Latest / Dam Parenting / Postpartum Rage: Why New Mothers Get Angry, Who It Lands On, and How to Get Help in the Netherlands

Transcript

Postpartum Rage: Why New Mothers Get Angry, Who It Lands On, and How to Get Help in the Netherlands · Dam Parenting

0:00
Before we start today, I want to hold space for a moment.
0:04
This month, on Time Parenting, I'm starting a series of
0:06
conversations about parts of postpartum and motherhood that
0:09
are, well, genuinely hard to talk about.
0:12
And it's not because they're shameful, but it's because
0:15
they've been made to feel that way.
0:17
Not everyone experiences birth as partum or motherhood the same
0:20
way. Some of you are in the thick of
0:23
it right now. Some of you might be looking
0:25
back, some of you may be pregnant and trying to
0:28
understand what might be coming. Wherever you are, you belong in
0:33
these conversations. These episodes may bring things
0:36
up, and if they do, that's not a sign that something is wrong
0:39
with you, but it is a sign that these conversations are reaching
0:43
the right person. Today we are talking about
0:45
postpartum rage. We're going to say that word and
0:48
we're going to stay with it, and we are going to come out the
0:51
other side with more understanding than we arrived
0:54
with. You did not fail, you were not
0:57
warned, and you were not alone. Welcome back to Down Parenting.
1:06
I'm your host, Eva. In the first year after my baby
1:08
arrived, I found myself going from zero to 100 basically in
1:12
seconds. And it wasn't at a stranger and
1:15
it wasn't at the building renovation chaos that was
1:16
genuinely destroying our daily life.
1:19
And it wasn't at those family comments that sometimes, well,
1:22
they landed like grenades. And it wasn't at that damn pump
1:25
machine I was attached to, sometimes up to 8 times a day
1:29
just to keep my supply going. It was all at my husband's.
1:33
The easiest person to aim it all at.
1:35
The person who was always exhausted, who was also figuring
1:38
it all out, and who was doing his best and well, who happened
1:42
to be the closest. When everything finally became
1:45
too much, I was touched out. I was mentally burnt out.
1:48
I was sleeping in fragments and while I was holding myself
1:51
together in a version that kind of just looked functional, I
1:55
guess, from the outside, but it felt like it was all dissolving
1:58
from the inside. And that rage because, well, I
2:01
guess that's the word for it. It wasn't a personality flaw,
2:05
and it wasn't proof that I wasn't cut out for this
2:07
motherhood. It was a nervous system that had
2:10
basically pushed past its limits in a country I wasn't born in,
2:14
without any family nearby and in a body.
2:17
Well, it had just done something enormous and then I'd been
2:20
handed a baby and paperwork and sent home.
2:23
We need to talk about this today and properly.
2:26
Just to give you a bit of a stats moment, marriage quality
2:29
declines for approximately 2/3 of couples within the first five
2:33
years of having a baby, and the highest risk window is in year
2:36
1. Sleep deprivation alone causes
2:39
60% increase in emotional reactivity and a majority of new
2:43
parents report a lack of communication as a key stressor.
2:46
And for at least a year, 80% of couples report a significant
2:50
reduction in any intimacy. Up to one in five couples
2:53
separate or divorce within that first year of a baby's life.
2:56
And 12% of first time parents separate before the child's
2:59
second birthday. Women are 60% more likely to
3:03
initiate divorce after having a baby.
3:05
And it's not because we stopped loving our partners.
3:08
It was because of the unequal weight of the mental load, the
3:11
invisible labor, the physical recovery.
3:14
It accumulates into something that, well, it gets called rage.
3:18
But is it really? I needed more.
3:20
I didn't know how to ask, and nobody told me that this was
3:23
coming. This is what it really is.
3:26
And yet postpartum rage is not even in that DSM 5.
3:30
It has no official clinical diagnosis, standard postpartum
3:33
screening tools. They don't even offer questions
3:35
about anger at all, which means thousands of women walk into
3:38
appointments describing exactly this and are sent home without a
3:42
name for what they're experiencing.
3:44
So what is this episode? Well, we cannot fix postpartum
3:47
rage today because postpartum rage, it's not one thing.
3:50
It lives in the intersection of hormones and sleep, the
3:52
patriarchy, communication, support systems, identity, and a
3:57
body that's been through something so profound and that
3:59
cannot be solved in these 30 minutes.
4:02
What this episode is for, though, is to listen to a
4:04
conversation, to get a better understanding, to find out if
4:08
you need help or to get it here in the Netherlands and to feel,
4:13
well, just a little bit less like you're the only one.
4:16
So with me today is someone I'm genuinely glad to have back.
4:19
It's Doctor Naomi Gibson, who joined us in Season 1 as our
4:22
resident couples therapist. She is seen inside more
4:26
postpartum relationships than most people will in a lifetime.
4:29
And she said yes to coming back to talk about something she
4:32
thinks we have been avoiding for too long.
4:35
So, Doctor Naomi, welcome back to Dan Parenting.
4:37
Thank you so much for having me back.
4:40
It feels like old times. I know it's.
4:42
Very comfy. Well, damn parenting room.
4:46
I guess we're going to have to start at the beginning because I
4:49
think there's genuine confusion about what this postpartum rage
4:53
really is. So can you actually tell us what
4:56
is it? What does it feel like and how
4:58
is it different from just being tired and stressed and just
5:01
having a bad day? It's not so much different from
5:04
being tired and stressed per SE. So it's an expression of anger,
5:09
could be an outwards expression, so shouting, losing your temper,
5:14
being short with somebody, throwing something, you know,
5:17
kind of what we might imagine of anger.
5:19
Or it can sometimes be sort of internalised anger being kind of
5:23
very critical towards yourself, but normally some kind of
5:27
trigger and then an explosion or an internal explosion of of some
5:31
kind. And whilst we see it a lot in in
5:35
the postpartum period because there's so many different layers
5:39
of pressure. You mentioned them yourself, you
5:41
know, thinking about hormones, bodies that have changed and
5:44
been through so much, the lack of support or perhaps a
5:47
different level of support than you might have anticipated.
5:51
Yeah. The sounds, the sensory kind of
5:53
overwhelm, the noise of of a baby crying babies, these sorts
5:57
of things, they all, they all kind of shake us up.
5:59
And lots of women, it's extremely common to kind of to
6:04
notice an increase in anger in, in rage.
6:07
Something that feels kind of often times when clients
6:10
describe it to me as being like different from how they've ever
6:13
experienced anger before. Maybe they didn't really have
6:17
that many expressions of anger up until having a baby.
6:19
And then it feels like it's something that kind of kind of
6:22
overwhelm you. And it is.
6:24
I mean, if there's many reasons why it's probably not very
6:27
spoken about, but women can experience intense shame
6:31
afterwards as well and guilt around, you know, why did I do
6:35
that? What kind of mother shouts at
6:36
their baby or shouts at their toddler or, you know, attacks
6:40
their husband for something seemingly minor, these sorts of
6:44
things. And then that shame, Shame
6:46
always keeps us quiet, right? We don't want to share what we
6:49
feel shameful about, so I think that's one of the main
6:52
contributing factors of why it's not so spoken about.
6:56
Can I ask about the physicalities of it because the
6:58
phrase blood is always boiling. It comes up a lot online when
7:02
I'm researching it. Is that a clinical description
7:04
of anything or are people just describing dysregulation?
7:08
Well, I suppose when you think about your experience of anger
7:12
anyway, so we would have a sort of fight or flight response.
7:16
Flight being runaway, want to escape, fight being literally
7:20
anger like I'm ready to fight. And with that, that's a cortisol
7:25
and an adrenaline rush often, which, you know, gives your
7:30
muscles the energy they need in order to, to fight.
7:33
So when people, some probably describe that blood boiling,
7:36
that is a physical sensation. And also people sometimes talk
7:40
when they're angry about like the heat rising.
7:42
And that's, that's also like a, an adrenaline cortisol thing.
7:45
Your face gets flushed, you feel energetic.
7:47
And that's because anger has a job to do.
7:50
It needs to fight, it needs to kind of get out of your body
7:54
somehow. So that's why that kind of
7:56
physical reaction is there. But that in a, that might look
7:59
like, you know, maybe feeling an intense physical expression of
8:03
rage and standing up quickly or or maybe pushing a chair into a
8:07
table or maybe gritting a teeth or something like that.
8:11
That could be what the actual physical expression looks like.
8:14
That's sort of under the surface blood boiling feeling.
8:17
It's not like a movie scene then.
8:19
Oh. I don't know.
8:20
Yeah, depends what? Yeah, it could well be good in
8:22
it. I'm thinking of the women that I
8:24
see clinically who describe it. It's not like, you know,
8:27
chucking plates across the room kind of levels of explosion, but
8:30
more being short tempered swearing when they might not
8:34
usually just kind of be it using their body in a way that doesn't
8:38
feel kind of very familiar and feels kind of full of of anger.
8:42
And there's so much conflation between postpartum depression
8:46
AKA PPD and postpartum anxiety and rage.
8:49
So can you help us understand? Is postpartum always a symptom,
8:53
something diagnosable, or does it just exist on its own?
8:57
And also, by any chance do you know why it's not in that DSM?
9:00
Yeah, it's something that people describe a lot with postpartum
9:06
depression and anxiety is a kind of increased level of angry
9:12
feelings. But yeah, it's not a kind of
9:14
separate clinically diagnosable thing themselves.
9:17
And yeah, I don't necessarily know why that is.
9:21
I think it's probably because it's it's, yeah, it's part of a
9:25
bigger picture of post part of mood disorders.
9:28
So and that the kind of the rage kind of comes in into that, but
9:31
not in in itself the anxiety or depression, the diagnosable
9:35
things. But I mean, I don't know how
9:36
other people work, but the way I work doesn't really matter to
9:41
me. Like if you're, if something is
9:42
happening and you're finding it distressing and it's affecting
9:45
your well-being and it's affecting your relationships,
9:47
that's important to take notice of, even if it not necessarily
9:50
fit very neatly into a diagnosis.
9:53
Is there a risk of it not being named or screened for by any
9:56
chance? Yeah.
9:57
I mean, the screenings we use or postpartum depression do ask
10:02
about say for example, the Edinburgh scale, which is like a
10:05
very commonly used one that the GPS use, that midwives use, that
10:09
clinicians would use in different ways.
10:10
That asks about irritability and frustration, which I think if
10:15
you can get a bit of a picture of that and any scales that you
10:18
use to screen, you kind of need to have conversations further
10:22
about it, if there's points that feel kind of like they could get
10:26
a bit of light shed onto them. But yeah, I think there is a
10:28
risk that it wouldn't get noticed.
10:30
I think because of shame, it's perhaps more easy to admit that
10:34
you're feeling sad or low than it is to admit that you're
10:37
feeling angry or full of rage or that you've perhaps been in a
10:40
moment of rage and you've said or done something you regret.
10:44
I think that can feel very isolating, that experience, but
10:48
I think it's really extremely common and I think, you know,
10:52
ask any mom and they will probably tell you one or many
10:55
experiences where they felt the. Same, and as I shared myself I'm
10:59
sure I had more than one or two occasions of this but I do want
11:02
to say it did not hit at day 4 which we most mothers thankfully
11:05
are now being more aware of the fact that our hormones
11:08
completely crashed then mine was building.
11:11
So when does postpartum rage actually happen?
11:14
Because the 4th trimester, you know, day 4 is the hormone
11:18
crash. The 4th trimester, we're talking
11:20
about 3 month period here. But I know from experiences that
11:24
it can appear at any day like four 44144.
11:28
But is there a window and does the timing tell us anything?
11:32
Generally when we're looking at postpartum, it's within that
11:37
first year, whether that's a good range or not.
11:40
But that's what we're tending to, to look at and thinking
11:43
about the sort of massive hormonal fluctuation in that
11:47
time and breastfeeding starting, stopping whatever and your body
11:52
kind of readjusting, we're thinking about that first year.
11:54
But I think this can happen at any time in a in a parent or a
11:59
mother's life. And I think particularly, I
12:01
think we're thinking about mums and often if there are
12:04
situations, a slow build up of situations that kind of
12:08
highlighted a violation in your expectations in some way.
12:11
So there might be an expectation of more support or there might
12:14
be an expectation of feeling competent as a mother where
12:17
there might be an expectation of being able to breastfeed your
12:19
baby or an expectation you could go back to work in a manageable
12:23
time or that your partner will pick up some Slackware in the
12:27
system or whatever it is. I think it's more about those
12:31
things, that violation of expectation that's potentially
12:34
like a bit of a drip, drip, drip and then a boom feeling.
12:38
And that that could be very early on in a postpartum
12:41
experience, but that could be at any point.
12:43
So yeah, I don't necessarily think that there's any
12:46
particular sort of 1 stage that makes a person more vulnerable
12:50
necessarily, but the experience of becoming a mother is in
12:53
itself vulnerable. And if we separate out those
12:56
factors that I mentioned earlier, just for those women,
12:58
probably less than at 3:00 AM here, who are still in the thick
13:01
of feeding, pumping and basically being touched
13:04
constantly, is physical overstimulation generally a
13:08
neurological factor and not having to be attached to
13:11
anything else like the tiredness and everything else?
13:13
Yeah, I think it is. Yeah.
13:15
Physical overstimulation is really important, as is noise.
13:20
Anything that kind of stimulates or overstimulates or overwhelms
13:24
your nervous system is likely to kind of deplete you so that you
13:27
are more likely to slip into a state of anger or rage,
13:32
particularly if we're thinking about a loss or a change in your
13:36
kind of sense of autonomy as well.
13:38
So if you think about a breastfeeding mother who maybe
13:42
would have very easily gone to a sports class in pregnancy or
13:46
before and now finds that really difficult because somebody else
13:49
can't easily look after the baby or she doesn't want to leave or
13:53
the partner doesn't feel in whatever way kind of competent
13:55
to do that. Then not only have you got the
13:57
touch, the increased touch, the, you know, sleep deprivation, all
14:01
of that, you also have got this step where you're not got access
14:04
to things that help your well-being, give you a sense of
14:08
self outside of parenting, all of those things.
14:10
Yeah, I'd say it's individual on an individual case to case basis
14:13
and it's quite nuanced what it is for somebody that could kind
14:16
of trigger, trigger them in a way.
14:18
And speaking about the partner, why does the rage nearly always
14:22
land on them? Not the grind baby, and not the
14:25
difficulty in laws, and definitely not the system that's
14:28
continuously failing us here. But why is it the person that we
14:32
love the most usually like what's happening here?
14:36
I think it does just to say people do get very angry with
14:39
their babies. I remember getting extremely
14:41
angry with my baby when he felt like he just wouldn't sleep and
14:44
it was whatever o'clock in the morning the fists wake up like
14:48
absolutely losing my call and being, you know, like to my
14:52
husband, you have to take him now like this.
14:54
That's it sort of thing. And getting really angry and
14:56
then of course, feeling ashamed around how, how could I, you
15:00
know, all of that thing. So, yeah, lots of women describe
15:03
feeling very angry towards their babies.
15:05
But yeah, the anger towards a partner is is really very, very
15:10
common. And you, you said in your
15:11
introduction around how relationships can really change
15:14
in that first months or years because it's about sort of a
15:18
readjustment and learning how to be with each other in this new
15:22
way. And if we think sometimes about
15:25
situations that have violated an expectation of some kind, it
15:29
might be that you're. Yeah, maybe there's a trigger of
15:32
your partners, you know. OK, let's imagine babies crying.
15:36
You're feeling kind of overwhelmed already feeling, you
15:39
know, depleted, overwhelmed, sleep deprived.
15:42
And then your partner may say something like, oh, why are they
15:44
still crying? You know, something that's sort
15:47
of innocuous or something like that.
15:48
And then bam, that's the trigger to a rage explosion because
15:52
there's a sense of not feeling competent as a mother.
15:55
Why can't I get this baby to sleep when I should be able to
15:58
know what to do? There's a sense of a violation
16:01
and some kind of maybe an expectation around shared
16:04
parenting, like he should be able to do this as well.
16:06
Why am I, you know, all of these things?
16:08
And then you might get an experience of of anger and rage
16:11
where you you shout at them in the middle of the night or, or
16:14
you maybe you don't, maybe there's not a sort of there's
16:17
more of an internalized expression of it, but you kind
16:21
of the anger is more inward and you would be really kind of
16:24
highly critical to yourself. Yeah, we often sort of explode
16:28
at the people kind of closest to us as well.
16:31
And I think an important thing is that I think expressions of
16:34
anger and rage have a function in a way as they do alert us to
16:39
something being wrong, to there being an unmet need or there
16:42
being something that doesn't feel right.
16:45
And yeah, lots of women that I have seen have said, you know,
16:48
how how terrible those moments were when they completely lost
16:51
it at their partner. But at least their partner knew
16:54
then how under the pressure they were, how awful they had been
16:59
feeling for X amount of days before that.
17:01
And it sometimes there's a feeling, probably unconscious
17:04
that it takes a big expression of anger or a big rage moment
17:08
to, to kind of get a need met, get a need notice, get more
17:13
help, get some rest, get some time, space, whatever it is
17:16
that's that's feeling too much. I was going to say, does it take
17:21
that level for our partners to finally hear us?
17:25
But is there also a resentment after that?
17:28
In what way? Well, like the fact that we feel
17:31
resentment, like we've been escalated to this point that we
17:35
are now acting not as our normal selves.
17:37
And now our whole body has now gone through this and it's a lot
17:41
of emotions and it's a lot of energy.
17:43
And that's the only way to get our partners attention.
17:46
So there definitely could be resentment there of that needs a
17:50
conversation about a sense of, you know, I actually felt pushed
17:53
to this. There was no other choice.
17:54
I tried to talk to you in another way and that's this, you
17:57
know, I could only have and when you were totally furious.
18:00
But either way, there's a it's, it's signalling there, isn't it?
18:04
It's signalling a need. It's signalling a feeling of
18:06
resentment. It's signalling a need for
18:08
something to be different. It feels maybe kind of scary or
18:12
extreme in those moments. And what does the partner need
18:14
to understand? Because like, how can couples
18:17
get to a place where they can talk about this without having
18:20
to escalate to this level? I think it's, it's, it's
18:24
probably the person, let's say in this case the mum
18:28
experiencing these feelings, noticing what the triggers are,
18:32
you know, and if you have enough insight into that to be able to
18:34
sort of notice maybe there's a pattern.
18:36
Maybe, you know, your husband works Monday to Friday and on
18:40
Thursday you're more likely to slip into a position of rage.
18:44
Well, that's suggesting that by Thursday you're absolutely up to
18:48
the brim in whatever it is that baby care entails.
18:52
And maybe that's noticing. OK, well, then on Wednesday
18:56
evening or afternoon, you need to step out somebody else, put
18:59
them to bed, you know, go to a yoga class, whatever it is in
19:02
your family that it feels possible.
19:04
But being able to kind of notice if there is any kind of pattern
19:08
in in the triggers or, you know, maybe there's maybe you feel
19:10
more likely to experience rage when you haven't eaten or, you
19:15
know, whatever it is, if there's some kind of pattern to it that
19:17
can be useful also first kind of recognizing, I think.
19:21
Yeah. And then how can they talk about
19:22
it? Yeah, it's difficult, especially
19:24
if there's if there's feelings of resentment there.
19:27
But I think always kind of out of the moment.
19:29
So not straight when you're feeling flooded with adrenaline.
19:33
We know it takes 20 to 30 minutes after an experience of
19:37
acute stress or anger or rage for your nervous system to kind
19:40
of come back down. So maybe that's then or a couple
19:43
of hours later or the next day or whatever.
19:45
I know when I exploded yesterday, I felt that because I
19:49
felt completely depleted. Whatever the scenario is, can we
19:53
talk about ways that I can get a bit more help or that I can get
19:56
a rest or that whatever it is that feels like the unmet need
19:59
in some way? The listeners here, obviously
20:01
international parents here in the Netherlands, and we are
20:04
usually without family nearby and definitely not in our own
20:07
language and definitely without the inherited support systems
20:10
and networks for us. Does isolation compound it in a
20:13
way that is clinically distinct? Hmm.
20:16
I don't know the research on that, but I would definitely
20:19
anecdotally say that there's more of a likelihood of that.
20:23
Yeah, that violation and expectation.
20:25
And I'm specifically using that phrase because that's what the
20:28
some really nice recent research spoke about, of, of mothers
20:31
noticing that they had these expectations about themselves,
20:34
about motherhood, about support, whatever it was.
20:36
And there's been a violation. And that violation in those
20:38
expectations was trigger for rage.
20:41
And so if we think about people who've maybe moved abroad, they
20:44
might have expected a different kind of experience in their
20:48
birthing or their parenting. And yeah, I was just thinking of
20:51
a previous client who felt a lot of rage around this expectations
20:55
for the Cramzel. It's a very Dutch thing of
20:57
they're going to help me and they're going to mother me and
20:59
all of these things. And that isn't some people's
21:01
experience. Some people find it very
21:02
exposing and and violating in in certain intricate ways.
21:06
And that might lead to a feeling of anger.
21:08
You know, I had this expectation that this thing would be very
21:12
different to what it is. Yeah.
21:14
And there's definitely something around support, feeling
21:17
supported mothers in in that first year, feeling supported in
21:21
in whatever ways they might be. And there can be a lot of grief
21:26
and despair around perhaps not having the family or friends
21:29
support that you might have imagined.
21:31
Even if you've lived abroad for a long time, there's still may
21:33
be a sort of fantasy around like, oh, maybe your best friend
21:36
lives nearby with a baby, or maybe your mum can come over and
21:39
cook you some dinner, all these things.
21:40
Even if that's not a reality, there's still a fantasy there.
21:44
Yeah, I think that that thinking about grief and, and that I
21:48
think sometimes anger can be easier to feel than sadness.
21:52
If you're sad about your, your life situation, you know, maybe
21:57
your status of having a baby away from family or whatever it
21:59
is can feel very difficult to be sort of sad and to express that
22:05
grief. And maybe a way to, to do that
22:09
that's sort of bypassing that is, is through anger, through
22:12
rage. It gets the, there's a, a need
22:15
that gets met through that. That might be more difficult to
22:18
say. Like actually I feel really
22:19
deeply despairing and sad that this is different to why I
22:22
thought it might be. So you've named out there a
22:24
couple of emotions. I want to add to that guilt,
22:28
because some of us choose this life as it would be, so we can't
22:32
complain we chose to live here. But does that guilt compound the
22:36
rage? Yeah, I think anything that
22:38
makes it feel like there's shoulds, like you said I should,
22:42
I should feel gratitude for this or I should feel like this.
22:46
The life I've chosen, I can't complain, I think is then likely
22:50
to make you feel that you can't express something in a different
22:53
way where you can't talk about it in a way that feels
22:56
manageable. So then it's perhaps likely to
22:58
make it make anger and rage more likely.
23:01
It's all about sort of your kind of system being depleted in some
23:04
way. Will there be things that feel
23:06
hard to talk about or things that feel like there's a need to
23:09
be understood that's not there, or we need to be supported that
23:12
doesn't feel available at the time?
23:15
And the Netherlands is known well.
23:17
Amsterdam always boasts that it has over 180 nationalities
23:20
living here. When we look at all the
23:22
different cultures that we have, women from different backgrounds
23:25
may have been raised to suppress their anger entirely, through
23:28
patriarchal, through religious, whatever it might be.
23:31
Does unexpressed anger find a way out anyway?
23:34
Yeah, I think actually women generally, globally are, are
23:40
kind of not taught ways to express anger and are taught
23:46
implicitly or explicitly that anger will ruin your
23:50
relationships, will make you not likeable, is somehow kind of
23:55
uncontrollable and dangerous perhaps.
23:58
And these are sort of messages we get in lots of different
24:01
ways. Add that into a sort of super
24:04
mum myth idea that mothers have to be calm and gentle and good
24:09
in whatever way, then it makes it almost impossible to express
24:13
anger, righteous anger. If something is not happening in
24:17
the way that you expected or you hoped for, anger is a normal
24:20
response to that, but it's very deeply kind of stigmatised and
24:26
and shamed, which makes it even harder to know that you're not
24:29
alone, that it's very normal, that it's important, in fact
24:33
signalling something important. So let's talk about what
24:36
actually helps, because I want to be specific because I know
24:39
our listeners will want to know. What can you do in the moment
24:41
when you feel the rage rising, and what do you do in the longer
24:46
term to actually address what's actually underneath it?
24:49
So if you feel the rage rising and you are, yeah, you want to
24:54
always be safe, of course, around your baby, your toddlers,
24:58
yourself, whatever. Umm, so it might mean, you know,
25:01
if you really feel like, oh, I'm taking, I'm having a shaking
25:04
rage feeling, you know, place your baby somewhere safe.
25:08
As I said before, cortisol and adrenaline have a job to do.
25:11
They almost need to like get out of your body.
25:13
So that might be sort of shaking yourself or hitting something
25:18
soft or safe or stomping your feet or making a big loud noise
25:23
or something like that. Anyone when they've experienced
25:25
anger, you know, there's like a need for it to come out.
25:28
And sometimes that might be coming out and swearing it a
25:30
partner or something. But there's, if you can kind of
25:32
notice it and redirect it into another way that can be, I've
25:36
spoken with clients before about sort of taking your shoes off.
25:39
And if you know, you might be in a moment of feeling very, very
25:43
overwhelmed. And if you have space and you're
25:45
available to do this, not in the out behind necessarily, but at
25:47
home, take your shoes off, feel your feet on the ground, You
25:50
know, what's the carpet feel like?
25:52
What is, if it's cold, what's that like?
25:54
And also sort of breathing into your feet can be very grounding.
25:58
And there's an idea from dialectical behavioural therapy,
26:01
which is you know a lot about emotional regulation of willing
26:05
hands and expression of anger. So if you have your hands out,
26:09
like on your lap, open palms up or to the side of you palms
26:13
towards, it's very hard to express anger in that pose.
26:17
So there's something very kind of grounding about it to be able
26:21
to sort of have open willing hands, to be able to sort of
26:24
purposefully be like, I'm going to breathe into this moment.
26:27
Those are sort of in the moment things.
26:29
But I think what we're most often talking about is these
26:32
unmet needs and how can you find ways to get those needs met?
26:36
And maybe that would take a lot of working out what it even is.
26:39
Like, what is this feeling that keeps kind of bubbling up?
26:42
Is it suggesting that it needs some more space-time supports,
26:46
connection, emotional, physical intimacy, whatever it is?
26:51
That feels kind of important to be able to find a way to take
26:56
that or ask for that or kind of noticing it first.
27:00
In the Netherlands, what are our actual options?
27:02
If we recognize ourselves in this conversation and we are
27:05
going to seek support, can you just walk us through like, do we
27:08
go to the Vlas Kunderhead? Do we talk to the house arts, to
27:11
the? What's the path looking like for
27:13
an international parent here who might be struggling?
27:15
I would see it as part of general kind of postpartum
27:19
distress. And with that, that, you know,
27:20
that can be low mood, that can be anxiety, Whatever it is, if
27:23
it's feeling distressing for you, it's important to take
27:26
notice of. And if it's not just a sort of
27:28
one off moment, but something that feels kind of a bit
27:31
persistent or it's coming and going and it's distressing, then
27:35
we take notice of it. And if you're still under the
27:37
care of the midwives, you know, within six weeks and there are
27:40
brilliant people to talk to and they were really good at talking
27:43
about mental health changes anyway, which this would kind of
27:46
come under. Otherwise, you can go to your
27:48
GP. They'll, I think be pretty used.
27:51
I mean, they're definitely used to talking about changes in
27:53
mood. And this is that really isn't
27:55
it? If you're not used to feeling
27:57
like this, you know, you could just go.
27:58
I just don't feel myself. Things are changing.
28:01
I'm noticing I'm feeling more quick to anger, whatever it is.
28:04
And they should be able to refer you to psychologist or some sort
28:08
of psychological support within the system to help.
28:11
And something that I will say is that working now with lots and
28:15
lots of women who often come with this as the first symptom
28:18
of something not feeling right is often something a little bit
28:21
underneath that anger in terms of finding it hard to set
28:25
boundaries, for example, or finding it hard to ask what you
28:28
need generally. Or there being something in the
28:30
relationship that feels like it was always difficult and now has
28:33
got extra challenging through parenting.
28:37
That's why I think it's kind of important to explore it.
28:39
It's probably a symptom, It's probably a signal, this rage.
28:42
It's it's unlikely to be kind of just on its own, but sort of
28:47
signalling something else that might be important to look into
28:50
or to think about. If you could put one thing on a
28:52
billboard for any mother who's pregnant or in postpartum right
28:56
now, about postpartum rage, about postpartum mental health,
28:59
about asking for help, what would you say?
29:02
That with the right support, including rest and connection,
29:07
you can feel very different very quickly.
29:10
And one last question for the partners, we're looking at
29:13
postpartum, What would you want the partners to know about the
29:17
birthing situation and the postpartum afterwards?
29:20
What would you be able to say to them that you would really like
29:22
them to understand in that preparation for that period?
29:25
I guess in some way or form, expect that there might be anger
29:31
and explosions and that might come your way and to as much as
29:35
possible be generous with that. And you know, I know that's very
29:39
difficult, but to maybe take as least defensive as possible
29:42
stance to be able to understand that it's probably not per SE
29:45
about you, but maybe about the way they're they're feeling.
29:48
And maybe there are things about you too, but it's a signal for
29:51
more kind of support or more a way of doing it differently.
29:54
So, and also for those women perhaps who are more kind of
29:57
internalized in that anger to sort of notice if you, if your
30:01
partner is withdrawn or they feel kind of like they're
30:05
experiencing anger and rage, but it's it's more sort of private
30:09
because that's something else that comes up a lot is people
30:12
saying no one would even have any idea that I'm feeling this
30:15
way. They're not necessarily like
30:17
exploding, but they're feeling a sort of a seething anger a lot
30:20
of the time. So I would sort of say if you're
30:22
somebody close to a pregnant or a postpartum mum, like what are
30:25
you noticing? Do they see themselves?
30:28
Are they seeming kind of changed or short tempered or whatever it
30:31
is? And if they are thinking, you
30:34
know, proactively, what might they need from you as a part
30:37
partner and how can you make space to have the conversations
30:40
to, to understand a bit better about that?
30:42
Doctor Naomi, thank you so much for joining us back here on Zam
30:45
Parenting and for kicking off this internal Mental Health
30:48
Month series that we're having because these are the kind of
30:50
conversations that we shouldn't have to be quietly talking
30:54
about. These are the ones we need to be
30:56
talking about so that everyone knows that there's no shame.
30:59
The rest of the series is going to be talking about various
31:01
different issues, but the postpartum rage is definitely
31:03
the one that is rarely found on Facebook groups and WhatsApp
31:06
groups or in. So, Doctor Naomi, thank you so
31:09
much for joining us and having such an open conversation.
31:11
Thank you so much for having me.