Postpartum Anxiety Treatment for Overwhelmed Moms
Welcome.
You’re feeling the pains of anxious parenting.
You feel like you’re failing as a mom.
It feels like nothing is safe enough or good enough for your child.
There many days that you feel exhausted, sad, and lonely.
You want to be happy as a mom, but you just can’t pull yourself out of the hazy fog you’re in.
Postpartum Anxiety Makes Motherhood Hard
We most commonly hear about postpartum depression, but postpartum anxiety is just as common. In fact, approximately 10% of postpartum moms have anxiety and may have symptoms of true OCD in the first year of their child’s life. Actually, they may even show symptoms for much longer than the first year.
The ways that mothering changes our brains, our bodies are profound. And, here is the thing: parenting lights up our animal brains. Think about animals protecting their young. They are fierce and will stop at nothing, often forsaking their own wellbeing. Sound familiar? Sometimes, when you become a parent, this part of your brain turns and is over-activated. When this happens you fear the mortal threats that could hurt your precious baby.
For example, you may obsess about things such as the unseen bacteria that are lurking in baby bottles, or the intolerable fear of driving with your baby in the car. When this happens your life becomes quite literally overwhelming. This is part of why you may be struggling. It could be the reason why you can’t sleep when your baby sleeps, or why you can not pay attention to anything but your baby.
Parenting is a set up for failures, a miracle, and a solid shove into your own personal doubt and pain. Don’t go it alone.
What are the symptoms of anxiety in moms?
Postpartum anxiety affects all women differently, but the common symptoms of postpartum anxiety include:
- feeling like you’re failing as a mom
- thinking that you ‘hate being a mom’
- scary or disturbing thoughts you can’t control
- regretting you had a baby
- feeling deeply alone
- feeling anxious, high stress or even terrified daily
- compulsive cleaning or organizing baby stuff and/or home
- feeling like you ruined your life
- feeling out of control with your moods or actions
- struggling to sleep even when your child is sleeping
- you don’t feel like yourself
- your brain feels ‘broken’, it may be hard to think clearly or remember things
You are not alone.
We help moms in situations like yours to come to truly enjoy parenting.
Counseling can help anxious and overwhelmed moms (& dads)
Good therapy can allow you to feel like yourself again, you can build a life as a parent that is fulfilling and sustainable.
Our approach to counseling for overwhelmed and anxious moms
Our compassionate therapists offer parent coaching that will embolden you to parent with confidence. Parent coaching is a clean way of saying, we’ll get down to the nitty-gritty with you about what is like for you to be a parent, what you want, and what you don’t know. We will help you figure out what is making parenthood so hard for you, and where you’re getting hung up. But most importantly, we will help you determine the areas you excel in. Counseling is a place where you can admit the unspeakable truths about your life as a parent and explore the profound connection you have with your child.
Most of our clinicians are parents themselves. And, all of our clinicians have training in providing parent coaching. So, you can feel comfortable asking candid questions and make real plans. After parent coaching, you will find that enjoy being with your child and have more patience to deal with the hard times. Talking to a therapist will help you develop a new and practical vision of how you want to parent your child.
We also can provide you with great references for sleep consultants, postpartum doula services, and many other community support services.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the foundation of what we do at North Boulder Counseling. It is a trendy and short way of saying pay more attention to yourself so you can better understand and accept what you feel. Mindfulness allows us to think about our thinking, which we generally don’t do. It is super powerful because we often have thoughts that are relentless and are often not helpful. Commonly folks struggling with anxiety have thoughts that are not true and are mean. But, when you pay attention to the way you’re thinking and feeling, you may choose to think more positive thoughts. Ones that are helpful and true. So, If you want to see through the fog and the confusion and figure out where to begin, mindfulness is a great way to start.
Mindfulness is especially important when working with parents. Parenting causes us to think in a primal way. It activates our animal brain. So, we often act based on our instincts. But, our instincts are not always logical because they are activated to help us protect our young. So, your fears really aren’t rational at all. Unfortunately, this means that regular talk-therapy probably won’t work. Just talking won’t get rid of those fears causing you so much distress. Mindfulness allows you to find clarity so you can understand your feelings and parent and think in a more rational way.
CBT/DBT
(CBT/DBT) are both cognitive-based approaches that give us a good structure to support you during counseling. Both can help you understand the way your thoughts (even ones you’re unaware of) are impacting your feelings and actions. They are evidence-based counseling approaches that merge the practical side of self-control and good choices with a deeper awareness of your internal experiences that are causing you to do or feel things you don’t like.
You don’t have to deal with postpartum anxiety alone.
If there is anything that parenting makes clear it’s that we need help and we need
each other.
Begin Postpartum Anxiety Counseling in Boulder, CO:
As a parent, you want to feel confident in parenting your precious child. But, parenting is so hard, and postpartum anxiety makes it even more challenging. The good news is that help is available and our compassionate therapists are trained to support you during this time in your life. We can even help you wherever you are in the state with online therapy in Colorado. Follow these steps to begin counseling in Boulder, CO:
- Contact our therapy center to make an appointment
- Set up an appointment and learn more about our therapists and postpartum anxiety counseling
- Begin therapy and feel relief from the symptoms of postpartum anxiety so you can be the parent you always wanted to be.
Other Services offered at North Boulder Counseling:
Our counseling center located in Boulder, CO is committed to helping you overcome anxiety so you can live the life you want. Our counseling services include general anxiety treatment, anxiety treatment intensive program, postpartum depression counseling, perinatal support, parenting coaching, grief counseling, trauma treatment and EMDR, depression treatment, teen therapy, and play therapy. We also offer business coaching for therapists, and professional supervision and consulting. If you can’t make it to our counseling clinic, we offer online therapy to anyone living in the state of Colorado. Contact our counseling clinic today to begin your healing journey towards better mental health!