New Mom Self-Esteem

A new mother’s self-esteem goes through radical changes after she has a baby. A friend recently gave me Virginia Satir’s poem, My Declaration of Self-Esteem (below). Print it out, paste it on your fridge, the back of the stroller, wherever you need it to be so that you see it regularly.

Remember that you do own everything about you, including your body. It may not feel like it when you’re giving it over to a child month after month, so you need the reminder.

Remember to be friendly and loving to yourself. You would want that for your child, right? So model it for them by giving it to yourself as well.

Here it is:

I am me.

In all the world
there is no-one else exactly like me.

There are persons who have parts like me,
but no one adds up exactly like me.

Therefore, everything that comes from me
is authentically mine
because I choose it.

I own everything about me
My body,
including everything it does;
My mind,
including all its throughts and ideas;
My eyes,
including the images of all they behold;
My feelings, whatever they may be . . .
Anger, joy, frustration, love, disappointment, excitement;
My mouth,
and all the words that come out of it,
Polite,
sweet or rough, correct or incorrect;
My voice, loud or soft;
and all of my actions,
whether they be to others or to myself.

I own my own fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears.

I own all my triumphs and, successes, (all my failures and mistakes.)

I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me,
and other aspects that I do not know.

But as long as I am friendly
and loving to myself,
I can courageously and hopefully
look for the solutions to the puzzles and
for ways to find out more about me.

However I look and sound,
whatever I say and do,
and whatever I think and feel at a given moment
in time is me.
This is authentic and represents
where I am at that moment in time.

When I review later how I looked and sounded,
what I said and did,
and how I thought and felt,
some parts may turn out to be unfitting.
I can discard that which is unfitting,
and keep that which proved fitting,
and invent something new
for that which I discarded.

I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do.
I have tools to survive,
to be close to others, to be productive.
and to make sense and order
out of the world of people and things outside of me.

I own me,
and therefore,
I can engineer me.

I am me and I am okay.

Is “you’re a bad mom” Emotional Abuse?

I work with individuals and couples facing emotional abuse. I’ll go out on a limb here and say that if your partner is saying that you’re a bad mother, chances are that you’re in an emotionally abusive relationship. I’m assuming you’re not breaking bones or leaving bruises here and that you’re doing the basics of motherhood – cleaning, feeding, and drying those tears. Motherhood is unbelievably hard and what we need are partners that get that and try in any way they can to support us and help us through the daily struggle.

Roni Weisberg-Ross, LMFT, says this about it:

How then do we recognize and deal with emotional abuse?

Trust your own instincts and the instincts of others who claim to have been abused. If you/they feel it or can name it, attention must be paid. Respect your emotions. This abuse is insidious and can be very subtle. But it wears away at your self-esteem and sense of self. If someone has or is continually making you feel bad about yourself, scaring you or making you feel as if you are crazy, then even if they aren’t fully aware of it, they are abusing you. Just because emotional abuse is not treated as a crime doesn’t mean it isn’t serious.

So how do you start the healing process from emotional abuse?

First, you recognize it. “Trying harder” will not stop abuse because nothing you did caused it in the first place. No matter how clean the house it, how spotless the kitchen, how quiet the children are, an abuser will find something to attack. Try to recognize that as a first step. Then seek some help in dealing with this very subtle, insidious problem.

Abusers can change, particularly when they are confronted with how hurtful and painful the abuse is for their families. Yes, families. It’s not good for children to grow up witnessing emotional abuse and learning either that that is how you treat someone or that is how you’re treated in what is supposed to be a loving relationship. But besides them, it’s not good for you either.

Roni’s blog is at:
http://www.roniweisbergross.com

Another resource is Annie Kaszina’s newsletter, which is excellent. You can find it at EmotionalAbuseRecoveryNow.com.

Shake that Bear Cub

There is such a focus these days on gentle and aware parenting that there seems to be no room for practical parenting. As mothers we’re supposed to be gentle, kind, never raise our voices, always keep our cool. We even are expected to talk to our children as if they’re mini-adults and have the capacity to understand reasoning on an adult level.

Where did practical parenting go? I sometimes have to remind myself that these are children we’re dealing with, not adults. And that it’s o.k. to treat them as such. Right about now you’re probably wondering what that translates to.

This came up when discussing a particular problem that is happening with one of my friend’s children. We were talking about how she felt ineffective with her “calm, reasoned” voice. We discovered that perhaps she should try out her Mama Bear voice. Think Roseanne Barr right here. As in, “DJ, stop bugging your sister and go straight to your room.” Now keep your Roseanne Barr voice and add in the aware parenting piece . . . “DJ, I’m so sorry you’re feeling so angry today that you have to take it out on your sister. But go straight to your room and don’t come out until you feel like you can handle yourself.”

What does this do? It helps the child limit himself, because they’re incapable of doing that themselves. They’re children and we’re their parents and that’s part of our job – setting limits with them when they can’t. It helps them feel better about themselves in the long run because then they don’t have the guilt of beating up on their sister.

My friend laughed and said “that’s like picking them up by the scruff of the neck and giving them a shake.” Yes, it is. And mamas all over the animal world do that without a second thought. Go Mama Bear.

Oz and Back

Ashley Gates Johnson is a friend of a friend. She has a beautiful piece about being diagnosed bipolar and how she handled it.

http://souldivers.net/SoulDivers/OzandBack.html

The piece brought to mind for me a discussion I had last year with a close friend. Namely, that one hundred years ago depression was considered “melancholy.” Sounds more beautiful, yes? Melancholy. And something you can descend into and then arise transformed.

Exercising during Pregnancy can help with depression

Yep, the study is in . . . exercising during pregnancy can help relieve depression both prenatally and postnatally. If it’s too hot to take a walk or you can’t make it to a prenatal yoga class, consider using an exercise ball. Mary Lou’s Get on the Ball video is the perfect way to roll the hips bringing in a good blood supply, to stretch, to relax the back, and to release body tension. It’s extremely affordable and it’s set up in a format where you can download it to your ipod even. It really is exercising made easy and you’ll use that ball during birth and afterwards!

About the Study . . .
A study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine was conducted on a multi-ethnic group of women during and after their pregnancies. It found that over the course of a pregnancy, there were significant declines in the womens’ health, including a reduction in their ability to perform daily routines and an increase in the incidence of depression.

The researchers found that exercise is an effective way to prevent or mitigate the impact of these changes, and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology recommends 30 minutes of moderate exercise a day for pregnant women at least several days a week. The recommendation is particularly important for lower-income women, who are more at risk for depression during pregnancy.

Reference
Blackwell Publishing Ltd. (2005, April 2). Pregnant Women Should Exercise To Keep Depression Away. ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 3, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2005/03/050326003922.htm

MOTHERS Act

There has been a lot of media attention about the Melanie Blocker Stokes MOTHERS Act. John Grohol at PsychCentral does a great job refuting that there are false claims of PPD, complete with a mini-research review to back up what he’s saying. That’s in contrast to most of the mainstream media articles published about this topic. It’s as if the reporters somehow forgot that there’s an incredible amount of research on this topic.

It’s a no-brainer that we need more screening, more education, more awareness about this issue, not less. Imagine more mothers getting the help that they need and being happier during early motherhood (at least).

Anxiety and Yoga

The journal “Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice” published a study on yoga and postpartum women with anxiety in May 2009. Researchers in Iran found that participation in a two-month yoga class can lead to significant reduction in perceived levels of anxiety in women who suffer from anxiety disorders.

Here’s the link if you want to check it out yourself “http://tinyurl.com/mta9gj

This is no surprise to those of us in the yoga world but it’s nice to see thousands of years of an ancient art verified with research. Combine slow, controlled breathing with some cognitive techniques (self-talk) and you have one of the most effective techniques in the psychotherapy world for panic attacks. The breathing techniques come straight from yoga and meditation traditions.

If you can’t afford psychotherapy or can’t find a therapist you click with near you and you’re dealing with anxiety, try to find a yoga class to attend. Most community centers offer low cost yoga these days. The type of yoga doesn’t matter that much. Virtually every type includes a relaxation period at the end of the class and emphasizes the breath in coordination with the body and poses. This is the key you’re looking for. Next time – a quick lesson on how to slow the breath down.

Creating Space

My practice has changed over the years, as it will for a psychotherapist. I’ve worked from exploring emotions from the bodily standpoint in the last couple of years. Lately, I’m being drawn more and more to practicing “yoga therapy.” Really working from a physical standpoint and integrating it with talk therapy vs. working from talk therapy as the base and integrating how someone is feeling emotions in their body. Who know where this will go, but I wanted to share an excerpt from “Focusing” by Eugene Gendlin that is related. This is a really old book that shouldn’t be. It discusses how emotions are felt and carried in the body.

“Most people let their bodies be cramped into the shape of what’s wrong with their lives, being a monument to all the things that are wrong, every moment . . . Often, we feel so much wrong that we come to accept those bad feelings as the basic state of things. But it is not. The bad feeling is the body knowing and pushing toward what good would be.

Every bad feeling is potential energy toward a more right way of being if you give it space to move toward its rightness.

The very existence of bad feelings within you is evidence that your body knows what is wrong and what is right. It must know what it would be like to feel perfect or it could not evoke a sense of wrong. . . . You can definitely trust the whole series of steps by which your body moves to resolve and change a wrong state of being. You can trust that, even if the words and understanding of a given step are superseded, that step was the right step to come then, at that moment, and will lead to the right next step from there.”

Harvesting the Heart

I’m reading Jodi Picoult’s novel “Harvesting the Heart.” I’ve been a fan of hers for a while and it was a last minute addition to my stack at the library. It was published in 1993 and I had no idea it was about postpartum depression. I don’t know if Ms. Picoult did either but reading it in 2009, it’s crystal clear.

Beware – spoiler coming up!

There are two main characters, an artist and her heart surgeon husband. The woman is sitting in her OB’s office at her 6 week appointment and says,

——— (sorry, I can’t figure out how to get WordPress to indent!)

“How long does it take?” I asked, a thousand questions at once. How long
before I know what I’m doing? How long before I feel like myself again? How
long before I can look at him with love instead of fear?

Dr. Thayer helped me over to the examination table. “It will take,” she said,
“the rest of your life.”
———–
So wise! There are about a million passages I could quote from this book that elucidate PPD. The mom ends up leaving her 3 month old one night to do some errands and just keeps driving. The rest of the book is an exploration of her “escape.” I just posted about this in my last post! It also goes into her husband’s perspective.

If you’ve had PPD, you practically can’t put the book down. If you haven’t, you’ll understand it better in a way that’s not preachy, not text-booky, not humorous, just, well . . . Jodi Picoult at her best.

Escapist Fantasies

A friend and I were talking about the anxiety part of postpartum depression. Her anxiety was so bad that she wanted to literally just run out of the house.

Ah, yes, the run out of the house fantasy! Raise your hand if you’ve had this one. There’s not a woman with PPD that I’ve spoken to that hasn’t had these strong urges to just outright escape, run away, run off to some other country and become a librarian.

In fact, there’s not a mom out there that doesn’t have the escapist fantasies from time to time – to leave it all behind and just be “free.” What makes it different when it’s part of a postpartum mood disorder is that it’s much, much stronger. It’s overwhelming. It feels very real. Like when you lock the doors and windows, you’re doing it to keep yourself from escaping, not to keep the bad guys out.

Occasionally you’ll hear of a woman who actually does it. She leaves her children and runs off somewhere. Most mom will have a sharp intake of breath, an instant of “I wish I could,” and then the heartache that comes with the very thought of abandoning their children.

Sometimes PPD moms will be stuck between the “I wish” and the heartache. They feel frozen. I have a theory that the urge to escape not just the child or children but the postpartum depression itself is what fuels the fantasy. If only everything could feel better if they just went away. If only you could outrun your feelings.

The trick (if you could call it that) is to instead sit with the feelings. It helps some women to just know that they will pass, that they won’t last forever, that this will get better. This will get better. This will get better.

If nothing else, please know that. Seeing a psychotherapist can help that process along. There’s plenty of research to support that. But even if you can’t afford to or choose for whatever reason not to, just know that this will get better even without treatment.

Peace out.