Latest / What the Hal?? 2.0 / WHAT THE HAL? PODCAST 2.0 – EPISODE 22: Postpartum Depression vs. Psychosis: Warning Signs Families Should Know

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WHAT THE HAL? PODCAST 2.0 – EPISODE 22: Postpartum Depression vs. Psychosis: Warning Signs Families Should Know · What the Hal?? 2.0

• 0:00
  The subjects of postpartum depression and psychosis have been in the news recently, but many people are still unfamiliar with what that's all about.
• 0:08
  I'm Hal Eisner, along with Hunter Lowery and Elsa Ramon.
• 0:11
  And this is what the hell.
• 0:14
  Smart, fresh and uplifting.
• 0:21
  We've got the stories that make you want to say, what the hell.
• 0:26
  The subjects of postpartum depression and psychosis have been in the news recently, but many people are still unfamiliar with what that's all about.
• 0:35
  I'm Hal Eisner along with Hunter Lowry and Elsa Ramone.
• 0:38
  And this is what the hell.
• 0:41
  The trial of Massachusetts mother Lindsay Clancy has put postpartum psychosis under an intense national spotlight.
• 0:49
  Clancy is accused of killing her three young children.
• 0:52
  That trial is going on right now as we tape this.
• 0:55
  But of course, by the time this airs, there could be a verdict.
• 0:59
  END so that's where we are right now.
• 1:01
  And at the same time, the recent death of actress Hayden Panettiere has brought up her previous battles with postpartum depression.
• 1:11
  And with us today is psychotherapist Dr.
• 1:13
  Lynn Lanney to help us understand how the simple joy of motherhood can sometimes bring out hidden emotional and psychological challenges.
• 1:23
  First of all, welcome.
• 1:24
  Dr.
• 1:25
  Anyone who's had a child or has helped with raising a newborn knows that the pressures and stresses are multiplied and intensified.
• 1:38
  When you're dealing with a newborn child, couple that with maybe someone who struggles with maybe some mental illness, depression, anxiety, and that can be an even bigger challenge.
• 1:54
  So for people who don't know if how that can really impact those first few months, even that first year of bringing a newborn home, can you explain to people postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis and what the difference is
• 2:13
  between the two?
• 2:14
  Sure.
• 2:15
  Postpartum depression is a relatively common issue that affects new mothers.
• 2:20
  I think the currently it's about one in seven new mothers are affected by that.
• 2:25
  It is what they used to call the baby blues.
• 2:27
  So it, it encompasses sadness, exhaustion, which is all typical of being a brand new parent, anxiety and a little bit of detachment from the baby.
• 2:37
  So but they these people that suffer with that are firmly anchored in reality.
• 2:42
  And that's the biggest distinction between the classic sort of natural process of being depressed in that context of hormonal changes and a brand new kind of structure in terms of waking, sleeping hours and all the factors that go
• 2:56
  into being depressed, exhausted and overwhelmed with a new challenge.
• 3:00
  But psychosis is different because it actually is very rare and it constitutes almost a medical emergency because it occurs in only one or Two out of a thousand mothers.
• 3:11
  And in that case it is literally a split from reality because psychosis is not just, you know, sort of coping with difficult feelings that are overwhelming for a time.
• 3:22
  This is something that separates an individual from the reality that the rest of us share.
• 3:28
  I had a friend who went through a tough time when her second child was born and I was afraid for her.
• 3:39
  But I think it was mainly complicated by the fact that she was not sleeping, like at all.
• 3:48
  Is insomnia a huge part of this?
• 3:51
  Not only of the psychosis?
• 3:53
  You mean of the, of the depression, of the psychosis, of the, of the trauma that these people go through and the detachment?
• 4:02
  Well, naturally you're going to be sleep deprived when you're a brand new parent because there's all sorts of changes in that structure and both, even in terms of a partnership, you know, the, the partner may not be sleeping,
• 4:13
  the new mom may not be sleeping, and that's all to be expected.
• 4:17
  But there's a really significant distinction that is literally the most sing critical symptom to know and how to evaluate whether or not you're looking at postpartum depression versus postpartum psychosis, which is unremitting insomnia accompanied by like an altered,
• 4:35
  either hyper or utterly detached from the rest of the world sort of state.
• 4:40
  But this person that experiences this is literally in a state of neurochemical crisis.
• 4:46
  And it is the single most important thing to identify when you're trying to figure out how to handle it as a supportive friend or a part or even the individual who's going through it.
• 4:57
  Because when you're in postpartum depression, you can learn to balance, take better care of yourself, you know, sleep when you can have other people taking care of the baby when, when you have an opportunity to do that.
• 5:09
  But if you're dealing with psychosis, they can't sleep even when they have an opportunity to do so.
• 5:14
  So, and is that, is that an early warning sign though?
• 5:16
  Is that an early warning sign?
• 5:18
  It is, yes.
• 5:19
  The single most critical distinction and a symptom that we can notice.
• 5:24
  Yes, right away.
• 5:26
  Right away.
• 5:26
  You know, we have these, what should.
• 5:27
  People be watching for?
• 5:29
  Right.
• 5:30
  If they're looking at psychosis versus depression again, the option to sleep is they're, they're unable to sleep even when they have an opportunity to do that.
• 5:39
  So that's number one.
• 5:40
  Beyond that, you're looking for a detachment from the reality as we all understand it, which means they could be in like a pressured speech, manic kind of episode and they could be paranoid in terms of delusions, they can
• 5:56
  be hallucinating.
• 5:57
  So all those factors that actually constitute psychosis are present in the context of this neurochemical breakdown, which is actually more likely if you've ever had like a bipolar disorder with the psychotic features that we're talking about.
• 6:13
  That's.
• 6:13
  And in this case, in this case involving Lindsey Clancy, we hear about hallucinations, hearing voices, paranoia, and losing touch with reality.
• 6:24
  Yes.
• 6:26
  So you.
• 6:26
  And so that's very, that's very consistent though, with what you're talking about here with postpartum psychosis.
• 6:32
  Yeah, yes, yes, all those symptoms are.
• 6:36
  So you were saying that sometimes some underlying conditions, you know, can contribute to the depression, postpartum depression, and maybe even psychosis, which is still rare.
• 6:50
  But what are some of those underlying conditions?
• 6:53
  I mean, I guess you can assume that if you struggle with depression and anxiety prior to your pregnancy, that would be some things to discuss with your doctor.
• 7:03
  But what are some other pre existing conditions that, that could affect something like this after having a child?
• 7:12
  Well, the single immediate precipitous drop in estrogen and progesterone after you give birth is the sharpest horm shift an individual will ever experience in the course of a lifetime.
• 7:25
  So the hormones are super significant.
• 7:27
  Mental health history definitely is because that bipolar disorder process where you see the bania or the detachment into the depression is more likely to be part of the full blown psychotic experience because it's something that was part of
• 7:45
  that person's history on a mental health level originally or, you know, before they became pregnant or had the baby.
• 7:52
  It is, it's a, it's sort of a symptom that lends itself to really checking and evaluating whether or not the person's just in postpartum depression, which is treatable and will modify itself in all likelihood within a few weeks.
• 8:06
  But if it's psychotic, it's not likely to have any kind of man like natural adjustment.
• 8:12
  It's just they're stuck in that space until they get emergency treatment and immediate treatment, ideally.
• 8:21
  Now, I mean, Hal, Elsa and I worked in news for many years and we always hear the worst case scenario and it's tragic.
• 8:30
  But there have been a number of these cases where a parent, usually a mother, kills their children.
• 8:39
  And I mean, there's all different reasons for that.
• 8:43
  But that's not necessarily going to happen with postpartum psychosis.
• 8:49
  Right.
• 8:49
  That's like an extreme example.
• 8:52
  Yes.
• 8:52
  But you definitely want to suggest that anybody who appears to have those psychotic features and symptoms we were talking about would get A mental health evaluation at that time to see what is going on in the hallucinations.
• 9:06
  They may or may not be sharing them with people, but if you get an evaluation, you can start identifying.
• 9:11
  Are they afraid for the baby's well being?
• 9:14
  Are there are voices telling them to do something, to oddly protect the baby by taking them out of a cruel world?
• 9:21
  There's all kinds of paranoid delusions and, you know, the hallucinations themselves that can create the impetus to sort of act in a way that is just.
• 9:32
  It's not even understandable from a distant, you know, normal feet on the ground present in this world position.
• 9:38
  But in their minds it makes sense because they're not here.
• 9:41
  They're in an altered state.
• 9:43
  And by the way, medication modification is also a significant element to consider because if they get destabilized on medication they were originally taking because of the hormonal shifts, because of the exhaustion and the insomnia, all the neurochemical stuff
• 9:58
  goes haywire anyway.
• 9:59
  So it can go to a place that becomes really dark and then be sort of the stimulus to do something horrible.
• 10:07
  Well, especially if you have to stop your medication or modify it while you're pregnant to, you know, take into consideration the health and safety of the fetus.
• 10:21
  Yes.
• 10:21
  You know, so what I, you know, before someone who has an underlying mental health condition decides that they want to get pregnant or sometimes they find out they're pregnant, it's not planned, you know, how do you address that
• 10:38
  as a doctor to modify that medication to make sure that the mother is still being treated for the underlying condition safely and the baby is safe in utero?
• 10:51
  Well, they have to be managed.
• 10:52
  Their care, their medication, the stability.
• 10:55
  I mean, it takes a really solid team of professionals making sure that that person is truly stable.
• 11:02
  And, you know, there's a whole checklist of issues that need to be addressed in the context of continuing whatever mental health treatment they were undergoing, making sure that everybody involved is aware of the history, if there's mental health
• 11:15
  issues in the past, and that they're all working together collaboratively to provide what that person needs, because the person isn't a great judge of what they need at that time.
• 11:24
  It's not like the individual is going to go, gee, I'm hearing voices necessarily.
• 11:28
  They may be totally in denial because the voices are telling them not to share that information or whatever.
• 11:32
  But, you know, professional people who are doing, who do mental health evaluations are going to be able to suss that out, especially when they're getting records from the other providers about what the medication has been and what it
• 11:44
  is now and all that stuff that they need to know in order to accurately kind of develop a treatment plan that will protect that person as well as their family members.
• 11:53
  You know, in this case involving Hayden Panacher, she spoke publicly about her postpartum depression.
• 11:59
  She, you know, felt ashamed and an isolation surrounding it the way it was described.
• 12:07
  Do a lot of mothers feel that way?
• 12:09
  And why might they feel that admitting that they're struggling means that somehow they're failing as a mother?
• 12:18
  Well, it does lend itself to consider like what their self esteem was like before they had a baby and so that's relevant.
• 12:26
  But if somebody's sort of oriented toward taking on too much responsibility or having a lot of self critical self perceptions, I'm not enough, I'm not quite adequate.
• 12:37
  This could likely exacerbate it in a significant way because there is a myth of a perfect mother that you're supposed to feel blissful all the time and handle it all and go without sleep and just you're there for
• 12:48
  that child.
• 12:49
  You're kind of irrelevant in the moment of being the moment and you don't know how to do it.
• 12:54
  Especially if you're a rookie parent and you haven't done it before.
• 12:57
  You don't realize that it's of course appropriate and logical to be exhausted, to have mother brain with the hormonal shifts and all that stuff.
• 13:05
  I mean those terms are colloquial, colloquially like familiar to us because it's not, you don't feel normal for a long time, you're not sleeping properly, you can't do and you're not taking care of yourself the way that you
• 13:18
  would ordinarily because you're just completely, you're a food source for another being.
• 13:23
  You're the emotional primary source.
• 13:25
  And it is, it's like there's an out of body kind of quality to it because it's hormonally so wobbly and unstable anyway just to be, you know, kind of going through breastfeeding or sleep deprivation, all those factors.
• 13:41
  If you're compromised because you've had issues before with self esteem, it is really easy to feel like no matter what you do, it's not enough and that you're not doing anything that's helping that child.
• 13:51
  So you feel like sort of so depressed that you start getting detached.
• 13:56
  Because depression's a lot about anger turned inward and judging yourself harshly is part of that now.
• 14:02
  I mean it's all very, it's all very well to say that, you know, if you if you run into this, you should get this person help.
• 14:10
  But back to my personal experience.
• 14:14
  My friend was in a bad way.
• 14:17
  She was crying all the time.
• 14:18
  She was saying things that sounded self destructive.
• 14:21
  I was frightened to the point where I drove to her house and knocked on the door and said, you know, it's like, let me in, I'll take care of the kids.
• 14:30
  Just take an Ambien, get some sleep, you know, let me, let me help you.
• 14:34
  And she basically said, go away, leave me alone.
• 14:38
  You're trespassing, I'm going to call the police.
• 14:41
  And this is somebody I'd been friends with for years.
• 14:44
  And you see the problem.
• 14:47
  But what do you do about the problem if the person says there's no problem?
• 14:54
  That's a really good question, and I'm glad we're talking about that.
• 14:57
  There's.
• 14:58
  There are some strategies.
• 14:59
  I wish I'd known you back then.
• 15:03
  I do too, because I don't know how she wound up feeling, but I hope it's positive and that she got through it.
• 15:08
  And I'm sure partly that's supportive and comforting and all that stuff.
• 15:13
  So she worked her way through it.
• 15:14
  But it's terrifying to be on the other side of that and feel like you're intruding and you're being rejected, when you're just trying to offer support and comfort and then you have some degree of responsibility because you feel
• 15:25
  like I should be able to do something and my hands are tied.
• 15:28
  Unless you make a preventative plan ahead of time with a person that you're close to, who's going to likely be going through that, either because of their mental health history or because you know what to expect and you've,
• 15:39
  you know, paid attention and you're listening and learning, given your experience with her, how to do this differently next time, which is you gotta ask direct questions.
• 15:47
  If they're concerned about hurting themselves or you're concerned about them hurting themselves, or some somehow that's part of the equation.
• 15:55
  You wanna know how deeply have you considered that?
• 15:59
  At what level would you be thinking that that's a good idea and what's going on and has that ever happened before?
• 16:05
  And whatever information you get, I would strongly suggest that you, like if there's nothing on the radar before you want to build a protocol early, like if you start getting wobbly, I'm your closest person and I sense that.
• 16:17
  I want you to know I'm going to break all the rules of confidentiality that friendship has and I'm going to get some help and I Hope you're not mad at me, but understand if I take that action, it's
• 16:27
  just because I love you, I want to help and I want to care for your child as well.
• 16:31
  If I feel like at some point, part of what's going on with you is making it difficult for that to happen.
• 16:36
  So I had a situation.
• 16:38
  Yeah.
• 16:38
  And I had a situation the other day, very much like that.
• 16:40
  Very much like that, where I have a friend who has been dealing with cancer and had a mastectomy and has been going through chemo and going through a lot of depression.
• 16:54
  And, you know, she finds herself depressed.
• 16:59
  She's, you know, living alone.
• 17:01
  She has depressed, you know, son in medical school.
• 17:03
  But, you know, it's life.
• 17:05
  And I said, you get sad, you call me beautiful.
• 17:12
  But it was.
• 17:12
  It was sort of like my way of sort of saying, I don't know.
• 17:17
  I don't know how to deal with this, but I'm here, and if you need somebody to talk to, it doesn't really matter what time of day, you give me a call and I'll be here and we'll.
• 17:27
  We'll do this together.
• 17:28
  And so is that what we're talking about here is sort of partly, partly,.
• 17:32
  We're talking about the caregivers and what should the caregivers do?
• 17:35
  And the caregivers can make those phone calls to those organizations and the mental health lines going, this is what I'm hearing.
• 17:41
  This is what they're saying.
• 17:43
  What do you think I should do?
• 17:44
  Because we as therapists have a mandatory confidentiality rule, Right.
• 17:49
  Unless we believe that that person is in danger of hurting themselves or others, and then we get to throw the rules out the window and forget the confidentiality and take action to protect them when they're not able to
• 18:01
  muster enough energy or strength to protect themselves or their children.
• 18:04
  Right.
• 18:05
  So.
• 18:05
  And there's a process we all know to go through about, you know, lethality indices and are they thinking about it?
• 18:11
  Have they got a plan?
• 18:12
  Do they have a weapon?
• 18:13
  There's all this process of checklists to go through before we take action.
• 18:17
  But part of that is if I think somebody's actively suicidal and they're in danger and they're my family member, I will call the PET team in la.
• 18:25
  I know they have that process.
• 18:28
  And they will come out and do a mental health evaluation.
• 18:30
  If I can't get them to go to a hospital or go to a psychiatrist or a psychotherapist that they're seeing, or even if one they haven't seen somebody who's A mandatory reporter and has that skill set to be
• 18:41
  able to say, yes, we've got to help you, we've got to look at the medication, we've got to supervise you, we've got to give you three days worth of stabilizing so that you no longer feel that way before
• 18:51
  we feel like you're going to be okay and your child will be okay, if you're intending to have one or just did.
• 18:57
  Yes.
• 18:58
  So that's all part of it.
• 19:00
  And there are.
• 19:00
  The really exciting thing is there's a very specific hotline that actually is for like, I think I got to look at what it's.
• 19:09
  It's called, I wrote it down, the National Maternal mental Health Hotline.
• 19:16
  833-TLC.
• 19:18
  Mama Ma Ma.
• 19:19
  Right.
• 19:20
  So anybody who's concerned about that can call there and they can say, ask them this.
• 19:25
  Have you checked on that?
• 19:26
  And walk you through a way for where you don't feel responsible but incapable or like disempowered to be able to do something when you feel helpless.
• 19:36
  Reach out to somebody who can suggest something you can do so that you feel like you're doing the best you can and ideally helping yourself as well as the other person, because that's a terrible position to be in.
• 19:48
  I think it's horrible.
• 19:50
  As a mom.
• 19:50
  I have two kids.
• 19:51
  My daughter's 22.
• 19:53
  My son is 13.
• 19:55
  And a couple things come to mind too.
• 19:58
  I would think that the support or lack of support, depending on what your situation is when you have a child, plays a big role in how you get through that first year.
• 20:12
  Because I'm not going to lie, that first year is a doozy, you know, with a newborn.
• 20:18
  But also, I don't.
• 20:21
  I.
• 20:21
  My two OB GYNs that I had for each pregnancy were phenomenal and I just loved them both.
• 20:32
  But I do not remember any kind of discussion or preparation on what to do or to recognize signs if you, you know, if you think you're starting to feel depressed beyond just normal.
• 20:48
  I'm sleep deprived and I'm going to cry because everything is so hard right.
• 20:52
  Now.
• 20:55
  To what signs to look for if it's beyond depression.
• 20:59
  I don't know if now, I mean, because my son is 13, maybe things have changed, but I don't know if that's part of the standard care now when you're pregnant and going in for your, you know, ob GYN
• 21:14
  appointments.
• 21:14
  I just don't remember that now.
• 21:16
  That doesn't mean it didn't happen.
• 21:17
  Maybe there were just so many other things that were on My mind, but I don't remember either time having those kinds of discussions.
• 21:26
  You know, it would be so great.
• 21:29
  Pardon being offered those discussions without advocating, you know, a patient having to advocate and then having the doctor say, oh, yes, if you have an underlying condition, X, Y, Z, I.
• 21:41
  It didn't.
• 21:42
  It wasn't something that just came up where the doctor said, now I'm going to talk to you, you know, since we're getting ready, you know, you're almost due to deliver.
• 21:52
  You know, I want to talk to you about a couple of things about postpartum depression and psychosis.
• 21:56
  And here are the signs and here are the symptoms, and here are these sheets to, you know, to.
• 22:00
  With all the things to look for.
• 22:02
  There wasn't a proactive.
• 22:06
  Weren't proactive steps taken by the doctor.
• 22:09
  They would certainly answer your questions if you advocated, but it didn't seem part of, I guess, the process.
• 22:15
  If you had to do it over again, would you have liked to or do you even know anybody who would have wanted to collaborate, have their physicians collaborate about that?
• 22:26
  Like, because it's not like you have to have a family member or a close friend be that person who's just watching out for you and your child.
• 22:33
  It's anybody that you could designate.
• 22:36
  And if there's a team approach where, let's say you've been in therapy and you've suffered with bipolar disorder or depression or whatever, you can certainly invite your OB GYN to connect the dots, make sure the records are shared
• 22:50
  and have access to you or even plan some time to talk after you give birth to be able to say, I'm wobbly or I'm feeling pretty good, but I don't know.
• 22:59
  The other day something weird happened.
• 23:00
  Like, you know, that would be a perfect time to engage all of the professionals.
• 23:04
  So they all.
• 23:06
  What's happening physically, emotionally, psychologically, the whole nine yards and chemically, neuro, neurologically, biochemically.
• 23:15
  Because if everybody's got the data, you know, there's so many more eyes on the situation that can tell what's really going on.
• 23:21
  And it doesn't leave that one individual like Hunter was talking about in the position of going, I don't really know what's happening and I don't know what to do.
• 23:28
  Yeah, if you had, like, you know, one particular piece of advice that you would.
• 23:35
  You'd want to have in our toolkit to think about, because we got so many things to think about anyway.
• 23:42
  But you know, what.
• 23:43
  What would that be?
• 23:46
  If you're concerned about somebody's wellness Call one of those hotlines, let them know what you're experiencing or what you're witnessing, and ask them for help so that you know what to do to help your friend, your partner, whoever.
• 24:00
  I think that would be the number one thing.
• 24:02
  Make the phone call yourself, because then you really can rest comfortably in the knowledge that you have done everything you can.
• 24:10
  And they can help you come up with a game plan about, you know, like, in therapy, we do safety contracts with people that are wobbly and sometimes suicidal.
• 24:17
  You guys can't do that.
• 24:18
  But if you would tell somebody like us what's happening and give us the data that you've experienced with your background knowledge of this person that we don't know, we can help you give them a way to get directed
• 24:29
  or know what the warning signs are when you need to get on that phone and go, somebody come out here and evaluate this person.
• 24:35
  I'm willing to risk our friendship, but I think they're in trouble, and I'm afraid for their safety.
• 24:40
  Take that step.
• 24:41
  I think.
• 24:42
  I think we touched on it a little bit before when we were talking about, you know, Hayden Panchieri and Lindsey Clancy and the pressures on women to be the perfect mother, to be, you know, the.
• 24:57
  The working mom, the perfect mother, the trad wife, the.
• 25:02
  You know, and.
• 25:04
  And women, even when they're feeling shaky, even when they're feeling like they may be losing touch with things, are so unwilling to admit it, to ask for help, to, like, show their.
• 25:22
  Their crack, the cracks in their armor.
• 25:25
  And I don't know how to get past that because there's so much shame and so much pressure to be the perfect mom.
• 25:32
  And who wants to admit they're not right?
• 25:35
  And Hayden, by the way, I think she did say Panetera said that she had struggles with.
• 25:43
  I think the company was Neutrogena, if I remember correctly.
• 25:46
  She was a spokesperson for them at Time the Time.
• 25:48
  And they canceled her because she came forward and was honest about her struggles with postpartum depression.
• 25:55
  So you see stuff like, women face that stuff all the time.
• 26:00
  Even more pressure, you know, just so.
• 26:02
  Much pressure to be able to form and deal with a new child.
• 26:07
  I'm speaking from experience.
• 26:09
  I was a television news anchor anchoring the news both times that I was pregnant and felt the pressure big time to, you know, get well.
• 26:17
  I had two C sections, you know, both times, and I felt the pressure to get better, get on my feet, start healing right away so that I could get back to work.
• 26:26
  But the fact that a big company like that really Basically punished her for trying to talk about something that women deal with all the time.
• 26:39
  You know, I'm sure you hear that from clients, when or patients that that's why they're afraid to come forward.
• 26:47
  If somebody like a big star like Hayden Panettaire can't come forward and say, this is what I'm dealing with without getting dropped by a major national sponsor,.
• 26:55
  What are the rest of us little.
• 26:57
  People going to, you know, face?
• 27:00
  That's actually a generational issue too, because, you know, it used to be that roles were very specifically divided, right.
• 27:06
  In ter if you have a heterosexual relationship, there was the guy role and the woman's role, and there were.
• 27:12
  They didn't divide labor, they divided tasks.
• 27:15
  Right.
• 27:16
  It was very structured.
• 27:17
  It was very established.
• 27:18
  But over the years and the generations kind of evolving.
• 27:21
  It's more like a.
• 27:22
  Ideally, a relationship that's between a couple is a partnership.
• 27:25
  Right.
• 27:26
  You divide labor.
• 27:27
  You don't have to separate.
• 27:28
  I do this, you do that.
• 27:30
  We try to share things on a different level.
• 27:31
  But they did an interesting study when all that happened and women were in the workforce more and they were much more, you know, kind of consistently about trying to be a person as well as a partner or a
• 27:42
  moment.
• 27:43
  Right.
• 27:43
  And provide, et cetera, in context of not just like, you know, one income anymore.
• 27:48
  It was more like dual incomes.
• 27:50
  They did a study and they saw that women who only were moms felt like they did not provide an adequate role model for their children, especially if they had girls.
• 27:59
  The people who.
• 28:00
  Women who were in the workforce felt like they weren't home enough to be a good mom, and those that tried to do, like a little bit of both felt like they couldn't do anything good enough.
• 28:10
  It's a huge issue for women across the board, and it's supersedes postpartum depression.
• 28:16
  It's just about, are you enough just being a person who is truly just basically doing the best they can because no one's perfect.
• 28:24
  So if the expectation is perfection, we all fail.
• 28:27
  You know, to me, moms are superheroes.
• 28:33
  And, you know, when we have a conversation like this, it reminds us just how much a mom has to go through in order to be able to smile, wear the cape, and be that superhero that our moms are.
• 28:49
  And so I'm glad that we have conversations like this out loud and we're able to give information to people.
• 28:56
  And.
• 28:58
  Is there any particular source website, something that, Lynn, you might recommend if people.
• 29:04
  Would like to learn more about postpartum depression?
• 29:08
  Well, I don't know A website for postpartum depression itself.
• 29:12
  But it's, you know, you can just.
• 29:14
  Google it and they'll google it, right?
• 29:15
  Yeah, we can do that.
• 29:16
  But there are really important things I think that are, are critically like, helpful to disseminate to your audience would be that National Maternal Mental Health hotline that I mentioned earlier, the, the suicide and crisis like lifeline, which is
• 29:31
  988 only.
• 29:32
  And, and just sort of give them permission to reach out to ask somebody who knows from that perspective and who can just provide a direction about where to go to get the help we all need.
• 29:48
  Because you know that thing about it takes a village.
• 29:50
  It does.
• 29:51
  Every individual's life takes a village.
• 29:54
  So whether it's the baby or the mom or the partner or the friend, we all need that sort of collaborative team approach to just go.
• 30:02
  We're just trying to help each other hold hands and walk through the world of issues and challenges and difficulties.
• 30:08
  That's it.
• 30:09
  It's about love.
• 30:10
  And that's when you do that, you're showing and demonstrating, which I think, I.
• 30:15
  Think these conversations are good too, because the attention that's being paid to this subject helps to dissipate the shame over, you know, talking about mental illness, talking about depression.
• 30:27
  And I think that's what keep a lot, keeps a lot of people from getting help, is that shame and keeping things hidden.
• 30:33
  So I'm glad we're doing this.
• 30:35
  Yeah.
• 30:35
  And we shouldn't have to wait for a tragedy and a high profile case to have this come to light.
• 30:40
  I mean, you know, that's too late.
• 30:43
  By then these conversations should be happening well before things get to that point.
• 30:48
  But, you know, I mean, maybe we.
• 30:50
  Can take this horrible tragedy on both of those levels and use it to influence and help other people recognize it so that there's a level of prevention because of that that wouldn't have been possible to achieve.
• 31:02
  So if it winds up doing something good, at least if back end benefit is absolutely.
• 31:07
  Well, you know, we've known you a long time, Lynn, and you always, you always give us some good information and you've done that again.
• 31:13
  So thanks for the home run.
• 31:15
  Really appreciate it.
• 31:16
  Good to see you again.
• 31:17
  And I really appreciate what you said, Hal.
• 31:18
  That's why we like you so much.
• 31:23
  Thanks.
• 31:23
  Thank you for doing what you do.
• 31:24
  Because what you're doing matters and it helps.
• 31:27
  So you guys all get to go home and feel like, you know, I'm good enough, I hope, because you are.
• 31:33
  Thank you.
• 31:34
  Thank you.
• 31:35
  And that's what the how 2.0.
• 31:37
  I'm Hal Eisner, along with Elsa Ramon and Hunter Lowery.
• 31:40
  This podcast is produced by Hunter.
• 31:43
  Jamie Knapp is our Technical Director Editor and he handles all of the post production.
• 31:48
  Our original theme music is composed by Stuart Pearson.
• 31:52
  Earlier versions of the Population podcasts were produced at the studios of Fox 11 in Los Angeles and are available through the link in our Show Notes.
• 32:01
  This version of the podcast is available on YouTube and wherever you listen to podcasts.
• 32:06
  And what the hell.
• 32:07
  2.0 is produced in Los Angeles, California.