This is an incredible piece Zoe ❤️. The way you talk about grief and motherhood and how we honour grief but not motherhood is so true. Just love all of this and think it's such an important post. Especially liked the bit about society treating having a baby like doing the weekly Lidl shop, an excellent comparison!! ❤️
I don’t think I’d seen the differences really until I watched the show and it was just so hard to see... I meet so many women who tell me they don’t feel depressed but their GP or their partner or whoever is telling them they might be. When really, it’s just bloody hard isn’t it!
Totally agree! Give us the space to express how we feel about motherhood, then we might just feel better about it. Being allowed to speak our truth without being judged. That bit about Jean sharing how she felt at the baby class resonated too, one of the reasons I used to feel so uncomfortable at baby classes/playgroup was everyone was acting like everything was fine, and I was clearly not fine!! Having deeper conversations about the struggles of being a mum would have helped a lot xx
That episode was honestly heartbreaking 💔 I’ve totally been there too and it’s just such an awful feeling. It’s one of the things that pushed me to do what I do now
YES YES YES to all of this! I went to my doctor after taking self-diagnose PPD tests online that ranked me as "severe". I explained the tests, what I had been feeling, and their two responses were "do you think about harming your baby or family" (no) and "let's get you on depression medication." I was shocked but desperate enough to consider it. I had no history of depression and they didn't even check, they just sent in a depression medication prescription over one phone call with me. I grappled with the choice but ultimately decided to focus on natural methods (sun exposure, gratitude journaling, working out/yoga, CBD when things got worse), but constantly questioned if I made the right choice. Your comparison with someone grieving is EXACTLY PERFECT. Thank you for tackling this taboo subject of medication and no real help for moms struggling.
I see it all the time and have had it myself. And I just think it’s such a cop out. A tick box that they’ve helped when they haven’t at all.
It’s hard to talk about because so many women do relate to the postpartum depression diagnosis and have found medication helpful. And I don’t want to write off their experiences.
But when that’s the only explanation for your difficulty. Ans when a lot of that difficulty comes from a lack of physical support. I do think there’s a problem.
I’m glad you found a way through that worked for you ❤️
“I’m not saying having a new baby is the same as having your mum die.”
Yes, but... it took my aunt calling me in first weeks of motherhood and responding to my question “why am I filled with rage when I should be happy?” that I was grieving my old self. That made me feel guilt because I had long awaited motherhood. Why should I grieve? It took a good year to realize motherhood expanded my self and part of that old life did die. It felt like a secret that had been withheld from me. And the only mother who has endured the long nights and days of motherhood the past two years with me was the mom who sat with me in my grief and mess. Who let me pour out mundane voice clips over and over and who still shares her life with me.
1000% birthing a human is a death and a rebirth. And with that comes huge grief and huge loss as well as so much love and magic and wonder.
I think we’re scared of scaring people so we don’t share. But I really believe that that only contributes to the difficulty of the period. If we could see it coming and we could prepare, if we could think about what kind of help we might need and begin to put that in place. If we were expecting anger and tears and rage alongside love. How much easier would it be?
I went to a Baby and Me class where people finally voiced a LOT of their feelings about PPD/PPA when my second kid was about 7 months old and it was our last meeting at that location in FEB 2020. It ended up being the last meeting for a LONG time due to pandemic. Thankfully two of my friends from that class are still very good friends close to 4 years later, but I didn’t get any of that when I tried to go to storytime with my 6 yo. This description resonated so strongly with me! My sister had her first living child 4 months after my second kid and now many of my friends have 4 year olds but I only had my SIL with our first kids. No other friends had kids in my group then.
I’m so glad you got to make those connections finally but sad to hear it took so long 💔
I had my first baby quite young and so relate to being the first one to have kids in a friendship group - it definitely changed the dynamic and is hard. Which is why it’s so important that these spaces we’re invited into help us to share and make connections with other mothers.
Brilliant post! I love sex Ed but hadn’t got this far in the series yet. So many valid points. Not post-natally related but I’ve just had a friend be told she needs counselling for depression. She maintains she’s not depressed, she’s angry and devastated at the loss of the future she thought she had that she doesn’t anymore. She states she needs help to process how she feels (or is no longer able to feel because the anti depressants have numbed her of all feelings) and to find a place of peace and acceptance with her incredibly challenged situation. Im glad where all starting to wake up to this. This is where it starts, with us.
This is it! I hope your friend found listening ears and was able to process her situation ❤️ I had a similar experience when Hen’s dad left and the grief and the full on loss - it’s a lot - and again, we just tag on the mentally ill label which puts the responsibility and the onus on the person struggling instead of on society to better help.
I do hope we can open up conversations about this. I often wonder if the mental health epidemic is actually just a lack of physical support and listening epidemic
Fortunately, she’s had a very few of us holding space for her the best we can. Trying our best to refrain from judgement (rare but critically essential). She had some bodywork last week, the combination of which appears to have opened up just enough space for her to recognise her needs and identify what support might help her meet those needs (& definitely what won’t). Her predicament remains the same, but her outlook is one of opportunity, connected to a place of inner strength, insight and wisdom to help herself adjust to her frightful situation -of which I’m sure isn’t as uncommon as we think but there is no one out there taking about (out of shame, embarrassment, fear etc)
For me, it’s the lack of emotional support and guidance throughout my life that’s had a catastrophic effect - mentally, burning out after years of fatigue, chronic illlness and then disability by it. We need safe spaces, conscious listening, without judgement. Exactly as you offer. Spaces in which will change the world, one person at a time.
Changing the world one person at a time is where it’s at ❤️ and I’m grateful to have had women like yourself and Claire in my corner and guiding me.
Your friend is super lucky and I’m so glad she’s able to move towards a more positive mindset. I think this is the crucial thing. Because we can do hard things and we can move through hard things but if we’re not held whilst that’s happening or we’re told we shouldn’t even be finding it hard then that’s where the trauma really comes in.
Absolutely. Safe and held spaces are critical. I now have a community of space holders around me. It all started with just one! Dave. Then Claire swiftly followed. Now I can’t spend time with anyone who doesn’t light up my soul and leave me feeling seen and heard. It makes me physically ill. We absolutely can do hard things. We’re capable of it and it’s all part of the human experience. But making out we’re weak for being a human living a human experience is, like you say, traumatising,
So well written. My only comeback would be that maybe the writers were trying to show that disparity exactly what you write about. I remember after my first feeling so different. A forces family who moved only 2 months before the birth. No support, both families hours away, no friends really other than one other mother in the street due around the same time but being pregnant together doesn’t mean you will be best buddies. Husband back at work quickly. And he struggled with the change too and threw himself into sport being out of the house 5 evenings a week (we did end up in a discussion about that as I was SO lonely). You really do need community around you. I was given SSRIs and they made the world grey and foggy. What I needed was help and support, and not to see everyone seemingly doing so well around me.
Exactly this Tamsin 🙏❤️ exactly this! My worry with the show - I do think it was an accurate depiction - but I just don’t know if most people will easily pick up on that nuance or if it will just contribute to the narrative that it’s hard and none of us can cope because we’re all mentally ill… I guess that’s why I wanted to write this post. To highlight what was being shown to us and the real story underneath
I’m not a parent but I absolutely felt the difficulty in watching this season for the very reason that Jean was constantly abandoned over and over. I don’t blame Otis for being frustrated (obviously he should be the one being parented not the one to do the parenting), but where are her friends, her community? Even her sister is complicated and not exactly showing up to help.
This is it. I don’t think it’s a unique experience to have people come round to ‘help’ and then it ends up being harder for you than if they’d not been there at all. But considering she’d had a traumatic birth and was on her own with two kids, I found the lack of compassionate and understanding from the community really hard to witness. Again, I sadly do think that is representative of peoples lived experiences but it was so hard watching it play out on TV!
Thank you for writing this amazing piece, Zoe ❤️ it's beautifully written and so important to share because I think so many of us feel seen when reading your words. I haven't watched this series but so many things resonated with me. My mother in law passed away when my son (my second child) was just seven weeks old, and experiencing all the things that come with giving birth alongside the grief of losing her was so hard. I don't really remember his newborn days at all and I've always felt guilty about that, even though there's nothing I could have done to change it. That along with the guilt of not being able to breastfeed second time around. It's a huge transition in so many ways, and I'm so grateful to you for writing this ❤️
Thank you so much for sharing that Clare ❤️ I cannot imagine how incredibly difficult that must have been. Our breastfeeding journeys too stick with us, don’t they? I think it’s easy to say you’ve nothing to be guilty for but so much of the social narrative puts that gilt on us, so it’s not easy not to feel it. We all feel it though, and whilst it doesn’t make it better, I feel a sense of comfort almost, that we’re not alone in it
Oh Zoe, thank you for providing this wonderful space that helped me to feel like I could ❤️ you’re absolutely right, the social narrative does heap all that guilt onto us - I remember feeling judged every time I was in the baby milk aisle at the supermarket, even though we literally had a freezer full of breast milk (there was only 1 packet of fish fingers in there at the time!). There’s definitely comfort in knowing we’re not alone in our experiences. That’s why spaces like yours here online and in person at the Hub are so important ❤️ thank you for doing what you do!
Full body goosebumps reading your words! Season 4 didn’t sit right with me for a few reasons and you’ve just highlighted it perfectly. When will it become normal for mothers to be centred in their postpartum experience?
I don’t think they’re wrong in their depiction, but it’s such a forward thinking show and so it did make me feel so sad that they couldn’t give her that experience. And I think it’s really telling that it didn’t even cross their minds, like it’s such a normal thing to see - a sad, lonely, tired new mum on her own heading off to the GP for antidepressants. They couldn’t picture it any other way 💔
This is an utterly amazing piece ... and also a heartbreaking one because we are faced with this. I hadn’t thought of it in that way as you describe Maeve’s experience alongside Jean’s... such an important perspective to see. I found it so hard watching Jean... especially as so much of it still feels very raw for me being 10 months PP now. Thank you for sharing this xxx
I found it hard and my youngest is three so I can’t even imagine how it landed with you.
I just spent the whole time watching it wondering why?
All the help she got just seemed to make her life harder and yet the whole narrative was on how she just needed to ask for help.
And the contrast with Maeve was so hard. I think her experience probably isn’t actually representative of ‘real life’ and represents the forward thinking tone of the show, but it’s just heartbreaking that they couldn’t give Jean that same level of understanding and support.
Like we can’t even get it on a TV show, how are we going to get there in real life?
This is an incredible piece Zoe ❤️. The way you talk about grief and motherhood and how we honour grief but not motherhood is so true. Just love all of this and think it's such an important post. Especially liked the bit about society treating having a baby like doing the weekly Lidl shop, an excellent comparison!! ❤️
Thank you 🙏
I don’t think I’d seen the differences really until I watched the show and it was just so hard to see... I meet so many women who tell me they don’t feel depressed but their GP or their partner or whoever is telling them they might be. When really, it’s just bloody hard isn’t it!
And that’s okay ❤️
Totally agree! Give us the space to express how we feel about motherhood, then we might just feel better about it. Being allowed to speak our truth without being judged. That bit about Jean sharing how she felt at the baby class resonated too, one of the reasons I used to feel so uncomfortable at baby classes/playgroup was everyone was acting like everything was fine, and I was clearly not fine!! Having deeper conversations about the struggles of being a mum would have helped a lot xx
That episode was honestly heartbreaking 💔 I’ve totally been there too and it’s just such an awful feeling. It’s one of the things that pushed me to do what I do now
YES YES YES to all of this! I went to my doctor after taking self-diagnose PPD tests online that ranked me as "severe". I explained the tests, what I had been feeling, and their two responses were "do you think about harming your baby or family" (no) and "let's get you on depression medication." I was shocked but desperate enough to consider it. I had no history of depression and they didn't even check, they just sent in a depression medication prescription over one phone call with me. I grappled with the choice but ultimately decided to focus on natural methods (sun exposure, gratitude journaling, working out/yoga, CBD when things got worse), but constantly questioned if I made the right choice. Your comparison with someone grieving is EXACTLY PERFECT. Thank you for tackling this taboo subject of medication and no real help for moms struggling.
Thank you for sharing ❤️
I see it all the time and have had it myself. And I just think it’s such a cop out. A tick box that they’ve helped when they haven’t at all.
It’s hard to talk about because so many women do relate to the postpartum depression diagnosis and have found medication helpful. And I don’t want to write off their experiences.
But when that’s the only explanation for your difficulty. Ans when a lot of that difficulty comes from a lack of physical support. I do think there’s a problem.
I’m glad you found a way through that worked for you ❤️
“I’m not saying having a new baby is the same as having your mum die.”
Yes, but... it took my aunt calling me in first weeks of motherhood and responding to my question “why am I filled with rage when I should be happy?” that I was grieving my old self. That made me feel guilt because I had long awaited motherhood. Why should I grieve? It took a good year to realize motherhood expanded my self and part of that old life did die. It felt like a secret that had been withheld from me. And the only mother who has endured the long nights and days of motherhood the past two years with me was the mom who sat with me in my grief and mess. Who let me pour out mundane voice clips over and over and who still shares her life with me.
1000% birthing a human is a death and a rebirth. And with that comes huge grief and huge loss as well as so much love and magic and wonder.
I think we’re scared of scaring people so we don’t share. But I really believe that that only contributes to the difficulty of the period. If we could see it coming and we could prepare, if we could think about what kind of help we might need and begin to put that in place. If we were expecting anger and tears and rage alongside love. How much easier would it be?
I went to a Baby and Me class where people finally voiced a LOT of their feelings about PPD/PPA when my second kid was about 7 months old and it was our last meeting at that location in FEB 2020. It ended up being the last meeting for a LONG time due to pandemic. Thankfully two of my friends from that class are still very good friends close to 4 years later, but I didn’t get any of that when I tried to go to storytime with my 6 yo. This description resonated so strongly with me! My sister had her first living child 4 months after my second kid and now many of my friends have 4 year olds but I only had my SIL with our first kids. No other friends had kids in my group then.
I’m so glad you got to make those connections finally but sad to hear it took so long 💔
I had my first baby quite young and so relate to being the first one to have kids in a friendship group - it definitely changed the dynamic and is hard. Which is why it’s so important that these spaces we’re invited into help us to share and make connections with other mothers.
Brilliant post! I love sex Ed but hadn’t got this far in the series yet. So many valid points. Not post-natally related but I’ve just had a friend be told she needs counselling for depression. She maintains she’s not depressed, she’s angry and devastated at the loss of the future she thought she had that she doesn’t anymore. She states she needs help to process how she feels (or is no longer able to feel because the anti depressants have numbed her of all feelings) and to find a place of peace and acceptance with her incredibly challenged situation. Im glad where all starting to wake up to this. This is where it starts, with us.
This is it! I hope your friend found listening ears and was able to process her situation ❤️ I had a similar experience when Hen’s dad left and the grief and the full on loss - it’s a lot - and again, we just tag on the mentally ill label which puts the responsibility and the onus on the person struggling instead of on society to better help.
I do hope we can open up conversations about this. I often wonder if the mental health epidemic is actually just a lack of physical support and listening epidemic
Fortunately, she’s had a very few of us holding space for her the best we can. Trying our best to refrain from judgement (rare but critically essential). She had some bodywork last week, the combination of which appears to have opened up just enough space for her to recognise her needs and identify what support might help her meet those needs (& definitely what won’t). Her predicament remains the same, but her outlook is one of opportunity, connected to a place of inner strength, insight and wisdom to help herself adjust to her frightful situation -of which I’m sure isn’t as uncommon as we think but there is no one out there taking about (out of shame, embarrassment, fear etc)
For me, it’s the lack of emotional support and guidance throughout my life that’s had a catastrophic effect - mentally, burning out after years of fatigue, chronic illlness and then disability by it. We need safe spaces, conscious listening, without judgement. Exactly as you offer. Spaces in which will change the world, one person at a time.
Changing the world one person at a time is where it’s at ❤️ and I’m grateful to have had women like yourself and Claire in my corner and guiding me.
Your friend is super lucky and I’m so glad she’s able to move towards a more positive mindset. I think this is the crucial thing. Because we can do hard things and we can move through hard things but if we’re not held whilst that’s happening or we’re told we shouldn’t even be finding it hard then that’s where the trauma really comes in.
Absolutely. Safe and held spaces are critical. I now have a community of space holders around me. It all started with just one! Dave. Then Claire swiftly followed. Now I can’t spend time with anyone who doesn’t light up my soul and leave me feeling seen and heard. It makes me physically ill. We absolutely can do hard things. We’re capable of it and it’s all part of the human experience. But making out we’re weak for being a human living a human experience is, like you say, traumatising,
Had a hell of a response typed up to this then lost it! Will have to come back it to it later. Much to say on this topic x
So well written. My only comeback would be that maybe the writers were trying to show that disparity exactly what you write about. I remember after my first feeling so different. A forces family who moved only 2 months before the birth. No support, both families hours away, no friends really other than one other mother in the street due around the same time but being pregnant together doesn’t mean you will be best buddies. Husband back at work quickly. And he struggled with the change too and threw himself into sport being out of the house 5 evenings a week (we did end up in a discussion about that as I was SO lonely). You really do need community around you. I was given SSRIs and they made the world grey and foggy. What I needed was help and support, and not to see everyone seemingly doing so well around me.
Exactly this Tamsin 🙏❤️ exactly this! My worry with the show - I do think it was an accurate depiction - but I just don’t know if most people will easily pick up on that nuance or if it will just contribute to the narrative that it’s hard and none of us can cope because we’re all mentally ill… I guess that’s why I wanted to write this post. To highlight what was being shown to us and the real story underneath
I’m not a parent but I absolutely felt the difficulty in watching this season for the very reason that Jean was constantly abandoned over and over. I don’t blame Otis for being frustrated (obviously he should be the one being parented not the one to do the parenting), but where are her friends, her community? Even her sister is complicated and not exactly showing up to help.
Yes! 🙌
This is it. I don’t think it’s a unique experience to have people come round to ‘help’ and then it ends up being harder for you than if they’d not been there at all. But considering she’d had a traumatic birth and was on her own with two kids, I found the lack of compassionate and understanding from the community really hard to witness. Again, I sadly do think that is representative of peoples lived experiences but it was so hard watching it play out on TV!
Thank you for writing this amazing piece, Zoe ❤️ it's beautifully written and so important to share because I think so many of us feel seen when reading your words. I haven't watched this series but so many things resonated with me. My mother in law passed away when my son (my second child) was just seven weeks old, and experiencing all the things that come with giving birth alongside the grief of losing her was so hard. I don't really remember his newborn days at all and I've always felt guilty about that, even though there's nothing I could have done to change it. That along with the guilt of not being able to breastfeed second time around. It's a huge transition in so many ways, and I'm so grateful to you for writing this ❤️
Thank you so much for sharing that Clare ❤️ I cannot imagine how incredibly difficult that must have been. Our breastfeeding journeys too stick with us, don’t they? I think it’s easy to say you’ve nothing to be guilty for but so much of the social narrative puts that gilt on us, so it’s not easy not to feel it. We all feel it though, and whilst it doesn’t make it better, I feel a sense of comfort almost, that we’re not alone in it
Oh Zoe, thank you for providing this wonderful space that helped me to feel like I could ❤️ you’re absolutely right, the social narrative does heap all that guilt onto us - I remember feeling judged every time I was in the baby milk aisle at the supermarket, even though we literally had a freezer full of breast milk (there was only 1 packet of fish fingers in there at the time!). There’s definitely comfort in knowing we’re not alone in our experiences. That’s why spaces like yours here online and in person at the Hub are so important ❤️ thank you for doing what you do!
Full body goosebumps reading your words! Season 4 didn’t sit right with me for a few reasons and you’ve just highlighted it perfectly. When will it become normal for mothers to be centred in their postpartum experience?
I don’t think they’re wrong in their depiction, but it’s such a forward thinking show and so it did make me feel so sad that they couldn’t give her that experience. And I think it’s really telling that it didn’t even cross their minds, like it’s such a normal thing to see - a sad, lonely, tired new mum on her own heading off to the GP for antidepressants. They couldn’t picture it any other way 💔
This is an utterly amazing piece ... and also a heartbreaking one because we are faced with this. I hadn’t thought of it in that way as you describe Maeve’s experience alongside Jean’s... such an important perspective to see. I found it so hard watching Jean... especially as so much of it still feels very raw for me being 10 months PP now. Thank you for sharing this xxx
Thank you ❤️
I found it hard and my youngest is three so I can’t even imagine how it landed with you.
I just spent the whole time watching it wondering why?
All the help she got just seemed to make her life harder and yet the whole narrative was on how she just needed to ask for help.
And the contrast with Maeve was so hard. I think her experience probably isn’t actually representative of ‘real life’ and represents the forward thinking tone of the show, but it’s just heartbreaking that they couldn’t give Jean that same level of understanding and support.
Like we can’t even get it on a TV show, how are we going to get there in real life?
This is such a brilliant piece. Thank you for writing it.
Thank you so much 🙏 I felt nervous publishing it so I’m glad to hear it’s landing well
👏🏻 my mouth is wide open! Thank you for writing this Zoe! I haven’t watched yet but do plan to!
It’s a really good series but this one in particular did bring up all the things for me 😆❤️✨
I really really loved your comparison between grief and pp!