[00:00:00] Speaker A: We'll be told that becoming a parent is the happiest and most rewarding part of our life. When we don't truly feel that in the moment, it can become quite confusing. Like, yes, it is the most rewarding, but it's also the most challenging. And we seem to convince ourselves that we can't be both and we can't experience both simultaneously.
Welcome to the Emerging Minds Podcast.
[00:00:22] Speaker B: Hi, I'm Vicki Mansfield and you're listening to an Emerging Minds podcast.
Before we start today's episode, we would like to pay respect to the traditional custodians of the land on which this podcast is recorded, the Awabakal people. We also pay respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, their ancestors and elders, past, present and emerging from the different first nations across Australia.
Today, in recognition of Perinatal Mental Health Week, I'm talking with Amy Matthews.
Amy is a parent of three children and she has a lived experience of perinatal mental health struggles, was a peer advocate, and is now working as a peer support worker for Peachtree Perinatal. Today, Amy has generously agreed to share her wisdom and insights on the transition to parenting, how social pressures and expectations impact perinatal mental health, and what we can do to support parents during this time of change.
Welcome, Amy.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: Hi, Vicky. So happy to be here on this platform today and able to share some of my journey with you.
Let's just get straight into it.
[00:01:32] Speaker B: Hey, thanks, Amy.
Amy, the transition to parenthood is a major life change and parents hear lots of social messages and feel many expectations about parenting. And the research is also telling us that one in five new mums and one in ten new dads experience perinatal depression and anxiety, which is is around 100,000 parents each year in Australia.
Do these stats surprise you, Amy?
[00:02:01] Speaker A: They somewhat surprise me, yeah. I feel that that's a lot, but to be honest, I thought it would be a lot higher. I'm just wondering if there's a stigma around those postnatal depression anxiety feelings where people aren't sharing their struggles and maybe have a level of shame that puts a barrier in the way of them seeking support, which those people wouldn't be counted in their statistics.
[00:02:24] Speaker B: It's on the one hand feels like it's high, but on the other hand could be an underestimation. And. And so how important is for us to have this conversation and to share and reduce some of that stigma and shame by. By hearing people's journeys and also by supporting practitioners to assist parents when they do reach out? Because it Takes such courage, doesn't it?
[00:02:47] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely it does.
[00:02:49] Speaker B: And, Amy, I have imagine you've spoke with many parents in your peer work, advocate work, and also in your role now. And speaking with parents, what takes you by surprise or what takes people by surprise in that transition to parenting, do you think?
[00:03:05] Speaker A: There's so many common themes. I'd say one of the most common is the sleep deprivation that parents experience, which I feel like is an overall contributor to the struggle in that transitional period. Like your capacity to carry out your daily life on very little energy is a huge shock to the system.
And then all the relationships evolve around you. It all becomes very unfamiliar territory. Makes it hard to navigate the journey into parenthood and navigate your environment through that.
[00:03:34] Speaker B: It's incredibly hard. The brain fog, the sleep deprivation, and as you say, all those relationships changing. I know when you spoke before, you said that sometimes that felt like a grief, which for some people or even practitioners, that might sound surprising.
Can you explain and share with us that feeling and that understanding of that time?
[00:03:58] Speaker A: Yeah. I often refer to the postpartum period as running parallel with the stages of grief. You sort of lose who you were. The life you once had is completely gone, and it's evolved into something that you haven't quite figured out yet. It's a process of acceptance for the life that you've lost and a fear of becoming a newer version of yourself. You're getting to know your tiny human, then you're also getting to know yourself as well. And you're not. You're not who you were. You have not become your new self yet. It's a very confronting transition. You're sort of stuck in the. In the in between. And it can be really hard to. To navigate that, to go from old to new.
[00:04:35] Speaker B: As you said, you've also got this new little bundle that doesn't come with instructions. This new little bundle of. And as we said that there can be a lot of pressures around how we should be. And you mentioned earlier that sometimes you think that there's shame and isolation can be a factor in reaching out for support. So.
[00:04:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:55] Speaker B: In your.
Or drawing on your work with people. Yeah. How tricky is it to reach out and take the first step?
[00:05:02] Speaker A: I think we see others around us publicly and particularly in social media, we see people enjoying parenthood, and we. If we don't feel or connect to that, we feel some sort of shame around it. Like we should be feeling happiness and joy. We'll be told that becoming a parent is the happiest and most rewarding part of our life. When we don't truly feel that in the moment, it can become quite confusing. Like, yes, it is the most rewarding, but it's also the most challenging. And we seem to convince ourselves that we can't be both and we can't experience both simultaneously.
[00:05:31] Speaker B: Sometimes I've heard it referred to as masking some of those feelings or confusions. Is that. Do you think that's an accurate description?
[00:05:40] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely. I think across the mental health board, the I'm fine is the biggest lie in human history.
But it's very factual to when you're a mother, you've become a mother, father, parent, to just be like, I'm fine. Because we don't want to show those vulnerabilities to people in our world. We think that that means we're failing. And that's where there's feelings of shame and guilt stemming from that. So that I'm fine cover up is just a way of not confronting those big feelings and those big emotions and.
[00:06:12] Speaker B: The big feelings and. And you mentioned the shoulds and that they're somewhat related to those expectations and pressures.
Yeah. Tell me about the shoulds.
[00:06:24] Speaker A: Yes. In my perinatal journey, I did a lot of workshops. I did a lot of therapies, different things to try and overcome what I was battling and grappling with in my struggles and the concept of removing the should words from our vocabulary. And I felt. Felt quite empowered by that because the word should, it puts an expectation on us, and when we feel like we don't, we're not meeting that expectation, it can feel like a big failure. When people say, you should do this and then you don't, it can harbor that level of guilt, like I said, and that becomes hard to overcome. Telling people that they should do something, it's just.
It's really harmful, I think.
[00:07:04] Speaker B: And the shoulds being. So that could be. Health practitioners could be sometimes. And it could. And as you said, there could be messages in social media, could be intergenerational messages. It's kind of time where there's a lot of shoulds about parenting, isn't there? So it can really be a big pressure.
[00:07:23] Speaker A: Yeah, I. I think the start of my shoulds were in the early stages of my first newborn when I was going to these child health nurse appointments, a lot of different clinical appointments, and it was like, oh, baby should be at this stage. Baby should be around about here. That put an immense amount of pressure on me where I thought, I'm not able to take care of this child because.
Because I should be doing this and I should be doing that.
I just overcame with guilt. That's where I struggled the most. I had these expectations on me that I wasn't meeting and I thought they were true expectations of what being a parent was about.
[00:08:04] Speaker B: So they were expectations that were weighing heavy. And you said that guilt then really can impact mood and also that sense of confidence. In those early weeks, I was going.
[00:08:17] Speaker A: To fail if I didn't meet those expectations. So the anxiety was, if I yell in front of my child, they're going to have long term mental health consequences. And, you know, all of these different anxieties about going forward and what that would look like for my child, of things I'm doing in the now and how that could greatly impact the future, but it's, it doesn't work like that. You know, the anxieties didn't need to exist so much in my world, so.
[00:08:42] Speaker B: The anxieties didn't need to exist so much. And you said, you know, you were undertaking a few different experiences of therapy and different modalities. Where did you discover the shoulds?
[00:08:53] Speaker A: So I was actually a participant of Peachtree Perinatal and one of their workshops really hones in on the shoulds. So that's where I first came across it. And just, it was so empowering to the point where I would call out people using the word shoulds in my world and other participants who I was engaged with, if they said the, the dreaded S word, you know, I would sort of go, you know, I'd cringe at the word being spoken and I'd call people out on their shoulds as well. And, and bring to perspective the need for you to vet your language a bit better, you know, and so I, I made sure that I didn't put those expectations on others around me. I removed the shoulds from my vocabulary.
[00:09:41] Speaker B: And I know you said that sometimes when you reached out and had contact with health professionals, that maybe the delivery or the, the conversation was not maybe from a space of collaboration, it was more maybe from, you need to do this, this and this, or this should be happening. And so is there anything now from kind of a different point in time that you think would. It's helpful for practitioners to know about how they need to support parents or deliver that information in a different way.
[00:10:15] Speaker A: I feel that it was a very much a clinical experience where it was about ticking the boxes and it didn't. It looked at me and my baby as I. It just dehumanizes a little bit like the weight and measurements of the baby. It's like we were measuring a parcel going to the post office, you know, and the way the language was used, you know, there's some clinical things that can, can drive a bit of that heightened anxiety. And the, the way the language is used can also be impersonal, but also put pressure on new mums and heightens the guilt when they're not meeting the clinical expectations.
I understand that their job is to look at the biology and ensure that there's a happy, healthy barb, but it's just the impersonal experience and just the box ticking where I felt like I'm a person and my struggles weren't really acknowledged in that space.
[00:11:14] Speaker B: And sometimes I've heard parents and I've used that in my work about, you know, we can't pour from an empty cup. Is that a phrase that kind of resonates for you and, and your experience within the perinatal field?
[00:11:28] Speaker A: It pops up in my professional and personal world still to this day, the concept of it. I think in my perinatal period where I was in, in the thick of the struggles, I didn't realize I was pouring everything that I had into to motherhood and, and trying not to fail. But there was nothing left to give, There was nothing left to pour. I was quite emotional, quite sleep deprived, quite felt almost, quite like I was going out of my mind and quite almost erratic. But it was simply because I didn't have enough to give. I had nothing left in my metaphorical cup.
And they often say it's the oxygen mask on the plane where they tell you you must put yours on first to be able to put on your child. And that's where the empty cup phrase comes up a lot. Is that you, until you take care of yourself, how can you be expected to offer great care to your child? I'm not saying that you can't. It's just a lot harder, I feel, to, to be able to fill your child's cup up if yours is empty, you're pouring from nothing.
[00:12:33] Speaker B: And, and what helps fill the cup? Like, I know that will be very different for each individual, but are there any themes you think from your experience or from your work with, with parents that, that you kind of can keep an eye out or practitioners can keep an eye out.
[00:12:50] Speaker A: So self care is a great way of filling up our cup. And I, I have mixed feelings on this one. It comes up a lot about what parents can do for self care. And like you said, that does look very different from everybody. I think at the very start in those early stages when you not getting enough sleep, sleep is self care. Like when you haven't showered in a week and you can you smell of formula or breast milk, you know, having a shower is self care in that moment. And I, I've always said it's basic human needs like that are not self care. But in those moment you sort of have to really hone in on what you need in those moments as you, you get through it, it's a journey. You can then pull in things that are actual genuine self care practices and mindfulness activities that can really fill your cup till it's overflowing and then you're only giving your overflow to your child, you know. But yeah, at the start it's self care and filling up your cup looks very basic.
[00:13:48] Speaker B: What do you think is the role of people around parents or around mum in terms of supporting in those very early stages? Like because I think isolation can be such a huge factor for people's the practical and the emotional well being in those early days and throughout parenting.
[00:14:08] Speaker A: So what I wish support would have looked like for me in my first pregnancy came to fruition in my third pregnancy. I was very isolated in my first so and my family are overseas so I didn't really have those people to sort of surround me with support that I needed. Which is why I reached out to community based mental health organizations to support me and build a village around me. And by my third pregnancy I had and it looked like complete strangers bringing me food to my doorstep. So I had one less thing to worry about and I didn't have to ask, which asking is a really hard thing. I think as a parent you don't want to seem like you're failing again. This stigma, it's always the little things that make all of the big difference.
[00:14:53] Speaker B: What does that mean for emotional well being in terms of having a village.
[00:14:58] Speaker A: Being able to speak to and speak with people with parents in my world, Mother, specifically where I'm feeling validation, I'm feeling connection, what they say I can speak to, I can relate. And that forms a connection and it forms a bond. It pulls down that I'm fine mask. As we said before, you know, we can be vulnerable because we don't feel that judgment, we feel supported, we don't feel like we're holding to ourselves to any, any form of unrealistic expectations. I think that's really important in a village when you're connecting with others.
[00:15:38] Speaker B: So having a village was instrumental in kind of finding your way through.
[00:15:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I needed to hear Other people's imperfect parenting because it is perfectly imperfect. I needed to hear that others were feeling the same things that I was. I didn't want to see people all roses because then I would set myself up this unrealistic expectation that I was never going to meet, you know, trying to be the best mum and be so outspoken that I'm the best mum, I'm, you know, wonder woman. That's not the reality. I think if I didn't meet with other like minded people in my community that I probably wouldn't have left the house because I would have thought I don't relate to any of these other parents that are absolutely thriving and fully enjoying motherhood. And I'm not feeling that I don't relate to that. I can't connect to that. So I probably would have just, you know, become a hobbit.
[00:16:37] Speaker B: So you needed conversations that were really about the struggles and the challenges rather than just the, the it's fine.
[00:16:45] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:16:47] Speaker B: And perfectly imperfect. Can you explain that for our listeners a little more about how that frames your kind of work or sense of, of parenting?
[00:16:58] Speaker A: So it's again on the expectations. I feel that nothing is perfect and we can be perfectly imperfect. So it's saying that there's a perfection in having flaws. We aren't going to be the best at everything. We're not going to be the best parent in the world to our kids. Yes we are. And we have to have some acceptance that we are everything to them and we're perfect in their eyes. But in society we don't need to hold ourselves to such high expectations. So yeah, I absolutely thrive on saying out loud that I am perfectly imperfect.
[00:17:34] Speaker B: Perfectly imperfect. And you said often our children will see us as perfect and you know, where their world.
And so when people have a village or their emotional cups feeling like it's full or overflowing, as you said earlier, what does that mean then? How does that flow on for, for children, do you think?
[00:17:56] Speaker A: The biggest part of my journey with I wanted to build emotional safety. That became one of the driving factors for me. I just wanted them to know that nobody's perfect. And so I've been quite open and honest with my children about emotions and how we can allow ourselves to, you know, we can be angry, we can have these big emotions. There's nothing wrong with having emotions. And so I've had to practice that and be honest to them. And what that looks like is they have a secure attachment with me. They, they're not being fed this expectation.
They're having More of the reality. And that's not to say, you know, I'm gonna have a full blown breakdown in front of them, but when I do cry, I will say to them, yeah, it's okay, we can be sad. You know, we're just human. And so for them, emotions are. Become a healthier thing in their world to just to demonstrate those imperfections you're showing them, you know, we don't all have to be perfect.
[00:18:59] Speaker B: I think that's a beautiful message that, you know, emotions and having a full range of emotions is normal, human, healthy kind of experience. That was something you really valued in teaching or being with your kids in that way.
[00:19:12] Speaker A: I think as a child myself, I found that my emotions weren't fully validated. And where there were big feelings, sometimes that was contained in a box because that was, I guess, the capacity that the people around me had to, to. To manage. You had their own struggles themselves. For me, I wanted to ensure that I didn't put their feelings and their emotions in.
[00:19:38] Speaker B: In a box and in a box being kind of that sense of you having to hold it all in. Is that what you mean?
[00:19:44] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I don't want them to push it down because as you know, that can make things so much worse. And I feel that's similarly with the perinatal journey. You push it all down and say, I'm fine and put on the mask and that can really eat away at you from the inside out.
[00:20:02] Speaker B: I heard you describe in our conversation that one of the things that was really useful was understanding the rock of reality and the raft of expectations.
Yeah. Can you explain to our audience what that concept is and how it's been helpful?
[00:20:19] Speaker A: So I first came across the rock of reality and the raft of expectations under the Sunshine parenting program through Peachtree Perinatal. I now get to teach that to other parents. It basically a lot of what we've talked about in this conversation, that we have expectations of what parenting looks like and there's the reality of things. And often our raft of expectations. The metaphor is beautiful. It's so far away from the rock of reality that there's so much room in between to sort of fall between the cracks. And that's, you know, where perinatal mental health can really take a dive in that, that sort of black hole in the middle. And what I was taught is to, I guess, lower my expectations or figure out where the expectations came from in the first place. This is going to feel. Feel a bit circular, but at the start I said about, about grief and loss and forgetting who we are and then having to find a new person. And a lot of that journey involves looking back and finding our values and finding what things that are true to us and who we are, what we're about, and bringing that forward into our world as parents. So I feel that the way we can hone in that raft closer to reality is by looking at what is important to us, looking at our values, pulling that together, and that's where we can close the gap.
[00:21:49] Speaker B: I think. You know, as you said, thinking about values and how they want to be in this new space of being parent and that changing, evolving identity. You know, you had a some moments in your journey where grace and compassion was something that might have been a vital life raft for you.
[00:22:10] Speaker A: Being a parent is truly the hardest job on earth. It's the hardest thing to figure out. When you think you've got your head around all changes. They hit a new milestone. You just confronted with something new and then you've got to evolve and then there's another struggle and then it evolves. And I often hear Mum saying in the groups that I facilitate is, does it get easier? The truth, I want to be honest, no, it doesn't. But what does change is your ability, your resilience to cope with high stress situations. You, you're more skilled, so the, the next challenge that comes along just as hard as the other, but you're more skilled and more, you have more compassion for yourself and your ability to parent. You can struggle, but just let those around, you know, and they'll support you. You know, it's, it's not easy. Give yourself some grace.
[00:23:04] Speaker B: Some grace. And, and so the words I heard there was that feeling selfish might be a should or an expectation that grace might be starting to think about and validate your own needs or, or be around people who can provide that support and validation and rec that it doesn't have to be a soldier alone kind of place. So, finishing up, Amy, when you reflect on your journey of perinatal mental health and then being a peer advocate and studying and now working with parents as a peer support worker for Peachtree Perinatal, what is that? What does this journey mean for you?
[00:23:45] Speaker A: It has been a huge change. I love what Peachtree is about. I didn't see myself being in that role. And as I've studied, studied, as I've evolved, I've realized the biggest part of my lived experience was in that space, was in that world. And it's something that, it's one of my biggest values to be able to help other mums but not do it for them. You know, I've always wanted to be a helper, someone who can fix people. And what P work and Peachtree have done for me is to show me that it's meeting people where they're at, sitting and having those conversations, holding space for them, building hope for them to do the work for themselves and for them to fix themselves. I mean, not that they're permanently broken, they're just fractured. You know, these hard challenges that we have in life, parenting being one of the biggest, we've become quite fractured and we just hold the space for that. The real workers in the room, it's the shared stories, it's the, the other ones holding their hands up, saying, me too.
And that can fill in the cracks. If you can let yourself be vulnerable, that's where the healing really starts. I think that that's the only, that's where it takes the courage from parents to say, okay, I'm going to allow myself to be vulnerable. I'm going to share something that there is a stigma around and we're going to break that down. So there's always going to be stigma, but not remove it, but just really lower it where it's not drowning people in mental health struggles.
[00:25:12] Speaker B: And that vulnerability has, is such a courageous step. And what I can hear now, Amy, is that, you know, those courageous major steps that you took back in your perinatal journey and now your superpower as a peer support worker because you're sharing with such beautiful vulnerability today, that's really, you know, allowing other families to see that there's hope through the journey.
[00:25:39] Speaker A: I didn't link in with peer work and peer support until I felt isolated and just needed to speak with someone. And it wasn't until a few sessions in where it was, I allowed myself to feel vulnerable. But it was a huge step for me to, to simply walk in that room. And I find that a lot of people, that is a barrier. I just want to say to them, like, just have the courage to step out there and put yourself out there and share your vulnerabilities because there'll be someone like so like minded that you can connect with. Why would you want to hinder that? Just to have this beautiful understood connection where there's people not, you know, not judging you and not holding you to an unrealistic expectation.
[00:26:20] Speaker B: And I really respect that message, Amy.
And for practitioners working in that space, what I hear is that sense of importance, of being able to recognize the courage, meet people in that place of vulnerability. And build a holder space that's really safe and supportive and compassionate that allows their courage to go to the vulnerable places. Thanks so much and any final messages or thoughts for our audience?
[00:26:51] Speaker A: Just what I was saying about courage, I A couple of weeks ago I went to the founder of Peachtree and expressed an immense amount of gratitude, not only for the support I received through my perinatal journey, but as you know, allowing me to to be the giver of hope in that space as a peer worker. And something she said was just, it's just stuck with me is all we did was open the door. You're the one who walked through it and it has stuck with me. And I see that when new par walk through the door, I just hold the door open. They're the ones walking in and they're the ones doing all of the work. You know, I'm just facilitating that for them. And that's so profound.
[00:27:31] Speaker B: Thank you so much, Amy, for your time today and sharing your insights and wisdoms. I really appreciate your vulnerability and your strength in being able to to share your journey and to share these important messages for Perinatal Mental Health Week.
Thank you so much.
[00:27:50] Speaker A: Thank you so much for giving me the voice. I really appreciate it.
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