Which Katherine am I?

There’s the me I know quite well.  She talks a lot, often too much in fact, mainly because she’s insecure in her skin and trying so hard, too hard, to show what she knows or that she’s worthy even when she thinks she’s not.  Or maybe she is.  Truth is, she’s never exactly sure.  She can talk a good game, as we’ve just established, but she has a hard time making close, intimate friends, partially due to social anxiety and partially because true intimacy scares the heck out of her.  She does work to help others and is sometimes fortunate to be recognized for it, yet when the recognition comes it always feels like an out-of-body experience.  It can’t be her they’re talking about.

Then there’s the Katherine I saw reflected back at me when I went to a blogging conference last week called BlogHer.  She has style, she smiles a lot and she feels strong and confident.  She has friends — lovely, smart, interesting, kind, accomplished, freaking cool friends.  She has learned some things along the way that she is happy to share with others, and she is also just as eager to learn from those others.  When she looks in her hotel room mirror, she sees beauty, some of it on the outside, most of it radiating from within.  It  cannot be ignored.

What was with those mirrors in the San Diego Marriott Marquis, anyway?  They don’t look at all like the ones at home.  Are they made with some special kind of glass?  Why is it that, much like the Grinch’s heart, my self-esteem grows three sizes larger when I’m around so many kind and supportive women?  Why did I feel more beautiful and more capable and more worthy when looking into the mirror at BlogHer?

While there are many opportunities to cry at BlogHer, given the powerful and sometimes gut-wrenching stories that are always told there, I’m pretty good with a stiff upper lip.  The work that I love  – helping mothers with perinatal mood and anxiety disorders — is steeped in a lot of pain and despair, and in order to do it day in and day out I have hardened myself just enough so that I can empathize and understand but am not sucked permanently into a vortex of sadness.  Instead, I focus on the endgame: recovery and the love and happiness that can be … will be … found in mothering.

I was startled, then, when tears started flowing as I sat in on a BlogHer panel about owning your beauty.  They came tumbling out of my eyes with unstoppable force and I felt silly for it but I could not stop.  As I sat there listening to the beautiful and talented Rita Arens, Jess Weiner, Karen Walrond, Kate Harding and Stephanie Nielsen, I felt that more than any other message I needed to hear what they had to say.  Not only hear it but take it in, believe it and make it my truth:  We are all worthy.  At that moment I felt crushed under the weight that I alone place on myself, my unease at accepting that I’m more than enough.

I have to wonder how much my issues with self-esteem and my belief, or lack thereof, in my self-worth played into my experience with postpartum OCD.  When it came to what I must subconsciously believe is the ultimate test of one’s value — being a good and loving mother — I was sure from the start that I was doomed to fail.  What bullshit!  How could I have been so unfair to myself when I’m never this unfair to others?  I’ve come to learn, of course, that I was dead wrong.  I’m a great mom, but it took my children’s love to convince me of that.

Are there other women who were in San Diego who also went home and looked into their own mirrors and noticed they were different too?  Women whose beauty and worth is so obvious to me but which they cannot see?  I came home, peered into mine and felt a strong urge to rip it down, fly back to San Diego, dismantle the one from room 2166 and reinstall it here.  Yet that won’t fix the problem.  It’s not my mirror that’s dysfunctional.  It’s me.   I want to be the Katherine that I saw in the mirror at BlogHer.  I need to learn and accept that girl is me.  I AM HER. It’s not okay to tamp myself down.  I need to allow my eyes to see HER, not the lesser Katherine who often stares back at me.  Whether it’s how I look, what I weigh, what kind of mother, wife and friend I am, my age, the work I do and how I do it, it’s all worthy.  So …

Which Katherine am I? I am Katherine the Great. I can do this.  I can practice and practice until I fully believe this.

So can you. To the following friends, in case you didn’t already know, I want you to know the spectacular beauty and worth in you that I see, and I’m hoping you saw in your BlogHer hotel room mirror, was and is the real and true reflection of you:

Rita Arens, Cecily Kellogg, Robin Plemmons, Briar Sauro, Dresden Plaid, Kristen Howerton, Meagan Francis, Megan Jordan, Sarah Braesch, Laurie White, Ree Drummond, Liz Gumbinner, Becky Harks, Miranda, Katie Sluiter, Beth Anne Ballance, Alena Chandler, Esther Crawford, Ellie Schoenberger, Heather King, Ann Imig, Linda Sellers, Ellen Seidman, Cheryl Contee, Darline Turner-Lee, Casey Mullins, Jenny Ingram, Emily McKhann, Fadra Nally, Chrysula Winegar, Morgan Shanahan, Lindsay Goldner, Annie Urban, Holly Hamman, Anissa Mayhew, Diane Lang, Cristi Comes, Robin Farr, Janice Croze, Debbie Bookstaber, Gina Brown, Lisa Stone, Elisa Camahort Page, Tanis Miller, Danielle Smith, Anissa Mayhew, Alli Worthington, Barbara Jones, Kelby Carr, Jenna Hatfield, Denise Tanton, Kim Tracy Prince, Kristen Chase, Jess Weiner, Victoria Mason, Karen Walrond, Molly Shalz, Shannon Mr. Lady, Jill Krause, Heather Burrell, Liz Thompson, Schmutzie, Deb Rox, Dr. Goddess,  and every single other one of you fantastic women I met.

Oh, and you too, Neil.

Postpartum Progress was down last week, and let me tell you, it was AWFUL.  Clicking the link and seeing a blank screen was supercalifragilisticexpeali-AWFUL.  I could just imagine someone who needed help trying to get to a page and being unable to, and it was pretty much too much to take.  In the end, we had to actually stop the transfer of PP to WordPress and will try again after I come back from the BlogHer conference.

I’ll be going to San Diego this week, and am so happy I will be able to see and spend time with so many Warrior Moms in person, including Miranda, Katie, Molly, Casey, Beth Anne, Jenna, Morgan, Cristi, Shannon, Alena and SO many more.  So many women who have been courageous in openly sharing their stories of postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, antenatal depression and more.  There will be lots of hugging.

Heads up!  If you live near San Diego and are a survivor or sufferer of postpartum depression (or a related illness) and would like to meet me, I’ll be at a special Happy Hour sponsored by the wonderful organization Postpartum Health Alliance on Wednesday night.  It will be at Extraordinary Desserts on Union Street from 5:30 to 7pm.  Hope to see you there!!

Also, I’m really proud to have been featured by More magazine this week online at More.com.  I hope you’ll check the story out as I really want to send as much traffic as possible to thank them for doing a piece on postpartum depression.  Your help with that is much appreciated.