I want you to be happy, but this doesn’t mean being happy all the time. No one is happy all the time. Having the expectation that you should be happy all the time, will make you feel more unhappy. I want you to ask for help when you need it. Being able to be vulnerable, and to express your vulnerability, is a great strength. Asking for help does not mean you’ve failed. It means that you are willing to learn, grow and be the best you can be. I want you to know that all feelings pass – the bad and the good. That everything evolves and changes and that we don’t need to fear nor strive for particular feelings because they are transient. When you feel like everything is too hard, remember that things will look different tomorrow. I want you to know who you are, and to define yourself by your values, not by how you look, or by how you perceive others see you. You can never know or control what others think. But you can know, that the way other people think is an indication of who they are, not who you are. I want you to respect yourself by doing things that are self-nourishing (including having uproarious amounts of fun). But only do things you feel comfortable with. You hold the barometer of your own comfort. Check in on your level of comfort in situations you might feel swayed. I want you to find meaning in your life. This will be an evolving process. Only you hold the measurement of what is meaningful to you. Look inwards, not around you for your own definition of meaning. I want you to know that giving to others brings great joy. Be sensitive to the needs of others and give of yourself. This doesn’t mean losing yourself to the needs of others. It means stepping outside of your striving for happiness through material things or achievements, and give love to others. I want you to know that you were born with self-worth. Anything that has diminished your self-worth over time, is changeable. Your thoughts are not truths unless you believe them. Other people’s words are not truths unless you believe them. You have the choice to see yourself in a positive, self-compassionate light. Appreciate the unique person you are. There is no one else on earth like you. Just by being you, you are worthy. Treasure your uniqueness, open your mind to experiencing the fullness of life, and know that you are loved. Mum xx Written by Dr Renée Miller (Perinatal Clinical Psychologist) Antenatal & Postnatal Psychology Network Dedicated to my beautiful girls. 
Among these women are those who doggedly juggle the demands of work, home and children. Women who commit much of their time and energy to their children's special needs. And women who are parenting alone. Despite the depths of exhaustion and depletion, these women face their difficulties and work at being the best versions of themselves. The second group of women is a group that constantly touches our hearts. Women who have risen from the trenches of despair after losing their much wanted babies. The heartbreak of miscarriage, stillbirth, and neonatal loss. The stress and helplessness of babies behind the plastic crib in special care nurseries. The women who face the agonising emotional rise and fall of fertility treatment and infertility. We are in awe of how these women go on to find meaning in their lives, honour their lost babies, and help others who have experienced similar heartbreak. The third group of women is made up of our colleagues. Women who in their respective professions, dedicate their working lives to the betterment of women. In the field of perinatal health, obstetricians, gps, midwives, maternal and child health nurses, psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers, all work to care for women during the profound and vulnerable stages of childbearing. These professional women (often juggling their own work and family demands), typically provide their patients with a responsiveness, compassion, and nurturance that has far reaching benefits for the community as a whole. You are all amazing! Written by Dr Renée Miller 
Every parent has the best intention for a positive relationship with their child, yet this does not always go to plan. New parents can feel doubtful about their relationship with their baby, feeling lost, and even frightened of this much anticipated new arrival. There can be feelings of aloneness, emptiness, guilt and shame for not enjoying the parenting journey. Parents can find themselves caught between an internal turmoil and desperate attempts to care for the baby they so wanted to love and cherish. Human beings are complex. Each of us carries a relationship blueprint that began with our relationship with our own parents. We develop self-beliefs as well as emotional and behavioural patterns from these relationships. Ever wonder why a certain look from someone or a tone in their voice can rouse an emotional response within us yet not affect someone else the same way? This is because the look or tone is familiar to us, triggering emotions associated with our very early relationship experiences. Although each individual’s early relationship is unique, feelings triggered later in life commonly have to do with early life feelings of aloneness, vulnerability, feeling unprotected, unheard, or misunderstood. Our babies’ needs and behaviours can inadvertently trigger old dynamics from our early relationships. Some parents experience feelings of anxiety or dread when their baby signals a need for closeness and comfort through crying or unsettledness. Others experience sadness, alarm, or a feeling of rejection when their baby crawls away from them to explore the environment. Even though we know that babies lack the sophistication to deliberately upset us, the emotions stirred up can be so strong, it can feel like they are manipulating us. This of course is not the case. Our babies’ need for comfort (closeness to us) or autonomy (distance from us) is merely triggering our own experiences of unmet needs from our childhood, which we may not be fully aware of. Perhaps our own parents struggled with providing comfort when we needed it, or had difficulties supporting our need for independence. Making sense of what our baby is triggering in us can help to remove the blocks that prevent us from attending to their needs and connecting with them in healthy ways. It frees us up to have the kind of relationship with them that builds trust through being present for their emotional needs as they grow and develop. We will never have the perfect relationship with our children. Experiencing pain and disappointment is part of being human. But if we get it right enough of the time, then we are doing just fine. When we miss the mark, repair of the relationship is not only possible, it is powerful. Repairing and rebuilding teaches children that they are worthy and that they can be imperfect but still loved. Parent-child relationships can be helped with counselling, parent-infant work, parenting and play programs. Talk with your doctor or maternal and child health nurse if you are wanting to enhance this important relationship. Written by Kanthi Sayers for Bubba West Magazine, Edition 5. Kanthi Sayers is a Perinatal Psychologist with the Antenatal & Postnatal Psychology Network. She has a particular interest in adjustment to new parenthood, and in the parent-child relationship. Kanthi is located in Niddrie (Essendon area), and her colleagues in the West are located in Maribyrnong, Newport and Werribee. www.antenatalandpostnatalpsychology.com.au https://www.facebook.com/antenatal.postnatal.psychology/ 
Striving for perfection can seriously limit our capacity to enjoy life. Perfection-striving is often associated with 'all or nothing' or 'black and white' thinking. For example, the mum who won’t go to mother’s group if she is going to be late, misses out on the building of relationships with other mums (who are often late themselves). The mum who won’t exercise if she can’t exercise three times per week, misses out on the benefits of some exercise and a little time-out. The mum who won’t invite people over unless she gets the time to make the house look immaculate, misses out on the fun and spontaneity of having other new mums and babies around for her own and her baby’s social well-being. The mum who won’t let her partner settle the baby because he/she won’t do it like she does, misses out on her partner’s support and her partner's growing bond with the baby.
The bottom line is that there is no one way, and there is no right way. When your hard and fast rules about how things should be, get in the way of the things that give your life meaning (i.e. the things that you really value) ask yourself if there is a middle ground? The middle ground is a place where we strive for being ‘good-enough’ mothers. Perfectionists usually see this term “good enough” as meaning mediocre. However, ‘good-enough’ means good enough. For example, getting to mothers group late is better than not going at all. It can be a good laugh and a supportive environment. Exercising whenever possible (despite wishing to achieve three exercise sessions per week) is better than nothing, and is likely to become easier to achieve over time. Inviting friends over, even if the house is untidy, shows them that you are human after all (very comforting for most people), and demonstrates that you value friendships more than your domestic high standards. Letting your partner settle the baby even if he/she does it differently to you, knowing that this is their chance to discover what works, and to establish a good bond. The middle ground is a much kinder place – a place of acceptance, and openness to experience. Try it. You’ll see. You might even find that not only can you be a 'good-enough' mum, you can be a great mum! Written by Dr Renée Miller (Clinical Psychologist) Antenatal & Postnatal Psychology Network
Friends and neighbours would comment and compliment me. “You look great for someone who just had a baby!” or, “Wow, I love your new hair!” Little did they know my new, shorter haircut was a product of hating what I looked like so much, I needed a drastic change. I was also pulling my hair out. I needed it short enough to make it harder for me to sit there and go through the strands, picking out hairs that ‘didn’t belong’ and yanking them out. I camouflaged that by donating 15 inches to a charity. That was why I cut my hair off. Not because I was trying to look chic. To look at me would mean you’d never know how much I was suffering. How badly I felt about myself and my abilities as a mother. You’d never even for one second think that the most horrible, intrusive scary images and thoughts daily invaded my head, making me feel as if I were the lowest of the low. How could a good mother think those things, anyhow? For me, the answer was simple. A good mother would and could not and therefore, I was not a good mother. That was my secret. You would never know by looking at me or talking to me that I was suffering from horrible PND and OCD. You would never know how hard it was for me to leave my own house, to walk out that front door was positively terrifying. You would never know to look at me that I would just sit there and cry. You would never know the horrible things I thought. You’d never know I felt sad, alone and horribly depressed. You’d never know how irritable I felt, the rage that boiled or that I screamed into my pillow to relieve the stress until I was hoarse. You’d never know the crushing anxiety or the extreme numbness I could feel. So what does postpartum anxiety look like? It looks like your friends, your neighbors, the perfectly put together mum at play group and the mums that runs into the dentist office 15 minutes late with a baby on her hip and a toddler in her grip. It looks like my friend who could not leave her house and it looks like the lady who whispered to me once that she knew how I felt. It looks like me, right there in the mirror, on my best days and my worst days. It looks like the new mum who quit her job to be home alone with her baby and it looks like the mum who just handed her 6 week old infant to strangers while she goes to work. We have a misnomer that a postnatal mother doesn’t dress well, doesn’t put on any make up, forgot how to do her hair and sits in a dark room and cries. Postnatal depression can look like just about anyone. That’s what makes it so dangerous and that’s why it goes untreated and undiagnosed too often. I had the misunderstanding that admitting I had an illness was to admit I was weak. That I had failed at taking care of myself and therefore, my baby. By admitting my secret, by getting out how horrible I felt, that was when I opened the door to getting well. Posted with permission (adapted for Australian readers). Originally posted by Claire Petrillo, Postpartum Stress Center. 
Historically, anxiety is understood to be an ally; it is an internal signal that can serve to protect us, motivate us and alert us to danger. In these ways, anxiety reactions are understood to be adaptive and to a large extent, primal and instinctive. When people experience a dangerous or threatening situation, the fight-or-flight response kicks in. This survival response pumps adrenaline throughout the body, setting off a surge of physical changes such as rapid heart rate, palpitations or increased blood pressure. The purpose of this response is to prepare us for action. Most of us can recall a time in our lives when we responded this way, either to a very real threat or to a situation that we perceived as threatening to our well-being.
When we take a closer look into the restless mind of a new mother, we find an array of anxious responses that generally fall into three categories. First, there is the “all new mothers feel that way”, e.g. I wonder if she’s getting enough milk. These are anxieties that fit comfortably within a socially acceptable definition of “new mother anxiety.” Secondly, there is the “something must be wrong with me” axiom perhaps expressed as, I cannot leave the house until the baby is 6 months old. I heard that before they are 6 months old they are susceptible to mega-germs that can cause fatal diseases. I’ve tried to leave but I can’t breathe when I go outside, my chest starts pounding and tears pour out of my eyes. It’s just not worth it. These represent anxieties that interfere with functioning and require professional attention. And third, by far the most common scenario, “Is this normal for me to feel this way?” are those anxieties that teeter between the two ends of the continuum. The majority of women who seek professional support for symptoms of postpartum anxiety and depression are ones who find themselves wavering between the two extremes: Is what I am thinking normal or could I be going crazy? They know they are far more anxious than they’ve ever been before and wonder how much is too much anxiety. They worry that they are way too nervous, hypervigilant or obsessive, so much some days that they fear they might really be going mad. Thus, if we view this on a continuum, with “normal” anxiety at one end and severe, incapacitating anxiety at the other end, the preponderance of postpartum women who struggle with symptoms of anxiety fall somewhere between the two points, leaving a great deal of room for doubt and uncertainty. It stands to reason that motherhood and anxiety would go hand in hand. The awesome responsibility and unpredictable nature of the role can combine in combustible fashion, leaving many women feeling vulnerable and unprepared. Nearly everyone, including the new mother and her surrounding loved ones and healthcare providers, expects some degree of anxiety to go with this territory. But this is a crucial part of the problem. It is often difficult to distinguish “normal” anxiety from that which may be a symptom of an anxiety disorder or an expression of postpartum depression. Most are not surprised or terribly concerned when the mother of a one week old infant reports that she is nervous about her baby’s well-being, or worried that he’s not eating enough, or wondering if he’s going to die from SIDS if she doesn’t go check on him throughout the night. Another part of the problem is that healthcare providers more often than not dismiss early expressions of anxiety as par for the course. In addition, in spite of the current focus on postpartum mood disorders, the emphasis primarily remains on depressive symptoms. Women remain reluctant to express anxiety in general partly because it can feel so “whiny” or irrelevant. A woman’s urgent desire for relief is too often construed as neediness, a label that serves no purpose to a weakening spirit. Regrettably, many doctors reinforce this by referring to anxiety as merely a nuisance for the postpartum woman; something she just needs to get used to. But make no mistake about it, at its worst, anxiety can be crippling, and within this context of postpartum women, it can be an crucial signal that requires further attention.Women should not be afraid to talk about it and seek help. Family members and healthcare providers must take the expression of anxiety seriously, they must stop responding with dismissive comments and they should feel obliged to help the mother find symptom relief either through self-help measures or professional support. Posted with permission. Adapted by Karen Kleiman, MSW, LCSW, from "Dropping the Baby and Other Scary Thoughts" (Routledge, 2010) by Karen Kleiman and Amy Wenzel |
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