#but hes just so gorgeous i figured that even with my horrific art skills

[waterfallofspace]

Little collection of sketches I did today. Just me, a pencil, and a sketchbook~ First time trying this so uh, don't expect much!! They're not 'traced' technically, but definitely not from my own mind, they're referenced/copied from official images. I'm not good by any means, but I'm practicing! Anyways, feel free to ignore this!! Just want to put it somewhere~

[krokodile]

movie watched in 2018, just three n this one with two behind a cut because spoilers for movies older than all of you :P

battle of the sexes - holy fuck, so good.  SO SO SO GOOD.  look, i usually can’t stand emma stone and i rarely like sports movies.  but i loved this movie so much i couldn’t shut up about it for days.  emma stone and steve carell are fucking flawless, and watching the bonus features, seeing how emma lights up whenever billie jean is onset, it’s clear how strongly she felt about doing this right.  and it absolutely shows.  her transformation goes beyond the makeup (although holy crap they did a good job with that).  her performance is remarkable; i won’t take back all i’ve said about how annoying i’ve found her over the years, because i did, but i underestimated her (which i guess is thematically appropriate for this movie :P ).  she is immensely skilled, and her desire to do this project justice is plainly visible.  the fire in her eyes when she’s on the court is fucking magnetic.  i can’t say enough about how much i adored this performance.  and i generally feel that biopics bring out the worst in actors (academy catnip though they may be).

steve carell nailed his role as well, but that was no surprise; i knew he would be perfect.  i hope he gets his oscar for this, finally, though i’m assuming 3 billboards will sweep all the major categories.  andrea riseborough is predictably perfect, and cute as a bug’s ear - i’ve always thought she was incredibly pretty,  but this is the first time i’ve found her adorable.  she and emma stone have the most insanely believable chemistry - i don’t think i’ve believed an onscreen relationship more, in every facet.  

the movie looks amazing; it drops you right into the 70s with no detail ignored.  and, you know, having lived on planet earth, i knew how this story ended.  and yet, i was nervous.  i was on the edge of my seat wringing my hands through every set.  i wanted to stand up and cheer.  i just...i really loved this movie.  i expected to like it, because reviewers i tend to agree with raved over it, but i didn’t think i’d fall in love with it.  easily one of the best to come out of 2017, at least for me.

when the wind blows - this is the best movie i NEVER EVER WANT TO SEE AGAIN.  oh my god.  look, if you know this movie, you understand me.  if you don’t, how do i sum it up?  an elderly couple living in (i think) rural england has been following the news of a seemingly inevitable nuclear conflict approaching.  the wife is largely unconcerned - after all, they made it through world war ii, and enough time has past that the memories have become romantic - and the husband is confident that the government pamphlets instructing him to whitewash the windows and create a shelter out of doors will instruct him well.

...you know where this is going, because there’s only one way this story can go.

bombs fall, everyone dies.

but not like that.  while most of their area is flattened, their home stands.  and at first all seems well.  emergency services will be along soon enough to rescue them, after all.  the pamphlets instruct them to stay in their little shelter for fourteen days to avoid fallout, but the impracticality of that is immediately apparent, and after all - if you can’t hear it, feel it, see it, how can it be harming you?  

sure, they’ve had headaches, but stress, you know?

if you for some reason have been meaning to see this but haven’t gotten to it, and don’t want spoilers, skip this, because i really can’t figure out how to explain how quietly horrific this film is without spoiling the entire thing.  

the couple - jim and hilda - quickly grow bored indoors and stroll around their garden, chatting about how nice everything will look once it’s grown back next season.  

yeah,  you’ve correctly inferred just how much denial they’re in.  hilda notices a neighbor’s dog in the distance and worriedly comments that it must be hungry; we can see that the dog is not only dead but partially fused to the ground.  grimmer still is jim’s comment that people must have put sunday dinner on early in the week; he can smell the meat roasting.  hilda mentions her worsening nausea, which jim attributes to a woman’s inability to handle stress.  

the water runs out, there are rats in the toilets, and hilda and jim can’t quite pinpoint why they feel so off; so tired and weak.  surely nothing a cup of tea wouldn’t fix, but that’s out of the question now.  still, emergency services should be arriving any moment now.  they wonder how their son and his family are faring.  

jim wonders if hilda is wearing lipstick; she isn’t.  her gums are bleeding.  but surely it’s a result of ill-fitting dentures.  they’re old; it happens.  those strange sores on their limbs must be varicose veins.  they’re old; it happens.  bloody diarrhea?  hemorrhoids.  they’re old; it happens.

jim runs out of answers when hilda’s hair starts coming out in handfuls - or perhaps he’s simply too weak to speak much at this point.  

ultimately, they retire to their tiny shelter, both finally acknowledging - wordlessly but clearly - that no help is coming.  with no better ideas left, hilda suggests they might pray.  jim, endearingly, begins his prayer with “dear sir,” which hilda suggests is wrong.  they are, after all, an old married couple.  

mid-sentence, jim ceases to speak.  and that is all.

this movie came out in the 80s, as part of that boom of nuclear holocaust films that flooded the nation at that time.  but unlike the thrillers or the family dramas, this film is almost painfully quiet.  jim and hilda have no fear.  there’s no screaming, no crying, just wondering why on earth their son seems to have gone mad at the news.  war is survivable; they’ve done it before.  there are no horrific shots of dead bodies, of people burned and in agony.  just jim and hilda, quietly transforming from round-faced little old cherubs to hollow-eyed skeletons.  

and my god, they make you love them.  they’re fucking adorable, with their accents and their quaint little house.  they bicker, but you know neither would know what to do with themselves without the other.  (the sweetness of their relationship is, i imagine, what makes the moment where jim carelessly calls hilda a “stupid bitch” as she refuses to get into the shelter - the oven’s on, the laundry’s still on the line, she really should take care of these things first - so disproportionately upsetting.  it feels personal, somehow.)  

the movie looks absolutely gorgeous.  the characters are animated, the home is done in 3d models, manipulated with stop motion, and the blending of mediums is startlingly seamless.  the character designs are simple - jim looks rather like an elderly charlie brown, with a large round head, dots for eyes, a little squiggle mouth and little else - making it all the more effective when the effects of their sickness start to visibly affect them.  there’s no gore, nothing hyperrealistic, and yet the images are deeply disturbing in ways eli roth can only dream of being.  

as the saying goes, one death is a tragedy; a million, a statistic.  we can speculate about the number of lives lost if nuclear war breaks out, but somehow that will feel less devastating than watching just these two.  there’s nothing exaggerating, nothing made “bigger” for film.  just the quiet, horrible truth.

and fuck, it’s a sick feeling when you remember that this is exactly what we did to every single japanese individual who didn’t immediately die when we bombed them.  they died in days and weeks after with radiation poisoning, or years later of blood and bone cancers.  either they went through this themselves, dying horrible, agonizing deaths that they couldn’t even feel the hope of curing, or they helplessly watched their families.  numbers are sobering, but the reality of the suffering is nauseating.

oh and i mean trump seems determined to bring about the same fate to the us, so there’s that to think about, if you didn’t feel shitty enough.

it’s an absolutely brilliant piece of art; one of the best animated films i’ve ever seen.  but i think it’s best to go in warned about what you’re seeing.  you know it’s going to be sad, you know they’re going to die, but...you should know that it’s worse than you’re envisioning.

still.  see it.  it’s on youtube.  

ringing bell - because shit, i didn’t already want to die enough, right?  it’s bambi, but with sheep.  oh, and instead of growing up and marrying his cousin, bambi joins forces with the hunter and becomes an expert gunman.  

yeah.

honestly, i didn’t like it, and not for the reasons you might think.  yeah, it’s sad, but i didn’t think it was well put-together.  the first third is just a baby lamb called chirin prancing around being nauseating (or cute, i guess).  the second third is an irritating, dumb baby sheep deciding he wants to become an apprentice to the wolf who killed his mother, which...okay, i can accept that he’s come to reason that only the strong survive (there’s an absolutely gutting scene, one of the few done well, where the lamb attempts to rescue a bird and her eggs from a snake.  the mother is killed, and in the scuffle, the eggs are broken.  the image of chirin wailing “why do the weak have to die?” is going to be the thing that fucks me up for the rest of my life.  jesus christ.) but we see NONE of this - he goes from hunting down the wolf determined to kill it, the wolf knocks him down a fucking mountain, he climbs back up and declares his intent to become a wolf.

we get a rocky movie’s worth of training montages, and really a whole bunch of nothing for the second act.  i’ll give it credit for having the wolf’s design be badass as fuck and for the hunting scene having more realism than i’d expect from a sanrio production (yeah, this came from the people who brought you hello kitty.)  but the story elements are really ignored.  we never do find out why the wolf never just ate the damn sheep when it came looking for him.

the third act is better - chirin’s adult model is the stuff of nightmares compared to his cotton fluffball appearance in the earlier scenes, and everything looks gorgeous and is animated far better than what came before it.  i won’t spoil the story of the ending, but the final shot, of chirin alone, wailing for the wolf in what sounds creepily like a howl, is...depressing.  it’s not SAD.  it just comes with a resignation that makes it so much worse than just being sad.  of course this is how it ends.  what else could there be for this wretch, no longer a ram, but not enough a wolf?

it’s a short, about 50 minutes, and at first i was thinking it might have worked better as a feature, but really, it would’ve worked better at the same length, just with differently-applied focus.  still, i appreciate its existence.  i think the 70s and 80s realized what we’ve forgotten now - kids eat up the dark stuff, the cautionary and morality tales.  when things are scary, you get to feel proud and excited that you made it through.  when things are sad, you learn to remember that happiness returns.  when you experience loss vicariously, you begin to understand it, how to process it.  when you see death, you accept it as part of life.  kids WANT to understand these things; they WANT to know more than what they know; they WANT to take on tough things and overcome them.  WE want to keep them “safe” and “innocent” - they know that that’s the opposite of what they need.  

that said, if any kid i’m watching wants to watch it, i’m going to another room until it’s over.  JESUS.

[kagetsukai]

Catching up on tags, part 2: 10 questions

This will get super crazy so I’m putting EVERYTHING under a cut. Sorry folks!

10 Questions by @decadentvoidprincess

What is your favorite movie of all time, and why?

I don’t think I have ONE favorite movie? It all depends on my mood, to be honest. I have do a soft spot for Love, Actually and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy :D

What was your favorite movie as a kid, if different from #1?

VaBank. It’s a Polish heist movie about Polish criminals during 20s. It’s hilarious, though it doesn’t translate well. If I’m in a mood, it totally becomes my favorite movie :D

Is there a movie adaptation of a book that does the book justice?

Bourne Identity. I hated the book (I only read the first one). I wanted to like it, but the author clearly didn’t understand how female brains worked and it made me angry. The movie was fantastic :D (we don’t talk about the sequels)

What is a movie you can watch a million times and it never gets old?

See first question? I’m also partial to all movies from the the Golden Age of Polish cinema. They were great.

What is your favorite “bad” movie or guilty pleasure?

Van Helsing. All of those sexy people, the costumes, the fake accents. LOVED IT. Such cheese.

Is there a genre of film or a movie trope that you just can’t deal with?

I don’t do well with horror/gore. I don’t like being scared and I don’t excessive dismemberment. To each their own?

What is your favorite “classic” film, if it hasn’t come up already?

That is SUCH a broad category :P I’m going to go with Drunken Master. I’ve always had a weakness for Hong Kong style movies and that one was the best.

 Is there a director or actor whose movies you will always watch no matter what?

I never do ‘no matter what’, because that’s a slippery slope. That being said, I will always look into Christopher Nolan’s latest endeavors (even if I won’t always watch them). He’s a creative guy. Also, I’m very partial to any Angelina Jolie action flick. She does them WELL.

Favorite holiday movie?  Can be any holiday :)

Love, Actually, but I think we already established that :P

What is the prettiest or most visually appealing movie you’ve ever seen?

Anything that comes out of Gondry is an art form, really. The Cell was gorgeous and so was The Fall. A lot of modern Chinese cinema is to die for, esp. any time they bring in fairytales. Amelie was WONDERFUL (and a great movie, too) with the colors and quirky cinematography.

10 Questions by @ladydracarysao3

Where is your Happy Place?

My bed.

Who is your favorite fictional character, and why?

I don’t have ONE favorite character, it’s more of a trope really? It’s the kind of a character that is an underdog, doesn’t really have ALL the skills necessary to succeed, but they have a group of friends that helps out and together they manage to save the world. Also, they’re not particularly pretty, or skilled, or righteous. They’re just a person. A good example of that is Harry Dresden :D

Which historical figure would you most like to meet?

Cleopatra. She sounds hella cool and hella smart.

If you could wake up tomorrow and find yourself successful in any other career than what you may have today (or be on track for today), what would it be?

Novelist, hands down. If that’s not available, personal trainer. I’m really good at motivating people :P

What keeps you up at night?

Feelings of inadequacy. Feelings of abandonment. General depression.

What helps you sleep?

Tension Tamer by Celestial Seasonings. Intense exercise. Induced sleep deprivation.

Generally speaking, indoors or outdoors?

I do enjoy the outdoors, though I’m not good at being in it. I prefer a combination of both :D

Would you rather watch a movie or read a book?

These days? Watch a movie. When I read, I prefer to read fanfic :P I have no chill...

Favorite pastime as a child?

Being outside and playing places.

Would you rather roadtrip or fly?

Fly. This way I have more time to do things at a place where I’m going to.

10 Questions by @ma-sulevin

What’s your ideal date?

Going places and doing things together. A museum is a good place to start, the zoo, etc. If you’re both fit, finding an adult jungle gym could be fun or one of those trampoline places.

Which LI from your favorite games would you actually get along with best in real life?

That’s not fair, because I would best get along with Varric and he’s not a LI. Barring that, probably Alistair. We could be weird and punny together :D He’d laugh at my awful jokes, I’d laugh at his, sounds like perfection :D

What are your favorite pizza toppings?

Chicken with white sauce and spinach or artichoke.

What’s your go-to drink order?

Non-alcoholic: water or fresh lemonade

Alcoholic: Gin and tonic or rum and coke

What’s your favorite thing about yourself?

My weird sense of humor :D

What’s your LEAST favorite thing about yourself?

How quickly I can break sometimes.

What are your stress dreams about?

I don’t remember dreams, usually. The ones I do usually involve horrific images of miscarriage and blood. Not great.

What does your dream home look like?

Somewhat modern, two story with an attic that isn’t creepy and where I can have a reading/hang out nook; four bedrooms (so I can host people) and a bathroom that has a full-sized tub. Also, a decent-sized back yard where I can hang out in the summer and have a fire pit.

What fandom were you in when you were younger that’s a little embarrassing now?

LotR, I guess? I’m not really ashamed of the fandoms I was a part of, because they shaped the person I am now. It’s more of a problem that most people don’t know the anime that I was really into :P

Would you sign up to be a colonist on a new world?

No. These days ‘new world’ means another planet and you’d have to put me in a coma first. I have severe claustrophobia so the thought of being confined to a tiny shuttle for any period of time sends me into a panic mode.

[recentanimenews]

Bookshelf Briefs 4/30/19

Arpeggio of Blue Steel, Vol. 14 | By Ark Performance | Seven Seas – Last time I wondered if Arpeggio of Blue Steel really was going to become a high school series, and it’s certainly trying its best, with a School Festival arc in the offing. That said, the tone of the series is still very much Tom Clancy, with much of the volume taken up by I-402’s negotiation with retired general Ryokan on behalf of the Fog. Meanwhile, we also get a flashback as to how Gunzou started all this in the first place (Iona basically forced it on him, but it doesn’t take much pushing), and start to see pieces shifting into position for the next big battle. Will that battle take place at the school? It might start there, but my guess is we’ll be back to the Navy before long. Still underrated. – Sean Gaffney

Crocodile Baron, Vol. 3 | By Takuya Okada | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – Crocodile Baron comes to an end without evolving much since volume two. Alfardo and Rabbit Boy run into the former’s bad older brother, who seemingly turns his life around after eating some ramen. Alfardo eats spicy curry with a desperate warthog and possibly saves his marriage. Rabbit Boy hates Christmas because it’s his birthday and buys a cake from a camel. A lovelorn elephant filmmaker finds his muse and eats pond smelts. They have an Okinawan adventure during which Rabbit Boy nearly drowns. Honestly, I cared about no one and found it all boring. If there had been more emphasis on the food, I might’ve felt differently, but this was a big ol’ yawn banquet. – Michelle Smith

High School Prodigies Have It Easy Even in Another World!, Vol. 3 | By Riku Misora and Kotaro Yamada | Yen Press – Again, I beg the authors for a character sheet. There are quite a number of interesting things going on in this volume, but I suspect the reader may have trouble finding them among all the bouncing boobs. The fanservice is laid on with a shovel here, and can be hard to take. That said, there’s a nice scene with Tsukasa and Lyrule where she berates him for feeling guilty over not prioritizing saving her. The bulk of the serious plot goes to Shinobu and Elch, gathering intel at a seemingly friendly village with a very dark secret. Fortunately (assuming that it’s not a double cross), she may also have come across the resistance. Too many boobs spoiling the pie, alas. – Sean Gaffney

How to Treat Magical Beasts, Vol. 3 | By Kaziya | Seven Seas – Lest we try to run on “the sweet and heartwarming adventures of a vet” for too long, this volume introduces a smiling maybe-villain-maybe-not, who helps Ziska with a cat’s injury and then takes her way out into danger to attend to a wounded Greif, because no series with apprentices and magic is quite complete without a test to see if they’ve got the right stuff. I assume Ziska does have the right stuff, but we’re caught up to Japan, so it may be a while till we find out. In more sweet news, that is one adorable gargoyle, and I’m happy it’s found a friend. Seven Seas has carved out a genre niche with these types of series, and I quite enjoy it. – Sean Gaffney

Mob Psycho 100, Vol. 2 | By ONE | Dark Horse – I keep wanting to call this MPD Psycho, but that is something very different. This is the story of an unassuming boy named Shigeo Kageyama who possesses super powers but wants to live without relying on them. This challenges the worldview of another superpowered boy named Teru, who spends two-thirds of the volume flinging his power at Kageyama in order to make him fight back. (Kageyama is resolute that he won’t use his powers against another person.) The anger meter appears again (with a fun gag about how Teru’s exorcism of Mob’s sycophantic spirit companion doesn’t actually change it at all) and only when his life is in true peril does Kageyama reach “???%.” Will he wreak havoc in the next volume? The story’s definitely getting more interesting, but I’m still not in love with the art. – Michelle Smith

My Hero Academia: Vigilantes, Vol. 4 | By Hideyuki Furuhashi and Betten Court | Viz Media – This gets better with each volume. I had not realized that the Vigilantes series takes place a few years before the main series (though the authors cheat (and say so) for the extra side story). I had suspected that Knuckleduster was somehow connected with the villains, but that connection turns out to be much closer than imagined, and leads to possibly the best fight of the series. Meanwhile, Pop Step finds her confidence and does something only she can do to help out. All this and one of the most horrific images in the manga to date (which also made me wonder if the authors had seen a certain meme about bees). This has become essential. – Sean Gaffney

My Pink Is Overflowing, Vol. 1 | By Yuki Monou | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – I bought this hoping it would be hilariously trashy, and for the most part it was. The premise has a girl who’s tired of being screwed over by pick-up artists decide she’s only going to date virgins from now on… then find out that her boss, seemingly an overly serious taskmaster, is one! They enter into a relationship so fast it boggles the mind, especially since their first kiss is interrupted by her having an orgasm as she does it. At its heart, this is a “ditzy girl/serious guy” title with a decent heart, but the girl can get very over the top at times, and the series seems to want to go as far as it can while keeping the hero a virgin. Plus there’s that title. For fans of Cosplay Animal. – Sean Gaffney

Teasing Master Takagi-san, Vol. 4 | By Soichiro Yamamoto | Yen Press – It has to be said, a lot of the teasing that’s going on here is Takagi-san being as obvious and blatant as she possibly can that she loves Nishitaka. You’d have to be a brick—or a male protagonist—not to get it, and indeed sometimes it’s so blatant he almost shows sings of figuring it out. But this is a long-running series, and resolution just isn’t in the cards right now. So we get Takagi-san visiting his room, playing poker, chasing cute cats, and getting each other’s emails so that now she can tease him whenever she wants to (and have cute photos of her on his phone). Everyone else in their class knows they’re going out. Most of what they do qualifies as a date. But… so dense. Love this series. – Sean Gaffney

Witch Hat Atelier, Vol. 1 | By Kamome Shirahama | Kodansha Comics – Even before it was licensed in English, Witch Hat Atelier was a series that had caught my attention, in large part due to Shirahama’s gorgeous, sumptuous artwork, but also because my Japanese-reading friends spoke so highly of it. At times, the exposition is a little heavy-handed in the first volume as the premise of the the world’s history and magic are introduced. (I expect this to become less of an issue as the series progresses.) However, the explanations are regularly incorporated in a way that makes sense—Coco, the story’s heroine, is also new to the basics and she’s learning right alongside the readers. Coco is a young woman who has always been fascinated by magic not realizing that she has a natural talent for it. Unfortunately, the initial budding of her magical skills ends in tragedy as she hasn’t had the training needed to fully understand or control them. – Ash Brown

Yowamushi Pedal, Vol. 11 | By Wataru Watanabe | Yen Press – No, the Inter High still hasn’t come to an end, but this is still a pretty satisfying volume, what with all the inspirational performances and teary appreciation of same! Watanabe does a good job getting readers to root for Hakone, too, and we learn why Arakita is so motivated to propel Fukutomi to the finish line, right before he runs out of speed. Yes, it’s a harsh truth that all six members of Sohoku aren’t able to ride together for long. The first-years prepare themselves to make the sacrifice for their teammates, but that isn’t how it turns out at all. I was fully expecting that Kinjou would be the one to win this, given his experience in the previous year’s competition, and was honestly surprised when he’s sidelined by injury. I suppose the next book will wrap things up but I kinda don’t even remember what this series is like when it’s not the Inter High! – Michelle Smith

Yuri Is My Job!, Vol. 2 | By miman | Kodansha Comics – Now that Hime is aware of who Mitsuki was in her past, everything is terribly awkward, and the number of times “she must really hate me” is said in this volume boggles the mind. If you guessed it’s all based on misunderstanding what the other is thinking, give yourself a gold star. For all that Hime tries to be the perfect little sister, it’s only when she’s honest with herself that things really take off in the cafe. I’m hoping that things will improve soon, but there’s also the problem of Kanoko, Hime’s best friend from school whose phone turns out to be entirely devoted to Hime. I dislike the term “yandere,” but I have a sneaking suspicion we’re going to see the tropes that lead to its overuse in the next book. – Sean Gaffney

By: Ash Brown

[themomsandthecity]

Why Having Postnatal Depression Actually Made Me a Better Mom

This article about firsthand experiences with postpartum depression written by Mia Von Scha comes from one of our favorite sites, YourTango. Plus, the 4 things you need to work through in order to see PND as a gift. I'm no stranger to depression. From as far back as I can remember, I've had bouts of it, some severe, some just dragging out like a rainy British summer. So when I read about Postpartum Depression in a pregnancy book, I felt sure that I would recognize it if it hit me. I didn't. The first time I realized something was wrong, I was already on my way to familicide. I was literally loosening the top of the gas bottle where my husband and baby were sleeping peacefully when it occurred to me that this was not normal. The thing is, I didn't feel depressed. All that was going through my mind was how nice it was going to be to have a really long sleep. Depression in the past for me had always meant crying...and crying...and crying. This was different. It manifested as an underlying irritability. Everything and everyone was annoying. My temper was short and my tongue was vicious. And the layers of guilt piled up high on top of that. The morning after that realization, I called the PND help group. Even then, I was fighting to stay off meds. I wanted to be a "good mother" and breastfeed for as long as possible. I was told that a good mother is one who is alive to see her child grow up and bottle-fed babies grow up too. Too true. And so began my journey to figure out what went wrong and how I could shift this depressive state once and for all. My first glimmer of hope came from a talk I went to by a prominent nutritionist. He spoke about research they had conducted into PND and how the vast majority of cases were deficient in omega 3s. This specifically affected vegans and vegetarians. I had been a vegetarian for 20 years. I put myself on a high dose of omega-3 fish oils (yes, I had to do some soul searching and moral debating first) and I weaned myself off the anti-depressants within 6 months. During this time I did further research into PND and found four pervasive factors that contribute to your chances of going down this slippery slope: 1. Your perception of the birth Well, I definitely ticked that box. I saw the whole experience as the most traumatic event of my life. I had anger toward the midwife for misunderstanding my needs and requests. I had anger toward my husband for not having to go through it; for just getting to enjoy the good bits. I had anger towards myself for being so traumatized that I was unable to bond with my baby. I had A LOT of emotional processing to do. I set out to acquire the skills to do that. I had no intention of spending years in a psychologist's office rehashing the event. I wanted results, and I wanted them yesterday. Babies grow fast and there was one growing up in front of me needing me to be in my best possible state to raise her. 2. Your relationship with your mother Research shows women with a poor relationship with their own mother have a much higher chance of having a traumatic birthing experience and a higher chance of depression post-partum. Tick again. My relationship with my mother was not horrific, more like not there. Again, I set about finding the tools for letting go of the past and any lingering hurt, anger, and resentment. What I found was not just a way to understand the past but to actually come to a place of gratitude for everything that has ever happened, even the stuff we label as bad. A life of gratitude is a long way from a life of depression. 3. An instant and dramatic shift in values that you experience It's like being kicked out of your comfort zone so far that you have no idea what your comfort zone even looks like and no strength to crawl back in it if you did find it. It takes time and patience to form a new one and usually if the shift has been dramatic it means that your kids are coming out somewhere near the new top. 4. The link between depression and fantasies I came across this one much later. All depression has its basis in an unfulfilled fantasy and nowhere is a fantasy more thrown in your face than in motherhood. The moving pictures and glossy pages that fill your pregnant world are endowed with images of doting mothers, smiling sweetly down at their breastfed babies. They are not filled with bedraggled mothers wincing in pain as their babies latch into their cracked, bleeding nipples. They show you images of happy families, their white clothes blowing in the breeze as they throw their giggling baby into the air on the beach. They don't show you the mother who cannot leave the house for fear of leaking through the two boat-sized pads she is wearing to soak up the B-grade horror movies' worth of blood she's losing daily. They show you happy families, snuggling in bed together doting on their newborn with their hair looking gorgeous with their makeup already done. They don't show you the unshaven husband sleeping on the couch because to his sleep-deprived wife, his snoring is more like a log than a straw breaking that poor camel's back. We get sold a well-meaning lie. The truth is uglier and harsher, but real. And acceptance of reality is one of the cornerstones of emotional well-being. I had to face a lot of ugly messy truths, including the one where I was a less than perfect mother. And that is true. And that is OK. You see what makes me good at the parenting coaching that I do now is not that I was (or ever will be) the perfect parent. What makes me good at what I do is that I struggled; that I was clueless and afraid and I messed it up quite badly. The gratitude I have now for that depression is that I have great compassion and empathy for parents as they struggle with the daily messiness of parenting. I can guide them through the darkest bits even when their torches are totally flat because I've been there and I've walked that path in the dark and fallen in its many holes. Parenting is not always a joy-filled awe-inspiring wonderful ride. Like all things in life, it has a darker side. It is in embracing and appreciating the dark side that we bring the two together and create wholeness. It is in facing the uglier sides of reality that we go beyond depression and into gratitude. It is in allowing our children to challenge us and mold us and force us to grow that we really get the most out of parenting and life. You see, postnatal depression is a healing journey. It is an invitation and incentive to revisit your priorities, to reconsider your past to make amends and to let go of what is no longer serving you. It is an opportunity to heal and to move forward into your parenting journey without the baggage of the past. It is a gift to help you to be the best parent that you can be. Please share this with anyone struggling with PND and contact Mia Von Scha if you need assistance in getting to the other side of your depression. More juicy reads from YourTango: * 55 Inspiring Quotes That Capture Your Wacky, Wonderful Friendships * 17 Happiness Truths From Love and Relationship Experts * How to Totally Master the Art of Being Happy in 6 Steps (or Less!) * These 20 Quotes Explain Why We Need Unconditional Love So Damn Much * 21 Love Quotes For When Everything Seems Totally Hopeless http://bit.ly/2oI21BQ