Butterflies can protect themselves because they leave a bad taste in their predator’s mouth.

I am a broken butterfly.

My days consist of just three “normal” hours before my panic sets in and my bedtime ritual must start. I shower early, trying to get comfortable, as ready as I can physically make myself, to do the whole long night all over again.

My husband comes home and I can’t hold it in for the 17th day in a row.

I’m crying.

I’m crying because I should love being a mother. I’m crying because I can’t pull it all together. I’m crying for reasons that never made me cry before, a new, sudden fear of danger and harm, anxiety about the terrible world my baby was born into. I’m crying because I’m angry that I can’t be bright and cheerful, a monarch butterfly — instead I’m curled up in a lonely cocoon of sadness.

I try to tell myself it’s normal.

Late wakeups, breakfast in bed, around-the-clock visitors don’t make me smile. I can’t smile. I can just try not to frown.

I paste on my best attempt for my husband and he returns it with a faint smile. He tells me to eat something because my face is gaunt and pale. He says he’ll get the baby ready for bed. He asks me to burp her since he doesn’t know how.

I feel good and superior that I, the mother, know how to nurture and tend instinctively. I just wish every other good feeling came instinctively too.

Butterflies cant fly if they’re cold.

We return home after three weeks of distractions, and the walls I didn’t think could crumble any further do. I have no help, no masks to disguise my new solemn, cold personality. I fantasize about going back to work and actually having a schedule to follow. Then I’ll feel like me again.

We eat dinner silently. I feel my eyes welling up as my husband clears the table looking almost as hopeless as I do. He is hopeless because he doesn’t know how to heal me. I am hopeless for the same reason.

My baby brings me joy. Her eyes flutter open for the few hours she’s awake in between her long daytime naps. She confuses her nights and days, and now I do too. I catch an almost-smile from her and I feel empowered for just a few seconds.

Butterflies will go from flower to flower to get as much nectar as they can get.

Three ice cubes. Almond milk. Two scoops. Stir.

I walk outside on my porch while the baby squirms in her stroller. The sunlight and soft breeze are new to her, it liberates her and she starts to calm. I gaze into the distance, wishing this beautiful weather made me feel the same way.

I dial a friend’s number and we talk. I unload a bit, she listens. I feel my tension lessening and suddenly, I feel like myself. We talk, we laugh; I’m getting better, I tell myself.

A long conversation, a few good laughs, and a feeling of entering a portal and becoming the person I once was — a happy, confident, grounded human being who enjoys a good debate and verbalizing her opinions.

We hang up, and I’m gazing again.

That person has flown away.

They say to sleep when the baby sleeps, and it used to upset me that something besides myself should dictate my schedule. Yet I’ve weakened, and now a nap sounds fine. But my bones won’t allow it, the breeze and the sky, streaked with a setting sun, keep me sitting, aimlessly stirring the ice cubes that have begun to melt.

My baby’s breaths are as soothing as the wind. Slow, steady, sure.

Mine aren’t. I need to go back to that portal.

I dial another friend.

Butterfly wings are transparent.

It’s been weeks back at work and I see the mirage of sanity from a distance. I am happy, then I am not happy, then I am sad and down again. I have a schedule to save me from that wandering lineup of hours that used to pass me by.

I’m told by someone I trust that I need to take care of myself, and if I don’t see gradual improvement, I need to take stronger measures. A hot bath at 11 every night doesn’t make enough of a difference. Thoughts of therapy and medication come to mind for a few seconds, then I quickly push them out. There’s no way I am that person.

As I speak to more and more people I love every day, I access that portal frequently and feel it invigorating my spirit. My little butterfly is growing quickly, and I do my best to stay present and hold her tight.

But I just look at her; I don’t see her. I feel disconnected from what matters most, a flying force outside my body that witnesses all I do but doesn’t feel anything I experience.

Everyone aside from my spouse can get a sincere smile out of me, even a laugh at times. I tell him how sad I feel, how lonely I am. He’s always here for me, he says. And he doesn’t need to say it. He has been something indescribable since our baby came into the world, tending to and caring about our every need. But he is also the well for my tears right now, taking care of me and absorbing my pain.

The guilt is overwhelming.

I beat myself up over this reality, screaming to myself that I need to show him how much I value him. But my words don’t work and neither do my gestures. I am a leech in my own home; a dinner-eater, a nap-craver, a bath-taker, and a couch-sitter.

I am a selfish, needy, miserable taker.

Monarch butterflies have one of the longest journeys of any butterfly.

My baby is growing and transforming. I hold her up in my frail arms and kiss her all over. She is my everything, I tell myself. But those words aren’t strong enough; I feel like nothing.

My moods come in tidal waves, I feel good and then I don’t. I have patterns of good days and bad days. I still suffer, and I know my marriage is suffering more. But I don’t have the courage to come forward, nor the strength to carry the bucket of words to apologize to my husband for flooding our apartment with my misery.

It has been long days, weeks, and months of feelings I refused to develop. I’ve stayed in a cocoon for far too long, and the branch I cling onto is cracking before my eyes.

If you don’t see gradual improvement, you need to take stronger measures.

I need someone to help me.

I make the phone call.

I sit on the chair for broken people. But there, I find the confidence to verbalize every single thing I’ve been feeling. I hear words that had scared me since the hospital, words I pushed away and buried deep under the trunk of my tree.

Postpartum anxiety.

Postpartum depression.

But instead of the words making me crumble like every other scary word has until now, they flutter like the wings I used to have, softly and gently until they safely land where they belong.

Days later I find myself filling my calendar with phone calls and appointments. I pick up a prescription with an eager yearning; half of me wants to throw the bag away and the other half grasps it tightly, as if I am holding life itself in this small container.

My husband sees me smile. I forgot what a genuine smile feels like.

Suddenly I am on the road to recovery. I know the path is long, the road full of rocks and ditches, but a beautiful light awaits me at the end.

I see my baby for the first time. Seeing, not just looking. Her eyes are a chocolate brown, her hair evidently will be the same. We sit together as a family and a warmth seeps through the igloos I’ve been involuntarily building for months.

The help I’m getting is liberating, and I find myself confidently explaining to others that recovery is not a joke. I find myself saying the word therapy a lot. Where has my shame gone? Am I that person?

I don’t know where my shame went, but it left.

And yes, I am that person.

When the light passes through the layers of a butterfly’s wings, the colors are reflected and become intense.

I feel myself gaining strength. Slowly, very slowly, I tiptoe back into my positive wife and nurturing mother roles. I will need to take pills for a while, and special people even longer, but the remorse in recovery has vanished.

I will get back to myself.

No, that angel sitting across from me says. You will become even better than you were before.

Three ice cubes. Almond milk. Coffee. Stir.

I have a schedule that empowers me. I do things for just myself sometimes. I cook dinner and clean up to the best of my ability.

I notice my husband is different too. I understand that he almost slipped down the slope of depression with me, and we are both, hand-in-hand, finding our way home.

Metamorphosis isn’t quick or easy. But I see more light every day, and no longer do I search for the portal to my old life. I am here, I am now, and I am fluttering my wings to nurture and protect the family that I now clearly believe is the most beautiful everything I have.

My husband holds our little butterfly up into the bright blue sky. The breeze flows between us, and we walk as the sun prepares to set once again. I have traveled a steep, rocky road, and there are still many roadblocks ahead. But I know with confidence, as I glance at the two magnificent butterflies that create my world, that one day I will soar.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 797)