Not feeling in love with life as a mom
Are you not feeling in love with your life as a mother 24/7? Are you not in love with your precious wee baby all day long? Sometimes you event feel resentments, annoyance and even anger at them?
And what about your partner?
Feel that the fine line between love and hate seems to be popping in your head more and more often as you know that you love him but since pregnancy and/or birth they seem to agitate you all the time?
Well, let me tell you this: IT IS PERFECTLY NORMAL
I would almost dare say that it is slightly abnormal to not have these feelings at least occasionally.
But nobody told you that, right?
Had you convinced yourself that life with baby was going to be all glowing and lovey duvet and wonderful and a the most beautiful new chapter to your relationship with your loved one… and is reality hitting you hard and fast now that that is just simply…. NOT the reality you had imagined.
But if they are now turning into self-doubt, anxiety, confusion, stressed, depression, overwhelm, intrusive thoughts… then that is a warning sign that this new reality that isn’t matching up with your hopes and expectations is now starting to control you. Your life, Your baby’s life, your family’s life.
It is really important to understand these feelings and thoughts that you are having, like I’m a bad mum. Bad partner, scared of everything, not in love anymore etc.
All these feelings that aren’t matching up with the reality you thought you would have, they are really OK to feel.
I would even go as far as saying it would be unhealthy to feel happy and on top of the world, on cloud nine 24/7. As you would then be declared MANIC at one point.
What you are trying to do is you start to force feelings of happiness so you can control your negative emotions and feelings.
Forcing your feelings into happy feelings is ungenuine. And your body and mind will not accept this. Forcing it is an unnatural thing to do and you will reject it at an unconscious level.
And the consequence of that is that you will BLOCK happy feelings.
Let that sink in,
You are accomplishing the exact opposite of what you are trying to do.
By forcing it.
And you are confusing yourself and most likely confusing your environment making things even worse.
Try to keep this in mind when you want to feel and think freer then this is a good thing to keep in mind. Don’t force thoughts, the chance that you are creating the opposite effect is HUGE.
Reactions to perinatal mental health struggles
What reactions do you have when you are feeling anxious, overwhelmed, stressed?
Are you still able to eat properly?
Or are you binging?
Start drinking heavier?
Maybe bodily sensations like headaches, tightness in your chest, sore shoulders and neck.
This is fight or flight mode.
You may start having intrusive thoughts. Your body is so frightened that it starts to overcheck your baby when he or she is sleeping, just in case they choke.
Or maybe you’re pushing yourself into social isolation because you are ‘flighting’ away from germs, so you and your baby won’t get sick.
Or maybe your fighting all the time by getting very angry with people who don’t necessarily mean to be cruel when for example giving you advice.
You feel you are reacting because your intuition is telling you to do something.
But often the thoughts that start with ‘WHAT IF….’ Aren’t intuitive thoughts.
They are fueled by negative and anxious thoughts and feelings that are probably not very realistic.
Had you need been feeling so stressed, overwhelmed, anxious… you would have been able to think differently.
Being stuck in fight or flight mode is messing with your reality and messing with your intuition too.
A good thing to do here is to try and change it around: what if I was advising my friend about this situation, what would I say to them? What advice would I give them?
You may not be able to take this advice for yourself at this present moment, but you are triggering your brain to start thinking differently about the situation.
Which could help getting it unstuck from the negative flight or fight mode it’s become so used to and has become stuck in.
Another good question to ask yourself is ‘How would this situation be a week from now, a month from now, five years from now, would it still bother me?
Now I do understand that when you’re in the middle of a fight or flight reaction, it’s probably not the first question to pop into your head… That makes sense, you are too busy losing it….
So, it could be a good idea to discuss this with someone close to you, they could ask you this questions when they see you are distressed. Maybe your partner or a good friend.
You could even consider showing them this video, so they understand the background a little better.
They may not always be around at the exact moment a situation arises.
A tip could be to write these questions on a sticky note, so they’re easy to remove when people you don’t want to burden this with or people who this is none of their business.
You may not want everyone to see these questions hanging around the house.
Write them down on a sticky note as a reminder or place a reminder in your phone and have it repeat once a day.
Remember, when you start asking yourself ‘What if’ questions, THIS IS NOT YOUR SUPER SMART INTUITION.
This is your anxiety, your OCD, your negative emotions trying to take the overhand pushing you into fight or flight mode.
This is an unhealthy pattern trying to establish itself and it can affect your mental as well as your physical health.
Hence the tightness in your shoulders, your bad sleeping patterns, chest pains, heart palpitations etc.
You let them get the better of you if you think it’s your super smart intuition.
This is not intuition, challenge these thoughts.
It may not be an easy task so get some help.
If you feel you’re struggling and aren’t coming out of it, please get in touch!
Take care.
Mothers out of control
Why are you feeling all those negative feelings at a time that was supposed to be so positive and happy?
A new born for most is something to be happy about after all.
Have you ever wondered about CONTROL?
Your life has made a huge shift from being ‘just you to take care of’ to, another human being, a whole precious and very dependent life to take care off.
Do you feel that you have to be in control all the time? And is having to be in control, unconsciously affecting you?
Intrusive thoughts, OCD, anxiety, they are all about control.
Or the negative feeling associated with potentially not being in control or loss of control.
After all, how do you control a baby when they can’t even tell you what they’re feeling, why they’re crying, why they’re not feeding or not sleeping.
You want the sense of control, but the fact is that there’s no way you can have 100% control over many situations.
You are, after all, trying to control lots of stuff going on in the inside, from the outside. How could that ever work if you can’t control or even understand all the things that go on in the inside?
OCD and intrusive thinking are very much about trying to control from the outside what your feelings form the inside.
But if we were able to control what we’re feeling on the inside, wouldn’t it be easy to control it from the outside?
You may have to read that last sentence again, or let me repeat it for you:
if we were able to control what we’re feeling on the INSIDE, wouldn’t it be easy to control it from the OUTSIDE?
By trying desperately to control it from the outside aren’t we getting ourselves worked up, angry, frustrated, desperate from the outside?
How is that going to affect your OCD, your anxious thoughts and feelings? Are you stuck in a negative, downward spiral because you can’t seem to get control over this?
Should we try to prioritize getting control over our thoughts? Getting back control over situations? Over our reactions to these thoughts and situations?
Let me give you an example, one that you may recognize:
You are scared that your baby may stop breathing in the middle of the night and you’ve started checking your baby every few minutes. Even waking up your baby.
Your sleeping patterns are completely disrupted and so is that of your babies creating a long term domino effect on your mental health and your babies sleeping health. Also, your partner is getting really upset with you because he, from his/her point of view, doesn’t understand te logic behind waking a perfectly happy sleeping baby. You not sleeping is turning into exhaustion, exhaustion turns into a mental health issue, and it’s all stuck in this negative spiral which started with you trying to control your babies health.
By prioritizing gaining control over your mental health, over the intrusive thoughts, you are taking a first step into taking back control over your sleeping habits and also the babies sleeping patterns.
By understanding your thoughts, the likelihood of getting control over them will increase. By getting control over your thoughts, you can better control your actions, in the example I gave you, that would mean no longer waking up your baby because you understand your thoughts are not realistic now that you have control over your thoughts so you are able to see that.
I suppose this blog has turned into a gentle reminder to please be kind to yourself.
Yes, you may be trying to control things in a way that is damaging your mental health. But it all started from a place of love. Love for your baby, wanting to take good care of your child.
Be compassionate towards yourself when trying to bend this control into healthier patterns.
New dad - some important advice
If you are the partner of someone suffering from post-partum mental health issues, or if you want to share this with your partner in hopes of getting much needed support from them then please read to the end.
You as a partner are the one who can really be a key part in bending your partners mental health towards a much better direction!
When you know what triggers the negative feelings you can help eliminate these triggers.
If it’s because the baby cries a lot, take care of the baby for a while or arrange care that your partner is happy with and make them take a proper break. A bath, at least one night of rest, a long walk. Small things can help towards seeing things clearer, even if it’s just for a short while. These moments can prove to be crucial.
If your partner is super insecure because of their body or because of stuff they read online, make them take a break from social media!
Take away their triggers!!
Discuss together, or if that’s hard, observe them to see what their potential triggers are for them and try to take them away. Or at least away for a while to create some clarity.
Maybe, and say this with all respect, maybe YOU are part of the trigger.
I know that doesn’t sound nice and you be doing things that triggers your partner completely unintentionally. But wouldn’t you rather know it so you can help them move forward?
Maybe they don’t need a big cuddle but just need you to take the night shift feeding the baby for a couple of nights in a row. Yes, you may be working during the day, and she isn’t but having a baby is more than a job and a half and I’m not even mentioning the battel inside the body here that you have no idea about….. let alone the battel in the mind due to all the hormones.
IT IS HEAVY – IT IS THE REASON WHY SHE IS NOT HERSELF AT THE MOMENT – IF YOU WANT HER BACK TO NORMAL YOU HAVE TO WORK THIS “EXTRA SHIFT” for a while, there’s simply no two ways about it!
Maybe your partner is feeling insecure about their body, and they need you to pay more positive attention to them.
Maybe they just want to rant for a bit without you checking out or becoming upset them.
It’s not up to me to know what the situation is, it is up to you to observe and to ask questions to know what triggers them, what these triggers are that are pushing them into poor mental health.
Find the triggers and you may just be half way back to where you want you and your new family to be.
By not taking any responsibility, she is an adult after all who just got a healthy baby… BULLSHIT, by not taking responsibility or even playing the blame game you are making this situation endlessly worse.
Forcing them, advising them, it all may feel like the logical thing to do but this is that moment that your logic needs to take a step back and you need to start observing them, listening to them. And find their triggers.
And yes, it may require something bigger than you can offer.
Therapy maybe, or at least going to a doctor, maybe medication. You can help them in supporting them and even initiating talks about going on that journey.
By blaming them, by pretending everything is ok, by avoiding them by not giving them a chance to show you what’s wrong and by not helping or assisting them That is the one sure fire way you are going to stay in this situation and most likely making it worse until it spirals completely out of control.
So, this is my advice.
Read this blog again if you need to, it may be the game changer you and your beautiful new family are looking for.
If you need help, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Take care.
Seed cycling - Balancing your hormones
Seed cycling, it may sound a bit…. Well… seedy….
But don’t be fooled by the name as it is a great, easy, cheap and natural way to get control over your hormones!
And getting control over your hormones can do wonders for your mood as well as support your fertility or your menstrual difficulties.
It's also backed up by science so it really may be well worth it to learn more about this routine.
I’ll try and explain as best as I can.
Unfortunately, a lot of women nowadays struggle more and more with hormone imbalances.
Now, hormones are a very complex system in our body with several very important functions. They become unbalanced fairly easily because of the wrong things we eat, by the amount of exercise we do or don’t do, by not sleeping too little or too much… by the amount of stress we go through on a daily basis and also environmental toxins. And only a slight imbalance in this hormonal system can have a great effect on a number of health issues. Think of irregular periods, anxiety, sleeplessness, outbreak of spots, skin problems, thyroid disorders… and I could go on, it’s a long list unfortunately.
So, you see why it’s important to try to regain control of this hormonal balance, but I don’t think I need to tell you that since you’re reading this blog post…
Although it’s bad news that our hormones are easily knocked off their feet, the good news is that there is a relatively easy way to try to regain some control by supporting them through seed cycling.
It’s proven to be very effective to reduces PMS symptoms, boost fertility and can stimulate menstruation if it’s absent (amenorrhea).
I seed cycled myself for a long time and within a number of weeks I could feel the difference, especially my boobs, they would be find the first week after my period but as of the second week they would be hell!! Also, I had a very short cycle for a long time, and it’s still not exactly what I would like it to be, at the moment somewhere between 21 and 25 days, but it has gotten a lot better.
It's such a gentle and natural way that it can be used during any phase of your hormonal life. So basically, from puberty when the hormones start to rush through your body, before, during and after birth and really right up to the end of your menopause.
I’ll try to explain how it works but I need you to first understand some basics about your menstrual cycle:
You may already know that there are two main phases to each cycle you go through on, well roughly, a monthly basis:
The first phase is the follicular phase,
This phase starts on the day your period begins, so the day you start bleeding, and it lasts up to your ovulation and normally lasts approximately 14 days. I’ve learnt that mine is shorter by noting down each phase over a long period of time. But, to make this easier to understand we give it 14 days.
The second phase is the luteal phase. This phase starts with your ovulation until your next menstrual bleed. Again, typically this phase lasts around 14 days. So the cycle is, give or take, 28 days.
When you have properly balanced hormones, the hormone called ‘estrogen’ rises during the first half of your cycle. So, during this follicular phase. During this phase, the first 14 days of your cycle an egg matures in your ovaries.
During the second half of your cycle another hormone starts to go up. This hormone is called progesterone. And these levels rise while estrogen levels (from the first phase) slowly start to drop.
When the levels of these two don’t rise or drop properly, that’s when an imbalance, between estrogen and progesterone, can contribute to PMS symptoms. Menstrual cramps, acne, ovulation not going as it’s supposed to go, which could potentially interfere with getting pregnant, irregular cycles and the list goes on….
Now, on to the suject at hand: Seed Cycling. How can seed cycling contribute to getting those pesky hormones balanced out 7 under control?
To put it really simply:
Use 1 to 2 table spoons of pumpkin and flax seeds daily during the follicular phase of your cycle. So, from the start of you menstruation to the day you ovulate.
Once you ovulate, you start taking 1-2 tablespoons of sunflower and sesame seeds daily up to the day you start bleeding again, so give or take 14 days.
And that’s it.
Mix the seeds through your morning cereal or yoghurt or if you can stomach it take a table spoon and put it straight into your mouth.
The best way to take them is to grind them, that’s when the juiciest stuff comes out to assist your hormones.
And a good thing about flax seeds especially, is that they also assist in going to the toilet for any constipation sufferers…. Yes, that has occasionally been me too, unfortunately!
Now, don’t worry if you have an irregular or shorter cycle, like me. I would advise to follow the 14 day cycle as best as you can for each phase of seeds. The science suggests that by sticking to the 2-week rotation, the process will nudge your body into this menstrual cycle rhythm and help you get back on a healthy track.
If however this doesn’t occur naturally for you, like it didn’t for me, you could also consider listening to your body. The obvious signal for starting the first cycle with the pumpkin and flax seeds is the first day of bleeding.
My body makes it very clear to me when I’m ovulating, more about that in another video, but if you don’t recognise these signs & symptoms, you may want to consider using ovulation stick available at your local chemist or online. They're a bit like pregnancy-test sticks that you pee on, however these sticks will tell you if your ovulating or not.
And that will then be your cue to start the second cycle of daily sunflower and sesame seeds.
Now you know more about seed cycling, its easy, natural and relatively cheap.
Want to find out more about how these seeds contribute to your hormones,? It's a more technical story so, if you're interested I invite you to read on.
During the first phase, the follicular phase, you take pumpkin seeds and flax seeds. These seeds help improve our estrogen levels while preventing excess estrogen. They maintain the balance.
Flax seeds contain lignans which bind to excess estrogen. Pumpkin seeds are high in zinc which helps support progesterone production. Basically they are preparing for a healthy rise in progesterone levels to support the second phase of your cycle.
During this second phase, the luteal phase, which is when we add sesame seeds and sunflower seeds to our daily routine. And these seeds help boost progesterone production. Sesame seeds are a rich source of zinc which help boost progesterone production and also contain lignans that help block excess estrogen while progesterone rises. Sunflower seeds are high in vitamin E and selenium. Vitamin E can help boost progesterone production, while selenium helps detox the liver of excess estrogen.
Research shows that flax seeds help in lengthening the luteal phase, improving ovulation and reducing common PMS symptoms such as breast pain and cramping. I really noticed the difference once I started taking them, in the right order and the right phase… I got it wrong the first time… but once I started to get it right the effects were instantly noticeable. My boobs and cramps were history, I can’t start to tell you how happy that makes me feel!!
Research shows that sesame seeds are beneficial for postmenopausal women by improving blood lipids, antioxidants, and sex hormones. That’s good news for anyone struggling with their libido.
Pumpkin and sesame seeds both contain high levels of zinc. This mineral helps to improve the formation of the corpus luteum in the uterus. Which is responsible for producing progesterone and stimulates the uterus to thicken in preparation for potential implantation. So that can be good news for anyone struggling with fertility!
Both flax and pumpkin seeds are rich in omega-3 fatty acids. This promotes blood flow to the uterus and helps maintain healthy cells membranes. Vitamin E has been linked to reducing PMS symptoms and Research shows that Vitamin E, omega-3s and omega-6s are found in pumpkin, sesame, sunflower, and flax seeds and they in turn are essential for hormone production and follicle function.
Sunflower seeds contain a lot of selenium, which supports detoxification in the liver. Now all these vitamins and minerals may ring a bell, that’s probably because they can be found in typical women’s support vitamin pills or supplements that you can buy over the counter. Also, in typical vitamins for woman trying to conceive. So now you know what supports what and that a lot of these can be gained from eating seeds, in the right moment of your menstrual cycle of course.
The recommended amount, as stated before, is to take 1-2 tablespoons daily.
Raw, ground seeds are best, especially for the flax and sesame.
I used a spice grinder to grind mine before I found an already grinded product in our local supermarket.
But you could also a coffee grinder.
You can keep them in a jar or in the fridge or even freeze them if that’s easier for you.
Add them to smoothies, yogurt or oatmeal. You could also Sprinkle them on toast or salads or even soups and sauces.
Other tips I found online:
- Homemade pesto with pumpkin and flax seeds
- Homemade seed butter
- Homemade granola bars
Apparently there are also some brands available that sell them ready made, even in proper portions.
I have no idea what they cost or where they are available, you'd have to do your own online investigation if you're interested.
Well, that’s it for seed cycling. I genuinely hope you can see the benefits and feel inspired to test it for yourself.
I honestly found it worked really well for some of my hormonal struggles and it's such an easy and gentle way.
If you have a similar experience that you would like to share, then please get in touch and let me know. All tips are welcome!
Maybe you have a fabulous recipe you’d like to share. Please do, sharing is caring, and we can all use some healthy tips for some happy hormones!!
Stress talk
Did you know that stress is actually a very healthy thing. Sounds strange, I know especially if you are reading this blog to try to get rid of your stress as it may be determining the course of your life at the moment.
And I say ‘At the moment’ because there are ways to get it under control.
You will never get rid of stress completely and that is most likely a good thing as it is there for a reason.
Hence what I wrote about stress being a natural, and up to a certain extent, healthy thing that is part of everyone’s everyday life.
Let me explain myself:
If we didn’t have stress in our life, we wouldn’t ever feel the need to get up in the morning and go to our job or go to school. If we didn’t feel a certain amount of stress in our life, we wouldn’t feel the need to get dressed and wash and brush our teeth. We probably wouldn’t care. It could turn a bit nasty at one point.
Let me translate this to what it means for pregnancy and having a baby: if we didn’t feel a certain stress and need, to get up and check why our baby is crying or, if we didn’t feel a certain amount of stress about our babies needing to be fed in the middle of the night, we simply wouldn’t have a mechanism that would trigger us internally to tell us: we need to do this thing as it is very important! Not for myself, for the wee baby I’m responsible for.
It's that responsibility that feeds us a little stress so we get into action mode and do the tasks that we need to do.
That's s healthy mechanism, right? Our babies lives depends on that little bit of stress, basically.
So why is it that we perceive stress as a bad thing if it is the trigger that we need to do our daily activities on time?
Well, we’ve created an unhealthy society surrounding stress… And if we built it ourselves, can we then not also break it down ourselves?
The answer is YES!
Again: let me explain:
What happens after we feel stress is … our body needs time to heal and once healed, theoretically we are good to go again.
BUT and here comes the big issue: we don’t give ourselves time to heal, to recover after we’ve had a bit too much stress. After you’ve been through a bit of a rough stressful patch, your mind and body have been affected. They need to come back down from that stressful event.
I'll give you another example: you’ve recently given birth to a baby.
A stressful event for body and mind. I think we can all agree on that.
And now it’s time for your body to recover and heal and for your mind to come to grips with this new situation.
What do we do? We go online, tell the whole world about this big event that's just happened in our life. Post millions of pictures, throw parties to celebrate our newborn coming into the world. We don’t say NO to all the visitors that want to come and admire our little bundle of joy. Obviously we need to keep our house tidy during this time, we need to get our hair and nails done, we need to look good, we need to go shopping, we need to take care of other kids, we need to go back to our jobs. But, that's not all. We also need to think about finances, we need to buy the most beautiful and useful gadgets and clothes for our kids because we were told this by our best friends or on social media. We need to listen to advice from lots of different people that is spouted at us online and offline, and I could go on for at least another half hour with this extensive list of things we need to do… you get the picture.
So, WHEN ARE WE TAKING THAT DOWNTIME TO RECOVER from that stressful event?
We are not. Not really.
We are we doing?
We’re standing at the metaphorical buffet of all other stress triggers and we’re heaping our plates full of extra stress with absolutely NO intention of taking a moment to recover from each and every one of them.
And before you went on maternity leave to have the baby, you may have already had a couple of plates full of that same stress buffet and so…. CHRONIC STRESS is settling itself nicely inside your body and inside your mind.
And, truthfully, it isn’t going anywhere now that you have a couple of plates full of extra stress loaded….
That chronic stress, now that you have a small child to take responsibility for as well as yourself, that chronic stress may just change into feelings of overwhelm and may be keeping you up from sleeping at night because you’re so wired. It may start to turn into anxiety, depression, OCD tendencies, intrusive thoughts etc.
And now you’re struggling with postpartum mental health issues when all you wanted was to become a mum and have a wonderful & happy life with your new family.
It’s just not happening, you’re just not feeling it.
And why?
Because you didn’t give yourself time to recover from the stressors in your life, small amounts of stress, medium amounts of stress, big amounts of stress. The society we live in just won’t give us a break and now your life's pleasures and fun and happiness is being determined by it.
Had we realized that all these triggers we were willingly receiving were pushing us towards mental health decline… would we have done it differently?
Would we have put done our phone for a while and not scrolled through all these colorful, beautiful but highly addictive and triggering pictures that are keeping our brains on fire and are disabling us from switching off for a while?
The fast society we live in is a continuous stimulant: so many choices and options and so little time. We want to be everywhere, know everything, be part of everything, hear, feel a taste all that is available to us. But we don’t stop long enough to realize that we also need moments of recovery. Recovery from the sensory overload we're putting our brains through on a daily basis. The truth is, our brains are simply aren't built to be stimulated 24/7. It’s too much to handle.
And we keep going and keep going until we’re so wired and wound up that we don’t even remember how to let go anymore.
We’ve just given birth but all we want to do is get to the gym a.s.a.p. to get some ‘Peace and quiet’ away from the baby and to start working on our post birth bodies.
Is this the best plan of attack for our recovery? Being confronted with loud music, lots of different bodies that may trigger us into feeling motivated to push harder at the gym.
Isn’t the reality that the ‘motivation’ is really ‘deflation’ when it doesn’t turn into a result fast enough? And again… we weren’t fully recovered and now instead of motivation its turning into a nasty inkling of dissatisfaction, insecurity and ….
Well, I think you get the picture here and I don’t have to tell you what a detrimental effect it could have on ones post-partum mental health.
Or anyone’s mental health for that matter.
And don’t get me started on all the opinions and advice that are constantly fired at us, we can’t even go to the supermarket without being confronted with high prices, beautiful logos of overpriced products that promise us big things and spout restless colors at us and… yes I’ll stop my rant now because I don’t want you to switch off because I’m overstimulating your already exhausted brain… Especially when I’m about to reveal the very simplest, easiest and best way to recover from stressful events.
First of all, realizing that you are continuously exposing yourself to all these extra stressors could go a long way.
To tell you to stop scrolling through your phone when you have 5 minutes to yourself may sound very simple but it’s so important to understand that these triggers are keeping you switched on all the time.
5 minutes to yourself means you have a chance to switch off for a little bit and that switching from overload to a more neutral setting, means you can start to go back to neutral, to a more relaxed state, to a place where you can come back down from being up there all the time.
So, what to do instead of scrolling through your phone, binging on Netflix, running to the gym, online shopping for lots of ill-advised stuff you’re probably never going to use?
Well, sit back on do … ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
I'm not being funny.
Gaze outside for a bit, give your oversaturated brain some well-deserved peace.
Go for a walk, think of nothing or just let the thoughts flow and after a while they won't seem as pressing anymore!
Water the plants and just watch the water splash over the leaves of the plants.
Sounds so simple, boring even. And that is exactly the point!
Bore your brain so it can come down from overstimulation and that will slowly give it the signals to reset itself to a more neutral, balanced position.
This way you will be able to start dealing with situations afresh. A clean, or cleaner, break.
Meditation, journaling alle these things can help too. I’m not saying they’re bad things to do and since each and every one of us is unique, you will feel that one thing helps you perfectly where your next door neighbor can have a very different experience.
But remember that when it comes to meditating or journaling that can put pressure on us when we feel that were not doing it right. Watching the plants grow or staring at the leaves of the trees blowing in the wind can also be thought of as a way of meditation. It's just worded differently, just stare at them and call it meditating if you wish, so long as it's done without putting pressure on it! Just nothing, let it be boring for a bit, who cares.
If you want to label that as mediation, by all means go ahead. As long as you don’t start putting pressure on yourself because someone told you you have to do or see or feel things on order to get meditating right… That's when you’ve missed the point.
Basically, it’s about going back to basics. Like olden times days when a new mum wasn’t allowed to walk a week after giving birth and a whole community pulled together to help. Where the mum didn’t have to go back to a job.
Back to nature, when the daylight of the sun and the darkness of the moon decided at what times people woke up or go down to sleep instead of manufactured lights. And where the seasons dominated what foods, you ate.
Going out for a walk and letting your senses absorb what comes at them, the wind, the rain, the sun, the smells of plants and trees and flowers. It really can be medicinal for your over stressed and over stimulated brain.
It sounds boring because society dictates that everything needs to be fast and flashy and noisy.
You became a mum, you gifted yourself a new role in life. But trying to squeeze into you old life without wanting to let go of some of the things that overstimulate you, that is something that can prove itself to be a bit of a challenge. And it can mold itself into hideous things, postpartum mental health hideous things.
So, my advice for you would be to slow down and get rid of some of the triggers and things that overstimulate your brain.
Go for a walk, stare at the trees, count the bees or the butterflies in your garden. Water your plants.
Give yourself permission to switch off for a bit and see what it can do for your stress levels.
Get these stress levels back to a normal healthy pattern.
It may not be easy especially at the start, but it could prove to be a life changer or even a life saver when it comes to the quality of your life and your mental health.
Hope that helps
Take care.
Mistaking parenthood
Are you scared of making mistakes now that you’re pregnant or have just become a mom?
Are you scared you’re not eating the right things, not working out enough or to much, not sleeping well enough now that there’s a little person growing inside of you?
Or, are you scared you’re doing things wrong with your little baby, and they may grow up resenting you or worse, because of mistakes you made?
Are these thoughts causing you to feel fear, anxiety, overwhelm, losing sleep over it? Because maybe things will go wrong, and you may make mistakes?
Have you ever wondered though, how it is that we learn?
Don’t we learn by making mistakes?
Don’t we learn what our preferences are from doing things in an unhandy, silly or even stupid or dangerous way?
Luckily 9 out of 10 times the big horrible things that could have happened, don’t actually happen at all.
More often it turns out ok instead of wrong.
And now we have a created something very interesting for ourselves: Choice… Make a mistake and you get to choose if you want to do it again or make the choice not to.
Are we going to keep ourselves stuck in that fear or are we going to take a deep breath, thank our lucky stars for a great escape and do things differently from now on? We have a choice, thanks to the mistake we med. We can decide to learn from our mistakes.
Isn’t that the beauty of daring to make mistakes, small ones, medium ones and yes, even big ones?
That we have created a choice to walk away from a mistake thinking, NEVER AGAIN.
How cool, I made a mistake and because it it I’ve just gone taught myself a very wise lesson!
How about that for a change in mindset.
And isn’t it also a thing that can bring you and your baby or you and your partner closer together?
By talking about the mistake and bonding over it.
Yes, we made a mistake and now we’ve learnt from it, we’re bonding over it and together we’re making plans to change it for the better.
Isn’t there beauty in the fact that even though something went wrong, you are now turning it into an opportunity instead of something to stress over and lose sleep over?
Working through issues together can create trust, peace of mind, connection.
Whether it’s with your partner, your mother in law, your babysitter.
And especially when it’s with your own children.
They may not talk back at the same level just yet but that doesn’t mean you can’t bond over it.
So, how bad is making a mistake? How much stress and anxiety are you putting yourself through instead of trying to create an opportunity from this?
If you intend to beat yourself up about it for the rest of your life then consider this: How can I turn it around into an opportunity?
Wishing you many happy mistakes and many wise lessons!
Perinatal Intrusive Thoughts
Do you suffer from intrusive thoughts now that you're pregnant of just had your baby?
Or have they become worse now that you’re pregnant or since becoming a parent?
Maybe they’ve started because of the fact that you are now caring for someone else beside you.
The responsibility is weighing heavy on your shoulders and your intrusive thoughts seem te have accelerated….
They’re horrible and possibly even dominate your life.
Why is this happening to you? And why aren’t any of the other moms from your lamas classes suffering? Why isn’t your best friend who just had her baby suffering from them?
Why doesn’t your partner understand that you’re having them? Why isn’t he or she going through hell and back with horrendous thoughts and images and compulsions… what makes you different from them when they’ve also just become a parent just like you?
Well, probably because YOU are 'overcomplicating' things, and they are able to move on from their thoughts faster.
That sounds a bit harsh, 'overcomplicating' makes it sound like it's just a minor hiccup that you can easily get over.
I don't mean to make light of a very intense and scary process you are going through. Let me explain.
It doesn’t mean other people don't have similar thoughts to yours. Yes, they will most likely also think about a car crash happening to them and their family just after they’ve watched that horrible news item about a family being injured in a big collision on a high way. The same way you do.
The difference is, they think, most likely shudder, then move on because they can stay with the present reality.
Whereas you, you think, shudder, think some more, make it bigger, attach anxious feeling to the thoughts, think a little deeper, connect all sorts of other life events, and think some more.
You have now gotten yourself stuck in a negative spiral of thoughts that you’re struggling to detach yourself from.
By thinking about it over and over and then some more, beat yourself up about it, call yourself names about it, you are charging the intrusive thought, you are charging it with your emotions.
It's like charging the battery of your phone, the more you charge these thoughts with fuel, the better and longer they will stick around. The longer the battery will last.
Give it no fuel and the battery dies and there’s no point in picking up that phone so you just leave it.
And that’s what people do who don’t get sucked into intrusive thinking. They can let them go, they don’t give them fuel for them to be charged up to a point where they can repeatedly come back and get stronger and more convincing and have a bigger influence on your life.
No phone, no phone calls, no apps to open up, no social media, no distraction. Just a thought, maybe a very unpleasant thought, but it goes away again.
With a fully charged battery you get the whole scala of thoughts and feelings and emotions and memories and vivid scenes that play around in your head and activate anxiety and triggers you in all the right places.
Stop charging the thought with strong emotions and the battery will eventually fizzle out.
Don’t give it a chance to charge and re-charge over and over again.
Because the charging with emotions is exactly the cause of why the thoughts keep returning.
And the powered up battery is making them return stronger and with a vengeance.
Let them fizzle out and don’t give them any power.
All good and well to right it down but how do you do that?
How do you stop your emotional train of thoughts when they start to happen?
Well, when a thought comes into your head try to look at the thought objectively. From a distance, a helicopter view.
Try to describe the scene in words without any emotion attached to them.
I’ll give you an example: you see a horror movie scene on tv. There’s scary music, its dark and a woman is yelling and running through a house and then you see an unrecognizable masked person with a knife slowly walking up the steps. He’s after the woman and going to stab her to death.
Hang on a wee minute, the assignment was to look at the scene objectively. Describe what you see, NOT what you feel.
The description of that scene was very subjective, I’ve never seen this movie and I just assumed that it’s a MAN instead of a woman and I’ve assumed HE is about to stab the yelling woman and I’m bracing myself for a horrible bloody scene…..
But looking at this scene objectively, so without assumptions and feelings, the scene would be a lot more boring than what I’ve just described.
Describing the same scene with NO feelings, NO emotions and NO assumptions: this would be the scene:
Music is playing
A woman walks up a staircase
The woman is yelling
In the next scene another person dressed in a long black dress walks up the same staircase
Doesn’t sound as scary and intimidating as the first scene does it? By sticking to the facts of what you are seeing it becomes a lot less intimidating.
So now that you’ve ‘challenged’ the scene by taking the emotions and assumptions out of the scene, try to look at it from a different perspective.
What meaning are you giving to the scene? Are you maybe giving the scene a meaning of impending danger? Yes.
Is the scene giving you an uncomfortable feeling? Yes.
How can I get away from feeling this discomfort without letting my thoughts take a hold of me and charge that battery into intrusive thinking?
Well, maybe I can switch the tv to a different channel or switch it off and distract myself with something that gives me a nicer feeling.
Intrusive thought evaded!!
I know it sounds simple, and it will probably take a bit of effort to do this. By making a choice to start training your mind to think more objectively and trying to see the meaning behind a thought instead of going ahead and attaching lots of emotions and feelings to that thought, it may stop the thought form spiraling out of control into an intrusive thought.
And by giving the thought less fuel, by training yourself to continuously not give in to attaching feelings, assumptions and emotions to thoughts, the battery will stay low and eventually fizzle out hopefully.
I hope that helps!
Take care.
You & your partner - postpartum expectations
What were your expectations of how your relationship with your partner would be during and after pregnancy?
Did you have that romantic vision of being all loved up with your gorgeous newborn and your relationship going to an even higher level of love, beauty and wonderfulness?
Well, there’s reason why those yummy chick flick movies stop after the couple have found each other after a huge struggle. They are now happily together…. THE END.
Well, they don’t really go into detail how it turns out after that.
Probably because they never went as far as writing that part of the storyline but also because it would most likely destroy the loved up image of the couple….
That couple, fictitious or not, will have they’re ups and downs too. They’ll be in love passionately one moment and the next they will, most likely, be having an argument or a very unsexy stressful moment, or be in a bad mood, or taking a very unsexy dump on the loo. That’s just reality.
I get that we don't consider these things after watching the movie, obviously we want to stay in that nice, loving haze of that sexy cute couple a bit longer.
But why do we not consider these things when we’re planning a family? Why do we forget that we can’t be in love 24/7 and there will be hard times ahead too. Why do these times seem so hard when we’re sitting there with our wee bundle of joy and your partner is annoying the living daylight out of you because he hasn’t been giving you or your baby the attention you were expecting. Or, they don’t seem as interested in the baby. Or, for that matter, in you. Or, they don’t take into consideration that you are absolutely knackered after all these night feeds and they’re not even offering to take over some of the daytime chores or the nighttime feeding. Why didn't we do a bit of reality checking before deciding to start a family....?
It's leaving you absolutely confused and feeling negative emotions.
What went wrong?? Why is this happening??
Well, take a few steps back and look back to where you started. What were your expectations?
24/7 loving and absolute bliss? Uneventful pregnancy? Perfect mum and dad? A baby that sleeps straight through the night? Feeds off of your breast with ease?
How realistic were these expectations? Did you ever consider them to be maybe be a little too optimistic?
Is it even possible to feel high on love 24/7, wouldn’t that be sort of…. Unhealthy?
Are you maybe trying to force your own thoughts into 24/7 happiness and for trying to do that, trying to create an unrealistic reality? Have you accidentally put yourself up for disappointment and hurt?
Could you have stopped this by taking a step back and looking at the situation with a more realistic point of view?
Our thoughts are so powerful, especially when we charge these thoughts with emotions.
Then when our expectations, that we ourselves created, are not met, we feel hurt, we feel disappointment, we feel let down.
And we go with these feelings, and we feed them some more with some more emotions and before you know it, we’ve created this huge snowball of negative emotions and with each and every confirmation of the emotion we role that snowball through more layers of snow, more layers of unhappy emotions, to make it bigger and bigger.
A classical snowball effect.
And now it’s starting to affect our sleep, at a time that we were already exhausted and sleep deprived. Can you visualize that snowball now rolling through snowy layers of resentment and exhaustion?
And now we’re doubting if we should still be with this horrible partner who doesn’t see the stress and anxiety HE is causing. Snowball rolling a bit faster again and getting bigger, rolling through snowy layers of anxiety and self-doubt.
And now you find yourself considering if you have a post-partum anxiety disorder, a post-partum depression, thoughts are becoming intrusive, you're feeling lost in negative emotions.
Where did this mess start? Where did it start to spiral out of control?
Go back in time and compare your current reality to the reality you cooked up in your head. Are you meeting the expectations from back then at the start? How are the unmet expectations contributing to your negative feelings?
How realistic were these expectations to begin with?
Would that snowball of emotions have become so big if you had started off with lower expectations?
The simple fact is that being on a happy high 24/7 is NOT realistic. Probably even unhealthy.
Taking a step back every now and again and checking in on your thoughts, and amending them to match your current reality, may be a healthy choice to make.
It stops the snowball from rolling for a bit and gives your expectations a healthy breather (aka reality check-in moment).
Hope that helps, take care!
Shame & guilt
Had you ever consider you would be feeling shame during your pregnancy?
Wasn’t it supposed to be a wonderful and special time? Why are you dealing with guilt?
Guilty feelings that you don’t like being pregnant.
Guilty feelings because you want to just feel normal again instead of nauseous or fat. Guilt because you want to give in to cravings that are bad for you and your babies health? Maybe you’re dying for a cigarette or for alcohol or for foods that you’re not allowed.
Guilt because you’re not looking forward to becoming a parent, maybe even dreading it.
Guilt towards your other kids because you’re feeling out of sorts, and they get the bad version of you most of the time.
Or guilt because you can’t go to the gym and do the things you used to do and you’re not feeling happy in your body.
The list goes on and on.
And then after guilt often comes SHAME.
Shame for not being who you had expected to be during pregnancy. Shame that all the other moms are able to make it to their gym or yoga classes AND make it seem effortless.
Shame that you keep giving in to cravings that you know you shouldn't give into.
Shame and guilt for not wanting sex with your partner.
Again, the list goes on.
And the aforementioned list easily continues into parenthood, after birth. The more you experience it, the more you are making yourself aware of your ‘short comings’. The worse you feel, the more you feel them.
As if our minds want to keep us in that guilty shameful place.
Often shame and guilt go hand in hand.
And they are made worse because people around you don’t seem to understand what you’re going through.
You’re having a baby or have just had a baby. You should be feeling lucky, right? Not guilty and full of shame…
Who on this earth would understand those feelings you’re struggling with when they see you with a big beautiful baby-bump or a small bundle of joy in your arms…
Or so you think. You have concocted these thoughts.
And the more you think these thoughts, and I’ve said this many times before, the more you train your brain to think and feel these nasty feelings, the more they seem to come back. More frequently, heavier, bigger, badder….
And as much as you try to make sense of these feelings, the worse they get.
The more they make you feel like something is wrong with you, like you’re crazy.
And surely nobody understands you.
Doesn’t society dictate that becoming a parent is something very special and something to be enjoyed and celebrated?
And her you are, not enjoying it at all and on top of that feeling shame, guilt, misunderstood and worthless.
It's important to note here that your mind, more specifically the conscious part of your mind, is reproducing these thoughts over and over. And the reason why is because you’ve convinced yourself of these things at an unconscious level.
You didn’t consciously choose to feel shame and guilt, if you had been able to consciously give yourself a choice surely you would have chosen happy, blissful and content feelings over these negative ones. But your conscious mind is not allowing these feelings to come out.
And the reason for that is that it’s UNCONSCIOUSLY being blocked.
If you were able to solve all your problems consciously after all, wouldn’t we all be problem free?
If a smoker, for example, knows at a conscious level that smoking is bad for their health, then why would they not just quit on the spot there and then? My guess? Because something in the unconscious mind keeps triggering their craving for a cigarette and keeps giving into that craving.
If they knew WHY that kept happening at a conscious level, would we they have quit years ago?
The same applies to your feelings of guilt and shame: you are sabotaging yourself into feeling shame and guilt. Something in the subconscious part of your brain keeps being triggered and at a conscious level you are damaging your thoughts and feelings and your mood because of it.
If you had the answers to why your subconscious mind keeps triggering these thoughts and feelings, you would have stopped them in their tracks ages ago.
And that’s the thing, we know there’s an answer in here somewhere, but we don’t know how to get to the answer. As if it's hiding in there. And in the meantime, we keep doing what we have taught ourselves to do over and over again consciously: Feel guilt, shame, annoyance, irritation, stress, etc. etc.
A first good step to take here is to remind yourself to take it easy on yourself.
You’re pregnant, you’re cooking this wee bun in your oven, that takes loads of energy.
You are allowed to forgive yourself for having cravings, you are allowed to miss your old life. After all, it was a nice and good life. Be happy and grateful you knew that life and you will always take it with you everywhere you go. It's stashed away in your brains memory box.
And, realistically, there’s a good chance that life will return to more or less the same way as it was before, more or less. Including some wee extra's.
Or, if you’ve had your baby and you recognize the feelings of guilt and shame, than go easy on yourself too. This is a hard task, you’ve become a parent and your life has been placed upside down. It’s OK to feel overwhelm and annoyance and guilt because you can’t enjoy it the way you had expected to enjoy it.
And there lies part of the key. You had certain expectations. Your subconscious mind probably picked up on these expectations before you became pregnant and is now sending you mixed signals: yes, you wanted this baby and no it isn’t as happy do la as you had expected it to be. Feel this, feel that, and feel a bit more of that too, but none of these feelings match what you were expecting to feel so tough shit honey! And that is confusing as hell because consciously you were expecting something else, and your reality is mismatching your subconscious reality.
Take it easy on yourself, this happens to so many of us.
The brave warriors will come out and say out loud that they feel all these negative feelings but mostly these brave warriors are at the front line, and they get beaten down first. The mom shaming thing.... or the expectation to be mom shamed. I'm not sure which one is worse at this point....
Don’t be afraid to be beaten down because you’re expressing your honest feelings.
Keeping them bottled up will do you more harm than good.
My advise: Talk to someone you trust.
Go to a professional if you don’t feel there’s someone near you who you can share this with.
This is so much more common than many websites, yoga classes, baby products and adverts, make us believe.
A professional will never send you away after having told you that you are crazy for feeling what you feel.
A professional will do everything in their power to get you back on track.
On a healthy track.
They won’t send social services over to take away your baby or a divorce lawyer to settle your marriage or whatever you’re afraid of. That wouldn’t be very professional if I say so in my professional opinion.
People may not understand what you are going through but that does not mean your feelings are not valid!!
Lots of parents, and parents to be, are suffering through similar negative feelings when they had expected to be on cloud nine. The problem here isn’t the negative feelings towards yourself or your baby. The problem is more that we have convinced ourselves that society doesn’t allow us to talk about negative feelings during a supposedly ‘positive’ time in your life.
You are not alone in this!
By trying to step over the shame and the guilt or, by accepting the things you feel shame and guilt about, that’s when you will start to heal from these negative feelings.
I can’t guarantee that you will start enjoying pregnancy, some people just simply don’t.
My husband for example hated me being pregnant. I hated him a little for that because it zapped the joy out of my pregnancies for a part.
But it wasn’t until much later that I could understand and accept that he was very worried about me, he found it really hard to understand how a human being could grow inside another human being without it damaging my health. I know, that sounds really stupid, doesn’t it? I mean, biology class… duhh!
And yes, obviously he does understand these basics at a conscious level.
Unconsciously, however, he had convinced himself that there was a chance he would lose me, whether it be because of injury, illness or more at an emotional level as he now had to share me with another person that was going to take over some of the love that we have together. It really scared him. A lot! And then when I lost a baby and had some medical issues, he was very worried and unsure if he wanted to have another child because of the potential hurt. And I remember him being extremely worried when we found out we were having twins. It was a very tough pregnancy for both of us because he kept worrying about my health.
The point I'm trying to make is that his worries and fears came from a good place.It was hard for me to enjoy the pregnancy for so many reasons and he added to that. His unconscious anxiety caused my unconscious doubts. And consciously we displayed all sorts of negativity towards each other until we sat down and really talked it through properly.
It just goes to show that there’s very often something else, I call it an undercurrent, that contributes or even causes negative feelings. And sorting through them at a conscious level often doesn’t give us the logical answers, the answers in the common logical places we look for. These answers don’t get rid of the negative load. The understanding doesn’t come until we search deep down at a level, we weren’t even aware of.
I hope this helps and that it inspired you to investigate or get some help to sort through these feelings.
If you feel like you need some help digging into these depths then please don’t hesitate to contact me.
I’d love to help you along.
Shifting a negative mindset
Your partner has probably already seen that you are struggling.
Maybe you’ve told him how hard it is and instead of supporting you, your partner seems to be distancing him or herself from you.
That’s hurtful.
That makes everything that is already hard, a lot harder.
The expectations you may have had are so different and it’s just all SHIT!
So, I’d like to give you some tips on how you can look at it just to help you make a slight shift to your mindset.
The first thing that could be very useful to do, and also maybe a little challenging, a first step is to try to step into your partners shoes for a moment.
Maybe they didn’t go through painful labor, maybe they’re not suffering from insecurity and discomfort because of aches and pains and changes to their body. BUT, they also had a certain expectation of what it was going to be like during pregnancy and once the baby was there.
They may also be disappointed, frightened, concerned about how things are turning out differently than what THEY'RE expectations were of having a new family member joining them.
So, for one moment, try to get into their shoes and look from their perspective of not having their expectations met.
That may just give you enough clarity to understand that, although you can’t feel and maybe not even understand their point of view, they have a certain way of thinking about everything that is going on in your lives and to an extent, they may be feeling a bit lost because their expectations were different.
Had you considered that?
And have you considered asking them about it?
Have a dialogue about it. Not a monologue where one of you is spouting all your frustration onto the other. The other may become annoyed or disappointed or concerned because they don’t understand where it's coming from.
This may help you open up a little more towards your partner, because, what is super important, is that you start talking to your partner again. Proper dialogue talking: In such a way that you can both express what’s going on and really start to understand each other’s struggles.
Even if they seem unfair because one of you feels they have a much heavier workload or emotional load than the other.
Try to look at it from both sides.
And from there, by properly listening to each others arguments and feelings and with genuine openness to each other points of view of the situation.
And note here that I’m not saying genuine understanding, I'm saying GENUINE OPENNESS, because some things you will not be able to understand from each other. Going through birth, having hormones raging through your body, some things the other party will not be able to understand. But by being OPEN towards each other without the expectation that the other understands you, you may open up a different way of having a conversation with each other. A different appreciation towards each other. Because you aren't able to fully understand each other. but you are able to listen.
And the same goes the other way around!! You feel one thing - your significant other feels it differently and part of them feeling these things differently is because they CAN NOT experience them and maybe that alone pulls up all sorts of emotions. I can’t tell you what they are, that’s what you, TOGETHER, need to make each other aware of.
By opening up towards each other and not closing off, one, or both sides because you feel that what you’ve gone through is worse, so you are the only one who is allowed to voice it. That will close any dialogue off straight away.
You both may need a little push in the "right-mindset-direction”: and by "right mindset I mean" I mean that slight shift in the way you look at each other so that you have a little more understanding and patience for each other’s feeling. Despite the fact you may not be able to feel them yourself, or not understand them.
Just knowing that this is the way the other feels can give you a different perspective.
And hopefully it creates an opening for YOU to tell your partner what’s going on on your side.
And that genuine curiosity and interest in each other’s feelings, whether you understand them or not, could be the first step forward for opening up enough to start looking into help or solutions.
Small shifts can go a long way.
It may even come to a point where you both can start to accept that you may require help from outside of your home. Maybe helping each other is by agreeing to look for help or advice from a professional. There is no shame in that. There is no shame in wanting to move forward and accepting help where needed.
Opening up and talking to your partner may start to get you both feeling more hopeful and empowered to get through this. Make you feel less alone.
And please remember to always tell the truth, don’t lie to try to protect your partner. Or to protect your baby. If you have, for example, intrusive thoughts, and they are about harming yourself or your baby. Be honest about the severity and depth of these thoughts.
What could possibly help here, is to educate your partner. Together do a google search for example, or read up on intrusive thoughts after childbirth. Help them see that these thoughts are very harmful to your mental health.
Show them that intrusive thoughts, however damaging to your mental state, hardly anyone acts upon them.
If you are suffering from suicidal thoughts, be honest about them. Together look up the numbers online. It’s a horrible fact but the studies show that rates of suicidality—which can include suicidal thoughts, plans, deliberate self-harm, and suicide attempts—among pregnant or postpartum populations. And they have increased severely in recent years.
Please voice these thoughts, don't keep quiet about them.
By wording them open and honestly, you have a much higher chance of getting help so you will never have to feel like this again.
But the shame and hopelessness that come with these feelings are maybe what’s stopping you from opening up about them. Please make room to open up.
You will not be locked away for having these thoughts. Unfortunately they are a lot more common than you may think.
Fortunately, by opening up about them, that’s where you have a chance to get help to get over them and to give YOU and your loved ones a chance to live. And live a happy life.
Again, turn it around: if you had known that someone you love is suffering from this and they act on it without giving you a fighting chance to get proper help for them. How would that make you feel?
And I’m not trying to simplify or complicate this. It’s just a small trick of turning the question on yourself.
Subconsciously you are also doing yourself a favor by telling the truth. You will get trust not only from yourself but also from your loved one.
By not giving another person the chance to listen to you, you are indirectly telling them you don’t trust them and that can damage your relationship.
By trusting them you are empowering yourself, and them, to build a stronger and more resilient relationship.
There may be hurdles to get past, I can’t promise you there won’t be. They may be hard and tough as hell but in the long run you are doing yourself a huge favor.
No amount of lying or closing off on someone is going to get you anywhere when it comes to trying to fix your mental health.
If you had the solution to your mental health issues, wouldn’t you have fixed them long ago after all?
By opening up you have the biggest and best chance to overcome your issues.
And if you really feel that your partner isn’t the one to open up to, then there are so many other people out there willing to listen and willing to help.
Don’t stay silent, opening up is the biggest gift you can give yourself. You deserve to thrive, not suffer.
Gender disappointment
Gender disappointment....
A hard subject to talk about out oud but it is a real thing.
Someone, maybe you, is expecting a child and had discovered the gender of the baby, or is about to discover it, and maybe you were had hoping that it was the opposite gender.
For example you're are expecting a boy and all you wanted was a girl.
Some people will think you are mad for saying this aloud. For even daring to think it.
I remember a story of a guy who was very verbal about wanting a boy. His first born was a girl. He found it genuinely hard to hide his disappointment. People found it genuinely hard to listen to him verbalizing that disappointment.
A year on his wife gave birth to another baby girl. In the meantime, his sister went through an ectopic pregnancy and one of her fallopian tubes was so damaged it had to come out making it hard for her to have another baby.
Understandably she was very upset about her brother’s wish for a baby boy when she wasn’t sure if she would ever be able to have a baby sister or brother for their first born.
Things became bitter for a while but fortunately it worked out for her, and she had another baby, a boy for who is interested… And her brother, still wanting a boy for himself, decided together with his wife to give pregnancy another try.
They had twins, two girls. No joke!
Now, some say this is karma, some say this is his own fault. I still see them every now and again and they are a very happy family, everything is just fine but it was bitter for a while between the two families who were, and fortunately still are, very close.
Why am I telling you this story? Something can be said for both parties.
Yes, losing a child, a health scare, not knowing if you will ever be able to have another baby, these are all very real motivators to say ‘hell no, you don’t get to be disappointed, you should be f****ng happy that you have healthy children!.’
It is a sensitive subject to lose a child or to have concerns about getting pregnant and the health risks involved.
But can there be room for a preference next to that emotion? A preference for a specific gender?
And a preference is just that: a preference.
You may like cheese, you may hate it, you may love summer and hate winter or vice versa. You may prefer bloody horror movies instead of romantic comedies. These are just our own preferences, and if they do not bother you or anyone else in your life to the extent that you can’t function normally, there really isn’t a problem to have that preference. It is what it is: a preference for one thing over another.
Preferring a boy or a girl is not even a huge issue for most as you will hear people say, I prefer a boy, but you know, as long as the baby is healthy it doesn’t really matter. But deep down inside, you wonder, will they not be slightly disappointed when the baby turns out to be a girl?
People will give you wonderful tips to go and buy something nice and cuddly for the baby in the hopes of making you a bit more enthusiastic about the fact that you are having a baby in the first place! Get enthusiastic about the baby vibes and the preference will disappear by itself.
They may tell you stories about someone who experienced a similar thing and is now thick as thieves with their child regardless of their sex. Or even thanks to the fact the baby is the opposite sex to what they 'thought' they preferred before.
Or they may say things like: you already have three girls, how convenient for you that you do not have to go out and buy lots of boy clothes, you can just reuse all the stuff you already have.
It really seems to be in a lot of people's nature to try and make light of the situation, or try to make sense of it.
But, for some, it truly does not take away the disappointment, people will just stop being so verbal about it and go internal and start to crop up all the feelings that they can now no longer verbalize because people judge them for having an unpopular opinion.
This could potentially be a recipe for disaster. I have said in many of my videos and blogs: the more you think certain thoughts, the bigger and stronger they become. Like training your tummy muscles at the gym, do it long and hard enough and you will have a six pack! The same can happen to these internalized thoughts, the more you think about it the more they become your truth and the less flexible you will become toward changing your thoughts about this truth.
The more people push you to not talk about it, or make you feel bad about having these thoughts, the more internal you go. Will that make the thought go away? Nope, it will, potentially, grow into something huge. And even worse, if the outcome is that you are now turning your thoughts into a strong six pack inside your own mind, the likelihood of you not bonding with your baby once he or she is born also grows.
What about the resentment over not getting what you think you truly wanted, and the reality where people judge you, and you feel shame or anger or any other negative emotion, and they now become intertwined with the fact that you have this little baby that you are supposed to love and take care of.
That does not mean you will not be able to love and take care of the baby, but what it could potentially do is stir up lots of negative feelings in your life. And that can grow into anxiety, shame, anger, insecurity. Which are all emotions you do not want or need in your life. Especially now that you have someone else to take care of beside yourself.
The point I am trying to make here is that gender disappointment is a real thing for some people. And because it is not a very generally accepted thing to feel or talk about, it may become a problem to yourself or to you and your relationship with your child, or to you and your relationship with people in your social circle. The common denominator here is YOU.
So, if you feel that this preference that you have is causing you to fall out with people or to feel feelings that are not positive, it may be time to sort out for yourself where these feelings are coming from.
You may be asking yourself the question repeatedly: Why does it matter to me what gender my baby will be? Why can’t I just feel grateful for the fact I am having a baby? Or why don’t people understand my point of view? Why am I not allowed to have this preference? Why do they think it is any of their business?
Logical questions and thoughts, but not the most productive ones if you want to understand why this is affecting YOU so much. And for the record, this is totally allowed to be about YOU.
And that makes me think of the next question:
Why do you have this specific preference?
What do you believe about this preference?
And is this YOUR belief? Think about that, is the fact that gender matters so much to you something you truly believe, or does it have to do with someone else’s belief?
And I will give you an example of this: in the past people had bigger families. This had, amongst other reasons, a lot to do with the way society was. More people were actively religious, families were bigger, and fathers were expected to work, and it was more common for mothers to stay at home to take care of the children.
Now I know I am sketching something that may be considered old fashioned but that is what I am getting at. Because a lot of our beliefs come from the past, taken over from OUR parents that in turn were given these ideals by their parents.
It is just a matter of evolution really; dads were providers and moms were caretakers.
And fathers hoped for a son that could carry on the family name. And hey presto, a belief is born and perhaps you took on that belief too.
How many people aren’t out there that say: My goal is to get a good job, get married and have children. And when someone says, “but I do not want to ever have kids, I don't have that wish to become a mum or dad…" People are surprised.
Isn’t that a belief that you took on from your parents that you are supposed to take this path in life? And when someone is verbal about diverting from that path it comes across as a bit… unusual.
Maybe you agree with this, maybe not. I am just trying to show you that things we tend to think, and feel are often beliefs and truths that we automatically took over from parents or teachers.
n our society there are many beliefs that we take for what they are, it is easy enough. But when someone goes outside of the norm, we find it hard to understand. And we judge almost automatically instead of asking questions about it out of sincere curiosity why someone's opinion is different from yours.
So, it may be a good idea to ask yourself the question, why do I have such a strong preference for the gender of my baby? Why do I feel so disappointed about the gender of my baby?
And of course you are completely within your own right to want a baby girl or boy just for the sake of always having dreamed of having a boy or a girl. There's is also nothing wrong with having your own preference. Just like the cheese, some like it, others don't. Simple as that. However, it it bothers you and you want to understand yourself better than asking yourself questions is better than beating yourself up over it. Understanding why you have that specific preference is better than hating yourself for it and becoming insecure and wary about it.
And, as you may know, I'm always a big fan of turning things around.
Because, when you think about it, doesn't the same apply to anyone who is bothered by the fact that someone has this preference. Have you ever wondered why it bothers you that someone has such a specific wish for a boy or a girl? Why is it that it bothers you? That is also a very valid question, is it because YOU have certain beliefs? Is it because YOU have certain fears?
And how is this thought affecting your life?
It is easy to just assume that someone is a bit of a selfish person for having a certain thought or preference. And that karma will come to bite him in the backside when it is the opposite.
But, in my opinion, it is more helpful for your own way of thinking to become curious as to why is this person so stuck on the idea? And how will it affect his or her future? Will it affect their future? And if so, is this a negative effect? If indeed the baby turns out to be the preferred gender, will they not become an even more wonderful parent? If the gender turns out to be a disappointment, will they be flexible and become wonderful parents regardless?
At the end of the day, these are also options; the outcome does not have to be negative.
And if someone is truly disappointed, and therefore struggling in parenthood, then isn’t it important to support this person and offer them help instead of judging?
Would it not be better to remain curious and ask the right questions instead of putting your judgement on someone instead of offering support?
If you are the one feeling disappointment, and feeling judged, and you are feeling yourself slipping into a negative emotional state because of it, then it may also be a good idea to ask yourself some questions about why this bothers you so much.
What exactly is the problem? Is it disappointment? Is it the fear of judgement for having a preference?
What is the best-case scenario even if the gender is not what you wanted it to be?
At what other times in my life did I feel this disappointment?
Am I sure it is disappointment that I am feeling?
And so, there is a whole list of other questions you can ask yourself to make sure you don’t become stuck in feeling negative emotions towards something that, in its core, is a beautiful gift: you’re having a baby and the baby needs you to be fit, mentally and physically, to take care of him or her as best as you can.
Do you feel that you are struggling with this? Or you struggle not because you have the preference but because your spouse or your children or other family members have a preference, and you find that hard to deal with?
Need some help to get YOUR head around this? Whether it is your thoughts or someone else that is bothering you and potentially affecting your mental health?
Reach out and I will be able to help you! Please do not hesitate to get in touch!
Thanks for tuning in today, take care.
Experiencing postpartum anxiety is horrible, at a time that you probably expected to be on top of the world you are instead experiencing lots of negative and scary things.
Maybe you experienced PPA during your first pregnancy and after your first birth and now you are freaking out that it may happen again. That’s not the way you want to go through such a special time.
There are several strategies you can adopt to at least reduce the impact when you become pregnant again.
I’ve listed some ways that can help you manage, and in the best-case scenario hopefully completely avoid postpartum anxiety during your next pregnancy:
First of all, if you haven’t been able to do this yet, it’s vital that you educate yourself on signs, symptoms and triggers: Learn about postpartum anxiety. And of course, also the coping strategies. Having some strategies stashed away in your metaphorical rucksack, to pull out when you feel signs or recognize triggers, can aid you in overcoming or lessening these triggers. Understanding what you may experience can help you prepare and manage it better.
If you have suffered before or have clear signals that you are more susceptible to postpartum or perinatal anxiety, then it’s advisable to seek professional help. I know that sounds a bit ‘duhh’ but for a lot of people there is a metaphorical threshold to get over when it comes to verbalizing their mental health issues. Consult your healthcare provider, perhaps your obstetrician, midwife, or a therapist who specializes in perinatal mental health. Do a google search for someone near you or if you feel that that is too big a step there are also more anonymous ways to approach them. Maybe via an online consultation or just via phone. They can provide you with guidance, support, and treatment options. And then you can take it from there, it will be a first step into giving you options to choose from on how to deal with this potential situation.
There are many people suffering from anxiety in the world today, there are many more people out there that understand parts of what you are going through. And even if they don’t fully understand you, I bet there are a lot of people in your neighborhood, or online, that want to help you through this. Building a support network is vital. Surround yourself with loved ones who can provide emotional support and assistance during pregnancy and postpartum. Turn it around, if you found out someone near you was suffering in silence, what would you tell them? Most likely that they should have reached out to you. That’s what your network wants from you too so reach out and give them a chance to help you.
And when you do this make sure to be clear about what you want, what you need from them. Communicate this clearly and openly: Talk to your partner, family, and friends about your concerns, fears, and emotions. Just the act of sharing what you’re feeling and thinking and what you are anxious about can prove to be a catalyst. It can help alleviate your anxiety.
What I also commonly advise is to attend support groups. There may be a local support group, I know we have them here via the midwife practice but there are different options through different organizations. And many people also find online support, via online groups for example on social media, very helpful. Mostly they are more anonymous, which suits a lot of people. And because they are visited by so many around the globe, they are accessible around the clock. So, joining groups for expecting or new mothers could prove to be helpful as they will have many different levels of experience which can prove to be reassuring and helpful.
Maybe you find it hard to reach out to others or you want to be able to feel that you can do things by yourself. Then a good first step, or as an additional step to the aforementioned advice, could be to develop a self-care routine where you prioritize self-care activities. That could range from doing daily exercises, relaxation techniques, journaling or meditating, I used to love reading my favorite genre books to get out my own head for a bit. Think about your favorite hobbies that bring you joy and peace of mind and make time to focus more on them so that your whole body gets to experience some downtime tailored to you.
Staying healthy, a healthy lifestyle. I know it sounds logical to do this, especially as you are probably watching what you eat to ensure you don’t eat anything that can harm your baby. But make sure to implement some joy into that healthy lifestyle. Eat the things that you really love too and make sure to enjoy them when you do it. Not feel guilty. Do the exercises you enjoy doing, don’t push yourself into doing things you dislike because they will probably demotivate you at some point. If you enjoy dancing, then dance. I you enjoy hiking, then hike. Just make sure it’s done in a safe way. If you hate the lamas classes, then don’t do them. Seek an alternative that fits you better. There are so many options out there nowadays, go explore instead if sticking with one thing everyone is doing but that is doing nothing for you. And prioritize sufficient sleep. Skipp all the above if you must, as long as you get your sleep. As we all know, taking care of your physical health can positively impact your mental well-being. So, prioritize it but do it in such a way that you stay motivated and get some joy out of it. That’s the way it’s going to have the longest lasting effect on you, your health and your baby’s health too.
Staying in control, let me rephrase that, trying to stay in control of everything, is often a huge part of anxiety. Delegating tasks may be something that is hard to do for you, especially at this point of your pregnancy or of parenthood in general. Hard as it may be, you could be relieving yourself of some of these anxious feelings by delegating some things. Start with small things. Start with making a list of the smaller things. And a list of bigger things that you can start delegating when the smaller things go ok. Don't hesitate to ask for help with household chores, childcare, or other responsibilities. Sharing the load can reduce stress and prevent feelings of overwhelm. Ask yourself why you don’t want to share this load, what is keeping you in the control seat? How could it be different? How would it benefit you if you gave away some of the control? People often want to help, don’t dismiss them because you want to keep ahold of these control panels. Not an easy thing, there was a point in your life that you convinced yourself that you had to keep the controls tight to your chest, see what happens if you loosen those ropes a little bit.
A tip you will read everywhere is to practice mindfulness. Honestly, this is one that I always find really hard myself. I’m not good at it…. So, giving this advice makes sense from a general point of view but I find it really hard myself. What I do genuinely find interesting is that we can trick and train our brain, so we start triggering it to make new neurological pathways. Engaging in certain mindfulness exercises can become fun if you approach it that way. I’ll give an example: try to brush your teeth with your left hand if you are used to doing it with your right hand or vice versa. Your brain really needs to think about these things. It’s weird, we can do it, but we are so set in our ways that we forget that there are different ways that things can also be done. And that is, in part, what anxiety is. We’ve given ourselves very limited choice in how to think about situations. Only all the scary things and options seem to come up when we think about them, and we automatically dismiss all the hundreds of ways that we can potentially approach situations. And all these hundreds of different approaches surely contain many positive ways of going towards a situation. But we dismiss them because everything is ugly and scary, or so we have convinced ourselves. So, by doing small ‘mindful’ exercises where we start to trigger our brain into doing things slightly different form the norms we have set, like brushing your teeth with your opposite hand, could prove to be a first, small step to approaching situations differently. Try it by changing your baby’s nappy too, or by feeding the baby his or her bottle. Or, whilst playing with your wee one, focus on doing it with the opposite hand you are used to and build it out from there.
At this point you are consuming the information I’m giving you, or so I hope you are. So, this advice may seem a wee bit silly: avoid excessive information consumption. There are so many choices out there. If you find something that fits you then stick with it. At least try things out for a while before switching. It's important to stay informed, but having said that, too much exposure to pregnancy- or postpartum related information, especially on the internet, can increase anxiety. Be selective about what you read and watch.
When you are anxious it could bring peace of mind to be prepared. So, preparing a birth plan would be very suitable. Discuss your birth preferences with your partner and healthcare provider and ensure your voice is heard. They are the professionals, sure. But you are the one in charge. Your wants and needs should count double! Feeling empowered and informed about your birthing experience can reduce anxiety. Talking through a backup plan can also give you some peace of mind. Make sure to do some expectation management here. Your plan may not go according to what you want in the ‘moment supreme’. Make sure that you know about alternatives, so you’re caught out by surprise.
Consider therapy or counseling: Participate in individual or couples therapy during pregnancy to work through any underlying issues or concerns that may contribute to your anxiety.
There are many breathing exercises for anxiety. Find one or two that work for you and try them wherever and whenever you feel the need to. Repeating them often will make them like a default setting and your body will start recognizing when to do them automatically which is very helpful when your body need sot activate your body's relaxation response.
Stay connected socially. If you have a good social circle you move in, make sure to maintain regular contact with friends and family members. Talk to them because they can provide emotional support. Even if it’s just some great laughs, which can be just that wee bit of release you need every now and again to stay sane. Share your feelings with them, they are your people, they want you to share so that they can care and give reassurance where needed.
Again, this one you are probably doing already, but stay organized. The tip to create to-do lists is most likely redundant but I’m saying it anyway. Set reminders, use calendars or phone apps to keep track of appointments. Install some baby apps that remind you what to do during which phase of pregnancy and birth. It’s all part of the experience and it may give you some peace of mind having them. Feeling organized can alleviate anxiety. And it can be a gentle reminder of those moments when pregnancy-dementia kicks in. Or, and let’s not underestimate this one, they can be confirmation that you are on the ball and give you some peace of mind just for being organized or even ahead of the game...
Know your stressors and limit exposure to them. What are your potential triggers? What steps can you take to make their impact? Once you’ve discovered this for yourself, share them with the people around you and make them aware of how staying as far away as possible from these stressors can prove to be very helpful to your mental well-being. Set boundaries, this is a great exercise for your future as a momma where boundary setting will be daily business for you.
Another no brainer that I have mentioned before is to prioritize sleep. You may not get much of that once your wee one is born and that is what it is. But for now, during pregnancy it can be very wise to establish a consistent sleep routine and create a comfortable sleep environment. There are so many great things out there, like special cushions and blankets and lights etc. that can contribute to your quality of sleep and make you more comfortable at a less comfortable time in your life. Remember that rest can help regulate emotions and reduce anxiety.
Experiment with relaxation techniques, it’ not one size fits all, so seek out what helps you. Maybe some muscle relaxation techniques. Or go to YouTube for free guided imagery or try aromatherapy. EFT tapping is supposed to be very helpful too. Find what works best for you.
Be nice to yourself. You are growing a little masterpiece inside you. That is not nothing! Self-compassion for this super special thing you are doing is the least you deserve! If there would be any time in your life to avoid self-criticism, it would be this time. What you are doing is nature at it’s finest and it should be praised and celebrated all day, every day. I know that is a lot easier said than done but doing the opposite can have such a detrimental effect on you and the little person you are growing inside of you. So, to remind yourself that experiencing anxiety during pregnancy is normal, and you're doing the very best you can, is the least you can do for yourself.
Keep track of how you are feeling. I’m sure there are apps for that out there too. Or note down somewhere how you are feeling. You don’t have to go into full-out journaling mode if this is not your thing. Keep it simple: give each day a grade from 1-10. Every week or every fortnight, monitor your grades and take a longer period of low grades as a signal that your mental health is suffering. Stay aware and make others aware and seek help if you notice a decline or signs of anxiety or depression. Early intervention can prevent symptoms from escalating! You owe that to yourself, your loved ones and your baby!
I’ve said it before, it is not one size fits all. Everybody, every pregnancy, every birth, every brain and postpartum experience is unique. Some of these strategies will work, others won’t and that’s ok. You are your unique self so it's essential to tailor these strategies to your individual needs.
Always remember that there’s help out there when you feel you are struggling. Don't hesitate to reach out for professional help if you need it.
Take care!
PPD vs PPP
Many of you are concerned about post partum mental health issues declining to such an extent that they turn into post partum psychosis. So, I’ve decided to dedicate a video to the different signs and symptoms to help you make a distinction between them.
Postpartum depression is also often referred to as PPD, there’s also PPA, Post Partum Anxiety and PP-OCD, Post Partum OCD. I talk a lot about this Post Partum mental health struggles in my videos and blogs.
There’s also a mental health condition called Post Partum Psychosis; it’s abbreviation is PPP.
All of the above are serious mental health conditions that can occur after childbirth.
In this video I’d like to give you an understanding, an overview if you will, of the differences between PPD and PPP, as they are sometimes seen as one and the same condition when they are not.
Postpartum Depression (PPD):
PPD is a mood disorder that affects some women after childbirth. It typically develops within the first few weeks to months after delivery.
Signs and symptoms of PPD include:
Persistent feelings of sadness, emptiness, or hopelessness
Loss of interest or pleasure in activities
Fatigue or loss of energy
Changes in appetite or weight
Sleep disturbances (insomnia or excessive sleep)
Difficulty bonding with the baby
Intense irritability or anger, a term used often is parental rage.
Feelings of worthlessness or guilt
Difficulty concentrating or making decisions.
Recurrent thoughts of death or suicide (in severe cases)
The prevalence of PPD varies, but it is estimated that around 10-20% of women may experience PPD. However, the exact percentages can vary depending on the population studied and the diagnostic criteria used.
Post Partum Depression is often confused and one of the reasons for that is that there is some overlap in symptoms. Let me give you an overview of PPP symptoms.
Postpartum Psychosis (PPP):
PPP is a rare but severe psychiatric emergency that occurs shortly after childbirth, typically within the first two weeks. It requires immediate medical attention.
Signs and symptoms of PPP include:
Hallucinations (seeing or hearing things that aren't there)
Delusions (false beliefs)
Disorganized behavior
Severe mood swings
Extreme agitation or restlessness
Paranoia or suspiciousness
Confusion or disorientation
Thoughts of harming oneself or the baby
PPP is considered a medical emergency and requires prompt evaluation and treatment.
The prevalence of PPP is much lower compared to PPD, estimated to affect around 0.1-0.2% of women.
It's important to note that postpartum psychosis is a separate and more severe condition compared to postpartum depression. While PPD is more common and can be distressing, PPP poses a higher risk of harm to the mother and the baby.
If you or someone you know is experiencing symptoms of either condition, it is crucial to seek immediate medical help and support from healthcare professionals who specialize in perinatal mental health. They can provide accurate diagnosis, proper treatment, and support.
Please remember that the percentages mentioned are rough estimates, and the actual rates can vary depending on various factors, including population demographics, study methodologies, and diagnostic criteria used.
Postpartum depression (PPD) and postpartum psychosis (PPP) can be confused or misunderstood due to several reasons:
As I mentioned before there are some overlapping symptoms: While PPD and PPP are distinct conditions, they can share some common symptoms such as mood changes, sleep disturbances, and difficulty concentrating. This overlap in symptoms can make it challenging to differentiate between the two conditions, especially in the early stages.
Generally, there is more awareness and discussion surrounding postpartum depression compared to postpartum psychosis. As a result, healthcare professionals, family members, and even the individuals themselves may be more familiar with PPD, leading to a potential bias or tendency to attribute all postpartum mental health symptoms to depression.
There is also a lot of stigma around Post Partum mental health conditions, and there are many misconceptions. In turn these can hinder open discussions and accurate recognition of the specific challenges associated with PPP. The focus on PPD may overshadow the understanding and identification of other postpartum mental health conditions.
Note that there is a slight overlap but also a distinction to be made when it comes to the timing of PPD and PPP developing. PPD typically develops within the first few weeks to months after childbirth, whereas PPP emerges within the first two weeks. PPP happens relatively rapidly and is often more severe in symptoms. For example, symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions are not uncommon with PPP but don’t occur with PPD. This may make it a bit more easily distinguishable.
However, in some cases, the progression of PPD can become more severe and may mimic certain aspects of PPP, which again makes this confusing. So, advice would always be to seek help immediately.
Unfortunately, in some countries the rules and regulations around health care are not what you would hope them to be. There may not be a routine screening for postpartum mental health issues, including both PPD and PPP. Healthcare may be limited. And without the correct and proper assessment and diagnosis, it becomes challenging to differentiate between the two conditions and to provide appropriate and timely treatment.
Addressing this confusion between PPD and PPP is hugely important to increase awareness. To educate healthcare professionals in countries where there is not a lot of knowledge on the subject is immensely important. And to promote accurate screening and assessment protocols it imperative. Not only for the mother but also to enhance support for their families.
Another common question is who is susceptible to PPP.
While PPP is a relatively rare condition, certain factors may increase the susceptibility to developing it.
These factors include:
Personal or family history: Women with a personal or family history of bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or previous episodes of postpartum psychosis have an increased risk of developing PPP.
There is an increased chance for women who have previously experienced postpartum psychosis to go through it again. I’m not sure about the percentages, or if they are even known. To know that you have experienced it before puts you at a higher risk. Always seek professional help as soon as you find out you are pregnant again. Or if you know someone in this position, always encourage them to do so.
Women with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder or a history of other severe mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, are at an increased risk of developing PPP.
Have you always been a bad sleeper? Sleep deprivation or irregular sleep patterns can be a triggering factor for postpartum psychosis. As most of us know, the demands of caring for a newborn can contribute to sleep disturbances. Always be on the lookout for signs and symptoms of postpartum mental health decline when your sleep patterns become disrupted.
If you have experienced a lot of stress, know that it can also be a trigger. Stressful life events, such as a loss, relationship difficulties, or financial stress, any form of high stress levels, can increase the risk of developing PPP.
Another contributing factor, generally for postpartum mental health decline, is inadequate support from family, friends, or partners during the postpartum period. They can contribute to increased stress levels and potentially increase the risk of PPP.
Many new mums and dads go through stressful moments, before, during and after pregnancy. None of that is abnormal. The same goes for disrupted sleep patterns. Therefore, it's important to note that while these factors may increase susceptibility to PPP, the exact cause of postpartum psychosis is not fully understood. And the reason for that is likely to be a combination of genetic, hormonal, and environmental factors. Especially the genetic factor often comes as a surprise. Where possible, try to gather as much information about this from family members. Sometimes local GPs can help unsurfaced relevant information. It may be worth it to ask questions about this subject.
If you or someone you know has any concerns about postpartum mental health, it is important to seek professional help from a healthcare provider who specializes in perinatal mental health. They can provide proper assessment, support, and treatment options.
I hope that has given you some clarification and even some peace of mind.
Never hesitate to get help, all types of postpartum mental health struggles must be addressed so you can get your quality of life back!
Take care.
Breaking the silence - Dads & postpartum mental health
Breaking the silence on Dads & Postpartum Mental Health and how to support them.
The mental health challenges that new parents face extend beyond mothers alone. Fortunately, this stigma is starting to be uncovered. More debates about fathers and the effects of pregnancy and childbirth on their mental health are being held. As they too, can experience postpartum mental health struggles.
It’s a shame that they still too often go unrecognized and undiscussed.
I would like to shed light on the realities faced by fathers regarding postpartum mental health.
Why? Well, there are many myths and misconceptions surrounding this topic. I’d like to discuss them here and I will also delve into some statistics. The signs and symptoms may differ so it’s important to identify and highlight them too.
For example, a myth: Postpartum mental health issues only affect mothers, which is exactly why I’m writing about this in my blog.
It is a myth that dads come out unscathed. Dads often also experience postpartum mental health challenges. And they include depression, anxiety, and stress. Seeing your spouse struggle during pregnancy or during birth can be stressful. Someone you love is in pain or struggling or changing at the very least. Not everyone copes with change well and that in itself can be stressful to witness without having any control over it. And being sleep deprived or anxious about the changes that happen when a baby arrives are not exclusive to a mom. That happens to dads too, but they are often overlooked when it comes to these struggles as it’s the mother and the baby that usually hold the main focus.
Another common myth is that dads should be strong and unaffected during the postpartum period.
Reality: The transition to parenthood can be overwhelming for fathers as well, and they may need support to navigate this new chapter. Mums often stay at home for at least a couple of weeks after birth. Dads are often expected to pick up business as usual. At a time when business is anything but usual! Guilt, stress, concern, overwhelm, feeling misunderstood, no control. The list goes on. A mom will feel many of these for her own reasons but why wouldn’t a dad feel them for his own reasons? And aren’t these feelings a potential recipe for many mental health issues?
Myth: Postpartum mental health issues in fathers are rare.
The unfortunate reality here is that studies show that this myth is untrue. While studies vary, research suggests that between 8% to 10% of fathers may experience postpartum depression, and even higher rates of anxiety and stress.
Some Statistics I found online suggest that around 8% to 10% of fathers experience postpartum depression. This is a very high percentage. Fathers must not be excluded from perinatal mental health screening. But unfortunately, they very often are.
The timing of PPD in dads is different to moms. Studies show that PPD rates peak within the first three to six months after childbirth.
Rates of anxiety and stress in fathers during the postpartum period can range from 10% to 25%, reflecting the significant impact of becoming a parent.
So, ladies, bring your man along to your postpartum check ups and make sure the health professionals take care of their well-being as well as your own and your baby’s because recognizing the signs and symptoms of postpartum mental health issues in fathers is crucial for early intervention and support.
And if they don’t want to come along or will not open up to the doctor, be on the lookout for common signs and symptoms for postpartum mental health struggles.
Here’s a list of what you may see in a dad who is on the cusp of postpartum mental health decline:
Persistent feelings of sadness, irritability, or hopelessness
Loss of interest in activities they used to enjoy
Changes in appetite or sleep patterns
Fatigue or loss of energy
Increased anger, frustration, or irritability (also called parental rage)
Difficulty bonding with their baby
Social isolation where they used to enjoy social activities
In sever cases thoughts of self-harm or suicide
In my practice I have seen dads. Some were reluctant to admit to why they were struggling, and others had simply not made the connection to postpartum mental health decline. Why? The focus was on the baby and on the mother. Not on them.
Hearing personal stories from fathers who have experienced postpartum mental health issues inspired me to write this article.
For a client to feel so disconnected from his family that he was considering divorce, just run away and give them a chance to be happy without him. That is truly heartbreaking. When, after treatment, they are now going strong and growing together into the happy family they always meant to be.
Be accepting therapy, open communication, and support from his partner. Thank goodness!
Another dad experienced significant anxiety whilst going through IVF attempts with his partner. Constant worrying and feeling worthless as his ‘manhood’ seemed to not be doing what it was meant to be doing and it was making his beloved sad. When they finally got pregnant, the pregnancy was, although uneventful, extremely stressful to him as he did not want to go through- or put his wife through that hell again. After birth he really struggled to bond with their baby. It becomes a snowball effect of negative emotions.
Accepting help and going through therapy has now given him back the family life he worked so hard for.
The detrimental effects of perinatal and postpartum mental health must not be underestimated by both moms and dads. And both FOR moms and dads.
If you see signs and symptoms, whether you are a woman or a man, a mom or a dad. Or any gender for that matter: seeking professional help, consulting with a healthcare provider or therapist specializing in perinatal mental health can provide guidance, therapy, and coping strategies.
What is crucial here is to break the silence and create awareness. By dispelling myths, acknowledging the statistics, recognizing signs and symptoms, and sharing personal stories, we can help all parents, mom or dad, seek the support they need.
Take good care of each other!
©2023 by Johanna Schouten Coaching
Coach & Hypnotherapist specializing in Perinatal Mental Health
The Hague || The Netherlands
KvK 90626680
4findingbalance@gmail.com
DISCLAIMER: Any information or advice I give is purely based on my own experience and research.