How One Mother's Breakdown Became Her Breakthrough

Better Than Before

Source: Emily Mitchell

Emily Mitchell isn't your typical wellness coach.

The former elementary school teacher from Corpus Christi, Texas, speaks with the measured cadence of someone who's learned to choose her words carefully. She teaches nutrition courses now, leads fitness classes, and coaches women through life-changing transformations. Though it doesn't show, she once couldn't get out of bed.

It's that last fact that has, in part, motivated her to pursue what she considers her life's work: helping mothers who are drowning in depression, anxiety, and the overwhelming pressure of trying to be perfect.

Mothers struggling with postpartum depression aren't exactly a segment of the population that gets the right kind of help—and that's exactly why it's Mitchell's focus.

"I can't do this anymore," she remembers telling her husband at 3 a.m., too weary to be dramatic. "It's too much. I've got to get some help."

There's another factor compounding the isolation: High-achieving women can be the hardest on themselves.

"I always thought depression was a choice," Mitchell says, "or something that only happened to people with a lot of trauma or unfortunate circumstances. I didn't realize that when we don't heal past wounds or treat ourselves with the right words and actions—or when we just stop taking care of ourselves—it affects our health and can snowball into something we cannot ignore."

Drowning in Plain Sight

Mitchell's obsession with helping others transform their lives is deeply personal. Growing up in Texas, she felt pressure both to succeed and to fit into impossible standards around food and body image. By high school, she was surviving on diet pills, one Snapple, and one slice of bread a day.

But there was something more crushing than physical expectations, and that was the mental prison she'd built around perfectionism. So when she was 33 and found herself 80 pounds overweight, staring at her husband while their baby cried, most of her world felt out of control.

"When my depression became too consuming, I thought that I must have done something to cause it," Mitchell recalls. "I thought it was something I could control—or at least something that would resolve itself quickly if I listened to happy music, read a good book, took a hot shower, or got more sleep."

The lack of conversation around maternal mental health meant that when Mitchell experienced her first major depressive episode postpartum, she had no framework for understanding it. She continued to struggle mentally through a difficult second pregnancy—grappling with depression, anxiety, and thoughts of wanting to leave—but didn't seek professional help until she was eight months pregnant with her second child.

From Survival to Service

As a former teacher who had built her career around helping others succeed, Mitchell appeared, at first glance, to just be someone managing her own crisis.

But when her psychiatrist diagnosed her with prenatal depression and explained that her symptoms would persist without intervention, something clicked. "Hearing her say that it would not get better on its own made something click inside me," Mitchell says. "Maybe there are some things I can do about this. Maybe there is hope."

Over time, as her understanding of nutrition and mental health deepened, the problems Mitchell found herself helping others solve were transformational ones. She discovered that her years of yo-yo dieting, restriction, and dependence on food as a coping mechanism were likely increasing her symptoms.

Taking It to the Next Level

Helping herself gave Mitchell permission to start opening up about her journey. And once she started, she found she didn't want to stop. She hired a nutrition coach, began studying nutritional therapy, became a fitness instructor, and started building what would become a comprehensive approach to maternal wellness.

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"I'm going to change my whole life," she told her friend after leaving the doctor's appointment.

Then another realization hit: Knowing that nothing brought her more purpose than helping other women reclaim their lives, she realized the best way to reach struggling mothers would be to give them a community where perfectionism wasn't required, where failure was part of the process, and where taking care of yourself wasn't selfish.

Her coaching practice was born.

Helping Others While Healing Yourself

While Mitchell knows that her approach to maternal wellness doesn't exactly roll off the tongue in traditional medical circles, it encompasses exactly what she wished someone had told her during her darkest moments.

"I had reached such a low point that I would do anything if it might lead to relief," she says. "I remember telling my mom once, 'If there was a 12-step program for this, I would do it.'"

The mission of her practice is to make it so that mothers can talk about their struggles without shame, understanding that postpartum depression affects an estimated 1 in 7 women and is the leading cause of maternal mortality.

As her community grows—Mitchell now works with hundreds of women—they're developing the very support system she wished she'd had. Her emphasis is as much on community as it is on individual transformation. "You will not always be motivated, so you must learn to be disciplined," she teaches, borrowing from the framework that saved her own life.

"I was made for more," Mitchell reflects. "No one was coming to save me. That is the most daunting and freeing revelation a person can come to in their lives."