When Someone Looks Fine and Still Needs Support

By Nallely (Nelly) Willis, Vice President of Programs

One of the hardest things about maternal mental health challenges is that they do not always look the way we expect them to.

A mother can go to work, care for her baby, attend appointments, smile, make decisions, and appear to be managing everything around her while struggling deeply inside. I know this because I was that mother.

Becoming a mother was something I had dreamed about, but my experience was very different from what I imagined. I had a difficult pregnancy, and my baby was born with significant medical needs. Before I had time to understand what becoming a mother meant for me, I was navigating hospitals, medical procedures, fear, and the demands of caring for a medically complex child.

At first, I thought my anxiety was simply part of being a new mother in an extraordinarily stressful situation. I worried constantly that something would happen to my baby. I checked and rechecked things to make sure she was safe.

Eventually, those thoughts and behaviors became constant, intrusive, and exhausting. And yet, from the outside, I appeared capable. I continued working in healthcare and mental health. I knew how to function. I knew how to show up.

But functioning and feeling okay are not the same thing.

We Need to Listen Beyond the First Answer

My experience changed how I think about support.

We cannot assume someone is okay because they seem productive, responsible, or capable. We have to be willing to ask questions, listen beyond the first answer, and understand the whole person, their culture, family, circumstances, fears, strengths, experiences, and support system.

There are many reasons someone may not immediately tell us they are struggling. Shame, stigma, cultural expectations, fear of judgment, or previous experiences of being dismissed can all make honesty difficult.

Sometimes what looks like reluctance to seek help is actually self-protection.

That means we may need to ask a different question. Instead of only asking, “Why isn’t this person asking for help?” we can ask, “What might make it easier for this person to tell the truth about what they are experiencing?”

Sometimes We Recognize Ourselves in Someone Else

This is one reason peer support can be so powerful. Someone says out loud that they are terrified, exhausted, angry, lonely, grieving, or no longer recognize themselves. Another person hears those words and thinks: That’s what I’ve been feeling.

I think of this as a mirror effect. Sometimes we understand our own experience differently when we hear part of it reflected in someone else’s story.

Peer support creates an opportunity to speak and be heard without every feeling immediately needing an answer or solution. For some people, being with others who understand elements of their culture, language, community, or lived experience can make that connection even more meaningful.

And that connection can become a bridge to other forms of support. Maternal mental health support cannot depend on people reaching a breaking point before we listen. A parent does not have to prove that they are struggling enough to deserve connection. They do not have to stop functioning before we take their pain seriously.

Sometimes support begins much earlier, with someone creating enough trust for another person to finally say, “I’m not okay.”