Previa Alliance Podcast
There are few experiences as universal to human existence as pregnancy and childbirth, and yet its most difficult parts — perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs) — are still dealt with in the shadows, shrouded in stigma. The fact is 1 in 5 new and expecting birthing people will experience a PMAD, yet among those who do many are afraid to talk about it, some are not even aware they’re experiencing one, and others don’t know where to turn for help. The fact is, when someone suffers from a maternal mental health disorder it affects not only them, their babies, partners, and families - it impacts our communities.
In the Previa Alliance Podcast series, Sarah Parkhurst and Whitney Gay are giving air to a vastly untapped topic by creating a space for their guests — including survivors of PMADs and healthcare professionals in maternal mental health — to share their experiences and expertise openly. And in doing so, Sarah and Whitney make it easy to dig deep and get real about the facts of perinatal mental health, fostering discussions about the raw realities of motherhood. Not only will Previa Alliance Podcast listeners walk away from each episode with a sense of belonging, they’ll also be armed with evidence-based tools for healing, coping mechanisms, and the language to identify the signs and symptoms of PMADs — the necessary first steps in a path to treatment. The Previa Alliance Podcast series is intended for anyone considering pregnancy, currently pregnant, and postpartum as well as the families and communities who support them.
Sarah Parkhurst
Previa Alliance Podcast Co-host; Founder & CEO of Previa Alliance
A postpartum depression survivor and mom to two boys, Sarah is on a mission to destigmatize the experiences of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs), and to educate the world on the complex reality of being a mom. Sarah has been working tirelessly to bring to light the experiences of women who have not only suffered a maternal mental health crisis but who have survived it and rebuilt their lives. By empowering women to share their own experiences, by sharing expert advice and trusted resources, and by advocating for health care providers and employers to provide support for these women and their families, Sarah believes as a society we can minimize the impact of the current maternal mental health crisis, while staving off future ones.
Whitney Gay
Previa Alliance Podcast Co-host; licensed clinician and therapist
For the past ten years, Whitney has been committed to helping women heal from the trauma of a postpartum mental health crisis as well as process the grief of a miscarriage or the loss of a baby. She believes that the power of compassion paired with developing critical coping skills helps moms to heal, rebuild, and eventually thrive. In the Previa Alliance Podcast series, Whitney not only shares her professional expertise, but also her own personal experiences of motherhood and recovery from grief.
Follow us on Instagram @Previa.Alliance
Previa Alliance Podcast
Therapist Truth Bombs with Whitney
Buckle up and lace up those steel toe boots—this episode might step on some toes.
Whitney and Sarah are diving into the honest truths your therapist wants to tell you—if they weren’t afraid of offending you. From realizing your partner can’t read your mind, to accepting that healing takes effort, to the hard truth that you get out of therapy what you put in—no subject is off limits. This is tough love with a whole lot of heart.
hey guys, welcome back to preview lines podcast. This is sarah and I am back with whitney and whitney hot seat time not in a hey whitney way, which our listeners love different.
Speaker 1:This is a little different, so you guys may have seen this going around on social media, but it's like what I would tell you if I wasn't afraid to hurt your feelings or offend you. So, whitney, as a therapist, what would you tell us if you were no holds barred, in the loving, straightforward way, give us some truth bombs that we can go away with and kind of own some of our stuff that we bring to our therapist.
Speaker 3:Okay, so I'm going to step on toes, so just be ready, people.
Speaker 1:But you're still boots on. Here she goes.
Speaker 3:Still toe boots. Because here we go. If I could tell you anything and I wasn't afraid to hurt your feelings you probably contribute more to the stripe in your life than you realize 100%.
Speaker 3:Whether it be pre-assumed reactions of another person, whether it is judgments that you have of other people not realizing that they are there, whether it's that you are the hyperactive in your ADHD, whether that is hyperspending, whether it is hypersexual, whether it is hypersleep, whether it is, you know, hyperactivity to the point where you don't allow yourself to rest. You might actually be the hyper in your ADHD and you don't want to bring that down. So, sometimes we add more complications into our life than we are willing to take accountability for.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I see that and I think a lot of people get familiar with. It can be toxic, it can be negative, it can be You're familiar with kind of cycles or you're familiar with certain ways and to break those Is difficult and it's hard Absolutely, and it's a way of controlling Right. You know Self-sabotagers. They will sometimes self-sabotage To control that Right. One thing I've seen in themes too, is we're not broken right, but we are responsible for our healing. It's people being stuck in something that has happened to them that's not their fault. You know like we'll use me as an example of my traumatic births and my trauma. Right, I was not responsible for what happened to that, but I had to take some responsibility for my healing.
Speaker 3:Right. So with that I always say trauma can explain your behavior, but it doesn't excuse it. Oh yeah, yep, some toes were stepped on with that, but it is the truth. Once we get to be an adult, we have to recognize that, yes, we survived trauma, whatever that trauma might be, but that doesn't give us a pass to be the martyr or the victim for the rest of our lives. Yes, it hurts you. I understand that it hurts you.
Speaker 1:Let's heal it hurts you. I understand that it hurts you. Let's heal. Yeah, healing is hard and healing takes work, and I've done two full rounds of EMDR therapy for my trauma. And did I want to go back to those thoughts and feelings? No, did I. Did I at some point get comfortable with knowing certain triggers? And that's how I acted, right, yes, and was I quick to say, well, that triggered me or that's that, instead of going, ooh, sarah, we got it. That's not an excuse for that.
Speaker 3:Correct Yep, it can explain what you've been through.
Speaker 1:Totally. And I think somebody is like, oh great, how do I move forward? I think it is saying and I think somebody's like, oh great, how do I move forward? I think it is saying, well, how can I? What's one thing that I can do to take responsibility for that or what's one step towards that? Maybe that is calling that therapist and saying you know, I am still living this out and it's 20 years ago. I'm still reeling, my relationships are still impacted because how my father left me, or I'm still not able to move past X, but that is one that is going to cause some people to be triggered. On the healing aspect, what's your thoughts of not taking time for truly healing and doing the work trying?
Speaker 1:to still live our lives. I'm going to spend one hour of Whitney a week and that's going to be all my commitment to something that really needs a lot of work with Whitney, but I'm going to expect Whitney to be my magician and to fix me.
Speaker 3:So I hate to break it to y'all Social workers slash. Therapists are not magicians. If we were, we would have worked ourselves out of a job by now. That being said, therapy and healing takes a lot more intentional work and time outside the four walls of the therapy office. And that is hard because initially, when a lot of people do come to therapy, they are looking to the therapist to help explain what's going on, maybe help them figure out kind of who they are, what makes them tick, help them figure out coping skills for what they have endured.
Speaker 3:And that is what we are here for. We are here to equip you. However, if you don't use those tools outside of the therapy office, I basically just handed you a toolbox that's riding around in the back of your car. So what good is that going to do? When you walk into your house and you've got a broken pipe but you're like I don't want to go to the car and get the wrench out to deal with it you're going to have a leak and that leak will get bigger and worse over time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Ooh on to the coping skills. You're not a bad mom, but your coping skills might need some tune-ups.
Speaker 3:Right and that's normal If you think about it, especially if we have gone through trauma, especially because I feel like we are just now really, as a society, getting to a point where we are more emotionally mature. We were probably taught not great coping skills. I mean, honestly, alcoholism, overeating, overexercising, being a workaholic drug use as well, things of that nature. I mean getting addicted to your phone or to TV.
Speaker 1:I was going to say doom scrolling.
Speaker 3:Yeah, doom scrolling, all of these different things, gambling, all of those things can definitely numb what we're going through. Yeah, we talk about a dopamine hit. That's a dopamine hit. We talk about a dopamine hit. That's a dopamine hit. That is absolutely a dopamine hit. And dopamine is our feel-good hormone. So, yeah, you're gonna feel good when you do those things because you're activating that hormone, but just because it gives you the feel-good hormone doesn't actually mean that it's good for you or beneficial for you. Those coping skills are unhealthy and they are more harmful than anything, and so when you come to therapy, it's not uncommon to look for better coping skills. That's very appropriate, and I will do coping skills with people till I am blue in the face, and I am glad to do it. However, you have to utilize those coping skills in the real world.
Speaker 1:And eventually your children will cope the way you cope Correct, and that, I think, is the biggest thing that has been a mirror for a lot of people in this generation of moms is if we don't do the work, our children will never do the work. And it's again passing, that generational trauma. It's like at what point does the buck stop with you? And I think, on motherhood? It doesn't erase your need for self-care, it amplifies it.
Speaker 1:And we believe in sometimes we are are the own worst enemy. Our own superheroes, our own. We're going to control everything. We're going to prove to ourselves and Jane down the block, how amazing we are, and at the expense of ourselves, our connections, our needs, and we burn out, and we're burning ourselves out trying to be the Pinterest mom, trying to prove something, trying to find our identity. It's really messy.
Speaker 3:Well, hyper independence is a trauma response, because at some point you've learned that you can't rely on others but you can rely on yourself. So feeling the need to be perfect kind of shields you from any type of negativity or shame or guilt or judgment that you could experience. But what facilitates that perfectionism is also hyper independence, because, again, if you can't rely on others but you can rely on yourself. It's that old adage of well, if I want it done right, I have to do it myself. And it's actually a self-sabotage too.
Speaker 1:It goes real deep. And then I think another one is something I've learned as being in therapy is what you come to therapy say X about your therapist. You have to be open and willing for your therapist to point out things that's come from your history, your family. You're doing is really the cause. You may think, oh, it's this apple. And you're like whoa, whoa, we got to go back to orchard here, because this is the issue. A lot of us want to go into something and say just fix this problem, whitney, it's just this one situation, fix this. And we're not open to really digging deep and peeling back those onion layers.
Speaker 3:Well, and you know so many people do come into therapy saying I really need some help with this specific issue.
Speaker 3:So again, primarily a lot of my clients are moms that are either dealing with pregnancy anxiety, depression or they're dealing with postpartum mental health concerns that they are going through and I will absolutely do crisis intervention with them, I will do solution focus to get them those coping skills.
Speaker 3:But the thing is, once we get you kind of where that is settled okay, we've addressed this center issue that you came in for, but our lives are spider webs. So here's the thing chances are this that you came in for that we've gotten settled, is connected to something else that has created very similar feelings within your life and that is also connected to something over here. And then at this point in your life and at a different point in your life, you can't touch any part of that spider web without it actually making the other parts move. Everything in our life that happens affects a different part of us in our lives. That's why we talk about inner child so much. It could be inner teenager, it could be inner college kid, you All of those things. It impacts us and takes us back to something that has occurred to us at an earlier point in our lives.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and a lot of us want to leave that behind, don't want to relive it, maybe never learn that those parts happen. And I think one thing that I've learned too, just in couples counseling, is your partner can't read your mind, just like your child can't read your mind.
Speaker 1:Your boss can't read your mind your therapist may have a good idea about what's going on in your mind. But also too, if I come in and I just tell you my side of the story, whitney, and I really frame it to really just be me-centric me looking great. You only know what I tell you Right, and that's the thing.
Speaker 3:As a therapist, we can only do with what we're told. I can assume that you're being dishonest with me and I can try to call it out in a nice diplomatic way. But if you continue to deny it, then I'm going to drop it, because at that point we get into a stalemate and then we're not going to make progress at all. But you're only going to make the amount of progress in therapy for which you actually invest into it. You can't put in 10% and expect an 80% return. It doesn't work like that.
Speaker 1:Well, Whitney, the truths are what we needed. What's one thing to leave us with If you could give an advice to someone who's like, okay, wow, Whitney, you've really blown this up here with me and called me out on all levels. What would you tell them? Give a job.
Speaker 3:Yep, you are more capable of healing than you give yourself credit for. You have the capability of it. It's in there, and there will be times where you feel like you need to slow down in a therapy session because it feels heavy. That's fine, that is more than fine. Tell your therapist that if they're not picking up on that, but you're allowed to take that breather and pump the brakes a little, I love that.
Speaker 1:Well, whitney, we're just going to replicate you. Maybe you'll say hi one day and just send you out to everyone and give us a Whitney version. But, guys, this was a fun episode to kind of again. We love to pull back the curtain of therapist and therapy and kind of just things that maybe you're wondering, thinking and bridge that gap. But we're here for you, we're always cheering for you. We'll see you, guys, next week. See you next week.
Speaker 2:Maternal mental health is as important as physical health. The Preview 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.