Trill Talk: Natasha Lettner
Writer, creative thinker, orator, & mom Natasha Lettner joins us to discuss mental health.
Q: Here at Trill we like to keep it True and Real, so give us the scoop, Natasha. Who are you?
A: I am a wife and a mother to an amazing one and a half-year-old toddler here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I have a communications background. I’m a writer, a blogger, and vlogger. I’m also a content creator and a mental health advocate. I also work for a non-profit. I’ve been volunteering for nonprofits for the past 5–6 years now in regards to helping bring awareness to racial inequities here in Milwaukee. I also love writing poetry, I’m a bookworm and I love cats.
Q: What has been your personal experience of mental health?
A: My personal experience with mental health has been realizing that I’ve been dealing with anxiety for many years. I’ve been able to repress it before but after having my son, my anxiety became amplified which is when I also was diagnosed with postpartum depression. I have anxiety and postpartum depression so I began counseling. That’s when I realized that I’ve been repressing all of my depression and all of my anxiety for many, many years. When you’re pregnant and all these hormones, everything was just coming to the forefront so it was to the point where I could no longer repress it. I had to confront and learn how to deal with it. I’ve been learning how to maintain my daily life by dealing with anxiety and postpartum depression.
Q: You have mentioned that you had dealt with postpartum depression, what was that like?
A: At first, when I realized, I kept it to myself and didn’t tell my husband. We had a doula and she would check in for postpartum visits every once in a while. She would always ask me “how are you doing?” I would always say “I’m fine. I’m great.” But then when my husband was off at work and I’m at home with the baby alone, I would just start crying and I couldn’t understand why I was crying. I’m like “okay I’m happy I should be very happy right now. I was blessed with this beautiful baby boy and I’m not sad. My life is great and I have a great husband. Why am I crying?” On top of the crying, it was just a lot of worrying. My anxiety was kicking and I was just thinking about all the things that could go wrong in life and all the bad things that can happen even though none of that was actually happening. It was just dealing with those thoughts, having crying spells, and also having mood swings.
My husband, given that he was here a lot of times, I would take it out on him and he didn’t understand what was going on. I didn’t understand why I was feeling that way. I actually kept it to myself for 4 months until the point where I just had a really big blow-up towards my husband. After I yelled and screamed at him, I literally locked myself in our bathroom and laid on the bathroom floor until I could hear him and the baby go to sleep. I was on the floor in the bathroom crying not understanding what’s really going on and then when I heard him go to sleep, I wrote him a long email just telling him I think I’m dealing with some kind of postpartum depression and that I need to talk to somebody. Once he read that the next morning, he advised that we first speak to our doula. She admitted to me that she saw the signs early on even though I was telling her that I was okay. She said that in her class to become a doula, they learned to look for certain signs in women postpartum. I was explaining some signs that I was experiencing and that I didn’t even know that she knew. I asked if she knew anyone I could talk to or any good counselors. She ended up giving me a really good list of counselors. I reached out and ended up connecting with one of them. That’s how the journey began with me healing and dealing with this. I was trying to keep it all to myself but I was actually losing control and I couldn’t take it anymore.
Q: How has culture and stigmatization affected your view of mental health and getting help?
A: I’m an African American woman and in black culture, and this is something that I realized from my own personal experience and then once I started opening up about my experience online other like black women were saying the same thing, we were told what goes on at home, stays home. We don’t believe in therapy or counseling because it’s nobody’s business what you’re dealing with. Religion is a huge thing within the black community and I grew up in a very religious household. I went to church all the time so the only thing I was taught was just going to church and praying. No therapist, no counseling, just pray about it. You don’t realize that you need help, you need to get out, you need to talk to somebody but then a lot of times you are viewed as crazy if you go and tell people this. They’re going to judge you and think that you’re crazy so you should just keep it to yourself. That’s pretty much what I grew up with and a lot of other black people have grown up with that too.
When we deal with these things we have these emotions that we can’t explain and we don’t get help so you see that is turning into anger or substance abuse. You don’t realize it because you’re not dealing with your mental illness. You figure if you tell someone that they’re going to look at you like you’re crazy so you keep it to yourself. That’s a lot of the reason why it took me so long to even deal with what I had going on. It got to the point where I just had a huge blow-up and took it out on my husband before I realized that I need to get some help. I was like “I don’t care what anyone says and I don’t care what anyone thinks. I’m going to go and I’m going to get some help” and I’m really glad that I did.
Q: What motivated you to finally get help?
A: It was becoming a mom. That’s what really drove it home for me. I thought to myself “okay in order for me to nurture this human being that you know we brought into this world, to make sure that his mental health is okay, I have to be okay first.” I started to just sit there and look back at all the things I’ve experienced and the people in my family that have chosen not to get help for their mental illness and instead chose substance abuse or anger and how that has affected me and my siblings overall. I don’t want that for my son and I can’t be there for him if I don’t get help for myself. Really, it was me becoming a mom that really pushed me to go and get help.
Q: Anything you would like to say to the Trill community?
A: I will say that it’s okay to not be okay so if you find that you’re dealing with emotions that you can’t explain and they start to affect your everyday life and you want to reach out and talk to someone, do it. If you don’t have anyone around you can talk to maybe you can journal about it. I find that it has helped me since I’m a writer. Turn it into a beautiful poem or story and get it out that way.
What I’ve started doing is taking short breaks from social media so I will advise them to do that too. It’s okay to unplug and disconnect from all of that and just lock yourself away, read a good book, spend time with your family, go out and enjoy nature. Also, being outside in the sun or just out in nature can also really just help ease any anxiety or any depression so don’t hesitate or feel bad about unplugging from social media and unplugging from the news because that can also lead to a lot of depression and anxiety. So unplug, take some time for yourself, self-care, and find someone that you can trust to talk to and also journal about it if you aren’t comfortable yet with talking to somebody. Take time for yourself and forget about everything just unplug and unwind.
Q: Where can we find out more about Natasha? How can we support you and your work?
A: You can follow me on Instagram. My IG handle is @natashanafrini. Instagram is where I share blog posts, stories, and in-feed posts related to mental health on top of my parenting and lifestyle content. If you like reading please check out my blogs on www.natashawrites.info. My blogs focus heavily on mental health and parenting. You can also follow me on Twitter where my handle is also @natashanafrini. I also have a Youtube — Mother New Moon where I do reviews related to Motherhood, Mental Health, and Spirituality.
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