Transcript for
Perfectly imperfect: Navigating new parenthood and perinatal mental health
Amy Mathews (00:00):
We’ll be told that becoming a parent is the happiest and most rewarding part of our life. When we don’t truly feel that in the moment, it can become quite confusing. Yes, it is the most rewarding, but it’s also the most challenging. We seem to convince ourselves that we can’t be both, and we can’t experience both simultaneously.
Narration (00:17):
Welcome to the Emerging Minds podcast.
Vicki Mansfield (Host) (00:23):
Hi, I’m Vicki Mansfield, and you’re listening to an Emerging Minds podcast. Before we start today’s episode, we would like to pay respect to the traditional custodians of the land on which this podcast is recorded, the Awabakal people. We also pay respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, their ancestors and elders past, present, and emerging from the different First Nations across Australia. Today in recognition of Perinatal Mental Health Week, I’m talking with Amy Mathews. Amy is a parent of three children, and she has lived experience of perinatal mental health struggles, was a peer advocate, and is now working as a peer support worker for Peach Tree Perinatal.
(01:09):
Today, Amy has generously agreed to share her wisdom and insights on the transition to parenting, how social pressures and expectations impacts perinatal mental health, and what we can do to support parents during this time of change. Welcome, Amy.
Amy Mathews (01:25):
Hi, Vicki. So happy to be here on this platform today, and able to share some of my journey with you. Let’s just get straight into it.
Vicki Mansfield (Host) (01:32):
Thanks, Amy. Amy, the transition to parenthood is a major life change, and parents hear lots of social messages, and feel many expectations about parenting. The research is also telling us that one in five new moms and one in 10 new dads experience perinatal depression and anxiety, which is around 100,000 parents each year in Australia. Do these stats surprise you, Amy?
Amy Mathews (02:01):
They somewhat surprise me. I feel that that’s a lot, but to be honest, I thought it would be a lot higher. I’m just wondering if there’s a stigma around those postnatal depression, anxiety feelings where people aren’t sharing their struggles, and maybe have a level of shame that puts a barrier in the way of them seeking support, which those people wouldn’t be counted in their statistics.
Vicki Mansfield (Host) (02:24):
It’s on the one hand feels like it’s high, but on the other hand could be an underestimation. So, how important it’s for us to have this conversation and to share and reduce some of that stigma and shame by hearing people’s journeys, and also by supporting practitioners to assist parents when they do reach out, because it takes such courage, doesn’t it?
Amy Mathews (02:47):
Yeah, absolutely. It does.
Vicki Mansfield (Host) (02:49):
Amy, I imagine you’ve spoke with many parents in your peer work, advocate work, and also in your role now. When you’re speaking with parents, what takes you by surprise, or what takes people by surprise in that transition to parenting, do you think?
Amy Mathews (03:05):
There’s so many common themes. I’d say one of the most common is the sleep deprivation that parents experience, which I feel like is an overall contributor to the struggle in that transitional period. Your capacity to carry out your daily life on very little energy is a huge shock to the system, and then all the relationships evolve around you. It all becomes very unfamiliar territory. It makes it hard to navigate the journey into parenthood, and navigate your environment through that.
Vicki Mansfield (Host) (03:34):
It’s incredibly hard, the brain fog, the sleep deprivation, and as you say, all of these relationships changing. I know when we spoke before, you said that sometimes that felt like a grief, which for some people or even practitioners, that might sound surprising. Can you explain and share with us that that feeling and that understanding of that time?
Amy Mathews (03:58):
Yeah. I often refer to the postpartum period as running parallel with the stages of grief. You lose who you were. The life you once had is completely gone, and it’s evolved into something that you haven’t quite figured out yet. It’s a process of acceptance for the life that you’ve lost, and a fear of becoming a newer version of yourself. You’re getting to know your tiny human. Then you’re also getting to know yourself as well, and you’re not who you were. You have not become your new self yet. It’s a very confronting transition. You’re just stuck in the in-between, and it can be really hard to navigate that to go from old to new.
Vicki Mansfield (Host) (04:35):
As you said, you’ve also got this new little bundle that doesn’t come with instructions, this new little bundle of, and as we said, that there can be a lot of pressures around how we should be. You mentioned earlier that sometimes, you think that the shame and isolation can be a factor in reaching out for support. So in your experience or drawing on your work with people, how tricky is it to reach out and take the first step?
Amy Mathews (05:02):
I think we see others around us publicly and particularly in social media. We see people enjoying parenthood. If we don’t feel or connect to that, we feel some sort of shame around it. We should be feeling happiness and joy. We’ll be told that becoming a parent is the happiest and most rewarding part of our life. When we don’t truly feel that in the moment, it can become quite confusing. Yes, it is the most rewarding, but it’s also the most challenging. We seem to convince ourselves that we can’t be both, and we can’t experience both simultaneously.
Vicki Mansfield (Host) (05:31):
Sometimes I’ve heard it referred to as masking some of those feelings or confusions. Do you think that’s an accurate description?
Amy Mathews (05:41):
Oh, absolutely. I think across the mental health board, the, “I’m fine,” is the biggest lie in human history, but it’s very factual when you’ve become a mother, father, parent, to just be like, “I’m fine,” because we don’t want to show those vulnerabilities to people in our world. We think that that means we’re failing, and that’s where there’s feelings of shame and guilt stemming from that. So, the I’m fine cover-up is just a way of not confronting those big feelings and those big emotions.
Vicki Mansfield (Host) (06:12):
The big feelings and you mentioned the shoulds and that they’re somewhat related to those expectations and pressures. Tell me about the shoulds.
Amy Mathews (06:24):
Yes. In my perinatal journey, I did a lot of workshops. I did a lot of therapies, different things to try and overcome what I was battling and grappling with in my struggles, and the concept of removing the should words from our vocabulary. I felt quite empowered by that because the word should, it puts an expectation on us. When we feel like we’re not meeting that expectation, it can feel like a big failure. When people say, “You should do this,” and then you don’t. It can harbour that level of guilt, like I said, and that becomes hard to overcome, telling people that they should do something. It’s really harmful, I think.
Vicki Mansfield (Host) (07:04):
The shoulds being, so that could be health practitioners, could be sometimes… As you said, it could be messages in social media, could be intergenerational messages. It’s time where there’s a lot of shoulds about parenting, isn’t there? So, it can really be a big pressure.
Amy Mathews (07:23):
Yeah, I think the start of my shoulds were in the early stages of my first newborn when I was going to these child health nurse appointments, a lot of different clinical appointments. It was like, “Oh, baby should be at this stage. Baby should be around about here.” That put an immense amount of pressure on me where I thought, “I’m not able to take care of this child, because I should be doing this, and I should be doing that.” I’m just overcame with guilt. That’s where I struggled the most. I had these expectations on me that I wasn’t meeting, and I thought they were true expectations of what being a parent was about.
Vicki Mansfield (Host) (08:04):
So, they were expectations that were weighing heavy, and you said that guilt then really can impact mood and also that sense of confidence in those early weeks.
Amy Mathews (08:16):
I was going to fail if I didn’t meet those expectations. So, the anxiety was, “If I yell in front of my child, they’re going to have long-term mental health consequences and all of these different anxieties about going forward and what that would look like for my child of things I’m doing in the now and how that could greatly impact the future,” but it doesn’t work like that. The anxieties didn’t need to exist so much in my world.
Vicki Mansfield (Host) (08:42):
The anxieties didn’t need to exist so much. You said you were undertaking a few different experiences of therapy and different modalities. Where did you discover the shoulds?
Amy Mathews (08:52):
So, I was actually a participant of Peach Tree Perinatal, and one of their workshops really hones in on the shoulds. So, that’s where I first came across it, and just… It was so empowering to the point where I would call out people using the word shoulds in my world, and other participants who I was engaged with, if they said the dreaded S word, I would go… I’d cringe at the word being spoken, and I’d call people out on their shoulds as well, and bring to perspective the need for you to vet your language a bit better. So, I made sure that I didn’t put those expectations on others around me. I removed the shoulds from my vocabulary.
Vicki Mansfield (Host) (09:41):
I know you said that sometimes when you reached out and had contacts with health professionals that maybe the delivery or the conversation was not maybe from a space of collaboration, it was more maybe from, “You need to do this, this and this, or this should be happening.” So, is there anything now from a different point in time that you think is helpful for practitioners to know about how they need to support parents or deliver that information in a different way?
Amy Mathews (10:15):
I feel that it was a very much a clinical experience where it was about ticking the boxes, and it looked at me and my baby as… It just dehumanises a little bit the weight and measurements of the baby. It’s like we were measuring a parcel, even going to the post office, and the way the language was used, some clinical things that can drive a bit of that heightened anxiety, and the way the language is used can also be impersonal but also put pressure on new moms, and heightens the guilt when they’re not meeting the clinical expectations. I understand that their job is to look at the biology, and ensure that there’s a happy, healthy bub, but it’s just the impersonal experience and just the box ticking where I felt like, “I’m a person, and my struggles weren’t really acknowledged in that space.”
Vicki Mansfield (Host) (11:15):
Sometimes I’ve heard parents, and I’ve used that in my work about, “We can’t pour from an empty cup.” Is that a phrase that resonates for you and your experience within the perinatal field?
Amy Mathews (11:29):
It pops up in my professional and personal world still to this day the concept of it. I think in my perinatal period where I wasn’t in the thick of the struggles, I didn’t realise I was pouring everything that I had into motherhood, and trying not to fail, but there was nothing left to give. There was nothing left to pour. I was quite emotional, quite sleep depraved, quite… It felt almost quite like I was going out of my mind and quite almost erratic, but it was simply because I didn’t have enough to give. I had nothing left in my metaphorical cup.
(12:04):
They often say it’s the oxygen mask on the plane where they tell you, “You must put yours on first to be able to put on your child’s.” That’s where the empty cap phrase comes up a lot is that until you take care of yourself, how can you expect it to offer great care to your child? I’m not saying that you can’t. It’s just a lot harder, I feel, to be able to fill your child’s cup up if yours is empty. You’re pouring from nothing.
Vicki Mansfield (Host) (12:34):
What helps fill the cup? I know that will be very different for each individual, but are there any themes you think from your experience or from your work with parents that you can keep an eye out or practitioners can keep an eye out?
Amy Mathews (12:50):
So, self-care is a great way of filling up our cup. I have mixed feelings on this one. It comes up a lot about what parents can do for self-care. Like you said, that does look very different from everybody. I think at the very start, in those early stages when you’re not getting enough sleep, sleep is self-care. Like when you haven’t showered in a week, and you smell of formula or breast milk, having a shower is self-care in that moment. I’ve always said basic human needs like that are not self-care, but in those moments, you have to really hone in on what you need in those moments as you get through it. It’s a journey.
(13:31):
You can then pull in things that are actual genuine self-care practises and mindfulness activities that can really fill your cup till it’s overflowing, and then you’re only giving your overflow to your child. But at the start, it’s self-care, and filling up your cup looks very basic.
Vicki Mansfield (Host) (13:48):
What do you think is the role of people around parents or around mum in terms of supporting in those very early stages? I think isolation can be such a huge factor for peoples, the practical and the emotional well-being in those early days and throughout parenting.
Amy Mathews (14:08):
So, what I wish support would’ve looked like for me in my first pregnancy came to fruition in my third pregnancy. I was very isolated in my first, and my family were overseas, so I didn’t really have those people to surround me with support that I needed, which is why I reached out to community-based mental health organisations to support me and build a village around me. By my third pregnancy, I had that. It looked like complete strangers bringing me food to my doorstep, so I had one less thing to worry about, and I didn’t have to ask, which asking is a really hard thing. I think as a parent, you don’t want to seem like you’re failing. Again, this stigma, it’s always the little things that make all of the big difference.
Vicki Mansfield (Host) (14:53):
What does that mean for emotional wellbeing in terms of having a village?
Amy Mathews (14:59):
Being able to speak to and speak with people, with parents, in my world, mother specifically, where I’m feeling validation. I’m feeling connection. What they say, I can speak to. I can relate, and that forms a connection, and it forms a bond. It pulls down that I’m fine mask, as we said before. We can be vulnerable, because we don’t feel that judgement . We feel supported. We don’t feel like we’re holding ourselves to any form of unrealistic expectations. I think that’s really important in a village when you’re connecting with others.
Vicki Mansfield (Host) (15:38):
So, having a village was instrumental in finding your way through?
Amy Mathews (15:44):
Yeah. I needed to hear other people’s imperfect parenting, because it is perfectly imperfect. I needed to hear that others were feeling the same things that I was. I didn’t want to see people all roses, because then I would set myself up this unrealistic expectation that I was never going to meet, trying to be the best mum and be so outspoken that, “I’m the best mum. I’m wonder woman.” That’s not the reality. I think if I didn’t meet with other like-minded people in my community, that I probably wouldn’t have left the house, because I would’ve thought, “I don’t relate to any of these other parents that are absolutely thriving and fully enjoying motherhood, and I’m not feeling that. I don’t relate to that. I can’t connect to that,” so I probably would’ve just become a hobbit.
Vicki Mansfield (Host) (16:37):
So, you needed conversations that were really about the struggles and the challenges rather than just the, “It’s fine.”
Amy Mathews (16:45):
Yeah, absolutely.
Vicki Mansfield (Host) (16:48):
Perfectly imperfect, can you explain that for our listeners a little more about how that frames your work or sense of parenting?
Amy Mathews (16:58):
So, it’s, again, on the expectations. I feel that nothing is perfect, and we can be perfectly imperfect. So, it’s saying that there’s a perfection in having flaws. We aren’t going to be the best at everything. We’re not going to be the best parent in the world to our kids. Yes, we are, and we have to have some acceptance that we are everything to them, and we’re perfect in their eyes, but in society, we don’t need to hold ourselves to such high expectations. So, yeah, I absolutely thrive on saying out loud that I’m perfectly imperfect.
Vicki Mansfield (Host) (17:34):
Perfectly imperfect. You said often, our children will see us as perfect, and we’re their world. So, when people have a village or their emotional cups feeling like it’s full or overflowing, as you said earlier, what does that mean then? How does that flow on for children, do you think?
Amy Mathews (17:56):
The biggest part of my journey with my children, I wanted to build emotional safety. That became one of the driving factors for me. I just wanted them to know that nobody’s perfect. So, I’ve been quite open and honest with my children about emotions and how we can allow ourselves to… We can be angry. We can have these big emotions. There’s nothing wrong with having emotions. So, I’ve had to practise that, and be honest to them. What that looks like is they have a secure attachment with me. They’re not being fed this expectation. They’re having more of the reality.
(18:38):
That’s not to say I’m going to have a full-blown breakdown in front of them, but when I do cry, I will say to them, “Yeah, it’s okay. We can be sad. We’re just human.” So for them, emotions become a healthier thing in their world. Just to demonstrate those imperfections, you’re showing them, “We don’t all have to be perfect.”
Vicki Mansfield (Host) (18:59):
I think that’s a beautiful message that emotions and having a full range of emotions is normal human, healthy experience. That was something you really valued in teaching or being with your kids in that way.
Amy Mathews (19:12):
I think as a child myself, I found that my emotions weren’t fully validated. Where there were big feelings, sometimes that was contained in a box because that was, I guess, the capacity that the people around me had to manage. They had their own struggles themselves. For me, I wanted to ensure that I didn’t put their feelings and their emotions in a box.
Vicki Mansfield (Host) (19:39):
In a box being that sense of you’re having to hold it all in. Is that what you mean?
Amy Mathews (19:44):
Yeah, absolutely. I don’t want them to push it down, because, as you know, that can make things so much worse. I feel that’s similarly with the perinatal journey. You push it all down and say, “I’m fine,” and put on the mask, and that can really eat away at you from the inside out.
Vicki Mansfield (Host) (20:02):
As I heard you describe in our conversation, that one of the things that was really useful was understanding the rock of reality and the raft of expectations. Can you explain to our audience what that concept is, and how it’s been helpful?
Amy Mathews (20:19):
So, I first came across the rock of reality and the raft of expectations under the Sunshine Parenting Programme through Peach Tree Perinatal. I now get to teach that to other parents. It’s basically a lot of what we’ve talked about in this conversation that we have expectations of what parenting looks like, and there’s the reality of things. Often, our raft of expectations, the metaphor is beautiful. It’s so far away from the rock of reality, that there’s so much room in between to fall between the cracks, and that’s where perinatal mental health can really take a dive in that black hole in the middle.
(21:03):
What I was taught is to, I guess, lower my expectations, or figure out where the expectations came from in the first place. This is going to feel a bit circular, but at the start, I said about grief and loss and forgetting who we are, and then having to find a new person. A lot of that journey involves looking back and finding our values and finding what things are true to us and who we are, what we’re about, and bringing that forward into our world as parents. So, I feel that the way we can hone in that raft closer to reality is by looking at what is important to us, looking at our values, pulling that together, and that’s where we can close the gap.
Vicki Mansfield (Host) (21:49):
I think, as you said, thinking about values and how they want to be in this new space of being a parent and that changing, evolving identity, you had some moments in your journey where grace and compassion was something that might’ve been a vital life raft for you.
Amy Mathews (22:10):
Being a parent is truly the hardest job on earth. It’s the hardest thing to figure out. When you think you’ve got your head around it, it all changes. They hit a new milestone. You’re just confronted with something new, and then you’ve got to evolve. Then there’s another struggle, and then it evolves. I often hear mums saying in the groups that I facilitate is, “Does it get easier?” The truth, I want to be honest. No, it doesn’t, but what does change is your ability, your resilience to cope with high-stress situations. You are more skilled, so the next challenge that comes along, just as hard as the other, but you’re more skilled, and you have more compassion for yourself and your ability to parent. You can struggle, but just let those around you know, and they’ll support you. It’s not easy. Give yourself some grace.
Vicki Mansfield (Host) (23:04):
Some grace, and so the words I heard there was that feeling selfish might be a should or an expectation, that grace might be starting to think about and validate your own needs or be around people who can provide that support and validation and recognition that it doesn’t have to be a soldier alone place. So finishing up, Amy, when you reflect on your journey of perinatal mental health and then being a peer advocate and studying and now working with parents as a peer support worker for Peach Tree Perinatal, what does this journey mean for you?
Amy Mathews (23:45):
It has been a huge journey. I love what Peach Tree is about. I didn’t see myself being in that role. As I’ve studied, as I’ve evolved, I’ve realised the biggest part of my lived experience was in that space, was in that world. It’s something that… It’s one of my biggest values to be able to help other mums but not do it for them. I’ve always wanted to be a helper, someone who can fix people. What peer work and Peach Tree have done for me is to show me that it’s meeting people where they’re at, sitting and having those conversations, holding space for them, building hope for them to do the work for themselves and for them to fix themselves. I mean, not that they’re permanently broken, they’re just fractured.
(24:32):
These hard challenges that we have in life, parenting being one of the biggest, we’ve become quite fractured, and we just hold the space for that. The real work is in the room. It’s the shared stories. It’s the other mums holding their hands up saying, “Me too,” and that can fill in the cracks. If you can let yourself be vulnerable, that’s where the healing really starts. I think that that’s where it takes the courage from parents to say, “Okay, I’m going to allow myself to be vulnerable. I’m going to share something that there is a stigma around, and we’re going to break that down.” So, there’s always going to be stigma, but not remove it, but just really lower it where it’s not drowning people in mental health struggles.
Vicki Mansfield (Host) (25:12):
That vulnerability is such a courageous step. What I can hear now, Amy, is that those courageous steps that you took back in your perinatal journey and now your superpower as a peer support worker because you are sharing with such beautiful vulnerability today, that’s really allowing other families to see that there’s hope through the journey.
Amy Mathews (25:39):
I didn’t link in with peer work and peer support until I felt isolated and just needed to speak with someone. It wasn’t until a few sessions in where I allowed myself to feel vulnerable, but it was a huge step for me to simply walk in that room. I find that a lot of people, that is a barrier. I just want to say to them like, “Just have the courage to step out there, and put yourself out there, and share your vulnerabilities because there’ll be someone so like-minded that you can connect with.” Why would you want to hinder that? Just to have this beautiful, understood connection where there’s people not judging you and not holding you to an unrealistic expectation.
Vicki Mansfield (Host) (26:21):
I really respect that message, Amy. For practitioners working in that space, what I hear is that sense of importance of being able to recognise the courage, meet people in that place of vulnerability, and build a hold of space that’s really safe and supportive and compassionate that allows their courage to go to the vulnerable places. Thanks so much. Any final messages or thoughts for our audience?
Amy Mathews (26:51):
Just what I was saying about courage, a couple of weeks ago, I went to the founder of Peach Tree, and expressed an immense amount of gratitude not only for the support I received through my perinatal journey, but as allowing me to be the giver of hope in that space as a peer worker. Something she said, it’s just stuck with me is, “All we did was open the door. You are the one who walked through it,” and it is stuck with me. I see that when new parents walk through the door. I just hold the door open. They’re the ones walking in, and they’re the ones doing all of the work. I’m just facilitating that for them, and that’s so profound.
Vicki Mansfield (Host) (27:31):
Thank you so much, Amy, for your time today and sharing your insights and wisdoms. I really appreciate your vulnerability and your strength in being able to share your journey, and to share these important messages for Perinatal Mental Health Week. Thank you so much.
Amy Mathews (27:50):
Thank you so much for giving me the voice. I really appreciate it.
Narration (27:54):
Visit our website today at emergingminds.com.au to access a range of resources to assist your practise, brought to you by the National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health. Led by Emerging Minds, the centre is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health, Disability, and Ageing under the National Support for Child and Youth Mental Health Program.