Angelina Spicer, a stand-up comic, producer, writer, and self-described “accidental activist,” was honored March 22, 2025 with the Yale Department of Psychiatry Mental Health Advocacy Award.

The award was presented at the annual Yale-NAMI Conference on Neuroscience, Mental Health, and Society in New Haven. This year’s conference theme was postpartum depression.

Spicer is the founder of Spicey Moms, a global grassroots organization that provides immediate, comprehensive support to vulnerable mothers, particularly during the critical first 48 hours postpartum, when help is most needed.

Spicer did not set out to form a non-profit organization but instead was on a fast track to be a cast member on Saturday Night Live. “That was my goal. That’s what I wanted to do,” said Spicer, who lives in Los Angeles with her husband and 9-year-old daughter, Ava. “I embraced it because I am who I am. I’m loud and sometimes inappropriate.”

Her professional plans changed when the cum laude graduate of Howard University became pregnant with her daughter. She had a typical pregnancy until about 30 weeks, when she was diagnosed with intrauterine growth restriction, in which the fetus fails to grow at a normal rate during pregnancy.

She was hospitalized and delivered Ava at 38 weeks and five days. “They laid her on me and I felt an overwhelming sense of fear,” Spicer said. Things got even worse when she got home, between the sleep deprivation and physical changes to her body after giving birth.

“No one tells you the truth about being a new mom,” she said. “No one gives you a blueprint or shares with you about what new motherhood looks like.”

She sought help from a therapist but her postpartum depression was severe. She checked into a psychiatric hospital eight months after Ava was delivered.

“It was an overwhelming sense of relief,” she said. Then, going back to her comic roots, she said, “I spent 10 glorious days at what I called the Waldorf Hysteria.”

She used the time to “recalibrate my mind and understand expectations of what motherhood can look like.” She credits the support from her husband, her mother, friends, and a network of people who inspired her to create Spicey Moms, all based on her own experience. The nonprofit has helped women all over the United States and world, particularly in Ghana, to begin to normalize conversations around postpartum depression.

“These are bipartisan efforts,” she said. “All moms need support. All moms need choice. All moms need community. We all need each other. Moms are suffering in silence.”

Spicer is about to embark on a three-year residency at the Kennedy Center to discuss maternal mental health. Frequently she travels with her daughter, who supports the cause by holding babies, packing snacks, reading to children, and being a support for her mom.

“Our work has driven this global movement of normalizing the conversation of postpartum depression and anxiety,” Spicer said. “And we will not stop.”

Other speakers at the conference included:

• Kieran O’Donnell, PhD, assistant professor, Yale Child Study Center & Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Services
• Derrick Gordon, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry and director of Research for the Policy and Program on Male Development at The Consultation Center
• Helena Rutherford, PhD, associate professor, Yale Child Study Center
• Teresa Twomey, MFA, JD, survivor-leader, author, advocate, educator, facilitator

The Yale-NAMI Mental Health Conference, held each spring since 1992, provides an opportunity for community members, patients and their families, and providers to come together and hear about new advances in the care for mental illness from Yale experts.

The event is sponsored by the Yale Department of Psychiatry, the Connecticut chapter of the National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI), and Yale Center for Brain and Mind Health.

The Mental Health Advocacy Award has been presented by the Department of Psychiatry every year since 2006 and, in most years, is announced at the spring Conference. Winners of the award are celebrated for their important impact on treatment, research, reduction of stigma, and enhancement of the wellbeing of those with mental illness through their advocacy, political action, and sharing of their own lived experience.