OPG employee speaks out about mental health

Shortly after the birth of her second son, Kim Loader’s world began to spiral out of control.

At a time when mothers are expected to be full of joy and actively caring for their child, Kim became depressed, withdrawn, and increasingly controlled by her compulsions. She found her days slowly being overtaken by rituals, such as excessive hand washing, which she became dependent on to control her anxiety.

“It was the lowest point of my life,” said Kim, a Financial Analyst with OPG who is speaking out about her battle with mental health in hopes of helping others going through the same struggle. “I hit a point where I couldn’t take care of my children and I said I can’t live like this. Fortunately, I’m a fighter and I called on every resource I could think of.”

With the unwavering support of her husband Christopher, who dropped everything to help her, Kim met with a psychiatrist. She was diagnosed with postpartum depression, a mood disorder associated with childbirth, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), a mental illness marked by a person’s need to perform certain rituals and compulsions repeatedly.

With anti-depressant medication and regular sessions of cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT), Kim slowly came out from under the dark cloud and learned strategies to control her OCD and wait out her swells of anxiety.

Almost two years after her initial diagnosis, she still takes medication and attends one CBT session a month. It has been a long, hard road to recovery, but she acknowledges this will be a lifelong journey.

“My threshold isn’t what it used to be, but you have to accept it,” she said. “It’s hard to learn yourself again and understand what will trigger your anxiety. It’s time-consuming, but you have to relearn yourself.”

Kim, who has a family history of OCD and clinical depression, suspects she has lived with OCD for much of her life but didn’t know it until the bottom fell out. She didn’t realize the severity of her depression but says the signs were there – becoming increasingly withdrawn, changes in sleeping patterns, family history. At the time, she and her husband just didn’t know what to look for or brushed it off as stress from being a mom of two.