Motherhood & Mental Illness with Ariane Beeston

0:04 This is Crappita Happy and I am your host, Cas Done. I'm a clinical and coaching psychologist. I'm mindfulness meditation teacher and of course author of the Crappita Happy books. In this show, I bring you conversations with interesting, inspiring, intelligent people who are experts in their field and who have something of value to share that will help you feel less crappy and more happy. Before we get into today's episode, I want to tell you about two quick things. The first is it on the twenty third of July, I am having a free online workshop all about how to cultivate self confidence so overcoming imposter syndrome self doubt, cultivating self confidence from the inside that it's not attached to your external achievements and outcomes live on zoom. You can register on my website. Just go to cast Done dot com and the top of the page you will see the button to press to register, so don't miss out on that one. Secondly, if you would like to send me a voicemail, you can now also go to my website cast on dot com Forward Slash Podcast and you'll see there that you can press a button send me a voice note. If there is any topic you want me to cover on the show. If you just want to share your feedback, please head to my website send me a voicemail. I would love to hear from you.

1:26 Now let's get to talking about today's guest. Arianne Beston was a child protection worker and she was a newly registered psychologist working for the Department of Communities and Justice in New South Wales when she gave birth to her first baby, a little boy, and quickly began to experience scary breaks with reality. She was later diagnosed with severe postpartum depression with psychotic features. She has documented her experience in her brand new memoir, which is called Because I'm Not Myself. You see, it is so candid, it is hilariously funny also at times, and it tells the story and what she and I shared in our conversation is the pressure that is put on you mothers, and how quickly things can go terribly wrong, and how much stigma and shame there still exists in this space, and how many women can be really reluctant to come forward and to speak up about their experiences. Ariane is now the communications and content manager for the Center of Perinatal Excellence otherwise known as Cope. She's also a dancer, she's a choreographer, she's a writer obviously, and she is just a delightful human being. If there is anybody in your life who is a mother, wants to be a mother, or been in the remote vicinity of a mother, then this is an absolute mask. Lissen Ariane, Welcome to the crap It a Happy podcast.

2:52 Thank you so much for having me. I have devoured your book. It is called because I'm Not Myself, you see, which honestly gold star for the title of the book. I'm so glad you like it. I was so attached to it. I would have been devastated if my publisher said we had to change I would have fought for it. It is perfect. It is perfect. And I just wanted to say also personally, before we even dive into your experience and the book perinatal Mental Health, which is what we're here to talk about, I could just personally relate so much to your experience. I came out of an undergrad degree in psychology. I worked in child protection. I was taking kids from their families age twenty two. I mean that is insanity in hindsight.

3:34 Wow, so a lot of similarity. Yeah, yeah, wanted to always write have now written books like not a memoir obviously, but I've written as well. And then I went on to do my clinical psychology degree. But after I had my daughter and I had my own post my own postnatal depression, which I didn't actually admit at the time or didn't realize at the time, like only in hindsight. It was like, that's pretty fucked up. So you know, I don't realize it at the time, I don't think for various reasons or aren't willing to acknowledge it. So so much I was reading your book thinking, oh my god. That's so that's so exciting, and you exactly. Yeah, we were experiencing to the point that I had to put it down and walk away sometimes because it was just a little bit like, oh god, it took me.

4:17 Yeah, right, that took me the bad space. Yeah, you have written it so beautifully, and I think that's the beauty. I think many many women and mothers in particular, and I speak to a lot of them, will be able to see themselves in your story and that is lovely for them. So that means a lot. Do you say that because I think you know a few people have since I wasn't sure if I would be able to relate to the book because your experience was so sort of extreme, of the extreme end of the spectrum. But there's so much in there is in it that people can actually relate to just from that transition motherhood. So that's been really lovely to get that feedback. Yeah, and so obviously so up front, you experienced post natal psychosis, which we will get to that a small number of women, but anybody who has had postnatal or perinatal depression or anxiety, it's all in there. Even you're talking about the nappy rash and the not feeding and they're not sleeping. I was like, oh my god, I remember that. That's the thing.

5:14 I think even if you hadn't been had perinatal anxiety or depression, women will still see themselves in you know, that moment after birth, for instance, and if you don't necessarily feel that Russian love at first sight, or that first drive home from hospital when you drive slowly because you've got precious cargo in the back, or the first time you try to put up fram and you realize that you actually need a higher IQ to put up the prem that you've bought and you have big regrets. So I think, yeah, there's those moments and sort of because I think a lot of people can relate to, even if it's not the perinatal anxiety and depression.

5:55 It's so personal, but it's so universal. They're getting home from the hospital and just looking at each other. What do we do now? What next? What is this new life in this new world? It's so relatable. Do we play with it? What is it? Absolutely absilly and it's such a it is such a universal experience. Some of those those key points in each of our journeys. So arion. We romanticize motherhood. Anybody who wants to have a baby and who is in the very very fortunate position of being able to have a baby, looks forward to this momentous occasion. It's with so much anticipation. We're so excited, it's going to be so wonderful. And the truth of the matter is that for many women it is not. And you've outlined that really well. I know that from my own lived experience. After I had my baby, I felt this kind of deep desire to want to warn other women and other mothers about my experience from your experience and the work that you do. Now, how do we find the balance between effectively preparing women for the what the reality is going to be without going down that path of scaring them or you know, we don't want to be negative about it.

7:08 But yeah, I love that question, and I love the you've asked that question because I think, you know, it is so much of the work that we do and that I'm doing now with COPE is about preparing and doing that sort of preventative work before you have the baby. And it's not like you said, I think and I do talk about this in the book as well. It's about not wanting to scare people, to kind of put this really negative lens on motherhood, but to prepare you. And so some of the things that we've worked on is having it. So we've got an app Are Ready to Cope Out, which actually sort of drip leads information through pregnancy and postpartum sort of times to where you're at.

7:52 And it really does have touched on some of those things, like the impact of sleep deprivation or the challenges to your relationship and how that can come as such a shock and you know what happens if your birth doesn't go to plan and try to respond to differences in the way that you've been parented and how you'll manage some of those decisions. And so yeah, sort of really just sort of gently deadly introducing those topics and then also talking about the risks of experiencing a paranortal mental illness, talking about what the risk actors are and whether you might get higher risk, whether your partner might get higher risk.

8:33 But I think what you said, and I was thinking about reflecting on that just now there's almost you do want to give people the information and make sure that they're prepared. There's also a real innocence too about pregnancy and that bubble and sort of and you want people to have that you or people to be able to enjoy the innocence of their first pregnancy. And because you know that it's tough and you know that on the other side there will be challenges, and so I like all so just to be there, be the safe in it, be there when those challenges happen, because you know, inevitably it's much harder than people expect. So yeah, having those conversations, but being there when it's when it's hard, and not being like I told you, so you know, this is what I want you, not being negative, but just going yeah, it is really really hard, and I'm here for you because I know what it's like and that empathy.

9:25 So true, so true, because I think that's what we all need. When did you realize that something was really wrong after you had your baby? I think there's just two points to that, because I think, I mean, I know now retrospectively that the first psychotic symptoms would have been about four days postpartum, and that was around the nappy rash. And yeah, so a little I guess a little bit of context around that was we mentioned working both working in sharp protection, and I had worked in frontline and with families and had taken ordered into care, and there was particular case where the baby had a bit of a nappy rash. And for whatever reason, that's settled somewhere in my brain. As these cases have, you know, can can do as you would know, and yeah, when four days postparted we had a bit of a nappy rash that sort of triggered these delusional thoughts that the department or that Child Protection were going to come and take him. Slowly became convinced that that child Protection, We're going to come and remove him on account of this tiny, very normal rash. And then, yeah, I began experiencing other symptoms, hallucinations. I thought that I had died, and I had this strong sense of being dead and not existing, and then being stuck on this loop of thought that if I was dead already, then

10:56 if I then took my own life, that it wouldn't matter because I'd never rested anyway. But even then, I mean, these were obviously very distressing and strange thoughts and experiences, but it really wasn't until I was probably about six months postpartum, where you know, it was really obvious to everyone else around me physically, but I wasn't well, and that sort of then prompted me actually going and seeking help. But yeah, it was much sort of further down the chucks and that it should have been. It really went undetected for a long time. Yeah, even though what you experienced, like we said in the beginning, was quite extreme, Like the rate of women who experience post aatal psychosis is very rare, but many more women will experience depression anxiety. But I think would have a similar story of it going undetected for a really long time. So why is that? Why do so many women kind of fall through the cracks?

11:56 Yeah, it's a really interesting question. I think there's still a lot of stigma around maternal mental illness, and you know, we have that miss of wanting to be the perfect mother and that bliss and joy and for anything less than that makes a lot of women feel like they're failing. And I think social media doesn't help with that either. And so yeah, I think people see a lot of women see needing to seek help as a failure, as a personal failing. I think you look around and often you go to a mother's group and you look around and everyone else seems to be coping and often times they're old struggling as well, but everyone's putting on a face. Yeah, for a lot of women, there is just that sense of saying and stigma and not wanting to feel that they've failed as a mother. And that's something It makes me very sad to think that women would be suffering in silence for fear of being judged.

13:00 Same same And I gree I completely agree that there is this sense of shame. And I think we you're right, we see what we think is everybody else coping. Everybody else is doing it okay, and it's just me, so I don't want to admit that there's a problem. I actually, as you were talking then, was remembering that when I spoke to my GP, I think I was in tears yet again in the GP office. And relatable, relatable. And then and her suggesting to me very gently she thought that I might have postatal depression, and me saying, oh, no, I'm fine. I'm just having a bad day, like my husband's away this week, so or I'm just she just didn't the baby didn't sleep last night.

13:45 I'm just tired. I always had a reason, yeah why this This was not an issue. It was just I was just having a bad day. And do you know, it wasn't until years later when I was actually training in perinatal mental health, because that, interestingly, that's where I chose to go and focus my clinical work after I got reagisled. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was I learned for the first time that this is a this is characteristic of post antal depression, this up and down of the mood and these good days and bad days, which I hadn't realized at the time. I just thought I was a bad day. So I tell women that all the time. Now. The up and down nature of it is the illness.

14:26 In Racci EXACTI and I think also as well, you do you manage to kind of draw together. That's that you go into survival mode. And because you basically you're having to look after this little person and to meet their needs, so you do seem to be able to pull it together your resources and keep going. And that can also make it feel like, yeah, there are days and you're feeling not too bad, and in other days when you're just miserable, and yeah, people think, well, maybe I can't be depressed if you know, I'm still able to do we still have to function to a degree. But yeah, as we know that it's very sad. Yeah it is, it is. And you know what else I was reminded so much of all of this when I was reading your book. It's the people around you too, who can be quite dismissive, even if you say, like I'm really struggling, Oh it'll pass, Oh this time is.

15:19 Short, this part of having a baby. It is lucky they're cute, isn't it lucky they're cute? I mean, I was dying and people didn't seem to get it. So this is why I think it is so important the work that you're doing now and in the book that you've written, like, it is so important for people to understand it, to actually listen and maybe ask more questions or maybe. Think to what is it before? I mean, it takes so much to actually be honest. So if someone has actually, you know, brought themselves to the point where they've said I'm struggling, I'm feeling a bit anxious, and then to be consolutely dismissed, wish down, because it takes so much.

16:02 Sometimes it doesn't it to actually start to open up, and then you think like they try and need I felt ignored or blistled or why would your bother asking for help again? So yeah, we do really need to be really really mindful of the language that we're using and how we're responding to new parents in our lives because the act of actually asking for help or admitting the. Meeting that you're struggling exactly, it's huge. Aron we mentioned before about the feelings of shame and feeling like a failure when you know, well, everybody has a baby and everybody else seems to be coping. Fine, how was that exacerbated by the fact that you're a psychologist? And I asked this quest as a psychologist myself, but I wasn't registered at the time I had my baby. But there are many psychologists who listen to this podcast as well, so I am. I think those of us with professional training can feel extra shame and extra pressure to have it together because of our professional training. It was that your.

17:01 Experience, Yes, absolutely, so that was definitely one of the big barriers in terms of yeah, seeking health. So you know, I talked about the stigma of being a mum with a mental illness, but then you add the stigma of being a mental health professional with mental illness, and yeah, that was, just, like you said, another complete layer of shame. I was nearly registered, and I was really concerned that if I am too honest about you know, how bad things are, that they might take away my registration, my ability to practice. What will my colleagues think of me? What would what would this mean? Yeah, for my work and my career, And so yeah, that that really meant that I, yes, I got a lot longer than I wish I had. But also then being admitted to them being admitted to hospital. Being on the other side of yeah, yeah, the whole experience and being the one who was being assessed and observed was really humbling. It was it was really, it was really tough. And again it just felt to me like absolute rock bottom that I had ended up there.

18:16 But I think as well, there was also the challenge of I knew the language. I knew what to say and what not to say, what not to reveal, and I knew what measure you know, what to circle on the measures. So I wasn't you know, completely honest, I think about exactly how bad things were because I knew, I knew what I was doing. So here it definitely was tough. Yeah. You talk about being admitted voluntarily initially to the mother and baby unit, so your body was held about eight months? Yeah, I don't nine month's postpart of yeah. Yeah yeah, And I would love for you to share your experience, I mean about it without therapy.

19:06 Oh man, I'm sorry. I did not want to do so. I when they asked the names that have said, oh you need to you need to come into hospool and I was so liked it. But the thing of all things, the thing that I was most concerned about was that they were going to make me do ourt therapy, to the point that one of the chapters in my book pain ends up calling you know, if they make me do art therapy. But yeah, I just I don't know what it was about. Yeah, but I was absolutely no one was going to make me pick up you know, glues and pens and paint brushes. There's no no way. Yeah, of course they did make me do our therapy, and Lily and I didn't mind it. It was actually it was quite therapeutic. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, the system works, but no, I was. I was. I was a very cal patients and yes, I really did not want to Llerian do any painting or I was there, where's where's the evidence based for this? You know? This is just what do you mean?

20:17 I know it was so funny taking a screenshot of like the art therapy schedule on the wall to send to your husband. They're going to make me do therapy. Every fucking day, and he said, He's like, this is the times that the art therapy room is open and available for youse. It's not the time so you expected to be doing therapy and oh gosh, okay, well still. In hindsight, are like, in hindsight, as much as you were a difficult patient and you know you didn't want to do the things and you broke all the rules, what was good about that experience for women listening who might be thinking do I need? Would it be helpful?

20:58 Like? What was what was good about out. That for you? Oh? Look, I'm such a huge advocate for mother baby units. I think they save lives and they are crucial for you know that that attachment bonding, and we know that it's best practice if you can be admitted with your baby for treatment. Obviously here in Australia there aren't enough of them, but certainly compared to the rest of the world, we're doing not too badly on that fronts always too better. No, I think what's so great about them is it provides this sort of bubble from the world in a way. So you go in and you've got access to psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, you do group therapy, which is really beneficial. A lot of women find that doing those BBT strategies and mindfulness, learning about some of the myths of motherhood and kind of talking about lived experience and listening to other people's experience and being with other people who are going through something similar is a really powerful part of recovery for a lot of women. And just having that, you know, that break from a little bit of sort of protection from the world. You're in there obviously you don't have to cook and clean and which is you know, a huge kind of yeah, respite when you're really really struggling.

22:27 There are people there to help with the mothercraft's skills, so helping you with breastfeeding and sleeping and settling if you've got a really young bub or even if you've got an older above when you've had challenges with sleep. So I think it's just a really good opportunity again to get medication and get it that sort and a lot of women go in and that's something that you can really work out with the best combination of ment are and in a safe environment where you're able to work through some of those side effects or taper off one medication to come onto something else under supervision rather than doing out in the community by yourself. Yeah. So, moch I'm such a huge advocate for these ambius and I think, yeah, I think part of why I wanted to write the book and Obviously I do joke about and I was a terrible patient, but it was to kind of demystify what it's like to be on a psychiatric ward. And I think so many of us were sort of watching Girl Girl Interrupted or you know those Jack Nicholson Milk movie and it's not you know that, it's not like that at all, And they really are quite quite wonderful places for women who need that help and support. So yeah, big, big big advocate, big supporter of parenting for mother baby, and even art therapy. Even in the end, even I was even doing my collars, I did my collage, and I was very I was a very very part of my master my psychiatric ward masterpiece.

23:57 You've just mentioned medication. Then when I went to work in private practice, and a big part of my caseload was women during the perinatal period, either post natally or some of them pregnant, had a history of anxiety depression, and some of them actually ended up coming back to me, like for their second pregnant, Like after I'd seen them with their first, they came back for their second. And for many women, there was this strong reluctance to take medication for fear of what it might do to the baby, for fear of getting hooked on it not being able to come off it. I would love to hear what your experience was with medication, and I would start by saying that for many of the women who I worked with who eventually decided to go down that path, the most common thing I heard from them was I wish that I had started.

24:43 I wish I'd done it sooner. Yeah, I wish i'd done it earlier. I wish I had known that I didn't have to struggle for so long, like what I had forced myself to struggle and make it harder than it needed to be for such a long time. So, but it can. Medication has different effects on different people, Like some people don't respond to every medication. So I'd love to hear your experience of that of working through Yeah. Those those challenges. So yeah, I mean it took me. So most people were initially prescribed, and SSRI seems that primary as a primary first line treatment. So I started on I think it was solar and yeah, it really just didn't. It didn't respond to particularly well. I had some quite severe side effects, a lot of agitation and death. Yeah, nauseier, and yeah, and it just didn't really seem to be doing much at all, and then in a hospital tape it off that and had some really severe side effects with drawings from it, so really sort of like you know, brain shocks and that I would feel through my whole body, and so tapering from the medication was quite distressing. And then again tried a different type of anti depressant that had a really sedating effect, so it made very drowsy, which meant that I couldn't really get up overnight to attend to the baby, and so that that again wasn't one that I could take long term. Came off that one, and he tried another ssr I which seemed to have

26:15 a much to cleaner so I fired slider face profile and then eventually added a mood stabilizer and an anti small dose of an anti psychotic as well, mainly for sleep at that point. But yeah, getting that mix right definitely took some time and perseverance and tapering ut tapering down. Yeah, it was really challenging and really distressing because it's and then as you would know from your own practice, it's everybody sort of responds differently, as you said earlier, and it's not a simple It's why it's very difficult. It's more of an art.

26:56 Yeah, exactly. And I think it's just so important for people to know that. And as you're talking, I'm remembering that because it's been quite a while since I was, you know, doing private practice in Brisbane, and I remember having a series of women like over time, who were all having a similar response to one particular medication. I can't remember what it was. Maybe it was zole often it made them, gave them insomnia, or it made them sleep too, I don't I think it was insomnia. And it was interesting for me as a psychologist who is not a doctor. I don't prescribe medication, but to hear from multiple different women having the same experience that I could then say to my client, oh, that's actually quite common, go back and get that reviewed, and for them just the relief of knowing it's not just me, it's not just me.

27:42 There are other options as well. There are other options. Yeah, so if one medication doesn't work for you, or you do have side effects that are intolerable, that that's not the end of the road. There are other options and that you can continue to find the right sort of dose and yeah, fatigue to hear that. Yeah, and it felt like I mean if it felt like apart from any therapy work, just being in a position to be able to say to women, oh, you're not alone in this, like this is this happens to like I've had this many other client who've had the same experience. There is just something so reassuring about that. And I think that's one really nice thing about having a therapist who works in this space. I mean you would know this as well.

28:23 Like so important, so important. Yeah, that perinatal expertise. And I always say that to people if you're looking for a clinician, you really you know, if you can someone who's got that training and that specific expertise in the perinatal space, as you would know it's so important. I had many a client come to me and the first question they asked me was do you have children or have you had a baby, because I've been to and I would say, well, yeah, I do. And I had my own struggles because I've been to another psychologist who didn't have children, and they just didn't get it, Like for all of their clinical training and for all of their best intentions, you don't get it unless you've had a baby. And I actually one hundred percent agree with that.

29:07 I do too. I do too. And it's interesting. I mean, in the book, I talk a little bit about being going to a psychiatrist initially who was just completely the wrong fit for me at that time. Again, very good clinician, highly recommended, but I think it was just don't I don't want to sit, you know, like I was. So I was newly postpartum, and it was that similar thing if you might have kids, but you've never been a mother, you've never breasted, you've never given birth, and so that at whatever point at that moment in my life, I did not want it. If I did not want him to be the one to I did not feel like he was the one who was going to be able to help me at that point. And I think that's that's actually not uncommon. We do often seek someone who has been through even if it's not the lived experiences of the perinatal illness, but just the experience of parenting, being a mom and understanding that can be really bought it for a lot of women.

30:01 Yeah, you speak very fondly about your psychiatrist who you eventually came to form a relationship with who you've still see today. I understand. Yes, Yeah, twelve years later, we're still together. I love that. I always joke about that, perhaps she's the second longest relationship of my life after my marriage. I love that is the best. And she was so foundational. It sounds like, you know, to your recovery and through helping you to navigate all of the various things that you tried and that you did and what worked and what didn't work for you in hindsight, what was it that you really needed? Like, what was the difference that kind of made the difference to you?

30:44 What was it about her that kind of really yeah, what was What did she do? I think it's a really it's a good question because we didn't I didn't want to her straight away, you know, she and we laugh about that now that she really had to work to sort of build my trust, and I think she realized that, Yeah, I was reluctant to be in the room, and I was reluctant to do any kind of like a therapeutic work. I just wanted to get better. I just wanted the medication by that point and her sign off so that I could go back to work and get on with my life as after I'd been released from hospital. And I think what she did was she sort of met me halfway. She didn't completely sort of enable me just to hear, your medication, off you go, you'll be fine, But she also didn't sort of say, no, you can't go back to work, No, you need to do this, you need to Yeah, so she sort of met me halfway, and at that point it was Okay, you want to come off medication, let's try that and we'll see how you go. And you want to go back to work, Okay, let's go back to work. You can go back to work a couple of days a week, no clinical work again, We'll just see how you go.

31:54 And we've since laughed about the fact that she knew that in both occasions, that I did need to go back on medication and that going back to work was not writing for me at that time. But I needed to do that myself and I needed to experience that and then to be able to come back to her and go, Okay, you were right, I get it now, and let's get me better and I can put that trust in you that you know what you're doing. But yeah, I think you do need to mean so much. The work that you know you do as well is about building that rapport, building that relationship, building that trust so that women feel that they are able to come in and be completely authentic with you and be their true cell.

32:35 And that takes time and it takes skill. And yeah, I was very lucky that he was able to sort of spit with me and that pain and sit in the uncertainty of not knowing how long it would take to feel better and to get well. And yeah, that I felt she knew exactly what she was doing. And yeah, she was she was very special special. Yeah, I mean, I guess I'm hearing you say that she was really respectful of you and that she empowered you, you know, to feel like you, to give you a sense of agency very much. So yeah, and also just that she held the space for you. And when I read that in your book, I thought, because there are many times during my work and I haven't done that work for you know, for a few years now, but there were many times during my work that I really questioned whether I was having any positive impact because I can't go into your house and get your baby to sleep, like I can't be there when you're at four in the morning. But hearing you say that, just being in that space, feeling held, like feeling that there was somewhere that you could just go and you could just be, I thought, oh, okay, so maybe maybe I did, Maybe I didn't.

33:42 That beautiful. No, definitely, and I think that that beautiful Karen clim and her work around here. What it means to holding women in distress and holding women in that perinde or ceriod and so much about it is that kind of we we spend so much time home holding the baby and so you know, being held in that space and you're adding someone sit with you and then not try and fix everything and rush in because we know that that's like you said, you Frank, You're not there holding the baby at four am. You're not there in the house when everything's all over the place and you've got vomit on you. But it is that that's yeah, that space and literally holding that space for someone once leave for once a fortnight or whatever it is. And yeah, it does. It makes such a difference, it does, It really does. Is it very powerful.

34:32 What really is striking is you know how little support, how little support we offer to women when they become mothers, Like it's just oh, you have a baby, and you come out and you take your maternity leave, and it is just not enough, and that this is the work that you're doing now, right, Like there is so much work that we need to do as a society to better support women during the transition to motherhood. Yeah, definitely, Yeah, it's really there's so much. Like you said, it's almost like we we set women up to fail in many ways, and that's around women being discharged from the hospital very soon and not so not feeling like they are supported to establish breastceeding, not having that continuity of care throughout their pregnancy. And I had a really interesting discussion with a midwife the other day who was saying she feels that if women have that continuity of care, then by the time they can get into that barely postpartum period they've had they've established that relationship with the midwife, So if they're not feeling quite right, that relationship is there and they feel more confident about disclosing. Whereas if you're in a system where you're seeing different people at different appointments and so you don't have that continuity, it can be much more difficult than if you are struggling at the other end to disclose to someone you've not spoken to before or complete strengder. So yeah, and as think also without eternity, leaves often not enough, so your

36:04 partner's going back to work, often after only one or two weeks of leave, and so yeah, you've sort of go at home and you're still recovering, and you're trying to work out to be a mother, and you're on your own. And yeah, so many of us have busy lives and now our parents are often still working or they're not necessarily around to be as hands on as sometimes people expected. And yeah, you can feel really really alone, and it's a really difficult time, very isolating time. Very Ah. I just remember the first day that my husband went back to work. It's like when you walked out and shut the door. It was the door, the door shouts you. Now now I'm on my own? Is this sweet? And and you feel you also feel like that I was such a capable, competent person. Ah, and now I'm just completely incompetent. I don't know what I'm doing. And yeah, it's really tough and for a lot of women who've worked and then professional and have children later. Let's just talk Like last week, I was sitting in a boardroom and today I'm at home and I'm crying because I can't get this little person to sleep. And yeah, so it's real, a real shift at a lot of way struggling.

37:22 It is. It is tough. It is tough around There are certain factors that we know kind of will predispose women to potentially experiencing mood disorders, anxiety, you know, post Natalie and I remember, you know, like if you've had a mental illness in the past, Like if you've been depressed in the past, you're more likely. If you've got no family support, you know, you're more likely. It's really interested in your story. You're talking about the experience of the impact of being a dance, of being a ballet dancer and having issues around perfectionism and body image. I would love for you to talk a little about really. Yeah, you know, it's been really interesting having released the book and how many people have been able to relate to that aspect. I spoke at a literally festival a couple of weeks ago, and when I was talking about that aspect, and I said something about you know, I knew the steps, I knew the choreography of motherhood, and I was able to perform it on command. And then a woman came out and said, said, oh my gosh, you know those words. I knew the steps too, I performed I knew the steps. So I think for me, I wanted to be a ballerina and so trained to quite an elite level through my teenage years. And yeah, I think the dream kind of died because I stopped growing.

38:47 I was too short and five for one, and to be a dancer, you sort of you often think about the very specific sort of body's fight, but also there's very specific sort of hypes and aesthetic as well. And at that's time with the preference was definitely for sort of longer, leaner dances, and that just wasn't me. And so yeah, you know, as you can imagine you, I wasn't the aesthetica dealer. I tried to be that and had all kinds of yeah, terrible body amis and disordered eating to try and sort of bend myself and get myself into the shape that I thought I wanted to thought I should be. And yeah, once I stopped stop dancing.

39:28 I sort of thought that that part of my life was behind me, but it was actually being the experience of being pregnant and my body changing again, of being wait so wait in the obstetricians office, having those numbers recorded each week, watching the numbers go up so for the first time, really because I'd always been small and always when I was unwell, with all the opposite, so watching the numbers go up was very strained and quite stressing. And yeah, does that almost parallel A lot of parallels between what it was like to be a young dancer and to have your body scrutinized and co frauded and commented on, and then being a pregnant woman and again society feels that that's the time where they're able to comment on the size of your bump or where you're carrying your weight or you know, and how you look and suddenly, yeah, it's sort of acceptable to comment again.

40:30 And so I found that those parallels really really similar, and again really struggled with the way that my body was changing and the difference or how I felt in my body. And I think the other interesting aspect of being a dancer, and that is, you know, we know that perinatal mental health or illness is linked to perfectionism, and so if you're a perfectionist, then again that's a risk factor for paranortal mental illness. And perfectionism and ballets sort of tend to go hand in hand. Ballet is all about perfection and seeking perfection and knowing that you'll never be perfect, but always striving to that, and knowing that you'll always fall short, but every day coming back and continuing to strive for that. And yeah, so yeah, for so many of us, you sort of have grown up or grew up training in that way. Being a perfectionist and motherhood does not go hand in hand. It's obviously, so why you just can't. It just doesn't. It just doesn't happen. And yeah, a lot of women really struggle with that if there've been perfectionists and having to really lower it.

41:36 I know that, yeah exactly. And what you said before about I was confident and capable and I was in control and suddenly you can't hold onto any of that anymore. The other thing I thought you said that was so interesting about being a dancer was this practice stability to paste on a smile regardless of what was going on the inside. Performing, ability to perform, ability to perform, And everybody has said and still since, but you hit it so well, you know you you hit it so well. We didn't know what was going on, And well, like I knew that I knew the steps, I knew how to perform. I knew when I was in hospital. Again, when we did the filming, they filmed an interaction with me and baby, And as you know from your own practice, obviously that's often used as to a way to sort of help women understand that growing attachment and the kinds of things that you can do to develop that. And yeah, I knew, I knew, I knew the steps. The steps I didn't. Yeah, but that didn't mean that on the inside, or when I came off stage or when the camera stopped filming, that I was crumbling. It's just that, Yeah, like with dance and the performance, with the curtain closes and you don't see the dancers limping off stage and the blisters and the sweat and the torn calf muscles. You just see the beauty and the performance. Everything else is hidden.

42:57 So yeah, it was interesting, a little bit boring those different breads and seeing I think, how Yeah, it was like, yep, Okay, that's another reason why when I looked back over the story and those different aspects of my life and history, it made a lot of sense. Does it make sense? That makes sense? Yeah. And on the flip side of that, though, it was dancing was one of the things that ultimately kind of really saved you, brought you back to yourself. What it did, and going back to ballet and going back to dance was such a huge turning point, I think in my recovery. But I think what changed was the perfection. And I think one aspect, for one concept that I really learned to appreciate was that idea of being good enough and good enough mother and going back to dance and going back to as an adult and as an adult teacher and teaching other adults. But there's so much joy in imperfection and in role around, in not being in not being perfect, and just the joy of movement and yeah, not necessarily striving for perfection, just striving for that joy and the joy of movement and moving to music and e's freshen And yeah, not not needing to be perfect was something there was a really I know it sounds really silly, but it was such a kind of it was a real standing point for me.

44:24 It actually doesn't sound silly at all. And what you just touched on that about Donald Winnicott and his theory of the good enough mother, it's so simple, but it's so profound and life changing for many women. I've quote him all the time as. Well, all the time. It's a real because it's such an easy not all of his concepts are easy to understand. That that's one of it is just so so beautiful and the fact that with motherhood and with parenthoods we teach out we can't be perfect because the world isn't perfect, and so by not being perfect, we're helping our kids understand that, yeah, the world out there is not perfect as well, and so it's actually it's good not to be perfect. We're not supposed to be perfect because the world's not perfect. And it's lovely when people can sort of understand that that there's beauty and in imperfection and being human and responding in a human way and not perfect and that's okay.

45:15 Yeah, yeah, yeah. In the book, you quote a really startling statistic that suicide is the third leading cause of death for women in the perinatal period. Yeah, in Australia. In Australia, I actually think in the UK, in the US and the UK it actually maybe the leading cause of death. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. And while that is shocking, what I found even more shocking was that they only count the post natal period as being up to is it six weeks postpartum It's it's not. Even yeah yeah, yeah, which is six weeks yeah yeah.

45:57 Yeah, it's not a year, it's not two year. Is that actually really fascinated me. Yeah, it is probably drastically underrepresented. Right, Yeah, and we know that from the research. So Hannah Dalen did some research around that, and I actually looked at those sort of later maternal deaths and did find that there was that peak period, I think, that sort of six to nine month period where yeah, the services start to taper off and women are returning to work and there are a lot of other stressors and yeah, a lot of those sort of early things that are in place, maternal shod house, senior GP, mother's groups that all starts to drop off, and that is definitely a risk, a risk point that we're not capturing. Yeah, that really really fascinated me. In the research that that's not counted beyond that.

46:52 Yeah, I know, it's astonishing, and I just feel like that's a really difficult topic, but it's so important for people to have an understanding of that because I think we just sometimes will gloss over, even we talk about the stats around post antal depression, kind of gloss over it like it's I don't know, I just feel like it just doesn't get enough attention and we don't realize necessarily the significance of it. And I have also read I think this was back when I was in practice, actually that the peak period for diagnosis of postnatal depression is four years, Like there's a stat that it's four years after being. There was actually a study, there was a study, Australian study on that, and yeah, that four years is the highest. Yeah, it was really interesting, really really interesting. I do remember that and that, yeah, was Stonian research. So and I think that if it's not addressed, if it's not picked up, then those symptoms can just continue and drag on and women suffer for years and.

47:55 Roll into the second pregnancy and you know, et cetera. Yeah, So I again I just feel like this is like this useful information for people to have we just have this idea of this like oh you have the baby blues, or for some women at drags on a little longer. But but you know, then you come out the other side of it, like it's only the first couple of months, this is all the stuff that I heard, and it's not. It is not and it is worth seeking help at any point. In fact, you went back into hospital when your baby was almost. Two, right, Yeah, and at that point, because so they only take other baby admissions up to twelve months. So again that's pastline period at twelve months, that's it. So yeah, at that point I was admitted by myself, and that was sort of a I guess it was probably more yeah, perhaps of relapse or i'd never actually coroplic fully recovered, but basically I needed to have my medication reassessed. Again, I needed rest, I needed to sleep. I just wasn't sleeping.

49:03 And yeah, it was just again that that sort of right, we need to look at the medication here in a situation where we can do that where you're on de sleepervision and yeah, not not in the community and having to manage that while mothering. And yeah, so that that was a shorter day and a very different experience because it was a general psychiatric ward and definitely not as friendly and lovely as there as some other baby you know. And you talk also about some of the shame that you felt around that, like your perception that people would be thinking, oh. Yeah, so if I also kid, like, if she's still see, why shouldn't she? I thought it was postpartum, just like why is she still? Yeah? And that was all my own stuff. I mean, I don't know, I can't read people's minds, and I might think people were more empathetic than that, but definitely that was my fear that people would just think, these what do you mean you're still it's still you're still sick.

50:00 Yeah. I think it's important to be honest about that because you're what you're thinking is what other people. So what other people are out there are thinking, you know, they're all having those same thoughts. And so that's why I think it's your book is so important because it's normalizing so much of this that it's a universal A lot of. Not a linear no, not a linear recovery is not linear. There some people recovery will be too three four stays in hospital or it might be different medications, and it might be not going back to work for a while, or working part time or working in a different capacity. It's just hey, or sometimes it's like my friend and who I met in hospital. For her, it was I mean, it wasn't completely straightforward, but it was when in hospital, had the right meds, was discharged home meds worked, went back to work, you know, and it was sort of slowly was able to get on with her life. And not that it was an easy jammy, but just that it was comparatively it was sort of more straightforward and more what you would see, what you would typically hope for.

51:02 But that's not the case for for a lot of us. And it can be really frustrating and demoralizing when you feel like you're just not getting better. Oh yeah, I mean it can be really frustrating and demoralizing just to not just just to be depressed. After you've had a baby, I remember thinking, well, why did I get the dud baby who doesn't sleep? Like everybody with me? What's wrong with my baby? Absolutely not an oncommon There is a lot of a lot of white why me, why me? Why not me? Why not me? So there's I mean there's so much more that you talk about in your book, and I'm going to encourage everybody to go and get it. It is really beautifully written and researched as well, So it is your experience beautifully told, and also so much important information and stats and resources in there as well. But you know, you also talk about the decision of whether or not to have another baby, which is a really really challenge difficult thing. Right, you were really honest about that and you ultimately decided not to.

52:06 Yeah. Yeah, for me, it's I did have that sort of peak again at that four years. I remember getting to Henry was four and I was thinking about it, started to be mindful of that age gap, and yeah, having that sort of relapse and it was a depressive episode, not not psychotic, but it was enough for me to sort of think, I'm just not sure that I'm feel stable or feel ready or able to do it again. And yeah, you know, there was there was certainly greece around that, and for a lot of women, it's a really difficult decision to make. But yeah, that was the right decision for me. And yeah, but no, I know.

52:49 I did, I was. I didn't have one either. I stopped at one. I stopped at one. Yeah, yeah, okay, that are so so many similarities, so many. So many similarities and the same things, the same thing. Got to the point thought yeah, no, I will, I'll have another one. And then it was just I don't know, do I risk it and do I? And that's for me, it's a risk, it's a big risk, and you have to weigh out the risk and the benefits. And for me, I just thought that doing it woulout completely outstirit my capacity and resourcing and for me, so in a way, it was quite a kind as clinical decision as this would just not It just doesn't the math does a mass like it's not gonna almost a bit script of emotion in a way.

53:30 Yeah, but it's still painful. And also there's the guilt and all of the pressure, and you should be giving them a sibling. And also I've missed out on like a good I really wanted to have like a positive mothering experience, and I thought I would just like to have another one for many reasons, but for that as well. Now I'm going to get emotional maps. It's a really really big decision and it's really difficult and something that a lot of women have also reached out after reading a book and just you know, I did also does have one, and it's really difficult and not everybody understands, and you know, it's nice to feel validated that I've made the right choice.

54:11 Whether post thatal depression or not. Right, maybe you just want to have one baby, but there's so much the social pressure. Yes, and having cheer things to have one is so much more common these days. Yeahs for lots and lots of reasons. So yeah, there's less stigma or attached to what I think, which is nice, Arion. And then you also talk about, you know, the wider impact, like the impact which we won't go into now because we're out of time, but you know, for people listening, you know, the impact on your partner, like because it's not you're not the only one who you obviously are the one who experiences this, but it does have ripple effects to the people in your and your family and your wider circle, and it's important to acknowledge that as well and for people. To come to absolutely that's definitely something that I hope is a real key takeaway from the book that the partners and family, the care is who are having to step up into that role. They need to really be in Mike, and we need to be mindful that they're often struggling too, and their needs are kind of pushed aside because they're in this tearing role and to their partner and their baby while also managing work and financial pressures and all kinds of things. So yeah, watch out of the partner's partners as well. They really need to be held to in their own way.

55:27 Yeah, Arian, thank you so much for not only like dredging up all of your past and painful experiences to share with us for such a positive benefit for readers. I really appreciate that, and for taking the time to do these interviews as well. And it's my pleasure. It's my pleasure, and it's such a there's such a joy in having a conversation with someone who relates to so much of it. And I can tell that, you know, you really resonated and really engaged so deeply with the book and the experience, so that it's such a pleasure, such an absolute pleasure to be here to talk to you. Well, I'm glad, thank you so much. Good luck, good luck with it all, and I will put all of the links in the show notes to you know, where to connect with you and to amazing things that you're doing.

56:15 Yeah, all the coat resources, all the bits and pieces that we're working on. Be great fans and people to have access to those as well of course, Yeah,