Seven years ago today, Pippa was six weeks old. She could smile and squawked in mighty protest whenever we subjected her to the indignity of tummy time. I loved to snuggle her and talk to her during her many, many diaper changes. I was utterly enchanted with my sweet baby girl.

And I was also suffering from horrible postpartum depression.

I can write that so easily now. I do not feel even a flicker of discomfort when I say or write the words “I had postpartum depression.” But damn, it took me a lot of work to get to that point.

I suffered for months before I felt ready to ask for help, and I only asked for help because I had intrusive thoughts of hurting Pippa that scared the crap out of me. I did not want to hurt Pippa, but I had insomnia, and I was terrified that one day she would be crying, and I’d have a thought of throwing her to stop the crying, and I would not have time to push away the thought before my body responded.

Okay, wow! I can write the words “I had postpartum depression” easily but writing about those old intrusive thoughts just activated my body. As I write this, my chest, arms and head are tingling unpleasantly, as if old trapped feelings are demanding to be felt and released.

I am taking a moment to sit with these feelings and memories…

It’s not easy. Damn, I just want to keep writing and push past the discomfort.

But there it is: shame.

In Untamed, Glennon Doyle writes:

Shamelessness is my spiritual practice.

Untamed, pg. 19.

Can I do that? Can I get past the lingering feelings of shame that I still have because, almost seven years ago, I thought about hurting my baby?

I just looked up the definition of the word “shame“and the first entry is:

The painful feeling arising from the consciousness of something dishonorable, improper, ridiculous, etc., done by oneself or another.

Dictionary.com

Okay, if that is the meaning of shame, then yes, I do want to transcend my feelings of shame, because holy shit, I did not do anything dishonorable, improper, or ridiculous.

I had a mental illness.

I had insomnia.

I had hormones that went bat shit crazy.

The bat shit crazy hormones exacerbated some toxic ideas about motherhood that I had absorbed from various sources including society, books, blogs, social media, strangers on the street, and so many other places.

And then those toxic ideas about motherhood got mixed up with my preexisting anxiety.

The reasons I had intrusive thoughts about hurting my baby are complicated and messy, but I know this much: I did nothing wrong. My shame is coming from some old belief that I need to find and fix.

Though I have come to terms with the “nicer” parts of my adventures with postpartum depression, I still have some unfinished business to tackle.

Full disclosure: When I sat down to write this post, I was planning to quote some amazing things that Glennon Doyle wrote about motherhood in Untamed and then reflect on how I am applying those ideas to my own life. I did not think I was going to be here, feeling all this shame, and realizing that the shame is an indication of some deep soul work that I need to do.

But here I am.

My body is practically on fire with shame.

I have published a memoir. I have created a podcast about postpartum depression with eighty episodes. I have shared my experiences countless times on social media. I even led a hike to raise awareness about maternal mental health. I thought I was done.

But I still have some work to do, because if this shame was happening to anyone else — future Pippa, my sister, one of my cousins, a friend, a stranger on the street — I would tell them that they did nothing wrong. That they should not feel shame over intrusive thoughts because they did not do anything “dishonorable, improper or ridiculous.”

Excuse me while I take a moment to roll up my metaphorical sleeves.

I want to clarify something. I am not trying to extinguish my feelings about shame because they are uncomfortable, end of discussion. I want to get at the root of whatever is causing my shame. I do not believe I have any reason to feel shame about thoughts I had during my mental illness, but I still feel the shame. So I want to dig into this feeling so that I can make whatever internal changes I need to make in order to get to a place where I am at peace with the old intrusive thoughts.

I don’t know how this is going to work. I have no idea how I will heal the lingering shame over my intrusive thoughts. How long will this take? Will I talk about it on my sort-of-retired podcast? Will my memoir’s epilogue need an epilogue of its own?

All I know is that my body is telling me that I still feel shame connected with parts of my postpartum depression adventures, and that means I still have work to do. So here I go. I am going to follow Glennon Doyle’s lead and make shamelessness my spiritual practice.