BLOG: Advocacy

I recently did my first podcast interview ever with Mom&Mind. We talked about my birth story, my preeclampsia diagnosis, subsequent Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) stays for my premature babies. My eventual postpartum depression story in 2016, a small tidbit of my book, and the advocacy efforts I'm engaged in now.

The thing is.....I feel overwhelmed. There are so many things I want to do, I wish I could do for mamas and babies, and especially women of color, like me. But where do I start? 

Some days, I feel like I am truly just shouting from the rooftops and screaming into the void, only to hear just echoes of myself.

Some days, I do absolutely nothing.

And I wonder if my volunteer in peer support is doing anything at all. I almost feel like I'm letting my peers down but simultaneously sharing my lived experience and not.

Mental Health advocacy is exhausting. It truly is never ending and I have to wonder if I'm making any difference at all. 

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So today was supposed to be the second day of Champions of Change Summit. I loved the energy from last year and I wanted so much to refuel and remember "my why." 

Covid took us online. It wasn't the energy that mirrored last year but let me tell you, if I could capture the passion emitting from the screen, I would bottle it up, hold on to it and remember the reasons for why I always leave my inbox open for mamas, why I keep speaking up, even if no one is listening. 

There will always be that one. The one who needed to hear my message. 

So even if I have been lacking on social media - some of it intentional, some of it...well homeschooling has kept me busy - I will continue to advocate in any way I can. 

So this is YET ANOTHER "website under construction" notice. But I won't be changing too much around. I'll be adding resources for maternal mental health and premenstrual dysphoric disorder tabs. 

My FB social media post

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What do you normally want to see on a lived experience advocacy page?