Taming the Monster of Postpartum Depression

After a night of struggling to sleep, her baby was crying. And crying. And crying. Kim was exhausted and 
desperate for the noise to stop. Then she had a thought that frightened her. She could see herself 
holding her baby under the water so that the crying would stop and she could go back to sleep. 
This was not what she had imagined motherhood would be. She loved her baby, but her intrusive 
thoughts made her feel like a monster. 
Kim Vermaak tells the story of what happened when postpartum depression entered her life, but her 
story starts much earlier than the birth of her baby. 
Kim is a second-generation adoptee. Her mother was adopted, and her father had a troubled childhood 
of his own. Kim spent more than a decade in foster care before being permanently adopted. Her 
childhood included abuse, neglect and abandonment, and she grew up learning that some things were 
simply not spoken about. Vulnerability was a weakness you had to hide. 
These were the experiences and lessons she carried into adulthood. Research shows that childhood 
trauma can increase the risk of depression later in life. For Kim, those experiences also shaped the 
relationships she formed, the choices she made and the way she responded to difficult situations. They 
influenced how she showed up in her personal life and as a new entrepreneur. For years, she adapted 
and kept going.