Welcome And Maternal Mental Health

SPEAKER_03 0:09

Hi guys, welcome back to Preview Alliance Podcast. This is Sarah. I've got Whitney with us. And first, before we get into our today's topic, just want to say you guys know that we just finished Maternal Mental Health Month and we went even a little bit into June and Farwat is series. But at our core, a previous podcast, it's always going to be that we want you guys informed and aware about maternal mental health. So while we love talking about a zillion other topics that are very relevant, our core is always to, if you've experienced it or someone else, please share this with them so that we can provide more education and awareness because it still is the number one complication post-childbirth.

Motherhood Makes You A Mind Reader

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But Whitney, back to a little different topic today. And we were talking about how when we were new moms, yeah, these little muffins. Yes. And guess what we became?

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We had to figure out are you hungry? Are you cold? Are you dirty? Are you tired?

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Uh-huh. I mean, we got to body language experts of our children. I mean, that twitch of the eye meant you're fixing the pee. You know, that the oh, that cry, that means this. Yes. Did you see those eyes? That means, you know, I remember even like the sleepy cues, you know, like they get a little red around their eyes when they're like really tired or like that, the way they yawn. And you just feel, no, I don't feel like anybody says that before your mom, but you're like, you will know the tiniest little details of your child's actions and behaviors, and you do become a mind reader. And then you're looking at your husband or your partner, or say it's your mother-in-law one day and going, How can you not tell this? Like they twitched, and they're looking at you like, say what? They blink twice, and I'm supposed to know this.

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Blink twice and we'll save you and Brenda.

SPEAKER_03 2:11

Yeah, exactly. So it is something though, that now that we're removed out of the newborn stage that we were talking about, that I think a lot of moms can resonate, is maybe we sometimes carry that over into other relationships because we

Unspoken Expectations With Partners

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have done this. I mean, forced almost, right? Survival instinct is to learn your child.

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Oh, absolutely.

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And so when you do that so well and you learn it, or even now our kids come home from school and we're like, oh, we can kind of tell what mood they're in, or oh, I know they're hungry. You anticipate their needs without that verbal communication. And so you expect other people in your life to maybe do the same to you. Right.

SPEAKER_05 3:03

Absolutely. So, and I think so much of this happens with their husbands just because that's who you're in close proximity with all the time. So, a lot like, you know, because I'm very type A and my husband is ADHD. What I see as something needing to be done may not be a blip on his radar.

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Yes.

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Okay. So like vacuuming or mopping or seeing the sink full of dirty dishes, like I know those chores need to get done. In my mind, how could you not look at those and not understand that's my body? To be done, right? But he does not. So I have had to learn how to communicate. Hey, when I see these things, that is my visual cue to do those chores. That's kind of what I expect other people to do. But that being said, you know, we learn our babies inside and out, we know their cues, we read their minds. Our husbands can't read ours, even though we think that they can. So that being said, when it is birthday, Christmas, Mother's Day, anniversaries, any of those special occasions, and in your mind, you have an expectation. Either it's an expectation of where you want to go eat or the activity that you want to do or a gift that you would like to get, you have it up here, and you think, well, they know me so well, they have to know that this is what I want. And they don't because it was never actually communicated. It was never alluded to. It's not even that there was a wish list sent with three gifts on it, and they picked one out of the three that you're like, that's not really the one I wanted, you know? Like you're just hoping that they know what you're thinking. And for us, it's frustrating because we are the ultimate mind readers, right? Yeah. Like we can read our kids' minds even when they're out of that newborn stage.

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Yeah.

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Even when they are in elementary school, and like you said, like we know the minute we pick them up up, they're hangry or oh, they had a rough day at school. Like, we can see that body language, we can hear the huff in their wear those things. And either our husbands are not as conditioned like we are, because again, are we kind of the gatekeepers when they're newborns? Because we're the ones getting up in the middle of the night with them, we're the ones feeding them. We expect our husbands to mind read our kids and us, and they're not. I I'm gonna be the one to pop everybody's bubble on this. They are not reading our minds. No, and when you have an expectation in your mind, and that expectation is not met because there was no communication of that expectation, resentment will happen.

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100%.

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There will be frustration, there will be resentment. And I know what people are thinking, they're like, I don't want to make a list for my husband. I get it, because that does add to that mental load. Okay. Yeah. This is two-sided, it is not

Shared Systems For Chores

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a black and white thing. One thing I will share that my husband and I do that helps as far as household things, chores and whatnot. I made a shared note on our phones of all the different chores. Whoever gets to it just puts the green check mark emoji to it. I do not care what day you get it done. I don't I do not care. Could care less what day you get it done. But if you clean the bathrooms, put the check mark there so I know. Yeah. On Sunday, we go back and we delete them all and we start over. So, did I have to make that list? Yes, yes, I did. I made it once. I made it once because those are my expectations of bathrooms should get scrubbed once a week. You should be changing bed sheets once a week. I again, I don't care what day it is because our weeks change up with responsibilities, but it has to get done. So when we look at it from a special occasion point of view, whether it's your birthday, the holidays, mother's day, whatever it is, you may say, but I don't want to have to tell them all the things I want to do. Fair enough. I saw a video on Instagram one time that said, I don't want to plan my own Mother's Day, but I also don't want to get let down.

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Yeah.

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And I was like, Oh, you're on to something, ma'am. And she said, she told her husband, Hey, I want to eat barbecue. You will be picking the restaurant, I want to do something outside with my kids, and I want to take a nap. Yeah. She said, Here's the deal. Like, you will pick the restaurant, you will pick our outdoor activity, and I'm gonna take a nap that day. That is what I want to do with my mother's day. So therefore, she put some expectations out there, but she did not plan everything to a T. Yeah. And I think that that is a great way of putting your expectation out there

Special Occasions Without Letdowns

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to where it can be met, you're not doing all of the legwork and all of the mental load that can go with it.

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And I think it's something too that's like just not said enough is our babies and children, I mean, until they're like full-grown adults, the level of communication of their needs is just not gonna be there. It's gonna get better, you know. I mean, it's so much better by time they're our kids' ages than when they were toddlers, right? But adults for successful relationships, for friendships, for marriages, for partners, whatever. It has to have that open communication. And sometimes it goes back to you get in these stuck cycles of like, you maybe never were past your needs, you weren't allowed to verbalize your needs. So now you're in this new position as a mom, as a partner, as a wife. Right. And you are building that resentment. But it's like, are you communicating? Because again, for these healthy relationships as adults, you have to communicate and they need to receive, and then they have to send and you have to receive, right? It's like we have to send this mail chain going on. And I think it happens in friendships. I think it's like, oh, she should see I'm struggling, she should see I'm overwhelmed, she should do this. And there's a lot of they should, they should see, they should know. Right. And it naturally happens because again, you're seeing and you're knowing with your child, and it's all consuming. So you get you tend to get in that mindset that everybody else is gonna have the same knowing and insight that you are now functioning as a mother. Right, exactly. Which is just not reality. It's like I can't assume, Whitney, that you're gonna know I'm having a bad day. If I don't reach out to you and go, Whitney, X, Y, and Z. Right.

SPEAKER_05 9:51

You know, sometimes we know people are going through a storm because, and this is rewinding back to 2022 when my grandfather and father-in-law were in hospice simultaneously. And so I had told you this is what's going on, kind of thing. And then when my grandfather passed, I don't know if it was that same day or the day after, but I had told you, yeah, and so it wasn't one of those I had to tell you every single thing that I experienced as I experienced it, but I did keep you in the loop. Yeah, you know, it was a it was a communication of this is what I'm going through, it's hard right now, or if I went MIA for a bit on text, it's not something personal against you. I just gotta take a step back right now. Yeah, and that was okay because you understood the why behind my actions. There had been some communication. Now, on that token, as a friend, I didn't have an expectation of you to do much of anything with that information, but it was just to let you know.

SPEAKER_03 10:56

Yeah. And I think that's the thing. It's it's just two things can exist, right? I think we all struggle with the double emotions, right? You can and the famous one we always talk about is like you can love and be the obsessed with being a mom. But also say it's the hardest thing and have really hard days and bad days and be like, yes. It's a lot. So two things can be true at once, right? So on this mind reading, you can be a mind reader to you know, your children, and you probably are to your your husband, yeah, at some extent. You know this. Well, in the same sense, you're also responsible to communicating to non-mind readers, which is anybody except that's a mom, pretty much, right? And saying, okay, I want X, Y, and Z, you can set those boundaries of what you want, what you expect, because when resentment takes over, it is a mean, nasty monster. Oh, yes. And it grows rapidly. And once you're in that resentment mindset, we've all been there because it's like our lack, our basic needs are not being met. You're having a huge identity shift, your relationships change. You're wondering, like, I mean, you're just physically and mentally responsible for the human life now, right? That it never changes back. So there's this whole lot that's like rolling into this. And then you may think your partner's living their life, that their life hasn't changed, or you may see your friends being like they're living on their best lives. They, you know, it's lost. And so resentment to me is like a sticky ball that, like, you know, that's rolling that just keeps grabbing. Right. Like you you almost look for things to add to your resentment because your mind's in that frame.

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Yes.

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Versus not.

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Absolutely. Well, because when we look at resentment, we hold that because we want to be right.

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Oh, yeah.

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Like I'm justified to feel this way. Correct. So, especially when we look at a missed expectation

Resentment Projection And Self Talk

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that hurts. And because you didn't, now I'm mad at you. And I'm going to stay mad because you don't know me the way I thought you did. Yeah.

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And then you just, I mean, truly, it's like the case builds overnight when it's like you're feeling that, and like you're up for the second or third time with the baby, and then you may have not said anything to him about whatever's fixing to occur. And so he don't know. And that's just like the tip that explodes.

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Oh, yeah.

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You know, I mean you didn't do the dishwasher, you know, or you what do you mean you didn't know about this work party? What do you mean? You know, it just blows up.

SPEAKER_05 13:44

Yeah, it's one of those two. My poor husband, he has a Tai Bay wipe. So, you know, sometimes it does bite him in the butt. So when it comes to our kids' sports schedules, I put that on our dry race calendar for the month up on the fridge. And it's like, hey, Sammy's got practice at this time, or Sydney's got a game here at this day and time, whatever. And in the mornings, if I'm like, okay, well, she has to wear this color jersey because it's a home game and we have to be there at five. If he ever says, Well, I didn't know, did you look at the calendar? Did you look at the calendar? Your Vanna White. She's over there pointing the news. Yeah. Or did you check the app that is shared with us and all of the teammates and the coaches with the schedule? Because if you did not, that's on you. Okay. Yeah. Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part. However, my lack of a communication of an expectation creates an emergency that is unnecessary.

SPEAKER_03 14:46

And sometimes I will say, I've had to learn this myself. I have expectations. I don't even know I have expectations.

SPEAKER_05 14:55

Oh my gosh. Well, and to be the therapist in this situation, as an Enneagram one, one of our worst traits is that we will use the defense mechanism of projection on other people. The expectations that we hold ourselves to, we will absolutely throw that up on somebody else in a heartbeat. It is not a good quality of Enneagram ones. Okay. No. And I'm talking about myself here. I am just as guilty as anybody else. Just as guilty as anybody else. So we have to be careful when we recognize that we are projecting our expectations onto other people. Therefore, when that expectation is unset or unmet, or both of those, then we're actually going to have resentment at ourselves.

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It's a nasty vicious cycle.

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It's not fun. I'm telling you, I would rather be a six than a one any day.

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Ones are God's chosen people to do a lot of inner work. And it is very difficult. And that is why you will always be in business, Whitney, is there's a lot of us out there. But it is, I think that's the thing too, is because you have to go, oh, wait, we did have an unspoken expectation. And that's your ownership. And then here's your shame, here's your guilt, and you're critic, like we're critical of ourselves, right? Motherhood brings a light of criticism upon ourselves. Um, we've got the outside world, now we're comparing ourselves. Social media is horrible to add on to this. So then you're like, I can't even express my needs, you know? Like it you just start going when it goes down back to communication, right? And it's even communicating with yourself. Well, what what do I really want?

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Yeah.

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What what would make me happy on this day?

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Right.

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Or sometimes could he do anything right with my mindset? Maybe not.

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Right. Oh, I've had to have that talk with myself a lot. I'm like, you know, it is it even possible for him to do right? And I have to tell myself, not with the expectations you have in your mind.

SPEAKER_03 17:16

Exactly. And that makes you feel bad because you're just like, I don't want to set up my husband, my partner, my spouse, my friend, whoever it is I'm doing this to for failure. And that's what I'm doing. And at some point, that person will say to you, I cannot win with you.

SPEAKER_05 17:35

Yeah. Well, and that's also when we have that insight. When we recognize, okay, I'm setting them and myself up for failure by doing these things. How can I change that?

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Yeah.

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And again, I hear the side of the story of, but that takes more mental load with me. I don't want to have to make the list. I don't want to have to say, this is what I want for my birthday. I absolutely hear you because I have had that mentality too. We have to meet in the middle a little bit. This is where we need a little bit of a compromise. Where again, you give parameters of your expectations. You know, if there is one specific gift that you want for Christmas or your birthday or your anniversary, do not send him a list of three. Because if you're going to be disappointed that you get the other two, then what you actually want to do. Take it out of the question. Don't send that. You know, and you know, I'll ask my husband sometimes, I'm like, hey, can I send you an idea for my birthday or for whatever it is? And he's like, Yes, that would make my life easier. Because if it's something I genuinely want or I'll use, I would rather take the guesswork out of it and get what I want. Uh-huh. And everybody's happy.

SPEAKER_03 18:53

Yeah. And I think it is sometimes it's like, you know, maybe you see this and you're like, well, this person, I think he always knows what to get her, or this plans this for her, or whatever. It's like reality is you don't know what work they've done as a couple to get to that point or what notes she sent in him, or if she's contacted the travel agent and said, book it and tell him about it. Right.

SPEAKER_05 19:19

You have no idea. We don't. Again, if you're looking at other people's lives through their social media, you do not see or know what happens behind the camera. You don't know that. They're not going to show that. Because it's not glitzy, it's not glamoury, all the things. But a phrase I heard a zillion years ago is all that glitters is not gold. Okay. So everything fancy that you see or great and wonderful that you see doesn't mean it's always pretty and shiny. You don't know what it took to get to that point. Just like a diamond. Think about what it takes to create a diamond. All that heat pressure work. You don't just go and find a diamond.

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Yeah.

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If you could, people be more people be doing it and getting rich off of it. I mean, it takes work for things to actually go the way we need them to.

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And that's the thing, right? It's like um the Dukes Women basketball coach, she said this recently, right? Do hard better. And and I think there's a point when it comes to your expectations, your communication. It's gonna be hard if that's not your baseline, right? Or if that's not something that you're versed in. And you may be like, I always thought I was a great communicator, but you know, this is a new stage of my life, and I'm overwhelmed, or I'm trying to like I've never had so many needs from other people in my own at once. Right. And which is a lot of moms feel that way. So now I have to learn how to communicate. It feels like for my work needs, for my home needs, for my children's needs, for this. Right. So it's going to be hard, but hard doesn't mean bad, and hard doesn't mean stop. It means we're gonna press through that. And as like I tell my boys, that hard feeling in your brain is uncomfortable at first. It is because the more you do it, you do hard better. Right.

SPEAKER_05 21:14

Well, and we should be proud of doing hard better. Yeah, yes, hard hard is going to happen, but we can do hard things 100%. We can do hard things. If you're a mama, you've already done a very hard thing by going through pregnancy and labor and delivery or an adoption. Absolutely, you can and have done hard

Practical Steps And When To Get Help

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things, yeah.

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So, what would you tell them, Whitney? They're like, Wow, you just really pulled the rug, pointed me out, put me on a pedestal, spotlight. You're well my personality, my issue. And they're like, What can I do besides send this to my husband and being like, Okay, this is me. Um, how do we fix this? Um, what is step forwards? Listeners who are like, you know, what I I do have a communication lack. I'm in resentment mode. I set expectations on myself and others, and hey, I didn't even know I did. What is action steps forward?

SPEAKER_05 22:11

So action steps forward would be to say, okay, is there an event or a day or special occasion coming up where I have expectations in my head? If the answer is yes, say, have I communicated those expectations? If the answer is no, say, okay, what do I need to do to communicate those expectations? And a lot of that is just brainstorming with your husband, saying, is it okay if I do this, or can I tell you this, or do you want parameters like all the things, but also explaining to him, like, I don't want to have to do all the legwork for this.

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Yeah.

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And that's okay. That's okay to say.

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Yeah. And if they're like, okay, I think it's deeper than a day, Whitney. I think we're we're like, we're really intertwined. Is this a good thing to bring to a therapist? Would you, you know, would Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 23:04

Well, because here's the thing, more often than not, missed expectations just means that there wasn't correct communication. We can work through under or missed communications.

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Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 23:16

That's fixable. Are you kidding me? Like, that is not worth going and getting a divorce over.

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Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 23:23

Yeah. That alone is not worth getting a divorce over. Let me clarify that.

SPEAKER_04 23:27

Yeah.

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Yeah. You know, if it's one of those, you bring your concerns or your needs up to your husband and he just dismisses you or gets angry over it. That's a whole different thing.

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Yeah.

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That's a whole nother problem right there.

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Right.

SPEAKER_05 23:42

But if it's one of those, you realize, oh shoot. Like I really expected him to be able to get both kids dressed and ready for their games that are happening at the same time. I didn't even tell him that there were games tonight.

SPEAKER_03 23:55

Well, how's he talking about? Or I thought and that's the thing. And I think that's I think it's a lot of everybody's figuring it out together. And every new season of being a parent, you have to kind of figure it out together. And it's going to be more things. And it's never a perfect time. There's never a place where like today is pork riff. There's nothing going wrong. So it is that constant. But have a third party, a therapist, you know, if you're like, hey, I just want to start with myself. I just want to work through why I can't communicate my needs. I want to work through why I have resentment before I bring him in. I think that's just to get curious about maybe why you're responding the way you're responding.

SPEAKER_05 24:37

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:39

I love the phrase get curious. Because you're not getting critical, you're not shaming, you're not accusing. You're wanting to dig and get perspective. Yeah, just with anything. And I think that's a good way to, you know, instead of being a defensive or accusatory of fight, is look at what's going on. Okay, well, like, I'm curious, why is he thinking this? Why was this response this? Benefit of the doubt, always, you know, give him the benefit of it. Right. So it's hard. I think it's all hard, but it's very relevant that I hope this has chained light that you bring this baby into this world, and you immediately have to become a mind reader. So there's a part of your brain that starts operating that you figure it out, and you are such an expert on body language and this child and their needs that it will eventually have that perspective kind of on yourself of what sometimes other people should be doing for you.

SPEAKER_05 25:39

Oh, absolutely. Well, and if there's nothing wrong, we get a little jealous or upset that our husbands didn't have to put in the same effort to be mind readers for the babies. Again, it's a projection of a one. Yeah. I expect you to be up Googling a 2 a.m. too.

SPEAKER_03 25:56

I expect you to know that I twitched just as well as me. Right. Because how could you not? Or it's like, how did you not notice how they put down that backpack? How did you not notice that they're not, you know, all the things. All the things that happen. But again, a great conversation. Get curious. And no, if you're feeling the same way, you're not alone. Me and Whitney's right there. I mean, you're going to have to book a personal therapy friendship thing with Whitney to work through this off camera. Right. You have to figure out. But it is, this is just something you're not alone

Wrap Up And Resources

SPEAKER_03 26:30

in. And take this away. Get curious. Absolutely. All right, my friend. Thank you for our like therapy session that you gave us all again. Right. You're welcome, all you Enneagram ones. Oof, we've been stepped on. We're all gonna need to take a walk and touch grass.

SPEAKER_05 26:45

But that's fine. I'm okay with it. Let's go regulate.

SPEAKER_03 26:49

All right, listeners. We'll be back next week. Thank you again. All right, bye, y'all.

SPEAKER_01 26:55

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.