The most important thing in life to 28-year-old Kateari Cesspooch is being a great mom to her nine children she shares with Filipe Kaufusi. She literally lives to see her kids smile – a characteristic to which most mother’s in Utah can appreciate and relate.
Keeping a smile on the young mother’s face was a far more difficult task. Another familiar trait many stressed moms can relate to.
Being a mother isn’t always rainbows and kittens. The birth of a baby can trigger powerful emotions, ranging from excitement and joy, to fear and anxiety. It can also result in something far more unexpected – depression.
Postpartum, or “baby blues” affects most new mothers, and commonly include mood swings, crying spells, difficulty sleeping and anxiety. Baby blues typically start within the first two or three days after a delivery, but should only last up to two weeks. Cesspooch had been experiencing these symptoms for over a year after giving birth to her last child during 2017, and she wasn’t feeling like herself anymore.
While suffering from postpartum depression, the young mother could feel the stresses of life taking away the role she loved best – and for this tribal member living on the Uintah and Ouray reservation located in Northeastern Utah – that wasn’t an option she was willing to live with.
Cesspooch, who is part of the Navajo Nation tribe, says being a good mother runs in her genes. In fact, the practice of mothering is deeply embedded in the Indigenous communities, and is reflected in how they refer to the Earth herself. In their language, Earth is Mother, and the one who gave us all life. Cesspooch says she wasn’t providing that kind life for her children, or herself anymore – and it hurt badly. She needed to get the smiles back on her family’s faces, but she didn’t know how, or where to start.
Some say that you need to make yourself happy before you can have that effect on others, and so her journey for happiness began.
During the summer of 2018, her depression and anxiety conditions worsened. Cesspooch and her family loaded up in the car to visit her mother in New Mexico. It was the only place she felt like she could find a remedy for her growing problem.
“I was a complete mess when I got into the car for that trip,” Cesspooch said with a smile on her face from the comfort of her home near Roosevelt. “It’s fair to say that I was a completely different person that day than I am now. The change didn’t happen overnight, but it happened pretty quick and it’s all thanks to what we unexpectedly found on that trip.”
Crippling anxiety attacks had been bothering the young mother for over a year, and the two mood stabilizers and depression medications prescribed from doctors just weren’t working anymore. In fact, Cesspooch suspects they never had a positive effect on her life since she was first prescribed them as a teenager.
The young mother wasn’t holding up during the drive home, and the family decided to take a pitstop in Colorado to get some rest. They had no idea the random stop would actually lead to her discovering re”leaf.” Especially from the leaf she was told to stay away from while visiting the dry Navajo reservation in New Mexico as a kid.
Cesspooch and her mother had noticed the green crosses while passing through Colorado in the past, but they had never thought of stopping inside to see what they were all about. This trip they were desperate though, and any idea seemed like a good idea.
Cesspooch and her mother visited her first cannabis dispensary that day, and after trying a THC-infused peanut butter cookie recommended by her mother, her life has been drastically improving since – which is exactly the opposite of what her prescribed medications were doing for years.
“The medications I was getting from my doctor didn’t make me feel good like they were supposed to, and I was starting to experience side effects that was making my problems worse,” Cesspooch said. “I am a mom to almost twins. They are a year and a week apart, and my oldest is a 12-year-old, and I just couldn’t keep up with anything. The whole family was starting to suffer, and I knew I had to make a change for them. I really didn’t think it would be cannabis”
Seeking releaf for mental anguish isn’t new for this young mother. Cesspooch has been in-and-out of therapy since she was a 12-years-old while suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) – which is the condition she qualifies to use medical cannabis legally in Utah. This was the result of a traumatic experience she had while very young, but she says bottling up the emotions caused most of the damage, and it wreaked havoc on her most of her life.
“Mental health awareness was something we were taught not to talk about as kids on the reservation,” said Cesspooch. “It’s a sign that you’re weak, so nobody speaks up and it allows problems to grow and persist in our community. That’s changing amongst the youth on the reservation, but there’s still lots of work to be done.”
In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, mental health conditions, like anxiety, have worsened. More than three in 10 adults in the U.S. have reported symptoms of anxiety and/or depressive disorder since May 2020. On the flipside, in 2019 before stuff got weird, approximately one in ten adults, like Cesspooch, had reported these symptoms.
Here in Utah, from Sept. 29 to Oct. 11, 2021, 31.1% of adults reported symptoms of anxiety and/or depressive disorder, compared to 31.6% of adults in the U.S. This is according to a Kaiser family Foundation (KFF) analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau, Household Pulse Survey in 2021.
Since Utah’s medical cannabis program took effect in 2020, Cesspooch and other state residents struggling with these conditions do not need to make the trip to Colorado anymore to get her medicine, or rely on the pharmaceuticals that aren’t working.
Now, Cesspooch mostly uses WholesomeCo Direct, a medical cannabis delivery program that makes stops statewide – for free. Even to rural Utah where she lives.
All Cesspooch has to do is get on her phone and place an order above $100. Since she lives in rural Utah, WholesomeCo Direct requires a minimum charge to make the 150-mile trip to the Uintah and Ouray reservation located in Northeastern Utah. The reservation is in the three-county area, known as the Uintah Basin.
Now that she’s found cannabis is a positive tool for her mental health, Cesspooch has dove into the weeds, so to speak. Not only did she vote for the first time during the 2018 primary elections to support the plant, she’s also one of the biggest advocates on the Uintah and Ouray Reservation showing her people there’s another way to good health and mental stability. This began last year when she joined a local activism group called the Kush Ladies.
The Kush Ladies are a group of women advocates dedicated to empowering and educating patients about cannabis focused topics, and most importantly, representing the underrepresented individuals in their communities. This group was created by Salt Lake City resident and owner of Terra Health and Wellness, April Miera.
“We don’t have the best resources living on the reservation and being a Kush Lady allows me to give support to women just like me,” Cesspooch said. “A lot of positive things have happened in my life since I started using cannabis, but being a good mom again is definitely the best part.”
Cesspooch legally consumes cannabis in Utah after qualifying through PTSD and Chronic Pain through Natural Medicine Clinic of Utah during a medical cannabis card sign-up event held in Vernal.
Natural Medicine Clinic of Utah is a Qualified Medical Provider (QMP) located in Lehi. They are the first brick-and-mortar clinic to hit the road and take their services to rural Utahns.
“We started Natural Medicine Clinic of Utah with an aim to serve those outside the Salt Lake and Utah county area,” said Matt Poulton, NMC owner. “We’ve probably certified nearly 1,000 patients outside of those areas. The first one was in Vernal in July of 2020 (when they met Cesspooch). We’ve been back twice since, as well as Moab, St. George, and now we are in Cedar City the first weekend of every month.”
According to Poulton, the Utah medical cannabis program falls short for many rural patients when it comes to card sign-up and medicine access.
“Rural Utahns still make the drive out of state (to get their medicine),” said Poulton. “We are trying to change that by visiting rural towns so that the medical cannabis program comes to them with affordable cards and low renewal prices, and just simple stuff like remembering our patients’ names.”
With the help of this budding community, Cesspooch and other women are finally getting the support they need. More importantly, they’ve become part of the positive change taking place in the Beehave State.
If you’d like to learn more about becoming a Kush Lady, please visit their Facebook or Instagram page @thekushladies, or contact April Miera at Terra Health and Wellness by calling 801-770-0524.
