The postpartum period gets a lot of attention — and rightly so. But something that doesn't get discussed nearly as much is what happens in the years after: the sustained, often invisible weight of raising children while also trying to maintain some thread of yourself. For many parents, the transition into parenthood doesn't just change their schedule. It rewrites their identity in ways they weren't warned about.
The Part of Parenting Nobody Talks About
There's a particular kind of loneliness that can come with parenting. Not the loneliness of being alone — parents of young children are rarely physically alone — but the loneliness of feeling like the version of yourself that existed before children is slowly becoming unrecognizable to you. The things that used to feel urgent don't. The relationships you used to navigate with ease now require translation. The question "who am I now?" sits quietly underneath everything.
This isn't a sign that something has gone wrong. It's a sign that something significant has happened. Identity doesn't survive major role transitions unchanged, and becoming a parent is one of the most significant role transitions a person can undergo. The grief and disorientation that come with that are real — and they deserve more than a "it gets easier" and a pat on the back.
Pregnancy and Postpartum Mental Health
Perinatal mood and anxiety disorders — which include depression and anxiety during pregnancy and the postpartum period — affect 1 in 5 birthing parents. They're the most common complication of childbirth, and they're dramatically undertreated.
Postpartum depression doesn't always look like the images we have of it: a parent staring blankly into the distance, unable to bond with their baby. It can look like intense irritability. Like rage that feels out of proportion. Like numbness. Like going through the motions while something feels profoundly wrong and you can't name it. It can look like anxiety — constant, consuming worry about the baby's safety or your competence as a parent — rather than sadness at all.
If you're experiencing any of this, it's not weakness. It's not a character flaw. And it's not a sign that you're a bad parent. It's a medical reality that responds very well to treatment.
Parenting Support in Therapy
I work with parents at Full Bloom Counseling on the full range of challenges that come with raising children — not just perinatal mood disorders, but the longer arc of parenthood: navigating your own childhood wounds as they get activated by your kids, managing the relationship strain that parenting stress creates, figuring out who you are as a parent versus who you were told you should be.
I also work with parents of neurodivergent children — kids with ADHD, autism, sensory processing differences, or anxiety. Parenting a child whose nervous system works differently requires constant adaptation, and the emotional load of that is rarely acknowledged. You're managing your child's challenges, advocating for them in systems that weren't built for them, and often grieving the parenting experience you expected while finding your way into the one you actually have.
Working With Young Adults
The other population I work closely with is young adults — roughly 18–35 — navigating the disorientation of early adulthood: the gap between what they were told life would look like and what it actually looks like, the pressure of figuring out career and relationship and identity simultaneously, the particular challenge of living with anxiety or ADHD in a world that wasn't built for how their brains work.
Young adulthood is a genuinely hard developmental period that tends to get minimized. "You have your whole life ahead of you" is not the comfort it's intended to be when you're living in it and nothing quite fits yet.
Therapy in Denver and Boulder
I see clients virtually across Colorado and in person at my Boulder office. If you're a parent, a young adult, or someone navigating a major life transition who's looking for a therapist who will take your experience seriously — reach out for a free consultation.
