by Michelle Stein posted in Parenting

Running is when I feel most like my true self. My feet pounding on the pavement, ponytail swishing to the rhythm of the cadence. My mind finally clear as I focus on breathing, while pumping my arms and my legs on auto pilot. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.
Away from the responsibilities of motherhood. Away from impossible expectations society has for me. The endless days filled with dread.
For a long time, running was one of the only things that brought joy to the shadow of life that is postpartum depression and anxiety. If I'm being completely honest, running probably saved my life. Because most days, I was convinced my family would be better off without me.

I signed up for my first full marathon -- a 26.2-mile commitment -- just five months after my second child was born. Although I was in denial at the time, I was actually deep in the throes of (high functioning) PPD/anxiety. I was desperately grasping for something, anything that would make me feel like me again. I could fix this on my own, I told myself. (I couldn't.) But here's how running helped me through the darkest days of PPD: It served as a road map when I felt utterly lost. At the time, I had I quit my full-time job outside of the home and began freelancing remotely. This huge shift in how I spent my days did nothing to help my PPD; in fact, it added to it. Printing out a training schedule and hanging it on my refrigerator "forced" me to get out of the house ...