelle Sherman (36:08)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's interesting ⁓ because I've been thinking about this a lot lately ⁓ because I feel like it's only a matter of time before I have to have a real conversation with him about mental health. I feel like I drop little nuggets here and there. We talk a lot about how important it is to be kind and

and he gets sick of hearing me say it and they'll say, hey, why are you telling me that again? And I'm like, because it is the most important thing, you know? ⁓ And so I think, you know, there's been times when I've, you know, talked to him about how ⁓ just we don't know what other people are feeling and we don't know what's going on ⁓ with other people. So we always have to be nice, you know, and ⁓

Chelsea Myers (36:55)
you

Sarah Michelle Sherman (37:19)
I think that's a four-year-old explanation that works okay for now. ⁓ But there was, ⁓ I also wrote about this at one point when he was real little and he was starting to learn words. And I was getting ready in the bathroom and he was going through my drawers and picked up one of my prescription bottles and was shaking it kind of like a rattle. And I'm like, put.

mommy's medicine back, you know, and then he's trying to say medicine, you know, and I'm like, you know, there's part of me that's like, good, like, you know, he learned another word. And then, but then there's the other part that's like, one day, he'll be like, what are you taking this medicine for? You know, are you sick? ⁓ And so, you know, thinking about what I'll say, and I still don't know. ⁓ And, you know,

Chelsea Myers (38:05)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Michelle Sherman (38:16)
It's scary. It's also, I have concerns, obviously mental health stuff is very genetic. I worry what may be passed to him. But I also, as he gets older, what I want him to know and what I think

everyone needs to know is that, yes, this is something that I have. It's something that I struggle with, but I'm not broken. I'm not weak because of it. If anything, I think it makes me stronger and more compassionate. I think I have a lot more empathy because of my experience with mental health issues. And I just...

I want him, you know, I'll want him to know that I'm doing what I can to take care of myself, you know, ⁓ which, you know, is why I go to therapy and why I take, you know, several pills a day because that's what I have to do so that I can be here, you know.

Chelsea Myers (39:33)
Yeah.

Yeah. And again, no, mean, this is one of those things that you hear all the time and can be like, okay, all right, I roll but like no shame in the med game, right? Like, it's treating your mental health is the same as treating your physical health. And I, I

Sarah Michelle Sherman (39:43)
Right.

Chelsea Myers (39:52)
I ⁓ acknowledge your thought that you had in that moment. Like, someday I'm going to have to explain to him why I take these. But I also think you handled that moment beautifully, right? Like, your medication was in a safe container, first of all. You didn't freak out when you saw that he had them. And you're like, yeah, new word. Yeah, that's medicine. ⁓ And I'm assuming...

Sarah Michelle Sherman (40:10)
Yep. Yep.

Chelsea Myers (40:15)
You can correct me if I'm wrong, but some of these things must be somewhat normalized. Like, he may not necessarily know that like you go to therapy once a week, but there's a time when you're not there once a week. right? Like so, and he sees you taking your medication, which one day you said you you're going to talk about. So these things are already kind of sort of being normalized for him, ⁓ which I think will be to your benefit when the day comes.

Sarah Michelle Sherman (40:28)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Chelsea Myers (40:42)
if he does have questions or when you do want to talk about it. I try so hard to not infuse my stuff, but I have a three year old, I have a three year old and a 10 year old. And my three year old is very curious because mommy takes medicine and I take medicine for my mental health and I also am disabled. So I have to take medicine for that. And she has started going, can I have my medicine?

Sarah Michelle Sherman (40:44)
Yeah.

you

Chelsea Myers (41:12)
And

we're like, you can have your vitamins. Like you don't have any medicine. ⁓ But it is so normalized for her that like when the alarm goes off, mommy takes her medicine. ⁓ But yeah, she's like, where's my medicine? It's like, well, you could take your vitamins. ⁓ But I think that's healthy. I think that's a healthy curiosity, right? Yeah. So let's kind of transition a little bit into

Sarah Michelle Sherman (41:15)
Right.

Right.

Yeah. I think it's good.

Chelsea Myers (41:40)
your advocacy work and your writing and stuff because you've been up against a lot. You've been up against a lot and you're still up against a lot. as mental health warriors, this is a daily and not just a daily battle. Like sometimes it's an hour by hour battle. Like you said, you get these intrusive thoughts and you just have to ride the wave. Right. ⁓ and it makes life really difficult when and how did you sort of make the decision of like,

Sarah Michelle Sherman (42:02)
Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Myers (42:10)
Yeah, I'm gonna start talking about this. I'm gonna start writing about this.

Sarah Michelle Sherman (42:16)
So I started, well, it's interesting. like I was studying writing in college and undergrad and had never taken a personal essay class before. And I was just kind of starting to like explore that genre of writing. And without even really knowing, I guess I was writing about

my mental health and ⁓ it concerned my professor. And he reached out and ⁓ got, you know, like the counseling center, you know, at the school involved. And that kind of... ⁓

I mean, that got a lot, that got my parents to pay more attention to what was going on with my mental health. ⁓ And I think from there, was like, I don't know, it was interesting to me that like, it caused such like a ripple, you know, like it was like, to me, it was just like, these are just my normal, you know, I wrote something about, ⁓ you know, how I wish.

Like I wished I could stop breathing, like just for a second, just to see if I would fight to like come back. And just like, and to me, like that was like nothing like that wild, you know, but people were like, ⁓ like you sound suicidal, you know? ⁓ But at least like it got me having more conversations about what I was feeling and stuff. And it also got me writing more. ⁓ And then I...

Chelsea Myers (43:39)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah Michelle Sherman (44:01)
just started writing, I fell in love with writing nonfiction and was writing poetry about, you know, what I was feeling and then longer essays. And then eventually when I got to grad school ⁓ and was thinking more about how I could place my writing, I just felt very strongly ⁓ that I needed to

talk about the things that I didn't feel enough people were talking about. And I wanted to write about the things that scared me. And I was also, I figured out pretty early that how I was able to make sense of a lot of things and how I was able to get through things was writing about them. And then as a result,

you know, even if it was, you know, one or two people that reached out after a piece was published, you know, it, ⁓ that's what it, I mean, it means so much to me. You know, it's like, I do it for myself, because it's like my, it's its own sort of therapy for me, you know, but I think it also, by writing about this stuff, it helps me kind of let go of it. ⁓

to a certain degree, ⁓ like I was struggling at one point with having these like obsessive intrusive thoughts about my parents dying. And it was just like, it was just coming up over and over again. And it was really distracting. ⁓ And I just was like, I have to write about this. ⁓ And I wrote about it. And then I kind of...

got a little quieter for a while, you know? So it's like, ⁓ think writing about this stuff, ⁓ I mean, I know that it helps me and I think, ⁓ you know, my hope is that it helps other people and I just, I hope to be able to do it on a bigger scale. I'm working on a book right now. A lot of it is about my struggle with mental health. ⁓ So,

And it's the stuff that I, you know, the stuff that I love to read is about people's struggles with this stuff. cause it looks so different to everybody too, which I think is really interesting about all of this is that no one, like you really have no idea what's going on when you, when you look at somebody, it doesn't matter, you know,

They could be showing up to their job every day, looking all put together. I mean, you just, have no clue. ⁓ And I just, I just wish more people like would remind themselves of that, that just because something looks a certain way doesn't mean, you know, that's what it is. ⁓ And people can be, you know, very high functioning and very, very.

depressed and you know, there can be so many things going on beneath the surface. ⁓ And yeah, the writing is just how I survive it all, I think.

Chelsea Myers (47:29)
Yeah. Yeah. And like you said, like everybody experiences it so differently, but there are always these little tiny common threads. So even though like your experience doesn't look exactly like my experience, and then like the next person that I speak to that there are always these little tiny threads. And it's that those moments where you can, like you said, you love to read other people's perspectives, because I mean, for me, it's like, ⁓ I feel seen, like

Sarah Michelle Sherman (47:56)
Right.

Chelsea Myers (47:57)
Okay, okay. I'm not the only person on the planet who has had this thought, or I'm not the only person on the planet who has thought about, what if I just stopped breathing for a minute, what would happen? And yeah, and like you said, like even if it touches two or three people, which there's so many, it's going to touch so many people. It's worth it because then you've created this little web of people.

Sarah Michelle Sherman (48:00)
Right.

Yeah

Chelsea Myers (48:25)
who don't feel alone anymore. Yeah. And something when you were talking about like your college professor getting concerned and like your parents getting concerned, it reminded me of another mom that I know whose child was writing things like this and the school got all like concerned. And the mom said, call me when she's not writing this anymore. Like when she stops writing it down, then I'll start to worry.

Sarah Michelle Sherman (48:49)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (48:53)
And that reminded me of like, it's your way to get it out. It's your way to quiet it down. And I think that's beautiful. So yeah, I guess I'm gonna start winding us around, but to sort of like bring your son back into this a little bit, like one day when he's older, if he reads some of the things that you've written, what...

Sarah Michelle Sherman (48:57)
Great.

there.

Chelsea Myers (49:22)
What do you hope he takes away? What do you hope he takes away from your advocacy and your writing?

Sarah Michelle Sherman (49:28)
⁓ I hope that he just knows that I am fighting it, that I won't give up fighting it, ⁓ especially because of him. ⁓ And I think, you know, I talked about this with someone recently, but it's, you know, it's

kind of a dark realization, but it's an honest one. ⁓ it's that ⁓ becoming a mom, at least as far as I can wrap my brain around it right now, ⁓ I think becoming a mom has taken suicide off the table for me. ⁓ Not that I think, ⁓ you know, I think it's a complicated topic, but I know that it, you know, I've had

those thoughts a lot throughout my life. ⁓ And it, for a long time, no matter how far away it might've been, it felt like an option at times, ⁓ which is painful and sad and awful, ⁓ but it's true. And since having my son, I no longer feel like that's an option. ⁓ So that...

Chelsea Myers (50:44)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Michelle Sherman (50:57)
has changed things ⁓ for me. ⁓ And I hope, just, would want him to know that I, as much as I fight all this for myself so that I can, you know, feel okay and get through my days, I am doing it so much for him now ⁓ because I want to see everything that he's going to do. ⁓

and I have to, it's gonna be something that I have to take care of for the rest of my life. I'm gonna have to go to therapy, I'm gonna have to take these medications and I'll do all that and I'll change my medications if they stop working. I won't give up trying to work through all of this.

Chelsea Myers (51:52)
Yeah. Well, you are a badass. know that sometimes it's hard to sit in that power, especially when, like you said, this is an ongoing thing. This is the rest of your life. This is something you're going to be dealing with. But the fact that you can sit here and say, I'm not going to stop. I'm not going to give up. I'm going to keep going. ⁓

Sarah Michelle Sherman (51:56)
Okay.

Chelsea Myers (52:15)
You're a badass. ⁓ You're doing the dang thing. yeah, I just, I admire so much your honesty. Like you said, your truth telling. ⁓

Sarah Michelle Sherman (52:16)
Thank you.

you

Chelsea Myers (52:31)
even when it doesn't feel nice, even when it feels scary, even when it feels like I shouldn't say this because I don't know what they're going to say, you're going to say it anyway. And I appreciate that so much. Before I ask you my final question, which is a little exercise that I'm trying out this season. ⁓ If my listeners want to learn more about you and follow along in your journey,

Sarah Michelle Sherman (52:50)
Thank

Chelsea Myers (53:00)
which I would recommend they do. This will all be linked in the show notes, but where would you say is the best place for them to find you?

Sarah Michelle Sherman (53:02)
Thank

sarahmichelle-sherman.com and my Instagram is also Sarah Michelle Sherman.

Chelsea Myers (53:15)
Perfect listeners,

please check the show notes. Follow Sarah. ⁓ And now what I think is the fun part, hopefully you'll think it's the fun part. This is the woo woo part of the podcast. I've been doing this thing where we've been going retro, like back in the days before cell phones where you could like always be texted and reached all the time. We're thinking back to like leaving a voicemail, right? You called.

Sarah Michelle Sherman (53:18)
Hehehehe. Hehehehe.

you

Thank

Chelsea Myers (53:44)
⁓ You don't know who my next guest is going to be. You don't know if it's a mom, a dad, a caregiver. You don't know what their struggle is or what they're going through. But you called into Quiet Connection today and they weren't here. So you've got to leave them a message. And you can literally interpret that in whatever way you want. But what do you think your message to my next guest would be?

Sarah Michelle Sherman (54:09)
⁓ that's so fun. That's a question. That's a good game. ⁓ Let's see. My message would be... ⁓

Chelsea Myers (54:11)
Ha ha ha ha!

Sarah Michelle Sherman (54:27)
Your thoughts do not define you. They don't make you weak. They don't make you broken. And your truth as scary and painful as it can be, ⁓ the telling of it can, I think, save lives.

Chelsea Myers (54:48)
I love that. And I'll tell you, I've never got the same answer twice. And the woo woo part of it is that you'll have to go back to the episode before yours when these come out to get your message and see if it resonates. want, I'm going to be checking back in with you guys, be like, Hey, did that message hit or was it a total misfire? Right? Like, ⁓ so yeah.

Sarah Michelle Sherman (55:01)
That's great.

Yeah, I love that.

That's great.

Chelsea Myers (55:13)
I just, I thank you so much for sharing your story, for sharing space, for sharing your truth. ⁓ and I'm really glad that I got to spend some time with you today.

Sarah Michelle Sherman (55:23)
Yeah, me too. Thank you so much. Okay.

Chelsea Myers (55:26)
Thank you. Alright, I'm gonna hit stop. You know it's not

gonna hang.