My Mind Led Me To Create This Blog

The decision to create the blog, MindFUlly Well Rooted developed from a high school dream. A friend of mine from high school and I had always talked about plans to open a non-profit for pregnant women of color Montgomery, AL. Eventually that dream faded for her after we graduated from high school. She went off to FAMU for an undergraduate degree in public relations. I went off to Auburn University just to go to college. Throughout my undergraduate college experience, that dream still existed within me. Yet I let so many other things come before my God given plan. I decided that staying relevant on campus was ay more important or at least what I thought was relevant.

After I graduated from college at Auburn University, I took on a terrible job and moved to Atlanta. I lived there for two years and pretty much lived my life in the young, wild, and free lane. While I was living in Atlanta, I was single, had my own place, and came alive in the night time. I livvvvveeed some crazy times while in Atlanta that kept my dreams suppressed. Soon enough God slowed me down and showed me how he is always in control. I found out I was pregnant and not from an old random thanks be to the Lord. I ended up moving back to my hometown of Montgomery and had a beautiful baby boy 30 weeks later. A week and a half after he was born, I started to experience some very intrusive thoughts. Those thoughts were about things that I thought I would never say when it came to motherhood, my baby boy, and his father.

A month after my sons birth, I was hospitalized for six days at a mental health behavior facility for postpartum depression. Two weeks later, I was back in the same hospital for a severe anxiety attack. God’s purpose for my life resurfaced in the midst of all of this. Once again, I suppressed it and the decision to create a blog because I was mentally unstable. Within a year I started a graduate program at Auburn Montgomery to put God’s plan for my life into action. I finally felt like I was taking to right steps towards my high school dream of starting a non-profit. I met an amazing man four months later who did not want sex, all he wanted was my time to learn about me. We started to spend more time together that led to a friendship. We then built a stronger relationship that eventually led us to marriage.

Prior to our engagement we found out I was pregnant, and we were both head over heels. I knew the consequences of getting pregnant again and what could occur. The consequences showed up probably ten times worse the second time around. I experienced bipolar episodes, anxiety, and depression while I was pregnant. I was also working a part time job and in the last semester of my MPA graduate school program that kept me up at night. My second son was born three weeks after I graduated at 32 weeks because of a hemorrhage due to preeclampsia. My last night in the hospital was the start of a war like no other. I went into a downward spiraling depression accompanied by bipolar disorder, severe anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder of death, suicidal ideation, and psychosis. I was so sure I was going to die every single day. God made sure that death was far from my doorstep. Instead, God made sure that my purpose was prevailing!

During my battles and wars with mental illness, I still had the dream to pursue that non-profit. The dream took on a different form after I gave birth to my second child. My purpose was to create a blog for black women, black mothers, and black wives. The difference of my blog and others would be about managing mental illness before, during, and after pregnancy. The purpose evolved from the unbelievable situations I faced while I was in high school, college, and living in Atlanta. My true purpose was within the experiences of my pregnancies, childbirth, and postpartum period. The purpose was and still is God’s perfect will being done.

Throughout my first pregnancy, I talked about the plan of my non-profit with close friends. While I battled postpartum depression, I still had my mind on creating my non-profit. After I stabilized, I applied and went to graduate school to learn how to lead and manage a nonprofit organization; more so specifically my non-profit. While I was pregnant and in graduate school enduring sleepless nights, extreme depressive lows and invincible highs; I still had my non-profit rooted in my mind and heart. When I endured hospitalization while both pregnant and after childbirth, I still had that dream of my nonprofit. After enduring the shock of a petition of custody for my oldest son from my mother, I still had my non-profit on my mind. Here I am now in a new city with my family and my mind has not wavered from my non-profit. The road to my nonprofit organization starts with the creation of this motherhood, marriage, and mental health blog.

This mental health blog is for black and brown women of color. Women who find themselves in the midst of mental illness while managing motherhood and or marriage. This mental health blog is for black women who have found themselves managing mental illness before, during, and or after pregnancy. God has been in the business of leading me to create this space on the internet for the past 16 years. I’m taken aback because God has worked some crazy impossible miracles in my life which have lead me here. My God has been keeping me mentally rooted in creating a safe space for women of color to share their stories of mental health for the past 16 years. Just so happened he showed me signs that lead me in direction of a blog 5 years ago after my oldest son was born. I’m just in awe of God’s work. I have been through the depths of what seemed like hell, fire, and horror. I have to stop and give God all the glory for bringing me this far in life.

The creation of my blog may not seem like much to most. But to me it is where I can give glory to God and embrace my passion. I used to listen to what other people have told me I should do forfar to long. This space defines my purpose on my own terms. This space is not for anyone else thoughts and or ideas of how I should live. MindFULLy Well Rooted is for those women of color who were told they were not going to make it through the inescapable fire. Well we all can make it and shine like the diamonds God intended for us to be!