Interlude:
This piece is about what happens after birth—the unraveling, the rebuilding, and the silence that surrounds it. It’s not a celebration. It’s a confrontation. “Postpartum” is the first in a series that names the struggle, honors the survival, and refuses to stay quiet.
So this is postpartum.
I didn’t expect it to feel like this.
I used to think it was exaggerated, just something women said to fill the silence.
But then I met it face-to-face.
And here I am.
The thoughts came in floods.
Not gentle waves, riptides.
Anxiety, I didn’t know I’d been carrying for years, suddenly had a name.
I thought everyone’s mind raced like mine.
I thought talking to yourself was just how people processed life.
Turns out, I was already surviving something I hadn’t yet defined.
I didn’t expect to be left when my son was six months old.
Didn’t expect his father to choose selfishness over family.
Didn’t know I was never part of his definition of “us.”
He was faking it.
And I was believing it.
I didn’t think betrayal would be part of my postpartum vocabulary.
But here we are.
I didn’t expect to still be in postpartum,
while raising someone who mirrored the man I was learning to unlove.
My son carries his father’s face,
with a flicker of mine tangled in the corners.
It’s a strange inheritance.
I heard the harshest words of my life
from the man I kept choosing,
even after he stopped choosing me.
And I was supposed to swallow them.
But how do you digest lies
When you’re trying to build a life rooted in truth?
I didn’t expect to carry most of the weight—
while promises dissolved into absence.
Fatherhood, it seems, was optional for him.
For me, it was never a choice. It was a vow.
Postpartum.
Is this something I was just supposed to know how to survive?
It’s chaotic. It’s loud.
Questions pile up like laundry I never asked for.
I’m overwhelmed.
but is it hormones?
Is it grief?
Is it just life showing up without warning?
I didn’t expect to lose people who once swore they’d never leave.
“Best friends” vanished.
Support systems crumbled.
The curtain dropped, and behind it,
I saw the truth:
I can’t depend on the same people who rely on me.
Not when I need them most.
What is a best friend when you’re postpartum?
When you’re not your most polished self?
When you need someone to just sit beside you,
without needing a reason?
I’ve asked for that kind of presence.
Unconventional, quiet, real.
But they don’t show up.
Not like I did.
And I don’t know why.
Maybe they don’t either.
Maybe silence is their only language.
Is it postpartum depression?
No.
This ache predates motherhood.
It’s the slow realization that some relationships
are built on expiration dates.
Outside of family,
Impermanence is the only promise I’ve ever seen kept.
I grew up knowing one thing for sure:
Family is what remains when everything else falls away.
But now, people want to pin my pain on postpartum.
They offer commentary like it’s comfort:
“Families look different these days.”
“Conventional love is outdated.”
“You’re strong—you can raise him on your own.”
They don’t get it.
I didn’t bring my son into this world for a situationship.
I wanted permanence.
Postpartum doesn’t excuse betrayal.
I didn’t expect to carry the full weight of shaping his future alone.
But I refuse to be a temporary figure in his life—
not when I’ve lived through too many of those myself.
Flashbacks.
Faces that faded.
Promises that dissolved.
I see the facade now.
I’m too blunt, too real, too rooted for people who only show up when it’s easy.
They can’t take me.
And I’ve stopped trying to be taken.
Turns out, it’s not postpartum at all.
It’s ADHD. Maybe bipolar.
Maybe just me—finally learning the language of my own mind.
I’m the one who’s going to know.
I’m the one who’s going to name it.
I’ve always seen the world in systems.
Now I understand why I’ve always felt like the outcast.
Postpartum?
My ass.
That label was never big enough to hold me.
I never knew my racing thoughts were tied to anxiety.
Never realized that what I called “normal” was actually depression,
threaded through years of my life like an invisible inheritance.
My mood swings?
They’re not character flaws.
They’re coded in my lineage.
And what is me—is not to blame.
I’ve always carried expectations this world doesn’t know how to hold.
They’ve called them unrealistic.
But I know how to reshape them,
How to bend perspective without breaking my truth
especially for the family I’m building.
The realization shook me.
Grief came in waves.
But this isn’t just postpartum.
This isn’t just a season.
These aren’t new wounds
They’re old truths finally being named.
And now, I know.
The blame was never mine.
The knowing is.
Postpartum is not.
But I empathize with the woman with postpartum, the one that people forget.
Have you heard 4Da Streetz by Alissa Fere? Watch the lyric video below.
