“I didn’t feel like breastfeeding my kids”: She battled postpartum depression after her twins’ birth; now she hopes to create a therapy-free world

Motherhood is often described as one of life’s happiest milestones. But for some women, childbirth is followed not by joy, but by emotional numbness and confusion. 40-year-old Ishu Gupta’s journey was one of them. Ishu imagined motherhood for years. But when her twins were born after a physically demanding IVF journey, she found herself unable to feel the connection she had expected. It was the beginning of a battle with postpartum depression that would eventually reshape the course of her life. In an exclusive conversation with The Times of India, she opened up about navigating postpartum depression, personal loss and the experiences that eventually gave her life a new purpose.

“I felt nothing when my twins were born”

Ishu Gupta with her twins shortly after their birth

It all started in 2017, when Ishu took over 650 injections throughout her IVF process. She believed everything would be alright after the delivery. But the motherhood journey didn’t begin that way for her. When doctors told Ishu that she’s blessed with a baby boy and a baby girl, she didn’t feel anything. “Everyone around me was happy, but I was not. I was not feeling anything from inside,” she admits. Ishu recalls that six hours after her C-section her mother told her she needed to breastfeed her kids. At the time, Ishu told her: “Go away. I just want to sleep.” Recalling the time, Ishu says, “I was not feeling like breastfeeding my own twins. I was not even sure why I was feeling that way. Because of the fear of judgement, I was not able to tell anybody, not even to my husband.” For ishu, this was the first experience of her postpartum depression, though she didn’t know it then. “I was looking for that connection but was unable to find it. I didn’t know why.”

The journey back to herself

Months passed yet Ishu didn’t feel any connection with her kids. She felt miserable- both mentally and physically. Almost two years after her twins’ birth, her mother’s advice became the turning point that eventually helped her recover from postpartum depression.Ishu’s mother told her, “It won’t work this way. You have to get up.” She advised Ishu to simply start with the household chores. At first, it was difficult, Ishu recalls. She described her C-section pain as if her “body had been ripped apart in two parts.” But she still started. She did household chores and even started doing simple workouts at home. This made her feel somewhat better. During the covid pandemic, Ishu came across yoga poses while scrolling through Instagram. Initially she started with Asana Abhyasa, and gradually found herself wanting to practise more. Ishu used to practice in the same room where her kids played.

Ishu and her kids practicing yoga

Gradually, her twins started joining her on her yoga mat. For Ishu, it stirred emotions she had never experienced before. “One day when they were practicing with me, tears started rolling out of my eyes… out of nowhere. For the first time in two years, I felt a connection with them.” She didn’t understand why it happened then, but today she looks back on it as the moment her healing journey truly began. She realized that she had been in a state of depression for the past two years. Ishu spent the next two years working on herself. In 2021, she underwent professional yoga training and became an international yoga teacher. A year later, she also trained as a Reiki master, chakra healer and life coach. When she eventually shared her own story on social media, she discovered she wasn’t alone.

Ishu Gupta practising yoga

Hundreds of parents reached out saying they had experienced the same emotional disconnect with their children. “I thought I was the only one,” she recalls. “Then I realised so many parents were silently carrying the same guilt.” That made her look back at her own journey once again. “I got to know a shocking truth,” she says. “I wasn’t connected to myself. So how could I have felt connected to my children?” According to her, “Until you don’t feel connected to yourself, you won’t truly feel connected to your children, your spouse or anyone else.”

Navigating life as a single mother

Ishu and her twins- Then and now.

In 2023, Ishu resumed her corporate job along with conducting yoga sessions. By 2024, Ishu felt life had finally fallen into place. She believed the hardest days were behind her. Then, tragedy struck. Her husband passed away, leaving her to raise her children on her own.Looking back, Ishu says the loss was immense, but she made a conscious decision not to let grief become trauma for herself or her children. “We were grieving, but we never treated it as trauma,” she says.Just three days after her husband’s death, Ishu returned to her corporate job and resumed posting content on social media 13 days later. But she says that the decision invited criticism from many who felt she had moved on too quickly. But for Ishu, work became a way to cope rather than escape. “Karma Yoga is the greatest form of yoga,” she says. “The sun rises every day. Our organs never stop working. So how can we stop working?” She believes that running away from responsibilities only deepens suffering. Instead, she chose to face life head-on, transforming her pain into purpose while continuing to be there for her children.“Whatever happens, keep doing your work. Doesn’t matter if you’re happy or sad. Do it crying, do it smiling- but keep doing it,” Ishu says, calling it her life philosophy.

The idea behind a “therapy-free world”

Ishu believes that supporting parents’ emotional well-being is an important part of raising emotionally secure children.

In 2025, during one of her own healing sessions, Ishu was asked a simple question: “What do you want from your life?” Her answer surprised even her. “I want to create a therapy-free world,” she recalls saying. When asked what she meant, Ishu explained that her vision was not to discourage therapy, but to create a world where fewer people need it because they grow up in emotionally safe and secure environments. “People often seek therapy to process trauma and heal from painful experiences,” she says. “My dream is that the next generation doesn’t have to carry those emotional wounds in the first place.”According to Ishu, that change begins with parents. “If we heal ourselves first and don’t pass on our unresolved trauma to our children, they won’t have to spend their lives healing from it,” she says.This idea eventually became the foundation of what she calls Yogic Parenting- a framework that focuses on helping parents work on their own emotional well-being so they can raise children in a more emotionally secure environment.While postpartum depression and grief shaped some of the darkest chapters of her life, they also helped Ishu discover what she now considers her life’s purpose. She believes that healing begins with the parent before it reaches the child.Ishu’s journey reassures more mothers, and parents, that they are not alone. It’s a reminder that caring for oneself is an important part of caring for their children.