A few things I've been sitting on

Originally published on my Substack, a mother&.

I’ve been avoiding writing here because my mind keeps telling me I am a failure and not qualified to have an entire Substack around the experience of motherhood, especially since I’m still figuring it out myself. (Wow, what a way to start an article. Let’s get straight to the deep stuff, why don’t we!?)

Even though I have been studying perinatal mental health for multiple years now, I still feel like a fraud. I started my internship as a therapist, and I am actively seeing clients. Yet I still find it safer to keep my thoughts to myself and my journal.

But I started this Substack separately from my other one for a reason. And since when is having another informed voice speaking out about a topic a bad thing?

One reason I feel silly is that my free support group didn’t take off. And neither has my chat on here! I did get a lot of sign-ups for the group, but only one person actually responded, and then the whole thing kind of fell off. I sat in my support group session solo for a while and felt like a loser! My ego will survive, though. And it taught me something valuable: moms might need something more flexible than a weekly support group. I don’t know what that could be, but I’m sitting on that new knowledge. Something may come to me at some point.

The other thing I’ve been sitting on is the discourse around the Lindsay Clancy case. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s the case about the mom currently on trial for the deaths of her three children, which she allegedly committed during a psychotic break from postpartum psychosis. There are a whole lot of theories going around. I haven’t been watching the trial faithfully, so I can’t comment on the theories.

What I’m going to comment on is how it has definitely raised awareness for postpartum mental health. I especially paid attention to the part in the trial that highlighted the gaps in understanding and treating perinatal mental health disorders. I have long had opinions on the DSM-5 and how it does not list perinatal disorders as diagnoses. Instead, there are mental disorders with “postpartum onset”, as if being postpartum triggered it.

I have done a massive amount of research on postpartum depression and anxiety, and the consensus seems to be that no one really knows what causes it exactly. There are certainly risk factors, and there are also protective factors. But no single cause is known.

Many try to attribute it to hormones, but that isn’t accurate for a few reasons, although it certainly plays a part. Plus, with the argument about whether men suffer from postpartum depression, that kind of debunks the whole hormonal factor being the only cause of it.

My personal hypothesis is that pregnancy and postpartum can be some of the hardest moments of a person’s life, and one of the most undersupported. I believe hormones do play a part, along with other biological processes related to becoming a mother. However, I also believe that the postpartum period shatters the illusion society has carefully constructed. New parents without support systems realize just how alone they are, and how little support is actually built in for them.

New parents are surviving on very little sleep. They are juggling an entirely new mental role. They are in charge of someone they love with every fiber of their being, but have no actual control over.

For those who had it all under control before becoming a parent, being alone with a newborn is a humbling experience. It is a major life transition, but society often treats it as “just another day” and expects many parents to get straight back to work as if nothing has changed, when in fact, everything has.

So, I would say that contributes. Certainly. And that is one thing I continue to find validated with the clients I am seeing in my internship. How can a therapist help a client when society seems determined to bring them down? And when there simply aren’t resources available for what they need?

How does writing about finding the balance between being a mother AND staying yourself help? Especially with so few subscribers? I think my ADHD tells me if I don’t have 1,000 subscribers instantly, I’m better off not even trying at all. But the thing is, I am passionate about this and keep researching it. So it’s worth continuing to write. If my writing helps one other person, it is worth it. If my writing only helps me, it is probably still worth it.

Anyway, I’m going to be here more often from now on. I have a lot of article ideas from the volunteer work I do with postpartum women, and from other conversations I have had with a variety of people. So I’ll start publishing more regularly.

I’d also love to collab or connect with other moms to chat and hear your stories. I don’t want to build this in my own little bubble. I’d love to connect and start what feels like a movement, and support other moms out there doing similar things.