Burn-Break&Become Unstoppable B3u

Altar Experience w/ Pastor Kristie Anderson

• Bree Charles

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Postpartum depression doesn't discriminate—not even against women of faith. In this raw and powerful conversation, Pastor Kristie Anderson bravely shares her journey through the darkness of postpartum depression while balancing her roles as a mother of three, pastor, and healthcare professional.

Kristie's story begins with her first pregnancy during March 2020—right as COVID lockdowns began. What followed was a perfect storm: her husband contracting COVID shortly after their daughter's birth, leaving her alone with a colicky newborn; becoming pregnant again just 11 months later; losing her father to a heart attack; and eventually facing a life-threatening hemorrhage during her third child's delivery that left doctors wondering how she survived.

The most chilling moment comes when Kristie reveals hearing a voice telling her to harm her baby—a turning point where she recognized her postpartum depression as more than just exhaustion. "That's a demon," she says, detailing how her faith became her anchor when she couldn't trust her own thoughts. Rather than portraying her struggles as separate from her ministry, Kristie explains how these trials actually strengthened her ability to pastor others: "I wouldn't want to be in their past if I didn't have to do nothing...how could you teach me? It's better from experience."

Whether you're struggling with postpartum depression, supporting someone who is, or simply interested in understanding this common but often misunderstood condition, this episode offers wisdom from someone who's walked through the fire. Kristie shares practical strategies that helped her heal: prayer, therapy, medical support, honest communication with doctors, and building a village of support—even when biological family isn't available.

Listen now to discover why rest isn't just a luxury but a biblical command, how to recognize when you need help, and why breaking the silence around mental health is essential for healing.

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Speaker 1:

Hello everyone, welcome to Be Free. You and I'm your girl, bree Charles, the host of the show, and I am so excited about what we are going to be running all month long, and that is the Alter Experience. This was an experience like no other. I truly had a great time interviewing some of the guests at the altar experience. I want to just thank right now, pastor Moena Tucker and Jamie Tucker for inviting me out to the altar experience, where I was blessed beyond measure with the words that was coming out, so I'm hoping that you as well here, my listeners are just as blessed as I was to hear some of the interviews and some of the entertainment that we will be showing all month long. So take a look, enjoy and remember, burn through the pad, break the cycle and become unstoppable. This is what it's all about. Check it out. Hello, hello. We now have Christy Anderson, okay, so welcome. Welcome to B3U. Tell me a little bit about yourself, christy, and what do you do.

Speaker 2:

Well, like I said, I'm Christy, I'm from Detroit, I do a lot of things, but professionally I work at a senior medical facility, I'm part of the pastor's office, I am a pastor with my husband in Detroit, michigan, and I am a mother of three little people five-point tuna 30 yesterday and I am a worship leader.

Speaker 1:

Yes. So, kirstie, I know that you have seen and been through, especially being a pastor, especially being in the medical field. Yes, I'm sure you have seen a lot. What are some of your experiences with people with trauma, or maybe trauma of your own? What is the biggest thing you can say about someone who is in trauma and going through? What is something that you can share to encourage them, or what has encouraged you?

Speaker 2:

I would say I just got to speak of a recent trauma I dealt with and that was postpartum depression. Oh let's talk about it. Postpartum depression let's talk about it. That is a big one.

Speaker 2:

Yes, it really is. A lot of people don't really, I know, back in the day, like my mom used to say, that was something they never was able to label as something or anything, just like, oh, she's going crazy or she's just going through that time, you know, after having a child. But it is real. It's real and it started out. I had my first child in the pandemic 2020, march 2020, march 2020 is when I had her and while I was in the hospital, that's when everything was changing and I got to hear the nurses getting the calls on the walkie-talkie. I'm like everybody has to be masked, ducking and right. Everything was changing and right before she came, I was able to have like four people in her room. It went down. My husband barely made it, oh wow, and I couldn't even record anything. My family just had to be on the regular phone to help coach me. You know all that good stuff. So I didn't really have an experience of a first-time mom that had, you know, other people probably had with your mother and they'll just be like you know. So it was just really so. It was really different during that time. So, after coming home with her, within that week, my husband got COVID and I just got home with the baby so I'm trying to recover. So he was locked up in a room by himself. I'm with my baby and I'm trying to learn how to do everything, you know, by myself.

Speaker 2:

At that time as a new mom. My sister was there at first to help, but then she got COVID from her husband. She owned the home. So my baby developed colic. You know, as a first-time mom you'd like kind of, if it was a hard sleeper. We stopped being a hard sleeper. You started hearing every move. They make everything happening. So I was a sleepy and I was like super tired, I was becoming overwhelmed. My daughter had, I think, maybe like a milk allergy. So after, like, starting to breastfeed after a while I was kind of switching to the milk because it was getting really tired and so with her transfer to the milk the regular we started to have stomach deaths. So she was very gassy. The colic and stuff, I didn't know what that was. So my mom was working at a nursing home and she didn't want to, you know, necessarily bring COVID there. She was scared. She was a what they call an asymptomatic, so she never got it. But she can carry it Right. So her husband got it and she was like I don't want to come there, and you know, anybody gets sick. You got the baby. It was like a month or two before anybody could go to see the baby after her first day on it.

Speaker 2:

So, just doing it by myself, I ended up having a postpartum depression. You think I couldn't sleep. She was crying so much and I didn't know that's what that was. Later I had my son. 11 months later I got pregnant with my second child. I didn't go to the six-week because you were in pandemics. Everything is virtual. I filed down maybe two weeks after that, out of the space with myself, had him.

Speaker 2:

That same year I lost my father Wow, you know. So now it's postpartum. I'm angry, I'm dead away and that was the light in itself. Wow had a heart attack, went into cardiac arrest. So then my son came about. I had a C-section because I developed gestational diabetes and so I had to have a C-section. I never had surgery a day of my life to be cut or something.

Speaker 2:

That was very like a little nerve-wracking. But I started praying. I started like, okay, lord, this is me and you, I have to do this. There's no other way. So I need you to help, like, just, I'm depending on you to just really help me with this, mentally and nationally. So the Lord got me through that time and even with that I couldn't really deal with my son too much afterwards because I was still like mentally drained and tired from your first child and the postpartum just increased a bit. It got so bad to where it was affecting my marriage, you know, because during that time my husband went through a spiritual awakening and the prophetic, and he never dealt with the prophetic so he just he was going around talking to himself and if I wasn't in a place of being spiritual where I was, he probably would have been in a crazy house, you know. So to have a degree but just already having, you know, being saved and being in that lifestyle of knowing about the prophetic, the warfare and everything, so what I've gone through spiritually, mentally myself. I had a husband that was going through too, but I had to like kind of put myself on a back burner and frame. So it's like so many hats been worn at this time.

Speaker 2:

So we moved to Georgia in 22s and I just had the two little ones. We was like, okay, detroit is going really fast. Let's try to go somewhere Relocate. Maybe they had to kind of poke a lot just to slow down. So we used to kind of figure everything out. So it was going pretty good there. By the time December 22 came I thought I was taking my third child, okay. So it was born pretty good there. By the time December 22 came I thought I was taking my third child, okay. So I was kind of getting there, we are getting it in. We were doing it.

Speaker 2:

I was like Jesus wait a minute I'm just getting adjusted, finally kind of getting settled mentally A little bit was the two, you know, getting everything going and the Lord brought that third one and I thank god for my babies I'm because I was told I could not have any children. I was told I could not have not one child and the lord best with the threes, so I'm thankful for that. Um. So when the third one came, my baby boy came, I, um, after having him, him I had his leg to see, et cetera I was expected to do a VBAC.

Speaker 2:

I went through the whole process and my third try, I found I had gestation and diabetes and so I had to go and this with this pregnancy, my nerves and my anxiety was kind of high. I was super aware of a baby in my belly, to where it was freaking me out. I was like, well, I'm not going crazy when I think about it. I was like, oh my God, there's a baby there and it was just messing with me, like was that about stopping? I don't know what it was. I could say it was the enemy, but I don't want to say it was the enemy, but you know, it was just me, but I don't want to say it was any, but you know it was just I was being. I was aware a lot more and that pregnancy was a was a struggle, like it was just the bed.

Speaker 2:

My babies were big and big eight pounders, 11 pounds was the second one yes, again last week was another eight pounds, the smallest one I had eight four. But after having him the doctor, I went into my room to change over to my little bed after having his C-section and when they pulled the covers off I was head injured. I had lost over 3,000 milliliters of blood on my and I didn't know I was dying. I was laying there, my husband was watching me die, so he was like you see his color here? That's what he was telling everybody. I didn't see myself. He would say this is the color I spotted to take and I'm just sitting there and it was like we don't understand how she's pumpkin this. She was right now.

Speaker 2:

My doctor's office was right across the trip in the hospital. She came, she had her Burger King breakfast with a lunch Before the next section at a Burger King in my hand and she dropped everything Like I need gloves, I need this. And the nurse I had a nurse that was saved and she was praying. My husband was going to point a wood today and praying and you know I just thank God for that because I was literally losing my life. They didn't even let her live. But everything became well. They got me together and once I got out of there postpartum, I hit even a moment to where now I could hear like my baby was crying and all he wanted was something to eat. Of course, and I'm just, I guess I couldn't get it done fast enough and he, just he had this piercing cry and the enemy I knew it was the enemy then telling me chomp your baby.

Speaker 1:

It was about time.

Speaker 2:

And the enemy. I knew it was the enemy then telling me chomp your baby. Those guys are tiny and when my arm got light and I realized it and I started speaking in tongues, I said the devil in your eye that cause part of depression, that's a demon. I saw that it was literally trying to cause me to kill my child, like just to get away. You'll stop crying then if you jump. I texted my husband immediately while he was at work. I said the devil just told me to drop my baby and I said I realized it. Then I was able to make sense of it then Because you know, when your friends they sell you, they give you this care for work.

Speaker 2:

Now, when you have a child for a depression, put out a depression screening, you just gonna check off with everything because you don't want to. You know, accept the best. That's what it is. But it's really a real thing and it took a little time for me to kind of I cannot adjust to the three cans. I would.

Speaker 2:

It had me in a case of a beat where I feel like I could not do anything but my children. I'm like I can't go to the store, I can't do this, I can't do that Like I felt like I was just lost. I couldn't do nothing with children and I did not have any kind of control, so I felt helpless, you know. So after a while my husband was saying hey, you can do that, you can do this. I'm like I can't, I can't.

Speaker 2:

And it was just one day. I sat there and I just prayed and I cried out. I was in worship. At this point in time, I had stopped singing. Worship is really my place where the Lord heals me. If I go through sickness, I just worship my way through. That's how I encourage myself Through the word of worship. I sat in the living room and I was just crying. I was crying. I said, lord, you have to help me. I need you to deliver me from this spirit, because I know this is not a being and it has you feeling like you're defeated, like you're by yourself. There's no hope for you.

Speaker 1:

You can't do this, that and that. So that's the moment like that is the moment where you were listening to yourself yes, and you had to speak out loud and stop listening to yourself and talking to yourself like and talking to God to say I can do this, lord, help me.

Speaker 2:

I can do all this to Christ. You start getting those scriptures and I'm telling you like encouraging yourself.

Speaker 1:

Because no one else can do it for you. I may not understand, like I said, your husband was going through things, so that is powerful right there, when it's just you by yourself and you just say God help, only he can do it, only he can Surrendering.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, surrendering. That calls for another level of surrendering, submitting yourself to the Lord and just like literally releasing. You got to release his head and go, whatever you was thinking, you was feeling, because during that time of postpartum pitch you really don't express yourself as much, you just kind of take it or you do it, you do it, you do it, you do it, or you do it. Or you do it or you do it, you forget about yourself. So I had to think back. I had to tell my husband like look, I'm not myself, I don't feel like my son. You kind of feel like you're having this nervous breakdown. You kind of feel like you're just in this place where it's like I don't know who I am anymore. And at that point I said, lord, give me my identity back, the true identity, because probably who I was before, that I wasn't always meant to be that person and that's a part of evolving through life, even as you a spiritual walk, when you like, you receive the call and you accept the call of that for your life.

Speaker 2:

I didn't know I was going to be in this place of being a caste state. You cannot have 12. I was prophes. Be in this place of being a pastor, you cannot have told me I was prophesied this cover when I was a teenager. I was like, ooh, that's fucking off. You're a pastor, you know. I have a family full of pastors, evangelists, bishops, apostles and all that stuff. That doesn't necessarily mean that's my calling, but that oil flowed through my generation so.

Speaker 1:

But being here as a pastor, I never would have thought that, but that's what the Lord was preparing me and see a lot of people think on the outside, think that pastors or people who are ordained don't go through that but I tell you so me.

Speaker 2:

That's what, that's what really certified you as being such, and I wouldn't want to be in their past if I didn't have to do nothing. Because how could you teach me? It's better from experience than just oh, I see, somebody else moved over, you don't know. I tell you first thing to live through postpartum depression, especially during a time when can't nobody help you but God, and it was like I could do no but call on God. I was, we was there in Georgia, but I said, if he didn't have any family close, right close like that, so I'm in the house every day, just me and the children, me and the children, it's like okay, you were right about that too, because you know, I had my children in the 90s oh, in the 80s.

Speaker 1:

At the last, latter part of the 80s, I didn't know what post part of depression was and nobody ever treated me for it. Nobody ever treated me for it, so I didn't know what it was. I now do right and I have a child. I had a daughter that suffered from postpartum and because I didn't have the knowledge and I'm like what is this postpartum depression? And my mom was the same way that people were talking about. What is it? Yeah, they got a name for it now and it is a serious thing, like some people have. Like you said, you heard that voice saying drop your baby. Some people have followed through with their voice.

Speaker 2:

Literally, because it's like you're not going crazy and you're like, wait a minute, what? And if you're not, if you come to what the enemy is telling you to do, that's how you the babies in the garbage can. Yes, mother love killed the child, or she done went, you know, crazy. Like it would say, local or something. And that's true that it can happen.

Speaker 1:

All it takes is, first of all, education, and that's where I'm grateful for you to come on and share your story, um, as a pastor, woman of God, who you know, everybody looks at you like you're supposed to be the super woman, like you know, um, but to share this so other young women can know and men can recognize that this is postpartum right and get, yeah, that helps. So what you besides your faith, what?

Speaker 2:

else helps you. Um, go through therapy burping. I did go through therapy. I went to therapy because we went, like I said, it kind of took a tug on my marriage as well because, like he wasn't away he never, of course he's first-time father and everything with every, every child we had. He never heard of postpartum depression. He didn't know what that looked like. Yes, he was like what's wrong with you, why are you acting different? Like look at this other thing. And that helped even him to help educate him and know how to handle me and not okay, if I'm reacting about something, he know how to stay calm. He reacting about something, you know how steakhounds like it's okay, yeah, it's okay, like you know how to deal with you and not trigger that to even increase that that you know situation even more and to go in a bad way. But literally just talking it out in therapy. Um, even doctors are playing. Go to your doctor, tell your doctor. They tell you that now they now have medication off, but I don't, of course they do.

Speaker 2:

Yes, of course they got that, but literally it takes it just like but you feel that off, anything off, at whatever point it is. When you do take your baby to the doctor, doctor, they give you that screening. Be honest, if that's how you feel, you feel like you're by yourself or you feel angry, you don't feel happy, you don't feel like these are important, what those questions like, answer that on that paper so they can get you it's. They're pretty much going to recommend that for you, you know, and it's good to just talk it out. Talk it out because a lot of times, if that's all it is, first of all you're not resting. Yeah, it's so important to get rest as a new mother, right, if you're on your fifth car, he need you for sure, need rest. Then you need the rest. I'm saying we use the power of sleep, it autogymnetic, and that's natural, you know. So get me some sleep if you is. That's why it's so important to have this village. Yes, body, it's our own can.

Speaker 2:

And we were just talking to pastor uh jamie about. I was like well, he's in georgia, now what do I say? Take me back home to my mom Village. Yes, everybody is on cam. And we were just talking to Pastor Jamie about it. I was like, well, he's in Georgia. Now what do I say? Take me back home to my mom, take me to my mommy? Yeah, because before we left my whole family was involved with the children. But when we moved to Georgia I had family, but they were not as close to us, as distant, and my family is older on my father's side, so it's like I really can't say hey, he's a truck that came off. They were all in half away, you know. So we were there kind of like by ourselves, so it's so good and the power of family is there and that's what I, you know.

Speaker 1:

when you have a family that is there for you, it takes a village. It truly takes a village to help raise children, to help get through some things. This is why I tell my children I know we were in the military, but I need to come a little bit closer you know as being settled and where we act. You know, and in Virginia you know, my children, alabama, sure, north Carolina, but you want my you know, I like right now I have a daughter who's pregnant.

Speaker 1:

She in North Carolina, almost five hours away. Like how am I supposed to help you? But one thing I do say is don't let the you know, don't let the enemy or anything come in and say, oh, they're too far. I'm on the phone. I'm on the phone and I'm encouraging, I'm speaking power, because my daughter, she's now pregnant and I tell her you know, you know what this, how this is going to go, but you stay encouraged. You know that you get sick, but stay encouraged. Like, don't let your mind take over to the point where you've had five. Already we're on our sixth one. We know what's going to happen. She has that family to keep her encouraged and empowered. But what can we say to those who don't have that family?

Speaker 2:

I ran into. We were out to eat and our waitress came over. Just the fact that she saw our family together, she was like I just love that, I have to see this. And she's going through a postpartum discussion and you know her and the significant other was just going through it was based off the postpartum depression, when men don't know, they just don't know and she don't really have that. But she's like the only child know, they just don't know and she don't really have that, but she's like the only child don't have scurvy anything.

Speaker 2:

I said we got, we got close friends. If you got, you know she probably had to find a way to get they care or something. I said I'd be connected with her. Look here I know can't trust.

Speaker 2:

Everybody said well, let's get to know one another. We could go, go sit, I bring my children and you know we have us a little time together and we could be all in the same place. So you know your children are there just to get your nine. Or you know we could be three, me and my sister she's a child care guy, so, like you, go over there and watch the kids and you know, so that we can focus and part or let her have a day she can be by herself. You know, just, I don't know what it's like to not have a village, but all I can say is, like you had to, there's a village somewhere because you're connected to keeping that friends, keeping that souls, and you can just break away for a little bit.

Speaker 2:

Now that her child's a little older, the father's more comfortable with dealing with the baby by himself. I say, even for older, the father is more comfortable with dealing with the baby by himself. I say even for me the breakaway was this I could go to a woman, I could walk on my own, I didn't have to go shopping, nothing, just a break by myself. Sometimes you need that time Car time, daycare, something to get you some alone time. And I had never kept my child in the daycare any day, as early as 60. But the basic boys. I saw her, I made a mug time, I fed him a fart time. He wet-ass kicked me. So they told me go over there. It was just for my mental, for your mental.

Speaker 1:

Whatever yeah.

Speaker 2:

And it's for you for yourself first, but it's also for your mental health to help protect their children. Yes, some people probably never want to start doing anything to their children, but it can get. It could get that going and it's. You know, we're making sure.

Speaker 1:

That you have a handle on it, some support, and I thank you so, so much. You are amazing. This was like right on time.

Speaker 2:

Because there's a lot of us that's out there suffering from postpartum depression and just don't know what is more education now? But to let you know that's exactly what it is. And I will say real quick, even if you don't have a village, like I said, check in with the doctor, check in with the doctor, we could go to the hospital, you could go to your children's out there. Just let them know what you're doing, what you're having communication with somebody, so they can reach you for help. So that's also another resource too.

Speaker 1:

That's right, that's right thank you so much that, but you are amazing. Um, you guys. I don't know if you guys are hearing this, but one thing that I took that I heard before is rest. Yeah, rest is the thing, is the thing. Postpartum work, family, everything, businesses. Rest is the is is key.

Speaker 2:

God is first, absolutely faith is above that, and even the lord told you to rest. It's in the world to rest. Self-care is so essential.

Speaker 1:

Yes, self-care. So thank you so much, christy, and Pastor Christy, y'all.