It’s impossible to tell the origin story of Defeat PPD without first telling a little of my personal story. The two are so closely intertwined; you need my back story to understand the birth of Defeat PPD. For the sake of time, I’ll start my story back in early 2015.
If this were a movie, I imagine a faded flashback scene with a younger version of me walking in stage left.
I was a mom of two young boys. Abram was three and Lukey was one (yes, his name is Luke, but he strongly dislikes being called Luke). I was two months into working full-time at an amazing company that I planned to grow old with. The only problem was, I felt like God was telling me to quit. I kid you not, almost every day on the way to or from work, He sent me some sort of sign that I wasn’t supposed to be working.
I’ve worked since the age of 14, so, being a stay-at-home mom was a foreign concept to me; it was never a part of my plan (neither was marriage or children, but I digress).
If it’s not already clear, I was strongly against the idea of quitting my job. I’d worked hard to get to this point in my career, it was the highest paying job I’d ever had. Plus, the facility was unmatched.
We had a free onsite gym (I didn’t go, but I liked knowing it was there), a restaurant with real deal chefs … I spent a good chunk of my paycheck there (come to think of it, that was probably their goal). We even had mini golf and an arcade … and the people weren’t half-bad. Understandably, the first time God spoke to me and told me to quit, I thought “there’s no way God would want me to quit, it’s amazing here.”
Side note: If you’ve walked with God for some time, you know that His plans are often quite different than ours and sometimes they don’t make logical sense to the human mind.
Thanks to the amazing food at my amazing job (and my lack of self control), I was packing on the weight. One day, I was in a local mom’s group on Facebook and decided to make a post about my weight gain and a woman reached out to me. She told me about an MLM called Beachbody (no, I’m not selling Beachbody, please don’t leave if you’re anti-MLM) and the results her clients were getting. I decided to give it a try. It honestly was such a game changer for me. I ended up losing 40 lbs with two Beachbody programs and Shakeology!
Because of my success I decided to become a Coach (ok, ok, now you’re thinking I’m a liar, I swear, I’m not a Coach anymore). This was my first taste of coaching and it came naturally.
I started to feel God nudging me more towards coaching and away from my job. One day as I was getting ready for work, the thought again came to mind “you need to quit.” I remember speaking out loud to God “what am I supposed to do for work?” He responded so strongly that it felt as if He’d spoken audibly “I already told you,” He said.
For most Christians, that probably would have been enough to make a move, not me, I’m not like most Christians. I’m uniquely a bit more stubborn than the average person. I mean, the God of the universe literally told me what to do and silly me, I thought my plan was better.
That day, as I drove in to work, I was listening to a local Christian radio station where someone shared the story of how God told them to quit their job and they did. I thought “wow, good for them” and continued on my way to work thinking, “if God wants me to quit, I’m going to need the full next steps and a bigger sign than that”. Well, thankfully, He provided a sign. As soon as I got in that day, my manager called me into her office to chat. Someone from HR sat off in the corner.
Let me just pause here and say this, if your boss calls you into their office and HR is there, it’s never a good sign.
My manager told me to have a seat and then went on to tell me how much she’s enjoyed working with me and how my work was great, but I’d already missed three days due to my boys being sick.
Remember, I’d just started this role.
My manager felt it was best that I focus on my family in this season of life. She then told me I’d be eligible for rehire, but she recommended I wait a year or two. Now, before you tell me this was illegal, Georgia is an at will state, meaning you can be fired for absolutely no reason at all.
And this was God’s plan anyway.
He told me to quit before I barely got started. You’d think this experience would be enough to teach me to quickly obey Him. Unfortunately, that’s not what happened.
For the next year and three months, I listened(ish). I coached with Beachbody, tried out another mlm, served in church and stayed at home with my boys.
Everything was going well, until my faith was tested.
Since our move to Georgia from Connecticut in 2012, we’d lived in a house with my mom in a suburb of Atlanta. Our lease was ending and Jeremy and I were awaiting placement in an apartment ministry where we’d be required to live onsite. So, instead of renewing our lease for another year, we moved in with a family from our church while we waited, and waited, and waited. Three months went by and we’d still not received our placement.
Then we received news that the family we were staying with was expecting their first child and would need the room we were staying in. There was no way we could afford to rent a place on Jere’s income and my partial coaching income, so I took matters into my own hands and decided it was time I go back to “work.” I took a job with a great company and we signed a month-to-month lease on a house.
THE VERY NEXT MONTH, we received our placement. If I’d only been patient enough to wait a few more days, I could have avoided such a mess.
I’ll spare you the story of how that job went (for now), just know that I was in part-time ministry, working full-time and coaching on the side.
Could I have been more disobedient?
I again heard Him loud and clear telling me to quit my job. To be fair, this time I tried to listen, but they liked me so much that when I handed in my resignation, they made me an irresistible offer and I stayed.
Around this time, God revealed to me His plan for me to work with women with postpartum depression which sounded like a terrible idea. Not only was I unqualified but I wanted to stay as far away from that experience as possible. It took over a year to get back to “normal” after having Abram, why on earth would I ever want to relive it?
Despite my dislike of this plan, I tried to be obedient. I sat down at the computer to write a mission statement and that ended in tears. It was hard and miserable work digging up my old wounds to think about how I could serve other women. It was just too much, so I gave up and focused on my plans for the next two years.
Fast forward to early 2018 and I’m pregnant with my daughter. I’m neck deep in a battle with health anxiety. Every day is a fight not to give up or give in to the urge to Google or diagnose every tingle or “off” sensation in my body. Most of my days are spent fixated on some problem I need to solve.
The anxiety started with multiple pregnancy tests to “confirm” I was actually pregnant, which morphed into multiple ultrasounds and blood tests to “confirm” I was having a girl, which then turned to constantly monitoring my health and panicking at every turn. It was awful. I could not wait for the day she would come.
I thought birth would be the end, unfortunately it was just the beginning.
The first week of Kyla’s life, I barely slept. I had multiple panic attacks every day and I thought I was going crazy. In an effort to “get better,” I went to therapy, saw a psychiatrist (was prescribed three different medications) and eventually voluntarily checked myself into a psych ward (I would not recommend this tactic). Yet, relief escaped me.
Therapy was helpful, but expensive. The medication numbed the anxiety, and every emotion for that matter, so I felt like I was just walking through the motions of life not truly living. And the psych ward was… interesting to say the least.
Once I got home from my one day of inpatient care (I checked myself in and out in less than 24 hours), I came to the realization that it wasn’t going to be an overnight process, it would take time. That’s the day I truly started to heal.
I started to share my journey on Facebook Live and the amount of support I received was unreal. People came out of the woodwork to let me know I was not alone and thank me for my transparency. Day by day, God equipped me with more tools, the Holy Spirit brought me to specific scriptures and literally gave me a step-by-step action plan for overcoming postpartum depression and anxiety.
I didn’t realize it then, but He was giving me the tools I needed to confidently lead other women.
In April of 2019, I started the Defeat Postpartum Depression podcast. This podcast now has over 25,000 downloads! That is mind blowing. And proves that my journey wasn’t just for me, it was for you too!
So what’s next for Defeat PPD? So many exciting things ahead! In the next post, I share more about the specifics God has given me for this ministry and for my calling. As always, if you need support, please know that we’re here and want to help you. Don’t hesitate to contact us any time!
Praying for you,
Arielle Wozniak
P.S. If you want to serve in the ministry, we’d love for you to GET INVOLVED!