Intrusive Thoughts in Motherhood

Speaker 1 0:10

Hey guys , welcome back to Preview Alliance podcast .

Speaker 2 0:13

This is Sarah , and we have your favorite reproductive psychiatry doctor , dr Claire Smith , who we love , and she is here today . We have so much more to talk about , but today we're talking about intrusive thoughts , or how we're going to talk about scary thoughts that 99% of moms will have at some point , and we just want to normalize it , claire . Thank you Welcome . Thank you , good morning . Good morning . Okay , let's just dive into it , because I think this is the type of conversation we're not going to skirt around it , because moms need to know what they are going to experience is common .

Speaker 2 0:55

They're not a monster right that this is something that needs to be spoken about , but it's one of those topics that people get weird . Let's just be honest . They get uncomfortable .

Speaker 3 1:04

Yeah , they do . It's helpful to start to make a few different definitions . Maybe Intrusive thoughts , like you said , are really really , really common and so really it's not even 99.9 . It's 100 . Yeah , so half of moms and probably parents in general , but we're specifically talking about moms here will have intrusive , upsetting thoughts about harm coming to their baby accidentally . Now half of moms will have intrusive , upsetting thoughts about harm coming to their baby intentionally by themselves . That's a very , very high number that .

Speaker 3 1:51

I think a lot of people don't truly realize both you know , quote regular people , but also doctors too it's not something that's discussed the whole lot , even though we are discussing these post-harmonic issues more and more , which is great this is one of the things that's lagging , and so intrusive thoughts are very common , and then we can talk about this more if you'd like . But there's something called postpartum OCD which involves these intrusive thoughts . That is also at a higher prevalence in the postpartum period as compared to the general population . That is not 50% . Intrusive thoughts do not necessarily mean postpartum OCD or some other specific disorder , but postpartum OCD is one thing that can present in that way and be quite severe in the nature of those thoughts . So I can speak to that as well .

Speaker 2 2:43

Yeah , okay , so I'm going to talk about the postpartum . The first way I was ever explained to intrusive thought is I was carrying my baby right Walking down the stairs and I see us falling right and I clay it out of my head right , I see us tripping , falling , baby getting hurt . And or you know , if you've ever went to like the Grand Canyon , right , and you're on the edge and you're like what's my jump over ? Or what's if I fell over ? And you're just like why would I ever think that ? And then you realize , or if you're driving right over a bridge , you're just like what's if the car went over ? Or what's if I drove the car over ? Right , and from how I was explained please correct me is that it is almost like a protection mechanism , like we don't want to do that right , like we don't want that to happen , but like we almost remind go there as a way for it , not to happen essentially .

Speaker 2 3:42

Tell me where I'm wrong or right there .

Speaker 3 3:44

No , I mean brains are very complicated and complex . People are very complicated and complex . I talk about this a lot with our medical students who are rotating through psychiatry , because when we are evaluating somebody kind of stepping out from the perinatal period , but just generally speaking , and we talk about you know this clinical where their mental status exam , or you know how are they presenting to you , how does their thought process , how do they look , you know what does their affect look like , and so on and so forth , and we talk about thought content . And so what you're talking about is different types of thought content and you're exactly right . You step on the grand can and you think just walk over the edge .

Speaker 2 4:26

Yeah .

Speaker 3 4:27

Why ? Why did I think that I am not suicidal ? That doesn't mean that I am suicidal , but that is certainly would be a suicidal act . And so it can be a funny line between the things our brains think about because we're complicated beings and the difference between that and the things that we can't help but think about , that consume our thoughts . That is when things become more concerning . So if you are consumed with the thoughts of blank , that's more of a discussion piece and more of a . Let's try to figure this out and what's , what's the broader context of how you're feeling and what else is going on . But yeah , we're just complicated beings . I don't think there's an explanation for every single thing , every single thought process we have .

Speaker 2 5:11

Yeah , and you know , something I've had to come to terms with . It is a thought as a thought , right , it doesn't define me , it's not a character for all , right . And I think , in motherhood , what makes this so hard with intrusive thoughts is , I think we all are grown up to believe and engraved to us , whatever you want to say that , like our innate intuition is to care for this baby , protect this baby . So when we have a thought of the opposite happening and are that 50% us doing that , then we feel like monsters .

Speaker 3 5:43

Yeah , it can be really scary to experience those thoughts . I certainly have patients who are very afraid to voice it , or I'll ask them , because it's a question I ask pretty much everybody about , and they'll say , well , they might be currently pregnant and they were having those thoughts after the birth of their first and they suffered alone in silence and were told anybody , because they were terrified that somebody is going to misunderstand and call child protective services and have their children taken away , or that they're going to think that they are psychotic , like the women they see in the news sometimes and some horrible thing is going to happen . Or they're just so afraid of having the thoughts in general that they think , you're right , that they have turned into some sort of a monster and some sort of a violent person overnight . But yeah , they can be really really scary .

Speaker 2 6:36

So let's talk through some different scenarios , and one of the research articles I was reading for this podcast is called Blenders , knives and Hammers and as hard as that is to talk about that in the terms of being a mother , it was talking about that 50% of thoughts of where the mom sees herself doing something to the baby . It's like maybe the baby is crying , crying and she has that visual of shaking the baby right , or she has the visual of throwing the baby , or she's had a visual of something sexually happening with the child and those thoughts are not discussed . That's not in your normal prenatal visits , right ? It's like you could experience one of these thoughts and then when that does happen to you and I have had one of those thoughts before and I did not share with anybody that thought and once I had that thought I was like is it going to happen again ? Is this going to be more ?

Speaker 3 7:39

like is almost as much as I try to suppress that Like it kept feeling , like it was coming my way Right right , don't think about the pink elephant thing , yeah , and all you think about is the pink elephant , right , right , yeah , so , and I guess I'll preface this by saying that I know for you know , we were just talking that there's a you want to be conscientious of not scaring people but also not sugarcoating it , because that's part of the problem is that people do sugarcoat it , and as a psychiatrist , in general I'm used to talking about pretty sensitive subjects and as a perinatal psychiatrist , I'm used to asking about these things and talking about this pretty regularly . So , just as sort of a I don't know if trigger warning is the right word , but I will speak pretty bluntly and plainly about it , and if anybody thinks that might be distressing for them to hear , then you can maybe skip over , but , like I said , super bluntly

Understanding Postpartum OCD and Intrusive Thoughts

Speaker 3 8:34

. So these are all examples that women have said to me . They have intrusive images of stabbing their baby with a pair of scissors , smothering them with a pillow , throwing them out the window , throwing them down the stairs .

Speaker 3 8:48

As you already mentioned , sexually explicit thoughts towards their baby were almost like on the loop , the referral to their baby in their minds , using like derogatory or obscene language that they can like . It won't stop . And it's very , very distressing , of course . And it can get to the point that a mom feels like she is a danger like we already talked about a danger to her baby , to where she feels like she can't be alone with the baby or it's not safe for her to change the diaper alone , because what if she just all of a sudden acts on one of these explicit thoughts , even though she has no desire or intent whatsoever to ? And that's where it can start to really impact somebody's life , when they feel like they aren't safe , not because they have , like I said , any plan or intent or desire to do so , because they can't trust their own thought process .

Speaker 2 9:46

Yeah , and then if you add in that mom , if we think you know she's made this hormonal drops period , right the greatest hormonal drop any human's going experience is during postpartum .

Speaker 2 9:57

She's not sleeping right , her body has just gave birth , right she is all these exterior factors that if we just had that thought and we were mentally physically sound , perfect , great , living our best lives , that'd be really distressing . But when you're honestly everything's set up to make it harder for you and you have this thought , it's really hard to kind of point out how do I change this right or how does this stop , because you're like I don't know if I need sleep , I don't know if I need water , I don't know if I'm a monster , like you know . It's just so complicated for moms .

Speaker 3 10:33

It is . I can speak a little bit about postpartum OCD .

Speaker 2 10:36

If now is a good time , yeah , I think people get confused with intrusive thoughts , postpartum OCD and postpartum psychoses . I think they all are even providers I think don't have . It's not to their fault , it's just not a conversation that they are a part of a lot .

Speaker 3 10:52

Right , because it's not discussed openly so much . And then especially something like postpartum psychosis . I already mentioned this , but when you've got those really significant cases that make the news , in reality it's pretty rare about one in a thousand deliveries . But anyway it says . To rewind a little bit , ocd itself , I think , is not the best understood illness . Certainly , applied to the postpartum period , it's going to be even more misunderstood . But OCD is not I like things to be clean or I like things a certain way . That can't be part of OCD . But that's called being type A , that's called being a little rigid , maybe .

Speaker 3 11:40

Ocd is typically a pretty debilitating illness or can be pretty debilitating . You need to have the O's , which is obsessions , and the C's , which are compulsions . The common themes that everybody typically is aware of are things like symmetry , cleanliness , contamination and so on that can apply to the postpartum period . An example would be this obsession over baby getting sick , and so the compulsion is taking their temperature 30 times a day . That I've seen that before . That is something that most people could be able to label as well . That sounds like this thing OCD I've heard about . Now postpartum OCD is related to what we're talking about is more so with the intrusive thoughts . It's not as well understood , I think , by most people that OCD can include really intrusive thoughts even outside of the perineatal period , about death , about people dying , about yourself dying , and that's your obsession and your compulsion is in response to that . In postpartum this is typically hyper-focused on the baby . The postpartum OCD would be this sort of moderate to severe level of these intrusive thoughts that we're talking about , with the subsequent compulsions going along with it . Sometimes it's quote just intrusive thoughts , but sometimes it's an actual disorder known as postpartum OCD , which is around 6 or 7 percent in the postpartum period , which is not a small prevalence . When you think about things that are 7 percent likelihood , I know that seems small , but it's not Particularly compared to around 2 percent 2 to 3 percent in the general population . So the risk goes up much higher in the postpartum period .

Speaker 3 13:28

And the key part when you are thinking about or assessing for a postpartum OCD is and we've already mentioned this a little bit but the fact that it is highly distressing . So that's what's called ego-destonic is a term that maybe some of the listeners have heard before but maybe some have not . So ego-destonic means that the thought that you are having is at direct odds with how you actually feel . You know it's repulsive , it's repugnant , it's not something you want to do , it's not something you're interested in doing . That is ego-destonic where ego-syntonic would be , where postpartum psychosis would lie .

Speaker 3 14:08

So that would be thoughts that do make sense with your core thought process about whatever is going on because that person is whether they're paranoid , they're delusional or hearing voices or whatever it is , even though on paper , having thoughts of hurting their child you know that creates a lot of alarm bells and gets people really freaked out but truly just a couple of fault questions of how do you feel about having those thoughts . You know how are the thoughts coming to you If somebody says they are scaring the crap out of me . They are so upsetting , I feel so guilty . I don't know what's going on with me . I feel like I'm going crazy . That's totally different than well I'm hearing God tell me this is what I need to do to save their souls . Like no , that is psychotic thought process and thought content . That is nothing to do with intrusive thoughts and postpartum OCD .

Speaker 2 15:03

If that makes sense . That makes a lot of sense because when I had those intrusive thoughts , I never wanted that to happen , right , and I was sick over , honestly , and I felt that shame and like this is not me and I could recognize that versus , like we're saying , in the psychotic mom or the postpartum psychosis mom who she is being , it's almost like I feel like it's an alternate universe for her , right , like she is being , she is , it makes sense because she's being told , she's being commanded , it is the right thing to do , she's convinced

Intrusive Thoughts and Mom's Shame

Speaker 2 15:37

of that . And it is completely opposite from that mom who's living honestly in shame right now , thinking , oh my gosh , I had this thought and the shame and she fills means she doesn't want to do it right , it's not like , okay , I'm going to you know , I'm on a mission , I'm going to accomplish this because it's being told to me is isolated , shameful feeling , distressing , like you said , and I think women don't talk about this because you mentioned it earlier You're afraid they're going to take your child away , right , because no one's talking about it and research also tells us that we're not going to act on that if we don't . You know these . We're not talking about psychoses or psychotic breaks . We're talking about the intrusive thoughts and we're not going to act on that . Because you think that that's not like I'm going to go do this . And no one said that to them , you know , like no one said . Because you think this and then you're this is upsetting to you , like you don't want to do this , you're not going to do it , right , right ?

Speaker 2 16:38

I mean , it's just this horrific feeling that you're this new mom , right , and like you have this thought and you're just like , oh my God , you know it shakes you to your core and it's not like you're going to say , I mean you could have friendships that are great . Like , honestly , if I was pregnant , I would have called Claire and been like Claire , let's talk for a minute , you know , but not everybody has that . So they feel in your OB's offices is not the place that they say how are you feeling , sarah , from me to go . Well , you know what ? When he was screaming at 3am for the past 10 hours , a thought came through my head . Right , you know , you're not going to say that .

Speaker 1 17:18

Right .

Speaker 3 17:19

And I wish it was easy to say you can just communicate this and people will understand , and just be open and honest and it's okay . I think that's a little bit naive . I mean , obviously I don't practice in Alabama so I can't speak to any experiences there , but I have never , ever seen anybody call we have DSS here is what it's called DSS on anybody who was reporting anything like that . So that kind of outcome is highly unlikely . However , it would be unfair to say that a misunderstanding of what you say is impossible . Yeah , that still can happen and does happen .

Speaker 2 18:01

And then I think too , it's just you don't want someone to think you're a bad mom . Yeah , of course , and you know , I think that is our underlying we all want to be a good mom . So , having this conversation now , let's say I'm pregnant and I said , claire , run it down to me . What would you tell me about when I may experience these intrusive thoughts ? Let's just say I haven't in pregnancy yet , which we do know you can experience them in pregnancy .

Speaker 2 18:28

Let's say I haven't yet and I'm fixing to give birth what would be my little kept talk of . Like you would want to kind of forewarn me and give me some guidance of when I need to reach out and who would I reach out .

Speaker 3 18:42

So good question , and it's probably different for different people . I mean , I would just explain super bluntly what can happen , that it is not unusual , but there are varying degrees of it . It's not always as scary as the examples I've given , of course , but it can be , and that doesn't mean these things we've already talked about . You didn't become a pedophile overnight . You didn't become a dangerous person overnight . You are still who you are . So I would normalize it and do some normalization and advance .

Postpartum Mental Health Support Resources

Speaker 3 19:12

And then , in terms of how to talk about it , I would say , whether it's a OB , whether it's your pediatrician , whether it's whoever it is that you feel like you do have a good relationship with in terms of they know you and understand you and you would feel comfortable sharing . That's probably the first person I would go to to talk about it and .

Speaker 3 19:37

I'll honestly say something . Like you know , I've heard about this and I know that it's not uncommon and I have no concerns that I want to actually hurt my child in any way .

Speaker 3 19:46

I know that , but it's so . It's so hard to still be experiencing it and I wanted to tell somebody in and hear if they have any recommendations or a therapist I can see or whatever , because that's really what it is . I mean , it's this , it's anxiety , and I think that's part of OCD . Maybe it's something that could benefit definitely from therapy and then maybe plus minus medication , depending on what you think it is . So it's sharing it and getting it off your chest is really , really helpful . I found that experience pretty across the board just somebody getting it out of their head , you know , and into space , and somebody reacting in a way . They're like , oh , I'm calling the police right now and I hear somebody . Okay , I , you know , I , yes , I've seen this before . Nothing to be super duper scared about . You're going to be fine . Let's talk about what might be helpful for you for this moving forward , and that conversation can be really , really helpful for people . So whoever that is in your life , that's who I would go to first .

Speaker 2 20:50

Then let's just play a little scenario for our preview alliance providers who's listening ? We have a lot of people who they are social workers , obes that listen to us as well . Let's say a mom opened up and said they're coming in for six weeks follow-up appointment . Claire , I'm feeling this way . It's really upsetting to me , but they're very uncomfortable with this topic . They're in their head still thinking okay , well , what's if it is psychoses ? What are some baseline ? We're not going to get into the full extent of an evaluation on the podcast , but what's some baseline questions that someone could ask to help you . Like we explained earlier , versus they want to do it , versus they don't .

Speaker 3 21:34

Right your most basic risk assessment , I would A . I would always start from a place of normalization , always of okay . Thank you for letting me know as scary as this feels for you . This actually is not uncommon . Let's talk it out a little bit more so if I have some more information we can figure out the best next steps .

Speaker 3 21:57

Tell me more about the thoughts . How often are you having them and what are really the details of the thoughts ? Just get a little bit more information . How do you feel about having those thoughts ? Are they upsetting to you ? Getting a better idea of the level of distress , and is it dystonic ?

Speaker 3 22:14

I know this doesn't always come a second nature to non-psychiatrist , but if you're talking to someone and you're having a regular back and forth conversation , that person is not psychotic . You'd also certainly want to screen for other symptoms mom might be having In addition to the intrusive thoughts , which can happen on their own . But otherwise , how is her mood ? Is she struggling with depression at all ? If mom is feeling herself suicidal or having even like this , passive suicidal ideation , that would increase risk . Still not to the extent that they need to be emergently hospitalized .

Speaker 3 22:53

Right , that second necessarily , but that would be an indication of . Okay , the risk is slightly heightened here , just in general . So normalization how are they feeling about the thoughts ? More description of the thoughts , once you've established that this is a safe space , so you can get the full extent of like how often it's happening and what scenarios is it happening and what is the content of the thoughts . Then mom's own mood level , her own anxiety level and the presence of if she's having suicidal thoughts or not . Those would probably be the basic steps to start with .

Speaker 2 23:28

I'm glad we walked through that because our moms , who are listeners , my hope and , honestly , my prayer for them is that they will have a provider who does what you just did . So if they have an experience , that is not that where you are vulnerable and you are shut down or you're ignored or you're shamed . That is not the care that you're needing to receive , because sometimes we don't know what the care is that we're supposed to be receiving if we've never heard it or seen it or experienced it .

Speaker 2 23:58

So , thank you for talking through that , because that is something I want moms listening . If you're not able to have this type of conversation with your provider and have that response from them when you share a concern of your mental health or your physical health , that is your sign to find a new provider .

Speaker 3 24:14

Right . Just to be clear , just because things aren't rare doesn't mean it's like , okay , you're having these thoughts , we don't think you're gonna do anything , but goodbye , see you next year for your annual . It still is something that's important that you want to address . That means that someone isn't doing the best that they could be , and how can we help them and support them more through this ? So again , normalization , but also like with a plan . So how are we gonna address this to make sure she doesn't get worse or decompensate further or something doesn't become a true safety concern or risk issue ?

Speaker 2 24:51

And so if she was in there and obviously we with Previous Alliance we believe in therapy , we believe in next level of care , which is you , but unfortunately in our state we do not have reproductive psychiatrists but we have psychiatrists that we're working with . But essentially she wants to get better and she wants a plan . So we know therapy would be a great option . If she's concerned about medication , how that's gonna come into play , what kind of ways could she self advocate to create a plan If the OB say doesn't know we're really where to go with this ? Because , to be honest , a lot of people don't know where to go with this , right yeah yeah , that's a difficult question .

Speaker 3 25:35

I think that I would advocate for myself to what are the resources for therapy ? Do you have anybody that you can refer me to ? Or , even if they don't have any names , just how even to do like general referrals for their non-pregnant patients ? I mean , obs are kind of the frontline and the primary care for a lot of women , unfortunately , even though that's not truly their job , and so I would think that therapy and mental health care would come up otherwise in guiding visits or their annual visits and things like that as well . So do they have anybody in the clinic , like a social worker , who might have more knowledge of that in the area or in the state ? For telehealth services , they can often be a great resource and I know that this is not gonna be new information to your listeners , but still , postpartum support international PSI , is a great resource that you can utilize on your own and you don't need the help of a provider , and they have a hotline that's non-emergent , you can call in and you can talk to someone .

Speaker 2 26:36

And they also have a provider directory , which is great , that you can put in your SIP code and you can find maternal mental health , trained therapist or psychiatrist , reproductive psychiatrist , like can kind of

Postpartum Sleep and Mental Health

Speaker 2 26:48

do that . But I think what I would want the listener to know is like you don't have to live that way . Like you know , if it's just dressing , it's impacting your daily life , it's making you feel depressed , it's giving you more anxiety . You don't have to just bear and grin it . You deserve to enjoy motherhood , enjoy postpartum , to be yourself . And it is that first step of having that really vulnerable conversation and saying this is a really scary , distressing thought . I had right , but normalizing , like we're doing , is just so important . And I want to touch on , before we close sleep . How do you feel like sleep with these intrusive thoughts ? And OCD come into play , because we know moms lose a great bit of sleep in the first year of life with a child .

Speaker 3 27:34

Oh sleep . Everything comes back to sleep , it's .

Speaker 2 27:37

Yeah .

Speaker 3 27:38

And it is something that is such a problem , but I think providers frequently feel so helpless when it comes to sleep that the default is like I don't even really want to ask about it because I don't want to tell them to do about it , and I understand the frustration from providers and from patients . You know , screening for sleep with someone who has a newborn feels sort of silly , or you know the quality of sleep . However , there's always a conversation that can be had around sleep , whether it's around medications or not . Sleep is an independent risk factor for depression . It's an independent risk factor for the severity of psychiatric illnesses , independent risk factor for all of that .

Speaker 3 28:23

So you're exactly correct , it plays a huge role in a lot of this , and whether it's about what's the schedule of sleep overnight , is it up and down ? Up and down versus shifts , versus I think we already talked about this sort of this piece of advice that women hate sleep while the baby is sleeping . You know all of that . However , when the baby is asleep , say at night , when you would be expected to be sleeping , and you can't , why is that ? What is it that's keeping you from sleeping ? You know those kinds of more pointed questions to get you at the details of the sleep problems , beyond just them obviously getting up in the middle of the night . Why are you asking me about sleep ? Of course it's terrible . That might be it , but there might also be other layers to the sleep issues that can be addressed .

Speaker 2 29:17

And mine was because I kept fearing , especially if Will , that he would die in a sleep . Honestly , I thought if I closed my eyes that he would not make it , and I got the outlet and that did help .

Speaker 3 29:30

But it wasn't until I was in therapy that it really got better .

Speaker 2 29:33

But I just thought I mean , people are like go and just lay him down and go to sleep .

Speaker 3 29:37

But I'm just like , but I feel like he's gonna die if I go to sleep .

Speaker 2 29:41

I remember I said this to someone . They're like well , you're a new mom , like that's just a fear , and I'm like I know , because I see other people sleeping and I can't sleep you know , yeah , right , right , you mean well , but that's wrong and it doesn't help me , and then I got worse , you know . So I just think , mom , so we don't ask those questions that you just said , like why aren't you sleeping ? Is it the thoughts ? Is it ? Do you feel like you have to be doing something ?

Speaker 3 30:07

Is it Right ? Is it racing thoughts ? Is it ? My mind won't shut off , is it ? Well , if the baby's asleep , I gotta be doing laundry . I gotta be washing this , I gotta be doing that . Is it that you know ? I don't know that there's so many different reasons under the sun . And I'm not saying there's a solution to every single problem , but you need to find out that information to even have somewhere to start .

Speaker 2 30:28

Yeah , and then I'm a big fan . We didn't learn this till our second trial . But shifts , sleep moves , shifts . You mentioned that Insane . And we like to tell our premium mom ideally a four hour stretch is like the minimum you should get at night and some things that me and Bill worked out again second time around . You know this is things we learned from me . Having severe post-bar and abduction was we put the baby down at seven . I would go to bed till like 11 or 12 , whatever stretch I could . When I was breastfeeding I had a red pump and he had that bottle when they were on formula . He could make that bottle , you know . But I got that uninterrupted sleep , like if he had to take the baby walk around then both cry .

Speaker 3 31:11

That's what needed to happen you know , yeah , yeah , and that's something that I talked to .

Speaker 3 31:16

A lot of people think that , or maybe not think that , but just assume , or it seems like the natural thing to do , seems like we take terms I get up , then you get up , I get up , then you get up and there isn't a one size fits all . But generally speaking , if I'm just starting somewhere to gauge possible things that might help , I generally always recommend , if possible for you , you know , in your home situation , to do shifts , as you're talking about , because uninterrupted sleep is I'll just use the vague word better , just to not go into , to avoid too much detail overload is better than actually more hours of interrupted sleep . So if you are up and down , up and down , up and down and technically sleep I don't know six hours over the course of a night , it's actually better to sleep for one chunk of four and a half or five , because when you're up and down , up and down , your sleep cycle is severely disturbed and you're not getting any kind of quality restlessly . That actually helps your brain recover .

Speaker 2 32:22

And then one final thing . I experienced this , and I call it bedread , but it's like almost when the start of setting .

Speaker 1 32:28

Start to get dormant yeah .

Speaker 2 32:31

And you're in newborn days , or maybe your kids are in their regression and you feel pressed or anxiety about the night because you know you're not gonna get sleep .

Speaker 3 32:40

I know , yeah , very common , super , super common .

Speaker 2 32:44

I felt that with both and honestly , it's like when the sun would rise I'd be like we made it , but then I would have doom and gloom and despair . Honestly , I was like I did not want the night to come and I didn't know there was a name , that other women experienced it until I started in the synopthy .

Speaker 1 33:04

Oh , my gosh .

Speaker 2 33:05

I wish someone would have told me that too .

Speaker 3 33:07

I know , I know someone needs to create a book . Just find all the other books out there . Maybe not , maybe not , because books stress people out , never mind . Yeah , I'm sort of . Here is the way it really is , God , and I know that there's some out there that are more along those lines that people have found to be super helpful .

Speaker 2 33:25

Well , the more we talk , especially with you , and just normalize and what we're saying , we're not seeing Claire have alarm bells go off . We're not seeing her jump out of her chair going . I'm upset about this . It's not normal . This is just a very normal conversation . She sees this every single day . And women get better . I think that's something we haven't touched on . They don't always have these thoughts . They don't always feel this way . Our goal is to get them better .

Speaker 3 33:51

Yes , yeah , exactly , I think that's a great place to end .

Speaker 2 33:55

That's perfect , Okay , guys . Thank you so much . If you guys have more questions for Claire , send it to us DMS on Instagram , send us an email and we'll answer them , but we hope you guys have a wonderful day . Thank you , Claire .

Speaker 3 34:08

Thank you , you're welcome .

Maternal Mental Health

Speaker 1 34:12

Maternal mental health is as important as physical health . The previous Alliance podcast was created for and by moms dealing with postpartum depression and all its variables , like anxiety , anger and even apathy . Hosted by CEO founder Sarah Parkhurst and licensed clinical social worker Whitney Gay , each episode focuses on specific issues relevant to pregnancy and postpartum . Join us and hear how other moms have overcome mental health challenges , as well as access tips and suggestions on dealing with your own challenges as moms . You can also browse our podcast library and listen to previous episodes at any time . Please know you're not alone on this journey . We're here to help .