Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #609 Parenting & Mental Illness: A Discussion With Anna Spargo-Ryan

Transcript

#609 Parenting & Mental Illness: A Discussion With Anna Spargo-Ryan · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:03
Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast. It's the podcast for the
0:07
Speaker 1: time poor parent who just once answers Now.
0:10
Speaker 2: This month is Mental Health Awareness Months, and in the
0:13
Speaker 2: last couple of weeks I've spent some time in a
0:15
Speaker 2: book that really tells us a lot about mental illness,
0:19
Speaker 2: mental health, and the challenges associated with being a parent
0:23
Speaker 2: when you're raising kids who when you've got your own
0:25
Speaker 2: mental health challenges and sometimes they do as well. The
0:28
Speaker 2: book is by Ana Spargo Ryan. It's called A Kind
0:31
Speaker 2: of Magic, a memoir about anxiety, our minds, and optimism
0:36
Speaker 2: in spite of it all, It's confronting, sometimes it's hard
0:40
Speaker 2: to read. Definitely a powerful book and a really overall optimistic,
0:46
Speaker 2: hopeful kind of book. An A. Spargo Ryan is the
0:48
Speaker 2: author of two novels and an acclaimed nonfiction writer and teacher.
0:53
Speaker 2: She's also the inaugural winner of the Horn Prize and
0:55
Speaker 2: the author of A Kind of Magic, a memoir about anxiety,
0:59
Speaker 2: our minds, optimism, and life. Anna Spargo Ryan, Welcome to
1:03
Speaker 2: the Happy Families Podcast. It's really nice to be able
1:05
Speaker 2: to spend some time with you to talk about the book.
1:07
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me.
1:09
Speaker 2: You start off with this tricky balance. In the opening
1:12
Speaker 2: pages of this memoir, you go to see a psychologist
1:16
Speaker 2: and you've got to let them know that you need help,
1:19
Speaker 2: but you don't need help too much, because if you
1:21
Speaker 2: need too much help, then you might end up sections
1:22
Speaker 2: you could end up in the mental health hospital. And
1:25
Speaker 2: you've got kids, and you definitely don't want to be
1:27
Speaker 2: there even if you didn't have the kids, and you
1:28
Speaker 2: need to be allowed to keep the kids as well,
1:30
Speaker 2: so you can't be too mentally unhealthy, but you definitely
1:33
Speaker 2: need help, and you're trying to get this balance right.
1:37
Speaker 2: Why did you want to tell your mental illness story?
1:41
Speaker 1: Mostly because the mental illness stories, the way that they
1:44
Speaker 1: have been told, has been untruthful. There's not been a
1:48
Speaker 1: lot of space for someone who is living a whole life,
1:51
Speaker 1: whatever that looks like, with mental illness, and is allowed
1:55
Speaker 1: to articulate it in a way that is honest, that
1:59
Speaker 1: it contains the multitudes of what a life with mental
2:02
Speaker 1: illness looks like. And I feel lucky to be able
2:05
Speaker 1: to articulate it, to have the skills as a writer,
2:08
Speaker 1: to be able to put words down on a page,
2:10
Speaker 1: And so I felt that sharing my mental illness story
2:15
Speaker 1: was something that could actually be a helpful tool for
2:17
Speaker 1: other people who you know, maybe didn't have the words,
2:20
Speaker 1: or didn't know them yet, or hadn't done the many
2:22
Speaker 1: decades of therapy that I had done, and that what
2:25
Speaker 1: I could add to the conversation could change the conversation
2:29
Speaker 1: to be more helpful.
2:31
Speaker 2: As you've answered that question, you've reminded me of some
2:33
Speaker 2: research that I came across, probably about twenty years ago.
2:35
Speaker 3: Now.
2:36
Speaker 2: A guy in the US name is Corey Keys came
2:39
Speaker 2: up with this concept of flourishing, and he developed something
2:42
Speaker 2: called the mental health continuum. What he actually argues is
2:45
Speaker 2: that mental health and mental illness exists on two different planes,
2:48
Speaker 2: so you can actually be high in both all low
2:50
Speaker 2: in both. In other words, you can have mental illness
2:53
Speaker 2: as part of your life but still actually experience flourishing.
2:57
Speaker 2: You can still experience well being even though your cycle
3:00
Speaker 2: logically being decimated by her anxiety. And it sounds like
3:04
Speaker 2: that's kind of what you're describing.
3:05
Speaker 1: Oh, I have a really excellent, lovely, fulfilling life in
3:10
Speaker 1: so many ways, and I have mental illness, yes, And
3:13
Speaker 1: I'm not separate from mental illness. It affects me every
3:16
Speaker 1: single day, but it doesn't make my life horrible, And
3:20
Speaker 1: that was a really important thing that I wanted to
3:22
Speaker 1: convey in this book. There are so many things in
3:24
Speaker 1: my life that make it fulfilling and enriching and beautiful
3:28
Speaker 1: and happy. You know, to be happy and depressed at
3:32
Speaker 1: the same time is something that I have wrestled with
3:34
Speaker 1: for most of my life.
3:35
Speaker 2: And as you say that, and I can imagine that
3:37
Speaker 2: anyone who is struggling with any kind of mental illness
3:40
Speaker 2: right now is saying thank you for seeing me, like
3:42
Speaker 2: thank you for recognizing that I'm still a whole person.
3:45
Speaker 2: I can still celebrate my children, I can still look
3:48
Speaker 2: at the sunset and say, my goodness, that is stunning,
3:51
Speaker 2: and life is worth living, even though I wonder if
3:53
Speaker 2: it is there's that wholeness. What do we need to
3:56
Speaker 2: know about your mental illness so that this conversation will
3:59
Speaker 2: make well.
4:01
Speaker 3: I have had anxiety for my whole life, quite debilitating anxiety,
4:05
Speaker 3: since I was a little kid, and part of what
4:08
Speaker 3: I learned in writing this book was just how long
4:10
Speaker 3: that had been hanging around.
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Speaker 1: So when I was nineteen, I had two psychotic episodes
4:15
Speaker 1: and that was very frightening, and I felt for a
4:18
Speaker 1: long time that that was sort of where my mental
4:20
Speaker 1: illness began. But actually when I reflected on it and
4:24
Speaker 1: through the therapy that I've done, but also especially through
4:26
Speaker 1: writing this book, realized that it had been there for
4:29
Speaker 1: a lot longer than that, and in the generations before.
4:32
Speaker 3: Me as well.
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Speaker 1: So I have been a depressed person, to have had
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Speaker 1: clinical depression most of my life, But the anxiety is
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Speaker 1: the main thing. I meard like a frightened, nervous, hyper aware,
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Speaker 1: sort of always worried about the worst case scenario type
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Speaker 1: of a person, but also a very optimistic person.
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Speaker 3: I think.
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Speaker 1: I think in some ways those two things go together.
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Speaker 1: I have a belief that the will work out in
5:01
Speaker 1: the end, it's completely unfounded, but that it sort of
5:04
Speaker 1: exists within that same spectrum of everything is terrible. It's
5:07
Speaker 1: the other side of that, it's like anything as possible.
5:10
Speaker 1: So I think they're part of the same sort of
5:13
Speaker 1: double helix of anxiety.
5:15
Speaker 2: Maybe I want to talk to you more about the
5:17
Speaker 2: parenting aspect of when you've got that level of debilitating anxiety,
5:21
Speaker 2: how you raise kids, but we'll get to that shortly.
5:24
Speaker 2: First off, though, I've noticed over the last dozen or
5:27
Speaker 2: so years, maybe a fraction more than that, there's an
5:29
Speaker 2: increasing level of appetite for these conversations. And it didn't
5:33
Speaker 2: used to be a thing to talk about. Why the change.
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Speaker 1: When I started writing about mental illness, which was probably
5:40
Speaker 1: ten years ago, I thought, I can't see my story anywhere,
5:43
Speaker 1: and I wanted to write, and I had had to
5:46
Speaker 1: leave my job because I was so unwell, and that
5:50
Speaker 1: was then the thing that I wrote about. It was
5:52
Speaker 1: the only thing I was thinking about was how anxious
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Speaker 1: I was, and so that was what I wrote, and
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Speaker 1: there weren't conversations happening about it, and so I feel very,
6:00
Speaker 1: very isolated. It's like nobody else is having these kinds
6:03
Speaker 1: of experiences. I'm the only which I knew couldn't be true,
6:06
Speaker 1: but when I looked for the evidence, there wasn't any.
6:09
Speaker 1: And I think there's been a huge push for people
6:12
Speaker 1: to share their own narratives in a way that's going
6:15
Speaker 1: to help other people, and at the same time it
6:18
Speaker 1: has created safer places for people to be able to
6:21
Speaker 1: do that. It is safer now from all kinds of perspectives,
6:25
Speaker 1: financially safer, physically, safer, emotionally safer to share these sorts
6:29
Speaker 1: of stories now because people have done it. The normalization
6:34
Speaker 1: that has happened in sharing stories has changed what the
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Speaker 1: mental health and mental illness conversation looks like tremendously. Part
6:41
Speaker 1: of that has been mental health organizations that have come
6:44
Speaker 1: out and actually used plain English to describe some of
6:47
Speaker 1: these illnesses and scenarios and symptoms outside of their clinical presentation,
6:53
Speaker 1: which has helped people to identify with them much better
6:56
Speaker 1: than they had been able to before. And then the
7:00
Speaker 1: prevalence of these kinds of illnesses has been a factor
7:03
Speaker 1: in that too, that more and more people are experiencing
7:05
Speaker 1: or understanding that they are experiencing anxiety and depression in particular,
7:10
Speaker 1: and so they are looking for help, They're looking for community,
7:14
Speaker 1: they're looking for other people who understand what they're going through.
7:17
Speaker 1: And it has I think had a bit of a
7:19
Speaker 1: snowball effect all of those things together. I'm not sure
7:22
Speaker 1: that it could have happened if any one of those
7:25
Speaker 1: things wasn't also happening. It feels like it's been a
7:28
Speaker 1: group effort to bring it into sort of the forefront
7:31
Speaker 1: of the conversation without demeaning it or diminishing it or
7:37
Speaker 1: kind of It hasn't been a negative thing in almost
7:40
Speaker 1: every way. It has become something that you can say
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Speaker 1: to someone, Oh, yeah, I'm feeling bad, or I'm feeling anxious,
7:46
Speaker 1: or it's making it difficult for me to do my job,
7:49
Speaker 1: and that the conversation has moved on from that's weird.
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Speaker 3: You're a freak, which is what it was like fifteen
7:55
Speaker 3: years ago.
7:56
Speaker 1: Yeah.
7:57
Speaker 2: Interesting, you talk like you're really really no psychology and
8:01
Speaker 2: public health? Do you have qualifications in that now as
8:04
Speaker 2: you've gone through this mental illness journey for one of
8:08
Speaker 2: a better word.
8:09
Speaker 1: No, I am just on the tail end of doing
8:12
Speaker 1: a PhD, but it's in creative writing about psychology, so
8:16
Speaker 1: it's not a psychology PhD. But when you are as
8:20
Speaker 1: unwell as I have been, and this is true of
8:24
Speaker 1: all kinds of chronic illnesses, that you have to learn
8:27
Speaker 1: how to advocate for yourself. Partly because I would speak
8:32
Speaker 1: to the mental health industry specifically, it doesn't understand how
8:37
Speaker 1: to help people well enough for you to be able
8:39
Speaker 1: to rely on a doctor or a nurse or a
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Speaker 1: triage service or whoever's trying to help you to actually
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Speaker 1: understand even what you're asking for. And that was something
8:50
Speaker 1: that I learned through doing that. I would go to
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Speaker 1: a doctor and I would say, Hey, I feel really bad,
8:55
Speaker 1: and they would say, could you explain more what you mean?
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Speaker 3: And I couldn't. And there was a language and I
9:01
Speaker 3: didn't have the clinical language, and they didn't understand what
9:04
Speaker 3: I was trying to say to them, and they couldn't
9:07
Speaker 3: kind of match it up to the clinical diagnostic criteria
9:10
Speaker 3: they had, and so I had to keep looking and
9:13
Speaker 3: kind of hunting and trying out different kinds of language
9:16
Speaker 3: to help them understand how they could help me.
9:18
Speaker 1: And I guess in the process of doing that, learned
9:21
Speaker 1: a lot about why my brain was doing the things
9:24
Speaker 1: that it was, what it meant when I should be worried,
9:27
Speaker 1: what was an emergency, all these different.
9:29
Speaker 3: Things that they couldn't tell me.
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Speaker 1: And so my choices were invest the energy in learning
9:36
Speaker 1: and being a better self advocate, or kind of put
9:38
Speaker 1: yourself in harm's way. And so I do feel that
9:42
Speaker 1: I didn't have any choice but to do that, and
9:45
Speaker 1: I think it has helped me to be able to
9:48
Speaker 1: share experiences, symptoms, you know, different aspects of mental illness,
9:54
Speaker 1: life with mental illness that can help others too, And
9:56
Speaker 1: part of that is to be able to help my children.
9:58
Speaker 1: But most my thoughts around self advocacy. A lot of
10:03
Speaker 1: them are our language that we use as people who
10:06
Speaker 1: have mental illness to describe that experience is more helpful
10:10
Speaker 1: than the clinical language that the medical system has that
10:13
Speaker 1: is currently demonstrably failing.
10:17
Speaker 3: People terribly.
10:22
Speaker 2: Get curious, not furious. Be we your feeder mistakes lead
10:27
Speaker 2: to mastery, high emotions, low intelligence. Have you ever heard
10:31
Speaker 2: these or any of the other principles I share and
10:33
Speaker 2: thought I need to stick that on my wall? Well
10:36
Speaker 2: now you can. The Happy Family team has pulled out
10:38
Speaker 2: the best justinisms for a five mini posters, perfect for
10:41
Speaker 2: your home or even the classroom, and easy to grab
10:44
Speaker 2: at Happy families dot com, dot au and an A Spigo.
10:47
Speaker 2: Ryan is the author of a Kind of Magic, a
10:49
Speaker 2: memoir about anxiety, our minds, and optimism in spite of
10:52
Speaker 2: it all. The memoir comes out today. It launches today, Anna,
10:57
Speaker 2: how many kids have you got?
10:59
Speaker 3: Two?
11:00
Speaker 2: We need to talk about parenting when you have a
11:01
Speaker 2: mental illness about your kids? You said, and I quote,
11:05
Speaker 2: I lamented my inability to take them to the museum
11:08
Speaker 2: to the zoo on an interstate holiday. I felt these
11:11
Speaker 2: were the markers of good parenting. How could I call
11:14
Speaker 2: myself a mother if I couldn't take them to a
11:15
Speaker 2: nearby play center without having a panic attack in the
11:18
Speaker 2: car park. And then you went on and quoted yourself
11:23
Speaker 2: from an ABC article that you'd written. You said, soon
11:26
Speaker 2: they will be teenagers. Their friends will ask them why
11:28
Speaker 2: I'm always a no show, and my children will say
11:31
Speaker 2: that I'm too afraid. They probably won't hate me, but
11:34
Speaker 2: they might be embarrassed by me. Maybe they will think
11:36
Speaker 2: about all the times I let them down when they
11:38
Speaker 2: were children, all the times we sat in the car
11:40
Speaker 2: on the side of the road waiting for the adrenaline
11:42
Speaker 2: to wear off, all the times every part of me
11:44
Speaker 2: was shouting, yes, I want to do these things with you,
11:47
Speaker 2: and I still said no. My question for you, based
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Speaker 2: on what you've written on that page, which gives me
11:54
Speaker 2: chills in the way that you've described that deep desire
11:58
Speaker 2: to do everything you can for the kids and the
12:01
Speaker 2: inability to actually do it, what does it mean to
12:05
Speaker 2: be a good parent when you struggle with mental illness?
12:09
Speaker 3: For me, it has meant having an open line of communication,
12:14
Speaker 3: creating a supportive environment in which to say how you're feeling.
12:19
Speaker 3: So the thing I realized about living with such debilitating
12:23
Speaker 3: anxiety was that what was I guess scary about it.
12:27
Speaker 3: All that made me feel like a bad parent about
12:30
Speaker 3: it was that it was what I remembered from growing
12:36
Speaker 3: up in a household with anxious parents, which was that
12:39
Speaker 3: I always thought they were in danger, and I always
12:41
Speaker 3: then thought, as a consequence, that I was in danger.
12:44
Speaker 3: And I couldn't as a child, differentiate between just anxiety
12:50
Speaker 3: and an actual danger. And so when I thought about.
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Speaker 1: What I could do, what I could actually feasibly do
12:58
Speaker 1: as a parent who was too scared to go to
13:00
Speaker 1: the museum but who also had panic attacks in front
13:03
Speaker 1: of her children, the most valuable thing I could do
13:06
Speaker 1: for them was to try to articulate what was actually
13:10
Speaker 1: going on, which was, my brain believes that I'm in
13:14
Speaker 1: danger right now, but it's not true. It's that my
13:17
Speaker 1: brain is lying You're safe. I'm safe. I just am
13:21
Speaker 1: having a bit of a thing where my brain thinks
13:23
Speaker 1: that I'm not. It will pass and everything will be okay.
13:27
Speaker 1: And that was something that my anxious parents either couldn't
13:32
Speaker 1: articulate to me, or because it was the eighties, I
13:35
Speaker 1: didn't know that they should or that it would have
13:37
Speaker 1: been helpful. But that through the therapeutic work that I've done,
13:42
Speaker 1: and through raising children as an anxious parent, raising anxious children,
13:47
Speaker 1: that having that clarity around what it actually means and
13:52
Speaker 1: what is actually going on has changed our whole relationship.
13:56
Speaker 1: So to be able to say to them, hey, this
13:58
Speaker 1: is happening again, and you don't need to worry. Now,
14:01
Speaker 1: I think they actually don't worry. They have learned to
14:04
Speaker 1: identify where I never did, the difference between a real
14:09
Speaker 1: danger and a perceived danger. And you know, I couldn't
14:12
Speaker 1: take them to the museum, But what I have been
14:16
Speaker 1: able to give them is kind of tools for managing
14:18
Speaker 1: their own feelings, which actually is an incredibly valuable thing.
14:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I reckon we could unpack that for the
14:25
Speaker 2: next hour or so, but our time is really running shortened.
14:28
Speaker 2: There's one more thing that I want to ask you,
14:30
Speaker 2: if you're comfortable with it, and that's talking about the
14:32
Speaker 2: intergenerational transfer of mental illness. So you had a mum
14:35
Speaker 2: with major mental illness, You had grandparents who had significant
14:40
Speaker 2: mental illness in including a was it a grandfather who
14:44
Speaker 2: died by suicide?
14:46
Speaker 3: Yes, my paternal grandfather.
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Speaker 2: And you've just shared that your kids also have some
14:51
Speaker 2: mental illness challenges, How do we break the cycle, how
14:56
Speaker 2: do we help to pairent ourselves in such a way
14:59
Speaker 2: that we don't don't pass too much beyond to our kids?
15:02
Speaker 2: And then if we do, how do we make sure
15:04
Speaker 2: that we don't beat ourselves up for it and hold
15:06
Speaker 2: ourselves completely responsible for the challenges that our children are
15:08
Speaker 2: experiencing in this domain.
15:10
Speaker 1: I think one of the things to think about is
15:13
Speaker 1: what we mean when we say like how not to
15:15
Speaker 1: pass it on or how do we make sure that
15:18
Speaker 1: we don't contribute to their mental illness because a lot
15:22
Speaker 1: of the challenge with mental illness and getting the right
15:24
Speaker 1: help and all of these things that we deal with
15:26
Speaker 1: on a daily basis now is that it is still
15:29
Speaker 1: perceived as something that you should be ashamed of.
15:32
Speaker 3: That is a fault, that is a problem when actually
15:35
Speaker 3: a lot of the issues around mental illness are society.
15:38
Speaker 3: You know, we don't provide enough support.
15:40
Speaker 1: We saw during COVID that when people had what they needed,
15:43
Speaker 1: their mental illness issues were much more alleviated. You know
15:47
Speaker 1: that someone who had housing, who had food, who had
15:49
Speaker 1: money to pay their bills was mentally healthier than they
15:52
Speaker 1: were without that. And so is the issue that we
15:56
Speaker 1: need to avoid passing these things on, or is it
15:59
Speaker 1: that we need to create better structures to support people
16:02
Speaker 1: who have these sorts of challenges.
16:05
Speaker 3: I mean, both of my children and I are also
16:07
Speaker 3: newer diverse, and that has.
16:09
Speaker 1: Been an interesting thing to think about in terms of well,
16:12
Speaker 1: I mean, that's just a way that a brain behaves.
16:15
Speaker 1: It's not a problem unless society makes it a problem.
16:18
Speaker 1: And so from my perspective, I think having open lines
16:22
Speaker 1: of conversation, as I said, being able to communicate these ideas.
16:25
Speaker 3: Being able to help the people who do that work,
16:29
Speaker 3: to write good policy, to incorporate good helpful language, to therefore,
16:34
Speaker 3: as a result of that, help to help someone to
16:37
Speaker 3: understand why the funding is so important, How to for example,
16:43
Speaker 3: produce good campaigns as a mental health.
16:45
Speaker 1: Organization, What do people actually need? What is actually going
16:49
Speaker 1: to help? It's all of those kinds of things. And
16:51
Speaker 1: we know that some mental illness has a genetic predisposition.
16:55
Speaker 1: So for example, anxiety is about thirty percent hereditary, something
16:59
Speaker 1: like generalized anxiety disorder, and so at one level there's
17:03
Speaker 1: an inevitability to anxiety. So if you know that you're
17:06
Speaker 1: a very anxious person with an anxious parent who had
17:08
Speaker 1: an anxious parent, and now you have an anxious child.
17:11
Speaker 1: There's not a lot you probably could have done about that.
17:13
Speaker 1: But what you can do something about is to help
17:15
Speaker 1: that person to be part of a functioning society that
17:18
Speaker 1: is going to support and understand them.
17:20
Speaker 3: And that's where I come at it from. I think,
17:23
Speaker 3: I don't want to teach my child not to be
17:25
Speaker 3: anxious exactly.
17:27
Speaker 1: I want them to be able to get good support
17:29
Speaker 1: so that they can learn to manage it and so
17:31
Speaker 1: that it doesn't have an overwhelmingly detrimental impact on their life.
17:36
Speaker 1: But I don't want them to feel like it makes
17:38
Speaker 1: them less. I want them to live in a society
17:40
Speaker 1: that supports them anyway and that loves them anyway. And
17:43
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's summed up in the dedication
17:47
Speaker 1: of my book, which I thought about a lot, and
17:49
Speaker 1: I landed on for better mental health care, universal access, compassion,
17:55
Speaker 1: action and love, And those are the things that I
17:58
Speaker 1: think are going to make the biggest difference to that
18:00
Speaker 1: intergenerational anxiety slash other mental illness question.
18:04
Speaker 2: And I think that your conversation with me today will hopefully,
18:07
Speaker 2: I hope that it makes a difference as well. The
18:09
Speaker 2: book comes out today. It's called A Kind of Magic.
18:13
Speaker 2: Anna Spargo Ryan is the author. Thanks so much for
18:15
Speaker 2: chatting with me.
18:16
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me Justin.
18:18
Speaker 2: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Rulan from
18:20
Speaker 2: Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer, and for
18:23
Speaker 2: more information about making your family happier, please visit us
18:26
Speaker 2: at happyfamilies dot com dot au. I am going to mention,
18:29
Speaker 2: in addition to Anna's book, which we will link to
18:31
Speaker 2: in the show notes next week on Wednesday, on the
18:35
Speaker 2: twelfth of October, We've got a free webinar called burnt
18:39
Speaker 2: Out for any parent who is feeling like they are
18:40
Speaker 2: completely over it and need some help, need some instructure,
18:43
Speaker 2: need anything. Free webinar burnt Out on the twelfth October.
18:47
Speaker 2: All the details are at our Facebook page. Dr Justin
18:50
Speaker 2: Coulson's Happy Families