Introduction and Episode Overview

Part 1 of 3 · Ep. 232

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Natasha Helfer Parker [00:00:15] welcome to Mormon Stories. This is Natasha Helfer Parker, and this is another episode in our Mental health relational series. And today with me, I have some Sarah, mother of four, here to talk to me about postpartum depression. She is a lifelong member of the church and has struggled with depression since adolescence and is here to speak with us today about her experiences specifically with postpartum depression. And before we get started, I'd just like to make a few precluding comments as far as our goals for this podcast tonight. One is basically just to share a story and to share an experience and hopefully reach out to other women who have dealt with similar topics. By no means are we going to be all inclusive, and by no means is Sarah's experience going to resonate with everyone who's had postpartum depression. Some people have postpartum depression only as part of giving birth without any history of depression in their past. Some have a history of depression in their past and then also struggle with postpartum depression. And there's lots of different ways and reasons and etc. That all of this can develop. The second thing I want to say is that this is not a podcast that's going to touch on her testimony or issues surrounding her relationship with the church, other than we will be speaking briefly about how her beliefs and I guess, construct around church issues has affected some of her ways that she dealt with her depression or thought about her depression during her journey. With that being said, I want to welcome Sarah. Hello.

Sarah [00:02:07] Hi. Thank you for having me.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:02:08] Oh, thanks for being here. I really appreciate it. I think that this is a very important topic to be discussing and just very glad you're willing to do this for us. So I'd like to start with a little bit of just your background and specifically give us your background regarding when you felt like you started noticing that depression was a part of your life and maybe some family history around that or etc.

Growing Up in the Church with Depression

Sarah [00:02:37] Well, basic background that as a listener to Mormon stories, one might find interesting would be, I am a lifelong member of the church. I grew up in the church. Both my parents were born and raised in the church. Both sets of their parents were born and raised in the church. All the sets of great grandparents were born and raised in the church. Multigenerational, multi generational. Lots of Mormons crossing the plains, and I'm the oldest of a lot of kids in my family, actually six.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:03:13] And no antidepressants as they were crossing the plains. Right. Is that.

Sarah [00:03:18] Not that are recorded? Not that we have found a history of. No. But thank you for asking. And is the oldest in my family. Probably have a little bit of that overachieving anal thing going on. As a teenager and my junior year of high school, I can remember very specifically because I was getting straight as and had always gotten straight as up to that point. And there were some pressures and there was kind of a straw that broke the camel's back and a boyfriend broke up with me. And all of a sudden I just didn't care about anything. I was sleeping every afternoon when I came home. My grades dropped dramatically. They went from straight A's to straight D's. At a progress report.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:04:06] What time frame are we looking at? A weeks.

Sarah [00:04:10] Over the course of a couple about a month or so. I gained about 10 pounds in two weeks. Pretty drastic. And I didn't really talk to my parents a lot about it. I didn't tell them, oh, by the way, my grades are Ds right now. There was a teacher who pulled me into her office and asked if I was on drugs. And it was so laughable to me and so absurd because I did have a reputation as a good Mormon girl that I could only sputter, no, I would never. I no. And you know, I felt like I could see the wheels turning in her mind. Denial is the first stage. And she, she asked some of my other teachers in the school, do you think that she is on drugs? And. And they said, no, you've got the wrong girl. She doesn't do stuff like that. I remember turning in an essay for a history class that I was supposed to write something about U.S. history. And I talked about how nothing mattered at all in life. Some very dark journal entries. And anyway, it was a weird period. It lasted a total of about four months and then I kind of bounced back and I really just thought I was a freak.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:05:26] That you had just had a weird experience or did you tally it up to the whole boyfriend breakup?

Sarah [00:05:31] You know, kind of the boyfriend breakup kind of. I didn't know more of just there must be something really wrong with me.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:05:38] Did your parents ever pick up on this four month streak? Did they show concern?

Sarah [00:05:43] You know, I'm sure they did. But there again, I was the oldest. There were five kids at home at the time. They were dealing with a lot of things and I think they probably chalked it up to a teenage girl having hormonal things. You Know, I was their oldest and so they hadn't experienced exactly what teenagers did, but they knew it was a very volatile time emotionally and hormonally and I think they just kind of chalked it up to that.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:06:08] Did you find yourself becoming like the typical lippy kind of attitude type teenager, very sassy, or did your mom become quiet and sad?

Sarah [00:06:19] I was lippy to my parents, but yeah, a lot of time spent my bedroom crying. A lot of Depeche Mode that places my age. But yeah, it was the 80s. A lot of. Yeah, a lot of morose music and you know.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:06:36] Okay, and did you. As far as. At that point there was no outer help then that was seeked out. There was no. You didn't go to psychologist or.

Sarah [00:06:48] No, no. And you know, and I bounced back and my grades came back up and you know, off and on I felt a little bit weird, but I didn't. Yeah, I mean I, I just chalked it up to I was a loser and you know, and there had been something really wrong with me and it seemed fixed to a degree. And then so that was my junior year, the spring of my junior year and then the summer after my senior year of high school. So not quite a year and a half later, I remember reading, I don't even know what kind of magazine it was. Probably Women's Health or. I don't know, it was something my mom had laying around the house and there was a checklist in it talking about symptoms of a major depressive thing. And I was going down thinking back to my junior year and every single one. Except for the weight loss because I had gained weight and except for the abusing drugs and alcohol because I had never tried those. I fit every single one.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:07:53] Did that include suicidal thoughts?

Sarah [00:07:56] Yeah, I had. In fact, I. Not suicide as in, oh, I had a plan and I wanted to, you know, it wasn't that. But I do remember walking home one day on a busy street and thinking, wow, it'd be so easy to just step in front of a car. And immediately when I had that thought, I thought, oh my goodness, that's so wrong. I can't believe I thought that. But it did cross my mind. So there wasn't a plan. It wasn't, you know, but there were mostly it was just feelings of. At that time it had been, I hate myself, I hate myself. I mean, just this true self loathing

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:08:35] so affecting obviously your self esteem. You classified yourself as a loser. Did you continue to classify yourself as a loser after the episode had happened? No.

Sarah [00:08:48] I mean to A degree. I had a really great set of friends. I didn't confide in them what was going on internally, but I had really supportive friends and I did a lot with them. And so I think that masked a lot of it. And plus, I think I was just really good at masking some things, and I did feel better. But like I said, reading this article, I thought, oh, my goodness, that's what that was. It wasn't that I could put a label to it. Oh, my goodness, that was depression. That's what that was.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:09:18] Did that help with some of those feelings, having that label? Like, oh, I wasn't totally crazy. It did.

Sarah [00:09:25] It did. And I think the most remarkable thing was just feeling, oh, I'm so glad I don't feel that way now. That was the most remarkable thing is not having those feelings that year and a half later.

Depression Before and After Marriage

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:09:39] Okay, did you, before having children, did you have any other depressive episode other than that one during your high school years?

Sarah [00:09:46] That's the one that stands out to me the most. I attended college at byu. I earned my undergraduate degree there, and I also am Provo, and I served a mission in Latin America. And during those times, I would say there were maybe periods of a couple months where it never got that bleak per se, but I knew this is depression. The sleeping more, the little easily more irritated, the loss of interest in things that I like to do, the feeling of, oh, things don't really matter. And it was never quite as drawn out, but it would be for a period of, you know, a month, usually about two months. And I would say that happened probably once on my mission and maybe once before my mission and maybe once after during the college years.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:10:48] And you were able to then, by then recognize it for what it was and just kind of know what you were in for?

Sarah [00:10:54] Yeah. And so just, you know, okay, what's on my plate? What can I. What can I take off of that so that I can kind of focus on me and do some self healing? And it usually cleared up. I didn't go to a doctor about it. I did talk with my mom about it later at that point, and that was when I found out that after the birth of her fifth child, she had gone through a major postpartum depression. What? She didn't even know what it was as it was starting out, and then later learned about that.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:11:29] Okay. And before that, she had not had any issues with depression as far as, you know. And do you know of any history in your family other than your mother that has struggled with depression or.

Sarah [00:11:41] Yeah, There is, actually. And it seems to, you know, I don't. As I'm trying to think of how to. To best word or to best articulate, seems to mostly follow the female line. And I don't know if that's because it hasn't affected the men or, you know, coming from a large Mormon. Just a whole bunch of people that are Mormon, cousins, aunts, uncles, everybody. You know, sometimes with mental illness, you see a lot of the addictions, and I haven't seen that quite as much only because there are some substances that nobody ever tried. You know, a lot of people in my family never tried alcohol or never tried drugs, and so they didn't have that. But, you know, certainly I've seen food addictions, and I know that there are several women, aunts, cousins, etc. That have had problems with that.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:12:47] Well, that's an interesting point you bring up, because I think for the numbers just in general around depression, show that women do suffer from depression more than men. But there is some question right now as to. Is that just because women are talking about it more than men do, or are we, I guess, diagnosing that correctly in the mental health field, or are men exhibiting different symptoms than women do with depression, sometimes like overworking or, you know, kind of escaping in other ways that we don't always classify as depressive symptoms? So, anyway, that's. That's an interesting point. Okay, so you have some family history with depression. Your mother shares with you that she's had an experience with postpartum depression.

Sarah [00:13:31] And she. And that was during. It must have been at some point during college, because I remember prior to my mission, so prior to being 21, we had talked about it, because I remember. I don't know, I just. I don't remember the exact conversation per se, but I know that we had had several discussions about it at that point.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:13:51] Okay, and then when. So you graduate from BYU and what did you graduate in? What was your field of study?

Sarah [00:14:00] I graduated in English. And so, you know, the job market is just thrilled to accept bachelor's in English when. Oh, wait, no, not so much. Yeah, so you can do administrative assistant or flip burgers, you know, kind of equally with your peers that did not go to college. And so I worked as an administrative assistant for several years, got married a couple years after college, and then have not worked just from moving around, living in different states, have not worked outside the home since the birth of our first child. And that was 11 years ago.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:14:38] Okay. And you have four children?

Sarah [00:14:40] Four.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:14:41] And did your husband, when you met your husband and got married. Was this even part of the conversation? The fact that you'd had some episodes of depression?

Sarah [00:14:49] You know, it probably should have been. And this is really embarrassing to recall now, but, you know, in our 20s, hopefully I've grown up since then. I don't know, but as a 25 year old, I thought, oh, my goodness, I better tell him because what if he wants to back out? And I. And I never told him.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:15:12] Because you were afraid that he would back out?

Sarah [00:15:14] No, not that I was afraid that he was back out, but just more like I didn't want him to feel like I was withholding information that he would have liked to have known. And so if I recall correctly, and if he were here, maybe he could correct me on this. I don't think I told him until a couple nights before we got married. And I said, there's something I need to tell you. Which, thinking back on us now, I wonder if his heart was racing. I mean, you know, here we are, these two sweet little Mormon kids, anyway, and I mentioned depression, that I had had it before, that it was something that, you know, I hadn't had a major episode since high school, but it was something that I was in. You know, I dabbled here and there and I make it sound like art or something.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:16:01] But you were in remission?

Sarah [00:16:03] Yeah. And, you know, he was really excited about the wedding. He was like, ah, yeah, that's great. I mean, I, you know, it didn't faze him.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:16:09] No. Was it anxiety producing to tell him or to come up with the words, to know how to communicate that to him or.

Sarah [00:16:17] Well, it must have been if I didn't tell him till several nights before. So, yeah, I mean, looking back on, wasn't like for months I thought, I have to tell him, but I can't. But I have to. But it just, I wasn't really thinking about it. And yeah, it was a strange turn of events to the engagement, but anyway. But that's not for different Mormon stories.

First Postpartum Depression Episode

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:16:46] Okay, so then you go into your marriage pretty aware that depression is part of your history. Your husband knows about it at some level, and you at some point have your first child. How many years go by before you?

Sarah [00:17:01] We had been married for a little over two years when our oldest was born. And honestly, having talked with my mom and having gone through depressive periods before, I fully expected that I would go through postpartum depression. And I don't know if anyone can ever really be prepared for that, but it was something that I was aware of And I remember my OBGYN telling me, you need to look for these certain signs. And was I overwhelmed? Yeah. What brand new mom of any baby is not overwhelmed? And I would cry, but it didn't even really feel like baby blues. I knew what depression felt like and it didn't feel a thing like that. And I thought, fantastic. I don't get postpartum depression. This is wonderful. It has eluded me.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:17:53] Yeah. Can you elaborate a little bit on how it was different? Because some, like you said, some women maybe haven't had the experience with depression to be able to compare the two. So what was different about it?

Sarah [00:18:06] Well, for me, during the periods where I had, where I felt like I had been more depressed, I guess one doesn't necessarily go in and out of depression. You either have it or you don't. But there's times for me that have been more overwhelming. And during those parts, similar to when I had been in high school, but not matching exactly because I wasn't 16 anymore, there was always some form of self loathing and just, oh, I'm so annoyed with myself, I can't do anything right. I'm so dumb, I'm so stupid, I'm so fat. Which I look back at pictures now and thought I was never fat. But you know, I mean, just the thinking is distorted, you know, what are other people thinking of me? And just for me, I was always sleeping a lot more. I love to talk to people, I love to talk on the phone. And typically I wouldn't care to do that as often when I was depressed. Now having said that, I don't know that my friends or roommates knew because I didn't confide in them that I did.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:19:21] And you were able to mask it enough?

Sarah [00:19:23] Yeah, I was able to mask it enough. And it was never something like, oh, when I'm depressed, I don't do this. I mean, I could still function, but for me it always felt like kind of a bare minimal level. And you know, the weepy, the sad, everything sad, everything's hard, hard, hard. And you know, I, I think that's why sometimes it's hard to tell, well, is this postpartum depression or just having a new baby?

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:19:54] Because having a new baby isn't it. So what would you classify what you felt were normal feelings of basic baby blues that wouldn't qualify as postpartum depression?

Sarah [00:20:07] Well, for me, I would always kind of go back to what I had read in articles or in books, which was, are these symptoms lasting? Are they daily for a period of two weeks or longer. And for me, after the birth of my first child, it wasn't. It would be two days of sadness followed by three weeks of, yeah, this is tough, but we're gonna get through it, you know, and then I'd have another bad day. But it wasn't, it wasn't. Every single day was hard and I couldn't get out of it. And, and so for me, having known before, okay, if it's, if it's two weeks more. And that was just something I'd read. I clearly am not a medical professional by any stretch of the imagination. No.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:20:51] Right. I think that's great that you had that information to help you.

Sarah [00:20:55] Sort of. And that was really kind of my benchmark. Okay. How long has it gone on? And you know, and I never even got, after the first, after the birth of our first child, I never even got to the four or five day mark.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:21:05] Yeah.

Sarah [00:21:05] So, yeah.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:21:07] Okay, so you have your first child, you do not have postpartum depression. You're like, hooray, yeah, going to be a problem for me two years later.

Sarah [00:21:17] 18 months later could have been part of the problem.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:21:22] 18 months later you have your second child.

Sarah [00:21:25] Yes. And, you know, and, and I was fine. I remember going into my six week checkup and talking

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:21:39] with the very beginning of your pregnancy. Not six weeks or six weeks.

Sarah [00:21:43] No, I'm sorry. This is the six week postpartum checkup. This is my six week checkup. Six weeks after I've delivered and talking with the. It was a nurse midwife I was talking to at that appointment and she was screening me for some signs. And I mean, I was really tired, but I, I knew that that was very normal to be very tired and pardon me, I was exhausted. But we had had family come into town, I had had friends. Everything was kind of a, had kind of been a whirlwind for six weeks. And I had spent some time home with the kids, but we were living several states away from, from any family at all. So there wasn't family that could come in and help. My parents were actually serving a mission at the time. And so my mom was not able to. You know, sometimes moms come and stay in the home and she has with subsequent births, but she was not able to come and do that Anyway, so the first six weeks I just, I was paying more attention, just kind of getting through every day. So when I got to that checkup and they're screaming me for depression. No, I'm fine. Yeah, we're doing great. And I wasn't really showing any of that, I think what I would consider classic signs of depression. You know, do you have the loss of interest? Do you have. Have your sleeping patterns changed? Have your eating patterns changed? Have your thought processes changed? Have your relationship changed? You know, things that I tend to think of as classic markers, I wasn't seeing.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:23:10] Right.

Sarah [00:23:11] So. And then it was after that, after that first six weeks, I just really felt like I couldn't get it together. And the babies were close. I thought I had a baby and a big girl, but looking back now, that is completely and totally ridiculous. I had two babies and, you know, and everybody said, oh, it is. It's harder with the second. And, you know, when she's six months old, when your baby's six months old, everything's going to be so much better. And so. So in my mind, I really kind of thought, okay, let's slog through this first six months. And I mean, I really kind of expected that I would wake up to sunshine and roses on six months to the day, and my life would go back to. I would feel normal.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:24:05] So this is four months then that you're slogging through, at least?

Sarah [00:24:10] Yeah. I mean, yeah.

Bonding Struggles with a Second Baby

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:24:12] Can you talk about that? What was that like?

Sarah [00:24:15] It was dark. I mean, it was. It was kind of a mess. And then it got darker after that. But it was. I was tired, you know, and a lot of it is just new motherhood. The house was a mess. I was tired. I felt like I wasn't doing everything that I wanted to be able to do. And, you know, hindsight says, well, yeah, you can do those things. You maybe just can't do them right after you have a baby. And that's okay, but just. Just very overwhelmed and feeling frustrated that I was overwhelmed. I'm staying home, for goodness sakes. It's not like I'm going out and working and getting paid to work and then coming home and trying to do it. You know, I'm here. Why can't I get it done? And I wish I could have brought it with me this evening, but in the organizational chaos, no, there's no organization in my home. I couldn't find the journal that is quasi representational of that period. I'm not a very good journal keeper, but there were so many entries that said, you know, I'm really sick of this. I'm really tired. This wasn't what I was expecting. And so I, you know, but I know that if I would eat better and get some exercise and pray more fervently and read my scriptures, that things would Turn around. So these are my goals for the next month and I'm gonna do it. And then I'd write a month later, okay, this time I really mean it. Not like last time. And then a month later, I can't believe I'm writing this again because I thought I meant it last time, but this time I'm really committed, you know, I mean, months of. And then, you know, just garbage. I'm a failure as a mother.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:26:00] Yeah, a lot of that self blame. Like if I was doing certain things, this wouldn't be happening to me. If I was able to check the checklist off, I would somehow this would go away. This is all my fault, per se.

Sarah [00:26:16] Yeah. And then magically or unmatched at six months when things didn't change, I thought, okay, maybe this isn't just having the second baby. Maybe this. Because part of me thought, well, maybe this is normal. Maybe this is how everybody feels. And so then at six months, it became, okay, well, I can't keep operating this way. Now I'll go ahead and fast forward and say, I did not seek any kind of treatment until she was a year old. And so then it was another six months of.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:26:51] Was it the second six months of making these checklists for yourself?

Sarah [00:26:56] It was, but it was worse because that, because the first six months, it was almost kind of like, oh, well, no one expects me to be able to do anything. Therefore I don't need to have expectations of myself, because I don't. And I don't know why I had that magic six month thing in my head. I mean, one woman said that to me. So all of a sudden it's true for every woman.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:27:16] I don't know.

Sarah [00:27:19] Yeah, in hindsight it's dumb, but where

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:27:21] was your husband in all this as far as he.

Sarah [00:27:24] Well, he was working full time. Like I said, we lived several states away from upper Midwest, so we lived several states away from any other family. But we had, we had, I had a good, you know, pretty good support group of friends. I didn't tell them what I was going through. And so he worked full time. He had a calling in the church. We went to church every Sunday. And he was supportive, but I think because I kept telling him, I need to stop eating sugar and I need to exercise three to four times a week. And he'd say, yeah, I support you. That sounds great, I think, because I, I was thinking I could snap out of it. He kept thinking, okay, she says she can. Great, let's move on that.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:28:10] Did he ever express concern? Like, did he Notice that you weren't doing well or was it more just what you were reporting to him?

Sarah [00:28:19] It was probably more what I was reporting to him. I mean, certainly he would see it. It's kind of hard not to notice when you come home at 5:30 and your wife still has not showered and every day is pajama jammy jam. Yeah, so I'm sure he did. And you know, I would say I think I finally started talking to my mom about it on the phone. And I don't remember exactly, but it might have been around the 9, 10 month mark. And I remember that one thing that my parents did, which in hindsight I thought was really cool of them, really amazing, is they called my husband, I mean specifically called him and both touched him and said, look, this is a serious thing. This is not going to go away. This is not nutrition exercise. This is serious stuff. And my mom talked to him and my dad did too, because my dad never suffered from depression from a day in his life. He does not. It doesn't come from his side of the family. And so I thought that was really

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:29:33] so sharing kind of what his experience had been with your mother.

Sarah [00:29:36] And I would assume so, yeah, I was in all the conversation. But just, you know, this is something that, that you guys really can't solve on your own. And so she needs help. And much as you can support her in getting that help outside of the family, that would probably in your best interest. You know, they weren't telling him what you need to do. And they certainly weren't. It was more of, you know, she is telling you this, but we are telling you is probably bigger than what she, than even what she's admitting to.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:30:11] Well, I'm noticing a common theme too that, you know, you say from high school on, it was difficult for you to confide in people when you were going through the depressive states. In other words, your friends usually didn't know.

Sarah [00:30:25] Right. Well, because I felt stupid. And even though I knew it was a real disorder, I hope this story is okay, but this is Mormon stories after all. But I remember being 19 and cities of singles ward at BYU and I have no idea what the Relief Society lesson was about that day, but sitting in a Relief Society lesson, somehow the topic in conversation and sharing turned to depression. And I remember one of the counselors in the bishopric who was sitting in on the lesson raised his hand and said to the effect, you know, I noticed he was a good old boy. I noticed that there's a lot of talk of this depression and you Used to never hear about that. Women would just get up and do it. And I think if people would just stop feeling sorry for themselves, that we wouldn't hear about this. I just think you need to talk yourself out of it. And I remember even at the time thinking, oh, no, I bet there are girls in this room that think he's right and he's wrong. This is a very real thing. And I remember being worried because at 19, I didn't have the confidence to say, well, actually it's a medical condition, and you're totally wrong. You know, wow, that's really interesting. Yeah. And, you know, but I knew that, and yes, it happened in the framework of the church. Did I think even at the time it was representational of what men in the church thought? No, but I knew that it was representational of people who either had not struggled with depression or who had personally or had seen it secondhand, perhaps in a family. You know, I knew that that probably was. And so it just sounded kind of dumb. I felt like there was a big stigma attached to, I have depression, I have mental illness. It felt like a big hurdle for me to. To admit to. I felt kind of stupid. Maybe part of me did think, oh, well, maybe I can get to a point that. That it would totally go away. I don't. I don't really know.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:32:36] Well, you're talking a lot about lot of social stigmas, I think, and some of them are just, I think, in the overall culture at large.

Sarah [00:32:46] Yes.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:32:46] And then some of it also is our Mormon culture that gets tied in with that. It's hard to kind of separate things at times, but it is this kind of common theme that you see people snap out of it. I think you mentioned that already. Get over it. Don't wallow in it. Why can't you just kind of forget it and move on?

Sarah [00:33:07] Yeah, just think happy thoughts. Stop being sad. Just choose to be happy, you know? And I remember thinking, that's got to be the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. Oh, okay. I'll choose to have my diabetes go away and think happy thoughts and wha. It'll go away. You wouldn't do it with cancer or diabetes, so why would you do that with depression?

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:33:34] I don't know. Well, maybe implying along with that that you're somehow choosing to be sad.

Sarah [00:33:40] Right? Yeah. Because that's what everybody wants. Sorry about sarcasm there.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:33:45] No, I think that that's. That's part of it, though, that somehow if you're. If you're not choosing to be happy, you're choosing to be sad and. Yeah, there's definitely a stigma, I think, associated with that, so. Well, I think it's fabulous that at such an early age you were able to understand this condition and, you know, kind of, like you said, have a label for it.

Sarah [00:34:06] Yeah. And I don't know that understood it so much, but there was. I would. Yeah, there. I mean, there was some knowledge associated with it, and it helped that I could talk to my mom about it when I needed to and that she

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:34:21] had had a similar experience to be able to.

Sarah [00:34:24] Because a lot of people don't have

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:34:25] a mom or a dad who can relate with it.

Sarah [00:34:29] I mean, that was immeasurably helpful because she even told me, which I may have said earlier, but when I was expecting our first child, you know, be very aware. Make sure to watch for this, you know.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:34:42] Okay. So getting back on track with where we were, kind of in your timeline, you go almost the first full year of your second child's existence in kind of this very dark or kind of funk place.

Sarah [00:34:59] Yeah. And one thing that I love to do is read. And I'm fairly eclectic. Although I'm definitely partial to fiction. Doesn't even have to be great fiction. I just like to read. I'll read a cereal box, I'll read a newspaper. I just like to have something in front of me to read. Tough for me to fall asleep at night if I haven't read. And as it was getting closer to about the year Mark, I noticed I didn't want to read. And I don't think that had happened to me since I had learned how to read.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:35:31] You're somebody you love dearly, that you connect.

Sarah [00:35:33] And the other thing is, I was just so convinced, and it's painful to think about now, some of the. I wish I could find this journal that I had referred to, because I read the journal entries that that woman who was me wrote. And I still weep for her because it was just such a dark place. But I remember thinking, I am such a horrible mom. My girls, they were both girls. I can't raise them, and my husband doesn't deserve this. They need another woman, someone who is not me. Because I'm never going to be good enough. I'm never going to be able to do this. And so I really, truly thought that it would be better if I were not around. And by not around, I didn't mean running off of me starting a new life because I didn't feel like my life was worth living. So was I suicidal in the Fact that I didn't want to live. Yes. Did I have a plan? No. Because I knew if I offed myself, my husband wouldn't get the life insurance, and that would put him in a big financial bind. But I really thought they would do better with another mother and he would do better with another wife. And I just did not want to live. And that was really difficult, too, because that is very at odds with, you know, with what the church teaches. We're not supposed to have thoughts like that. And so it was awful. And I would.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:37:09] So add on the guilt.

Sarah [00:37:10] Yeah, so. So the guilt, too. And I just. And it was daily that I felt this way. And so I kept saying, okay, well, I will try that. Back to the, you know, back to my goals. I will do this for two months. And if I don't feel better in two months after exercising and eating more fruits and vegetables and not eating so much sugar and reading my scriptures every day and praying more fervently, if in two months things haven't changed, then I will go see a doctor. And by doctor, I meant would go to a psychiatrist. But in my mind, I thought, well, what's a psychiatrist gonna do? They're just gonna tell me to go on medication, and I'm nursing a baby, so I can't go on medication. And, you know, I just. For me, if I could go back to myself as two different people, me now and me in the early, you know, in 2001, 2002, and just shake myself by the shoulders, maybe slap myself around for a minute and be like, you idiot, your baby will be fine. Go on medication, stop nursing the baby and get your life back. Because I, you know, you can't. I wasn't mothering her very well. I wasn't being a good wife. I wasn't. I wasn't doing anything particularly well, because I wasn't doing anything at all.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:38:33] Right. You weren't able to even care for yourself, really.

Sarah [00:38:36] No, I mean, it's. You know, I didn't. I didn't never shower. I just didn't frequently shower.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:38:45] Right.

Sarah [00:38:46] I didn't never do laundry. I just didn't frequently do laundry. Yes. So, you know, we were functioning at a bare minimal level.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:38:55] Well, did you find that you, you know, these checklists that you would come up with, would you do those things, or was it that you. Good.

Sarah [00:39:03] 17 hours. Yeah,

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:39:07] because that's part of the thing, you know, is a lot of people will come up with those kinds of suggestions for depression. Well, if you just do this. If you just do that, and especially in church, you know, a lot of the spiritual suggestions, like reading scriptures or praying. Which are good.

Sarah [00:39:20] Yeah. Which are really good.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:39:22] Which are great things. But if you're in a bout of severe depression, your motivation.

Sarah [00:39:28] And it wasn't even that I wasn't motivated. I wanted to. I just couldn't. And. Which sounds really stupid. I mean, like, literally stupid. If you haven't gone through depression. What do you mean? You can't just decide that you can, but you can't. It's not that you don't want to get out of the bed. You can't get out of the bed.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:39:50] Right.

Sarah [00:39:51] And even saying it, it still sounds dumb. What do you mean you can't? But you. You. You can't. And so you. So I would make the list, get through it for 17 hours. The next day would be a bomb. Well, I'll do better tomorrow.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:40:06] Okay.

Sarah [00:40:06] I didn't do well, I'll do better tomorrow. Okay. For real. Tomorrow. I mean it this time. And then you just kind of give up because it's not going anywhere anyway.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:40:16] And plus, now, again, back to the theme of guilt and shame. You're feeling worse about yourself.

Sarah [00:40:22] If I could only get somewhere and even my closest friends. I remember months afterward, once I had finally started taking medication and my friend saying, wait, you were depressed? And we talked every week and saw each other every week, but I just. I didn't. I think, for me, and I think it can be something that's typical of postpartum depressant, is you just withdraw so far into yourself. Yeah. And I certainly did just. I mean, I was gonna say it's very. It's a selfish disease. I'm kind of choking over my words. And it's not, because I think selfish kind of implies a choice. And I didn't really feel like I had a choice because I would have chosen to not be depressed and chosen to care for my family and do that. But I was just so drawn into me and focused on me and what I couldn't do.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:41:25] Interesting. Well, so going back then to talk us through how you finally made that transition from, you know, I can't be on meds, I'm nursing my baby. You know, that's not for me. I'm going to do these checklists to finally taking that step to get more professional help.

Seeking Professional Help for Postpartum Depression

Sarah [00:41:43] Well, I had talked to my husband several years. Several years. Several months before we hit that one year mark and said, you know, I might want to go see a doctor. Well, why do you want to go see a doctor? Well, I Just, this is really bad. The depression is really bad. Well, what do you think a doctor will say? Well, I think the doctor will tell me that I need to go on antidepressants. Oh, but you're nursing. I thought you wanted to nurse. Well, I do want to nurse. And he wasn't saying, you have to nurse, you promise. He wasn't saying that. He was genuinely trying to understand, which I realize as I'm saying it can sound not that way, but I'm telling you, the proper interpretation would be he really was saying, oh, but you had said that you wanted to do this and that was a concern of mine. But nursing's so healthy for the baby. Well, it sure is, but it's not healthy for the baby to have a suicidal mother. And so we need to treat that. And he said, yeah, if you need to, that. And so finally I remember laying in bed one night and with him and just kind of laying it out on the line. The problem is I don't want to be alive. I don't want to be here. I love you, and I love you so much that I think you would be better off without me with another woman or someone. And I don't want to be away from you. I just don't want to be here, earth at all. I don't want this body. I don't want this brain. I don't want it. And he said, I had no idea it was that bad. He said, I really think you need to make that appointment with the doctor. I said, yeah, that's what I'm telling you. I need to make the appointment with the doctor. I made an appointment with a psychiatrist.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:43:38] Let me just stop right there. Because a lot of people would either go to their OB GYN or to their primary health, you know, physician. What made you go directly to the psychiatrist, which is more the specialist, which I think was a great idea, but

Sarah [00:43:52] didn't have a primary care physician and did not particularly care for my ob. And also I referred quite a while back to the six week postpartum checkup I had had where I was doing fine. I mean, I felt great. And the nurse midwife, who. She was a certified nurse midwife who, who worked in conjunction with my OB GYN in his office. And she had mentioned, okay, if you do have some problems, you can come back to us. You can also go to a psychiatrist.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:44:27] Okay. So she had made that recommendation.

Sarah [00:44:28] So she had made that recommendation. And so I just basically went to, you know, the provider directory who does my insurance coverage, who lives close by because I'm still nursing this baby and I can't be gone all day. And we were living in a pretty major, pardon me, metropolitan area.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:44:50] I think that's a really good suggestion because especially with the complications of nursing and having small children and all that, a psychiatrist is probably going to have just more information or up to date expertise on.

Sarah [00:45:02] Yeah. And I felt comfortable with that. And also in talking with my mom, I can't remember her specifically suggesting go to a psychiatrist, but knowing that in the extended family that people had gone to psychiatrists before, to me it didn't seem like, oh, no, I can't go. And that seemed easier than trying to come up with a primary care physician on the spot and getting them to do that.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:45:29] And there's a lot of different names out there and I know there's some confusion, at least that I come across. So just to make it clear, psychiatrists is a doctor MD who has then gone on to specialize in his or her residency program in the brain in psychiatry. So that's, you know, so obviously they can prescribe medication and all that. Okay, so why don't you walk us through then what that first meeting was like and what he or she recommended.

Sarah [00:45:55] And you know, honestly, she was kind of surprised because I was coming to her telling her I have raging postpartum depression and we need to fix that.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:46:03] Okay. She didn't have to diagnose you.

Sarah [00:46:07] She don't really have to. Diagnosed. Oh, well, now, now, what do you mean by this? And, you know, I, how long have these symptoms lasted? You know, and so I just kind of ran through, well, this is happening, this is happening. You know, I'm, you know, my sleeping patterns have changed and everything's a mess, you know, Anyway, I think she was just kind of surprised that I, you were that self.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:46:28] Aware.

Sarah [00:46:29] Right. And I told her, I said, I, I don't know, I am nursing. I said, I don't know if I'm totally comfortable going on medication. I just want to see. So I hadn't gone, I had gone to the appointment, assuming I probably would come away with a prescription for an antidepressant, but not knowing for sure. And when she found out that my baby was 11 and a half months old, she said, yes, you are done nursing. You will wean the baby in the next seven days, and you will start in seven days on this antidepressant. And so I did, I weaned her. And it took me seven and a half days, not seven. And I started the antidepressant. And even when I Did that. In my mind, I was thinking, okay, this is just to. This is just to get my toe in the water. This is kind of kickstart so that I can. I sound so organized when I talk about these checklists. I'm really not. I would hate to set myself up as someone like that, but I like to make lists. Don't always follow. You know, the follow through is not great, but the anticipation's high. But I thought, yeah, once. Once I have this, then I will be able to. Well, because it'll help my brain and I won't feel like such a loser. And I won't feel like I wish a bus could hit me and everyone would sob, but everyone would be better off. And that was the weird thing. I look back and of course, it doesn't make sense that my family would be better off without me, but I felt that and it made sense, even though it didn't. Yeah, if that makes sense, which it doesn't. Sorry,

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:48:10] no.

John Dehlin [00:48:10] Yeah.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:48:10] A lot of that confusion and.

Sarah [00:48:12] Yeah. But anyway. But in my mind, it was the. The antidepressants would be short term, so I would go on them, make sure I was okay, ultimately try to wean myself and just get back to my regularly scheduled antidepressant life. I still felt quite a stigma about that. And the other thing was I knew from having seen relatives and seen friends, not my mom. My mom had gotten really luckyblessed, and the first antidepressant that she ever tried back in the 80s worked and she never had to switch. But I knew from other relatives and from other friends that it could be quite what I thought of as a medication roulette. You would try something, it might treat some symptoms, it might make other things worse, and then you try again, and then you try again. And I had been very hesitant to play what I thought of as medication roulette and try something and have it work and try, then try something else.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:49:16] And that is one of the challenges with antidepressants.

Sarah [00:49:18] And it is hard because depression is not a one size fits all. Just like I would imagine that listeners who have had postpartum depression could be listening and saying, who does she think she is? That's not even what it is. It's not a one size fits all disease, much as cancer is not a one size fits all. The same treatment for lung cancer, even if it's in the same family, doesn't work for every patient. And so, you know, it is a process of figuring out what's working, work what works. I got really lucky and the first one I tried worked.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:49:52] Are you comfortable sharing what that was?

Sarah [00:49:54] Yeah, it was Celexa. Yeah. And we started on the lowest dose, knowing that we could move up and, you know, it worked at the lowest dose. Yeah.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:50:05] Okay.

Sarah [00:50:06] Yeah.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:50:06] I think that's one of the things that a lot of people find discouraging about antidepressants when they've tried it once. Here you are. Imagine being depressed, being all these symptoms that you've talked about. You take this antidepressant, you usually have to wait two weeks for it to have an effect. So you're kind of trudging through those two weeks. It doesn't work to get back to the doctor to get back on something else that tries to. That's a lot of, I guess, energy expended.

Sarah [00:50:32] Well, it is. And I think particularly with postpartum, because I had a friend in the wardrobe. We were not particularly close before I started going through this, but I had mentioned something about depression, and her eyes lit up as much as they could because she was going through. Our babies were about six months apart, and she was going through that and had not tried medication either. And just knowing that someone else was trying, it kind of gave her the motivation to do it, and it was really hard. I watched her go through nine months of trying probably four or five different medications. And I think that's what's hard when you have postpartum as well, is because you've got this baby and perhaps other kids, but definitely a baby if it's postpartum with you. And so, you know, you might be trying to work full time, you might be staying home full time, but you've got all these other things. And so you can't just drop everything and arrange a babysitter. And then if you do have to arrange a babysitter, what are you going to say? Oh, I have a doctor appointment. Oh, you do? What's your doctor appointment for? Oh, because I'm a total freak show in my head and need crazy meds. You know, I mean, it's just. It's hard.

Stigma Around Antidepressants in Mormon Culture

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:51:38] So you talk about that stigma and that even for you, going on an antidepressant was difficult in the sense of feeling like you needed that or somehow.

Sarah [00:51:48] Well, I had gotten so low and I had let myself get so bad that I was willing to try anything. But it took me months to get to the point where I was okay with that because I kept thinking, I don't need medication. I can do it on my own. And, you know, again, I wish I could just take that poor broken girl who was me and say, it's okay, try it. If it doesn't work, the worst that can happen is you'll still be depressed, but it might get a lot better. But yeah, it was really hard. That's why I waited a year. And I certainly would not recommend that. I would recommend that if it's been two weeks, go talk to someone. Wait, don't put yourself through that.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:52:40] Well, going back to cultural aspects, I think that whole I can do it on my own comes again from our outer American culture. We're very independent people. And then on top of that, the

Sarah [00:52:52] whole pioneer Mormon, I mean, they're pushing handcarts in the snow. Really, I can't.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:52:58] There's a lot of self reliance and you know, as far as a theme of, you know, being able to do something on your own and almost kind of feeling like a failure if somehow

Sarah [00:53:07] you can't do that right.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:53:10] Well, so then you get on the med and it works. And what does that mean? How did it work?

Sarah [00:53:18] I stopped wanting to not be alive and I wanted to be alive. So that was good. I just, I felt more like interacting. I wanted to read again, which, like I said, it was weird that it was so bad. I had never at any point since I had learned to read not wanted to read. So sadly, that was one of the main things was when I didn't want to read, I was like, oh, this is serious, I should probably go to the doctor. So I wanted to read and I just felt like I thought I was going to feel after that magic six month mark that I had made up in my head. I mean, I, I still don't know where that came from. And I don't know. I just, I felt, I felt like me.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:54:08] Yeah.

Sarah [00:54:09] Which is not particularly descriptive, but I just felt like, oh, I'm back. Oh, and I like me because I hadn't liked myself, loved myself, felt any kind of positive emotion towards myself in almost a year. And it was like, oh yeah, I like this one. I like myself.

John Dehlin [00:54:36] Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. To comment on this episode or to discuss it with others, please check us out online@mormonstories.org if you want to find other friends, family members, former missionary companions, or ward members who approach Mormonism like you, consider adding me, John Dehlin, as your Facebook friend. This may seem like a strange idea, but many of my closest friends have discovered that they are not alone in their thoughts or feelings or family or even word situations through discovering mutual Facebook friends. Finally, to keep Mormon stories alive. Please consider a donation@mormonstories.org music on this episode was provided by Clayton and Sky Pixton.

Sarah [00:55:32] Still all my song shall be Nearer my go to thee Nearer my go to thee Nearer to thee.

Treatment, Medication, and Long-Term Management

Part 2 of 3 · Ep. 233

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:00:01] Mormon Stories Podcast is made possible through the financial contributions of its listeners to keep it alive and available to future generations. Please consider a donation today@mormonstories.org

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:00:14] what can you talk of so people don't have to necessarily listen to me just talk psychobabble. But what can you say about what your knowledge is about why the meds work? So in other words, for those who think it's just a kind of get over it kind of an attitude shift that depression is about, why is it more than that? What do you know about it biologically?

Sarah [00:00:39] And for fellow professionals listening in. Not fellow professionals to you, not to me. I apologize for completely butchering this or misrepresenting. So please know that this is not medical information, merely one Mormon housewives interpretation of true facts. You know, I mean, mental illness. Well, it really is in your head. And so like, I have been on. I'm on a different medication than celexine now, but it's a. I think it's a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor. Does that sound right? The ssri? Yeah, that sounds good. And so your brain is either not producing or not utilizing or making too much of a certain thing. There's so many families of drugs out there for mental illness, and, you know, I've only really used one or the same family of one. Sorry, I'm not being particularly articulate. And so what that does is there's chemicals in your brain that aren't working right or they're not doing what they need to do. And so the medication helps those chemicals do more or less of what they need to do. So if your brain's producing too much of something, then it can help you with that. Now, could you get positive effects by regularly exercising and by having a better diet so you don't have such volatile blood sugar levels? Absolutely. But I couldn't even get to that point because I didn't want to be alive.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:02:16] So what's interesting too, the distinctions between different types of depression. Some people can have a great diet and actually exercise regularly, and they still have what we call biological depression.

Sarah [00:02:27] Yeah.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:02:28] Which is that just there's certain chemicals or something. Incorrect. In the brain that's doing something, you know, like. Right. Incorrect. And there's lots of other things, like postpartum depression.

Sarah [00:02:39] Right.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:02:39] Situational depression. And sometimes people can get depressed because of a situation. So there's a reason why they're depressed. Somebody has died or somebody. Something. You know, somebody's gone through a depression.

Sarah [00:02:50] Or you're 16 and your boyfriend breaks up with you. Exactly, exactly. I'm just guessing, right?

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:02:57] Some people will have an experience like that and because they have biological depression, it will kind of trigger that. Or some people will just have depression because of that situation. But if that depression stays for a long time, what they have found is that the chemistry then in the brain can change at that point. So even if you didn't have biological depression to begin with, then, now all of a sudden, because you've been depressed for so long now, you do kind of have biological depression. And that's where the medication can be so helpful.

Sarah [00:03:27] Yeah, and I think too, you know, I, and I don't think that medication, I don't see it as like a panacea that, like, oh, you just need medication, then you're done. Because especially in my situation where I had spent a whole year in particularly negative thought patterns, it was a whole, okay, I need to change the way I think about myself. And so the problem is with depression and postpartum depression is, you know, you know, you stay in these thought patterns and those are just as difficult to break as what the chemicals are or not doing in your brain. So, I mean, that's. I don't know. I don't think there's just one approach that would particularly solve it. You know, as we've mentioned, it's not a one size fits all thing. Like, oh, well, she took antidepressants and that miraculously cured it. It's not that.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:04:24] Did you do other things, like other types of treatment as far as therapy or anything like that along with the meds, or did you mainly go the medical route?

Sarah [00:04:32] No, I mostly went the medical route. I mean, I did have several sessions with the psychiatrist. You know, she wanted to see me. I just. Like I had planned to for a year. I ultimately took up exercise. And not that I'm saying that I do that to this day, but at the time, and I was exercising four or five days a week, and that really helped dramatically.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:04:54] So, yeah, exercise is probably one of the best things for most mental health. At the same time, it's like we said earlier, if you're so depressed you can't get out of bed, then exercise is not really a realistic goal.

Sarah [00:05:06] Then. It's, It's. Well, it really doesn't even feel like an option.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:05:09] Right. So which.

Sarah [00:05:11] Because when you can't leave your room, exercise.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:05:15] Right.

Sarah [00:05:16] Yeah.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:05:16] And that's the danger in that, is if you set unrealistic goals, then you're more prone to that guilt we were talking about, which of course doesn't help those Negative thoughts and doesn't help depression. So it's a very cyclical type of problem. Okay, so tell me about then. You thought this was going to be short term that you did?

Sarah [00:05:36] I thought it would be kind of short term, although it was working. And I did not want to make the same mistake that I knew anecdotally that other depression patients made, which is, oh, I feel so much better. I don't need the medication anymore. Well, yeah, the reason you feel better is because you're on medication. So I knew I didn't want to just stop it on my own. We knew that we wanted to have another child. And so I discussed with my psychiatrist, you know, what options would be for, you know, what should I do when we wanted to start trying to get pregnant? What should we do? And her recommendation was that I stay on the antidepressant that I was on, Celexa, until I found out that I was pregnant and then go off. And then we would monitor and see how we did. And so I did. I stayed on the antidepressant for a little over a year. So at this point, my little girl, the youngest, was now 2. So a little over a year got pregnant, went off the. On purpose, Got pregnant on purpose, went off. Not that that matters, but it was. Went off the antidepressant and probably when I was about 16 or 17 weeks pregnant, just noticed what I would call spiraling down. So I was. It wasn't as dark as it had been when it had gotten really, really bad, but I could feel myself going back to that place. And I did not want to go back to that place. I didn't. It was an emotional luxury that I did not want to afford. I did not want to choose that for myself or my family. It was too difficult and we couldn't function that way. So I went back to the psychiatrist and she actually put me on a different medication. They had had Paxil before, but they had come out with a controlled release version since I had originally gone on the Celexa. And so she put me on the lowest dose of Paxil cr. They obviously don't have studies on Paxil CR in pregnant women or nursing women because people aren't going to sign up to do that to their babies. But it seemed to be the one that was secreted the least in breast milk. And so she recommended that and I went on it. And I don't know that I can articulate an exact difference, but I liked it a lot better than the Celexa. And I don't know if it was the controlled release, if it was, because it was the Paxil, I'm not really sure. And so I went on that when I was 17 weeks pregnant. And that was seven years ago.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:08:24] Still on it.

Sarah [00:08:25] And still on it. Yeah, I used it through the pregnancy. I used it through that pregnancy, through nursing, through a fourth pregnancy, through nursing. And I remember at one point, even once I started the Paxil, cr thinking, you know, at some point down the road, you know, after I've, you know, maybe when the kids, you know, maybe when this next baby's a little older, I think I'd like to try going off and see how I do. And then I thought, wait, but if this is working, why would I do that? And I even remember being at a friend's house. I was actually visiting, teaching, but I don't know if I can bring that up. Anyway, but I was at a friend's house. Something came up about postpartum depression. We happened to be mentioning it, and she. Her sweet, little sweet thing had just. No one in her family never had it. She hadn't known anybody who had had it. It just seemed like kind of one of those myths that you talk yourself out of. And I said, oh, no. I actually had postpartum depression really bad with my second child. And she's like, oh, what did you do? I said, well, I took medication. I actually still take medication. She said, oh, but you don't seem depressed. And, yeah, that's what the. That's what medication does. It makes. So you're not depressed. That's why it's an antidepressant. Yeah, it was really cute. But, yeah.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:09:56] How helpful, though, for somebody like that to be able to listen to, you know, your perspective on that.

Sarah [00:10:02] Oh, I hope so. She probably brushed it off as talk of a crazy woman.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:10:06] I hope not. I think that can be. Well, that's the whole purpose, obviously, of what we're doing tonight. Hopefully reaching out and helping others know that they're not alone by any means of the imagination. And many people. So going back to the meds and kind of your fears about whether or not this was going to adversely affect your fetus or then your newborn baby. My understanding is that these meds are classified in the C category. I don't know if you've heard that abc and I think then goes to X or something. So A would be like basically your prenatals.

Sarah [00:10:40] Right.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:10:41] You know, vitamins. B, I think, are things like Motrin or aspirin. You know, things that. Okay, Maybe Tylenol that are kind of safer in pregnancy, that aren't really that much of a risk. And then C is kind of like,

Sarah [00:10:56] there is a risk. Absolutely. But for me, because I had seen how bad it could be, to me, the risk was worth it because I needed to be healthy for the two kids I already had. I needed to be healthy for the baby that I was going to have. I needed to be healthy for my husband, but mostly I needed to be healthy for me. And, yeah, I needed to take care of other people, but I needed to take care of me. And so I really, I. I did pray about it. And it was more of, this is what I'm planning to do. If there's something that shouldn't happen. I. I might need something like an angelic visitation, because it's gonna take a lot to have me not go on this mess. Yeah, it was, you know, it was more like, hey, FYI, here's my plan. So, because I just, to me, the risk, yeah, it could harm the baby, but there was going to be so much more harm to the family that would be irreparable potentially, that I felt the risk was worth it. And the psychiatrist that I was seeing at the time, given the history, felt that way as well.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:12:18] What about your OB gyn? Was she part or he part of the.

Sarah [00:12:24] For that pregnancy? I actually ended up seeing the certified nurse midwife because I liked her better than ob gyn. And yeah, she absolutely agreed that, you know, and she was very, I don't know that she was like a pill pusher. I mean, she was definitely, you know, advocated exercising during pregnancy and eating healthy during pregnancy and cutting out the sugars during pregnancy. I mean, very healthy oriented. But knowing me and knowing my history, she felt like, absolutely it was worth any potential risk to the baby. Well, I will say he's my sweetest baby.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:13:01] Your sweetest baby. He was all, you know, he was great. Feels good. Oh, funny. Well, what I was going to say is one of the risks, some of the risks that they're finding out now about people who suffer with depression or anxiety throughout pregnancy and won't get on the medication because they're afraid of that there are other risk factors, such as premature labor, all kinds. You know, obviously suicide is the biggest risk. You know, a lot of other kind of things. That the stress and the depression also affect your baby.

Sarah [00:13:37] Well, yeah, and stress when you're pregnant is. I, I mean, in my mind, and this is just me, this isn't based on any medical advice that I've been Given. But to me, the stress and just all that angst and anxiety was. I thought that would be more damaging, you know, with all that cortisol jumping around in the fetus than anything else I could doing. Plus, you know, because, because I do consider someone, myself as someone who practices my faith. I couldn't separate it from the spiritual aspect. And I didn't think spiritually that I wanted to be in a place pregnant where I hated my baby and hated being pregnant and hated being a mother. I didn't want to do that. And there's the guilt again, you know, oh, I've been blessed with these wonderful things. How can I hate it? I'm wrong to do that, you know, and feeling guilty. But I didn't, I didn't want to do that.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:14:36] Yeah.

Sarah [00:14:36] So for me it made sense.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:14:39] Right. So going down the road of kind of more of your spiritual beliefs and cultural beliefs, you know, this role of motherhood is so important, you know, as part of Mormon doctrine. And you know, kind of like you're saying accept this role and loving it and that it somehow comes naturally to us, you know, to all women, it must come naturally. We're natural nurturers and comforters. And all of a sudden you're finding yourself like with your second child, not having those feelings. Did you feel like that affected the bonding with your baby? You know, they talk about bonding and then also how did it affect your spirituality?

Impact on Bonding, Faith, and Daily Life

Sarah [00:15:14] Yeah, I think it did affect my bonding with her. I mean, and that's in retrospect. Yeah, I really think it did. I remember watching her through her crib slots crying when she was seven months old, you know, and I was mentally not healthy and thinking, why am I even trying if she won't turn out later? And just sobbing and watching her in the crib, that's not really what new moms usually think about a seven month old.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:15:49] Yeah, I turn out in what way? What do you mean by that?

Sarah [00:15:52] Oh, like if, like, you know, she was crying and I would, Yeah, I didn't really explain that she'd be crying. I thought, oh, what if, you know, later on she is a drug addict or, you know, hates us or does something horrible. Why am I even trying now? And that doesn't even make sense. But that's what I thought.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:16:11] Yeah.

Sarah [00:16:13] But yeah, I really, really, I really resented her. And I don't think you have to have depression to feel resentment of a baby periodically. And I was embarrassed that I did resent her.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:16:29] We don't normalize those feelings a lot. I think in our Culture?

Sarah [00:16:33] Well, no, because it really doesn't go along with resenting your blessings. I mean, it's just we're supposed to count them, not resent them. So. Yeah, So I thought. I just felt like this big jerk and like. Yeah. But I will say that even though it was black, you know, I didn't not pray. I didn't not read scriptures. And there were measures of comfort in that. Absolutely. I don't know that I was taking full advantage of spirituality that I had built up to that point or that I could have drawn on because I just wasn't able to. Not that we can live off of spiritual reserves that we've established previously. I mean, I think you have to constantly nourish the spiritual side, whether you're doing that in an organized religion or whatever, if you want. If spirituality is something that's important to you, I think you need to constantly nourish that.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:17:41] Yeah, I love that idea of nourishing our spirituality. And I think that reminds me of just thinking of depression in general, that a lot of people look at depression as something that can be solved or cured just through the spiritual realm of our existence, such as the praying or the attitude change like we talked about. But that depression, if understood correctly, has many other realms, such as biology or those other things. It's not just spiritual cures per se, that.

Sarah [00:18:11] Right. And it's not that I don't believe in miraculous healings. I absolutely do. And I know I've known people who have had cancer that they were not supposed to recover from and have. And have lived decades longer. And it is miraculous. I also have two uncles who were diagnosed on different sides of the family who were diagnosed with cancer and then died less than two months later. And it's not that people weren't praying for them. You know, it's just. It's. I don't know that it's really in our hand. I don't. I personally don't think that God works. Like, okay, if X amount of people are praying for this, then I will grant it. But if it was only 39 people praying instead of 40, then that person will not have the healing. I don't think it's that. That faith is just that we don't get to choose the outcome. We just have the faith that there will be something. And we don't know what that something is always.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:19:22] Did it ever feel to you, like, since you bring up the idea of miracles or miraculous healing, that somehow you resented God because you weren't being miraculously healed or that you had to subject yourself to other means of healing other than just spiritual healing.

Sarah [00:19:38] No, it wasn't. I didn't feel resentful. There again, is probably the guilt. I probably felt too guilty to be resentful. But I did feel. I don't know that I felt ignored because I could see that my family was being blessed because we were still functioning. I felt like I knew that he was listening to my prayers and my pleadings. I just felt really irritated that nothing was changing. Not irritated at him, but just like, why can't I. Why can't I see two years down the road? Why can't I feel something? And that was. I don't know if this is the experience of anyone else, but for me, the hardest thing about going through the harder depressive periods, because that's not to say that I've. I have not experienced depression in the last seven years since I've been on the medication. I have. It's just never gotten really bad. And by really bad, I mean I want to off myself.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:20:40] Right.

Sarah [00:20:40] Right. Why does that have to be the clincher? I don't know. But I can still always. I can still function always. It doesn't. You know, I feel like the antidepressants take out the lowest of the lows and keep me from bottoming out, so to speak. But that's not what we were talking about. We were talking about, well, just your

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:20:59] relationship, maybe with God and how, you know, did you ever feel. It was just kind of, hey, what about my miracle? Or how about, no, I don't know.

Sarah [00:21:06] I don't think I ever felt that way. I just felt like. I don't even know that it was a why. Like, why me? Because that didn't make sense. Well, if it's why me, then why are there starving kids in Africa? Why do people have cancer? You know, I mean, it wasn't a why me? It was just I. I didn't feel like I could feel the spirit very strongly. And that was something that I had really enjoyed during high school and college and mission and during the birth of my first daughter, is feeling very close to God through the spirit. Oh, this is what I was going to say. I don't know that this is the same for anyone else. Hopefully it is only my experience, but I just didn't feel like I could feel the spirit as strongly or as frequently. And that was the part that was very frustrating to me. And I didn't feel like God was withholding the spirit for me. I didn't feel like it was that it Was just like.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:22:10] It wasn't a punishment.

Sarah [00:22:11] No, I didn't feel like it was a punishment. It was just. I couldn't feel it. And I missed that. I wanted that. And it wasn't that I never felt it. It just wasn't to the same degree and in the same amount that I had come to expect and love.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:22:30] So you mentioned having felt depression in the last seven years at some level, even though you're on the medication. I'd like for you to talk about that, because I think that one of the misconceptions is that for an antidepressant to be successful or for life to be successful is that we're never depressed.

Sarah [00:22:47] And of course, that'd be awesome. I want that med.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:22:53] Right. And depression is supposed to be a part of life in the sense of. Not clinical depression, but, you know, when we think of that word meaning more just normal bouts of sadness or of, you know, just being down or kind of even moody a little bit, those are kind of normal things that most of us feel from time to time.

Sarah [00:23:11] There was. I'm trying to think. I guess it would have been fall to 2005, so about five years ago. And that's just one that comes to mind most readily, because since I'd. So I'd been on the antidepressants since fall of 2003, things been going peachy. Didn't really see any signs of that. And then our family was going through some very stressful things. We had done a move a year earlier. There had been a career change. I had three kids at home. The oldest was five, six, I don't know. Six? Yeah. And, you know, but nothing more stressful than I think an average family goes through. I mean, you know, there were just certain things. And when stay home all day with three kids, things are gonna be stressful anyways. And then my husband and I had gone out of town and our bathroom flooded. And that was just kind of the straw that broke the camel's back, because really that's not that big a deal to have. And it was the master bedroom, but it started in the bathroom anyway. And I came home from being out of town. We cleaned it up, we did it. And I just felt like I couldn't snap out of things. And I didn't hate myself, and I didn't feel like a loser. I just. Like everything was a little more in slow motion. Everything was just more difficult. And I. I could tell that it was depression because it was feelings that I hadn't felt. And it was. It was feeling Those most of the day, every day, or for at least some of the day, for a period of more than two weeks. And it was only in hindsight that I thought, wow, I've been feeling this way for a month. This must be depression. And I thought, you have got to be kidding me. You know, so I thought about upping the dosage of my medication because that was something, you know, that, you know, I talked about with an obgyn. And anyway, it was something, and it lasted for probably about three months. It coincided with the holidays, which was awesome. Oh, wait, no, it wasn't awesome. By awesome, I mean not awesome, but I felt very blessed that it was only three months and it felt. It didn't. So it didn't eliminate the depression entirely, but I could still function. And it. I didn't bottom out, so to speak. It just made it so I could keep going. And it was much easier to handle being on the antidepressant.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:25:45] Right.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:25:46] So did you increase the dose or anything, or did you just pass over it?

Sarah [00:25:49] I didn't. I did not at the time. Since then, we've moved again. And since then, though, in talking with the primary care physician that I have now, and he has mentioned, you know, if, yeah, this dosage is working, but, you know, if you get to a point and it's a really stressful period, we can tweak the dosage. We don't have to do it permanently. We can do it for a couple months and evaluate. And so I feel like I have a good enough dialogue with my primary care physician that that's something I could feel comfortable, you know, bumping up if that were to happen again. At the time, I didn't have a primary care physician that I was assigned to. I mean, I could have looked one up. And I don't know. I mean, looking back, I wish I would have tweaked the dosage at that point. I wish I would have, but I did not. And I made it through.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:26:39] Right. So there's a lot of side effects that people talk about with antidepressants. And I'll tell you the ones that I hear about the most. There's probably three of them that I hear the most most. One is weight gain, one is decrease in libido, and third is a numbing of feeling. In other words, now I went from feeling miserable to not feeling anything. So just kind of like zombie state type feeling.

Sarah [00:27:04] Yeah, the numbing, I don't know that I've ever had because I feel more miserable and numb. Not when I'm not on the medication and being depressed.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:27:15] Okay.

Sarah [00:27:16] Weight gain, hard to tell. Never lost the weight after that third baby. So maybe, I don't know, hard to differentiate that. Guess not baby weight if he's six years old now, but. Yeah.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:27:28] So maybe I do want to say that I think you look fabulous. I don't want you to portray yourself as.

Sarah [00:27:33] Thank you. Let's hang out. You know, so I don't know because I didn't, you know, I was pregnant, so. So I lost weight. No, I. Yeah, I. I don't know if weight gain. But I haven't, you know, since. Kept gaining and gaining and gaining weight. I've just kind of maintained the same thing for a lot of years.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:27:58] Okay.

Sarah [00:27:59] So libido, that's tough for me to differentiate between being exhausted because I have four kids or if it's a medication. I think there has been with the medication. I definitely think that is a side effect. And I'd be interested at some point down the road, maybe once there are no children in my house, to see if going off would, you know, kind of amp up things in the bedroom. But for me, because it's not that I'm never, ever, ever interested in having intimate relations with my husband.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:28:37] Right.

Sarah [00:28:38] I'm just not that interested. And, you know, I. I don't know where the. Because I only have myself to compare myself to. So I don't know. I do know that I have talked to friends that that has really been a problem, and they don't. They don't like that side effect, the. The loss of libido. I keep not referring to it. No, they used sex. Now they don't. And they don't like that. I kept talking around it, but that's what we're really saying here. And I have talked with several friends. In fact, I can think of a friend whose husband was depressed and he was on antidepressants and it was working, except for that was the main side effect, and that just wasn't something he was willing to live with. Luckily, my husband and I are able to work that out. And that's not, you know, that has.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:29:36] It doesn't sound like a big relational

Sarah [00:29:37] issue between the two. It has not been so.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:29:40] And it doesn't sound even like if it is affecting you. It's not affecting you to the point of no libido or.

Sarah [00:29:46] No, it's not affecting. No, it's not. And like I said, I don't. Unless I were to go off the medication for a period of several months, I would be able to tell okay, is this because I stay home with kids, four kids, all day, and the last thing I want to do is have anyone touch me at night. Or is that the medication?

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:30:07] That's a whole nother podcast.

Sarah [00:30:08] And, you know, just to find that out. Not willing to test it by going off the medication at this point.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:30:14] So how has your husband dealt with the fact that you've stayed on the medicine longer term than maybe you had originally anticipated?

Sarah [00:30:22] You know, at first he was surprised because I had told him, yeah, I kind of want to try going off it. And he even mentioned, hey, didn't I thought you were going to try going off it?

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:30:33] And do you get the sense it bothers him that you're on it?

Sarah [00:30:38] No. Right now? No, not at all. Maybe initially, I don't know if bothered so much. It's just I had told him my expectations and so those kind of became his. And so then it was more like an informational thing. He's been very supportive throughout, that said, to. To the best of his ability, you know, if, you know, just as if someone's trying to describe to me exactly what chemotherapy feels like, I'm not going to get it because I have not been through it. I can compare it to similar things, but not. And luckily for him, you know, everybody gets down, but he has not gone through a depression that we know of. And so, you know, you can only get it on a certain level. But yeah, so I told him, you know, I mentioned trying to go off, and so he brought it up, oh, I thought you were going to try to do that. And I said, I don't know, that we should mess with a good thing, you know, and he's agreed. I mean, we joke that I should be a poster child to Paxil cr. Sometimes I'll joke, yeah, this and this and this happened. But thanks to Paxil cr, we'll make. You could get them to underwrite Mormon stories. I don't know. Anyway, so we joke about that, but it's working. And at this point, I'm not willing to mess with something that's working really well.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:32:07] Right. What about, like, you mentioned stigmas at church or with friends, or do you find that you're readily available or, you know, able to talk about being an antidepressant or do you feel like it doesn't?

Sarah [00:32:23] I am now, but it was not that way for the first several years. When I first went on, and even after I'd been on for a while, I remember my husband was getting ready to have a weekly phone conversation with his parents. And, and I don't, I don't remember the exact thing, but I just remember saying, well, don't tell them that I'm on antidepressants. I don't want them to know. So I did feel that stigma. I was okay with my family knowing because my family had it. But, you know, even though we were married and his family's my family, etc. Etc. I didn't feel comfortable. I don't want them to. I don't want them to know that I do that. And then this is gonna sound kind of silly, but actually, when I went to Paxil cr. Paxil, a lot of times it's prescribed as an anti anxiety medication. And for some reason, my own sweet, pointed little head, I felt like there was not as much of a stigma against anxiety as there was against depression. And so I felt comfortable saying, oh, yeah, I'm on Paxil. Because, you know, maybe people at the time just thought, ah, it's for anxiety. And that wasn't as bad as having depression. Well, it's pathetic. It's not interesting, but thank you for saying that. So, yeah, so I wasn't comfortable. Well, now I am. Now I feel okay about it because, I don't know, I've just come to terms with, this is a part of who I am and this is okay. And I do feel like sometimes it helps people to know. Wait, you take antidepressants? I take them too. I said, I know, isn't it great? But I think it helps people feel not quite so isolated. But I was not there initially, nor was I for a period of years. You know, it's not like.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:34:15] Do you find, among your. I don't know where you're saying that these people come up. Is it more in your ward, family, or in your community at large that you are finding other women readily who are on antidepressants?

Sarah [00:34:28] Yeah, both. It's still not something that's talked about a lot, but I'm comfortable talking about it. I, I don't know that I advertise it, but if it comes up in the course of conversation, I don't withhold that information and I'm comfortable sharing it.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:34:49] Any other moments like you had at byu, where somebody gets up and says something like, oh, just get over it. Any messages?

Sarah [00:35:01] You know, that's the one I remember the most.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:35:07] I

Sarah [00:35:11] now, you know, I can't really think of any coming to mind. I know that I have come across women who just, oh, you know, medication for any kind of mental illness, but you know, and I have come across that in the church, but that's so prevalent in our culture as well. So I don't, I don't know that

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:35:35] that's only that it's a Mormon issue.

Sarah [00:35:38] No, no, I don't think so. In my experience, and arguably my experience is different, you know, I, I am one of those people who every ward that I've lived in, I've really liked. I've had good friends because I decide when I move someplace that I'm going to love it because it takes too much energy to not love it. Hey, ask the PAX OCR talking, huh? And so, you know, to a certain extent, I just choose that I'm going to find a support network where wherever I move because it's easier for me to have supportive friends and to make supportive friends. So I try to do that. Yeah, that's kind of boring, huh? No, not really fodder for crisis of faith.

Advice for Mormon Women Experiencing Depression

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:36:27] Well, okay, so moving along that since this is more for probably, I'm guessing mostly Mormons are going to be listening to this. What would you say are some of the themes or maybe unintentional issues that do come up that are more specifically Mormon, that maybe people struggle with, that are struggling with either depression or postpartum. And we already talked kind of about motherhood and how that's like the highest calling and, you know, if you don't kind of engage that naturally, how you might feel, maybe less than what else do you feel are some issues that might come up for people?

Sarah [00:37:06] You know, I think, I think it. A lot of times it's hard to recognize exactly what it is, especially if you have not my situation. I don't want to say that it's unique, like I'm the only one, but I do feel like I kind of had a leg up on the depression thing. Yeah, I didn't know what it was as a teenager the first time it struck when my boyfriend broke up with me at 16. But in subsequent times I could identify, this is depression. This is what depression feels like. I was kind of choosing not to after the birth of my second daughter because after our first kid was born. Oh, I don't get postpartum depression. Isn't this wonderful? I don't get it. And so there was some denial there. Absolutely. But I think it's hard to identify. Oh, this is what I'm feeling. And again, there for me, that two week benchmark, if it's daily for about two weeks, this is not something that it's because you're Losing your testimony, although you could be. This isn't something that you need to pray more. Although there's nothing that says that you can't pray more. This is something that could have a deeper root and it's at least worth exploring. If you don't have depression, fabulous. All you did was waste a copay or whatever. But I, I wish that, that sometimes there could be more dialogue. But there, again, culturally, there isn't both a Mormon culture and non Mormon. I don't know that, you know, we're gonna start seeing PO Relief Society ward meetings specifically geared toward depression. Nor do I know if that's a good fit because it's. It's not a one, as we mentioned before, it's not a one size fits all disease. And my experience is not going to be the same as everyone else's. And whereas I had a really good support system, I had my mom who had been through it, who told me what some warning signs were. Once I did see the signs and was not doing anything, encouraged me to get help, was very supportive of my husband, and we're here for you. I mean, I really had a great support network. And not everyone has that. And I think it's particularly hard if, you know what, if you were raised by that guy who said it's all in your head and so now you're either his daughter or his son and why can't your wife snap out of it? You know why. Yeah. You have a baby. So what? Billions of women have had babies. You know, leg up. This is what you were born to do.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:39:38] Here in Kansas, we say cowboy up.

Sarah [00:39:40] Oh, right. My bad.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:39:43] Cowgirl up, I guess. Yeah.

Sarah [00:39:48] So kind of, I think just the misunderstanding of what depression is, it really is, it's really an illness and it's not, you know, I hope I'm not referring to it to death, but I keep, I'm not comparing it to diabetes and cancer because I know it's not the same. But just as I don't think that anyone would treat cancer by only praying about it. I mean, I would think they would certainly consult a medical professional and get some ideas. I, you know, I think you need to do that with any kind of mental illness as well with depression. And I think it is talked about more than it used to be. And by used to be, I mean even 10 years ago, but whereas it's, I don't know, acceptable, but people are more accepting of depression or anxiety. But then you still have these big stigmas against, you know, other parts of mental illness, like bipolar Disorder or schizoid affective disorder or things like that. And that's still kind of, you know, really scary to everybody. But I think in a ward family setting, you're kind of like, oh, right, well.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:41:08] And along with some of the stigmas too, I think this idea that you talked about it being the people who are in your life relationally can make such a huge difference as far as I get a lot of questions about how do I explain this to my husband, for instance, who just doesn't seem to get it, or who maybe is one of those people who's saying, just snap out of it and how hurtful and harmful that can be to the process. Even though I don't think that's the intention of the spouse.

Sarah [00:41:34] No, I think that people could be, but hopefully it's not.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:41:39] And I think most people, when they're saying snap out of it, they're, they're in essence trying to fix something. They're trying to give you advice. It's just not helpful advice.

Sarah [00:41:47] Yeah. And I think, you know, one, one thing that I do, I'm not saying that this is a great recommendation, but, you know, and I realize that Googling something is not research, but you can go to pretty much any medical website and they're gonna give you that two week benchmark. And so I think if you can go and say, look, honey, this is me and I've done this and you know, or if you're comfortable going to your primary care physician and saying, okay, it's been two weeks or it's been three weeks or it's been three months, you know, and you're meeting those requirements, you can give them a written thing that says, look, I am meeting these things. This is what depression is. And I, I think that is very readily available. Yeah. I happen to come across in a magazine because the Internet wasn't around then, but you can find that really almost anywhere.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:42:37] Yeah, that's now absolutely true.

Sarah [00:42:39] I mean, it's very readily available information.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:42:42] Look up signs of depression or just depression in general.

Sarah [00:42:45] Yeah. And if, and if you're finding. Hey, that's, that's kind of, that's kind of me. In fact, there's even. Oh, who is it? Dr. Burns? I think he does, I don't know, he's written books on like the Feeling Good Handbook and things like that. And he has like a depression checklist that you can go through and he kind of rates you on a scale of where you are on a depression scale, you know, mild to moderate. And that's, you Know, that's one example.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:43:15] But you can go and ask to take the Beck Depression Inventory.

Sarah [00:43:20] Okay, there you go.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:43:21] Or you can maybe even probably Google that and take it yourself.

Sarah [00:43:25] Yeah. And I think, you know, if. Then you can show your spouse or your mom or your sister or whoever it is. Hopefully you have at least one person that can be a support network and say, look, I unfortunately am meeting these criteria. And so, you know, I need to get help. But it's hard because sometimes you don't even have the motivation to do that. And there I. At least for me, there was quite a bit of denial involved in it. If I didn't admit I had depression, then I didn't have to treat it and I didn't have to play what I perceived as the medication roulette.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:44:00] Right. Well, that's another. I think stigma is, you hear the media will sometimes exaggerate or at least make statements that can feel very provocative in the sense of mass people on antidepressants. You know, and I think Mormon women in general have been kind of stigmatized in this. You know, Utah has the highest level of antidepressant use or, you know, things like that. And yeah, there probably are more antidepressants than ever being given out today. Of course, it's also being diagnosed, thank goodness, more than ever. Correctly. And it doesn't mean that people didn't have depression in the past, but we didn't have the tools to either diagnose it or to treat it. And then people live a lot longer this day and age than they did in the past as well. And we're not working out in the farm and getting our daily exercise again.

Sarah [00:44:59] Right.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:44:59] So there's a lot of different factors as to why I think depression is more diagnosable today. I mean, we just aren't. The knowledge about it is just so much more than ever before.

Sarah [00:45:09] Yeah. This is kind of a random side note, but I remember in college being fascinated reading in a literature anthology the short story called the Yellow Wallpaper and just thinking it was absolutely fascinating and wonderful. And so I suggested it as a reading for a book group several years ago, we were reading some short stories, and I reread it, having remembered only that I liked it, and. And I just wept. It is raging postpartum depression that is being written about. And at the time when I initially read it, while I wasn't married, it was earlier in college and just thinking, oh, the writing is wonderful in this book. You know, this woman is trapped in a room with a yellow wallpaper. And then Reading it and going, oh, and just, you know, just realizing, you know, because it had been 15 years or 10 years or whatever in between the two readings that there had been so much more information to come out. I could realize, oh my goodness, this is actually a story about postpartum depression. Not.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:46:14] Yeah, and you can find that in literature or in journals or in things if you go back and read those kinds of things. But yeah, there wasn't a label to go along with that at that time. So that's really interesting.

Sarah [00:46:29] One thing I will say, and this could get edited out, I don't know. But one thing I will, that really has helped me is in church, the Mormon church, we talk a lot about the atonement of the Savior. I wouldn't say that during that really awful year that I thought about the atonement a lot. You know, it wasn't top of mind. I mean, of course I was going to church every week and taking the sacrament, so I was referring to the atonement of the Savior a lot. But finally realizing that those horrible, negative, self loathing thoughts, I mean, for some reason in my mind, even though I'd grown up in the church and served a mission, I kept thinking of the atonement as covering for sins and finally realizing that those horrible feelings of self loathing and self hatred, that those could be overcome by placing those at the feet of the Savior. And that was very comforting to me. Did it lift my depression? No, it did not. But knowing that that was available to me really soothed my soul. I mean, at the risk of sounding cheesy, but it really did. It really gave me hope. Thinking about a resurrection and having a what I would call normal brain gave me a lot of hope because I really wanted to get that normal brain and smaller thighs. But those were two things that while they didn't, you know, portend a miraculous healing, you know, and didn't make the, you know, didn't make it go away. Those were things that helped to know that I could place all those feelings of I'm not good enough, I'm a failure, I'm failing my kids, I'm failing my husband, I'm failing myself, I can't do anything right. I could if I chose to place those at the feet of the Savior and he was waiting and willing to take those for me if I offered those to him. So that was something that was and continues to be helpful because I think something that is kind of unique to the postpartum depression with Mormons is not the guilt, but just feeling like, but I shouldn't feel this way. You know, the Savior loves me. The church is true. I'm a Mormon. I'm not allowed to have these bad thoughts about myself or about anyone else or get irritated with my kids, you know, and you feel really bad. Like, almost like you need to repent of having depression, which, like, you don't repent of having cancer. So, you know, But I don't know, sometimes that gets all kind of mingled up and with the lack of serotonin or too much serotonin. I don't know. I'm just making it up as I go.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:49:35] Well, you teared up a little bit there with that, so I can tell that that's pretty, you know, close to your heart. Not to put you on the spot, but why do you feel like we might have to edit that out? Is it.

Sarah [00:49:47] Oh, no, I. No, I would only say that. No, I. I only say that because I read some. I, I told you this before, but your listeners don't know. I read some comments on a previous interview that was done where I felt like some of the listeners kind of threw her under the bus, you know, for mentioning her, her belief in the. I don't know. I don't know. I didn't listen to the interview, the church so much, but, you know, and

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:50:20] so I just concerned maybe about some of the listeners respecting your.

Sarah [00:50:24] Right, like, you know, but I really do. I really do believe that. I really do. And I, you know, do I believe in that more than I believe in the antidepressants? Yes, but I'm still not going to go off them. I love it. No, that would be the only reason for editing it out, just to make it so it doesn't sound too churchy, I don't know, too Sunday Schoolish. But unfortunately, some of those Sunday school answers actually work sometime. That's the bummer of it all. Or the goodness of it. All.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:51:00] Right. Well, no, I think that spirituality is so important, like you said, in everybody's life at some level, whether that's through organized religion or through some other means that people can find that resonates for them. I think that's what's so important about.

Sarah [00:51:19] Yeah. And for me, it is an absolute and literal belief in a savior, in Jesus Christ. But I could see where for someone else, that doesn't work for them. You know, being able to lay those feelings at the feet of something else. Being able to disperse them to the wind or give them back to nature or free them from the soul. Just do something with those negative. Those Toxic things and choose, because, as I mentioned, if I'm going to take advantage of the atonement, I have to choose to give those things away, and he will take them from me. So if I don't have a belief in that, which I do, but if I didn't, I'm imagining that it would be like choosing to take those toxic, black, horrible feelings and let go of them and either give them to a higher power or just disperse them to nature. I mean, to the universe, to, you know, to some place to decide that they will not be bound inside your body anymore and to just choose to release those thoughts. And I don't think you have to be a Mormon to do that and to find some measure of relief from. From getting rid of those things. And, you know, I. I also want to say, just kind of disclaimer, of course, I refer to medication, you know, like. Like it's candy, which, by the way, I love candy, too. Really ridiculously love it. But you know that I. It's not the answer for everyone. So I'm not trying to say it is. I'm just telling my Mormon story.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:53:12] Yeah, I love that. So I love that. Well, and I think for many, at least, what the research shows is for the majority of people, the combination between medicine and talk, some type of talk therapy, whether it's cognitive, behavioral, or something along those lines, is usually the best form of treatment, along with good exercise, good sleeping habits, and good nutrition. So those are all probably the best treatment courses for any type of depression. But there are people who find all different kinds of combinations of one or more of all those things. I think the spiritual component is important as well. And just to put my view out there, for me, this is Mormon stories. And so part of that is interviewing people who are more traditionally tied to the faith, and that is also people who are maybe not traditionally tied to the faith or who have left the faith or are somewhere in between. That, to me, is all Mormon stories. So, you know, I think that that's, hopefully what we can do here, is find commonalities with one another, regardless of where we are on that spectrum.

Sarah [00:54:23] I like that. Yeah.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:54:25] Well, thank you for sharing your Mormon story with us.

Sarah [00:54:29] Thank you so much for asking me.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:54:30] Yeah. And I was just so, you know, I was going to ask you, you know, what are the main principles or doctrines that help you? And I think you did a really good job kind of wrapping that up there at the end.

Sarah [00:54:40] So thank you very much. You're welcome.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:54:42] All right, good night.

Sarah [00:54:43] Good night.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:54:46] Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. To comment on this episode or to discuss it with others, please check us out online@mormonstories.org if you want to find other friends, family members, former missionary companions, or ward members who approach Mormonism like you, consider adding me, John Dehlin, as your Facebook friend. This may seem like a strange idea, but many of my closest friends have discovered that they are not alone in their thoughts or feelings or family or even word situation through discovering mutual Facebook friends. Finally, to keep Mormon Stories alive, please consider a donation@mormonstories.org music on this episode was provided by Clayton and Sky Pixton.

Sarah [00:55:33] To thee Even though it be across that still all my song shall be Nearer my go to thee Nearer my God, Nearer to thee. Sam.

Introduction to a Doula's Perspective

Part 3 of 3 · Ep. 234

John Dehlin [00:00:01] Mormon Stories podcast is made possible through the financial contributions of its listeners to keep it alive and available to future generations. Please consider a donation today@mormonstories.org

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:00:15] hello, and welcome to Mormon Stories. This is Natasha Helfer Parker, and we are to embark on another series focusing on mental health and relationships. This episode is meant to piggyback my most recent interview with Sarah regarding postpartum depression. Tonight, I have with me Jamie Bodily, who is a certified birth doula and has been helping mothers and babies for the past nine years. Jamie initiated, co wrote, and coordinated a doula program for women in recovery from substance addiction, where she's had great success. She's worked extensively helping mothers with a variety of mood disorders and is in the internship phase of her master's program for a degree in mental health counseling on. Although, am I correct, Jamie, in that you're now currently done with that as of today or yesterday?

Jamie Bodily [00:01:05] As of yesterday. I'm a graduate.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:01:07] Oh, wow. Congratulations.

Jamie Bodily [00:01:10] Thanks.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:01:11] So you have a master's degree now in mental health counseling, and you have a master's degree also in human services from Capella University, and you received your bachelor's degree in family sciences from Brigham Young. Jamie has specifically focused on reproductive mental health during her internships and has had the opportunity to work with Dr. Diane Sanford, who's an expert in the field. She has five children and is a member of our church. And with that introduction, I'd just like to say welcome, Jamie.

Jamie Bodily [00:01:42] Thank you, Natasha.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:01:43] And again, congratulations. That's a huge accomplishment.

Jamie Bodily [00:01:46] Thanks.

Becoming a Doula and Working with New Mothers

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:01:47] All right, so why don't we get started with you just giving us a little bit more of your background and how you kind of got interested in this field to begin with, and just fill in any information I left out as far as your journey, as far as how you got to where you are today.

Jamie Bodily [00:02:05] So I became a doula about nine years ago. I'd had a very rough second birth. I had a doctor that was impatient with the process and ended up with a lot of things I did not want going into that birth. And I just. I knew something had to be different, but I didn't know what would change it. And I ended up with postpartum depression myself for quite a while. I was untreated, undiagnosed. So I know what it's like to be on that end of it.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:02:35] Did you, at the time, did you know. Could you label it as postpartum depression? Did you know what that was and that you were suffering from?

Jamie Bodily [00:02:44] I had a social worker from the hospital call and asked me if I was depressed, but I just. I could not accept that label and wasn't going to accept it.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:02:53] Okay.

Jamie Bodily [00:02:54] So I was resistant to it.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:02:56] Okay. And going back to the second birth that you described then, do you feel that the relationship you had with your doctor and things not going the way you had planned or hoped that that may played into the depression?

Jamie Bodily [00:03:11] Absolutely.

Jamie Bodily [00:03:12] I mean, this baby was. We had a hard time getting pregnant. We'd had secondary infertility issues and so had to use fertility drugs to get pregnant. So this was a very wanted pregnancy. And yeah, the whole thing falling apart just really made it hard to enjoy being a mom. And it was. But I thought, you know, it was what I wanted, so it really threw

Jamie Bodily [00:03:34] me for a loop.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:03:36] Can you give me some details as to what went wrong or what you didn't. What were some of the things that you didn't want to have happen that happened during that birth? Delivery.

Jamie Bodily [00:03:47] I had really wanted an unmedicated birth and had done the preparation for that unmedicated birth. When I got to the hospital, things were going really well. My husband was doing a great job supporting me, and he got hungry. It had gone into the morning hours. It had gone on for a while. He asked where the vending machine was, and the nurse had been kind of pushing the epidural for a while, and I kept saying, no, no, no. She sent him around the hospital when there was a vending machine down the hall. And while he was on, I just lost my ability to do this by myself and asked for the epidural. And once that happened, my labor slowed. And then I want to say, in that time, the doctor came in and had a golf game and wanted to get to his golf game. And so they basically did a high forceps delivery of my child.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:04:42] Okay, so not in line with kind of your birth plan and

Jamie Bodily [00:04:49] not at all what I had prepared for.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:04:52] Okay, so then how does that experience catapult you forward into becoming a doula?

Jamie Bodily [00:04:59] During my third birth, I was assigned a doula. When I arrived at the hospital, and she was absolutely amazing. She got my husband very involved in the process. She was paying attention to me. She helped me advocate. When I had people telling me that they couldn't follow my birth plan, she really went to bat and made sure it was followed for me. It turned things around and gave me

Jamie Bodily [00:05:26] back the confidence I lost.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:05:28] For the benefit of our listeners, I don't think I hear you saying that you're anti epidural or anti other things. It was just really more the idea that you had a Certain birth plan in place. And that birth plan wasn't followed or respected as far as you were concerned?

Jamie Bodily [00:05:46] Right. Those were just my choices and what I had wanted.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:05:50] Right, so then tell me a little bit more about this doula experience. They just assigned her to you. That was part of what the hospital had as far as their services. Like you hadn't planned on having a doula?

Jamie Bodily [00:06:03] I hadn't planned on having a doula, but she was signed to me when I walked in the door. And it was great. I mean, it was wonderful.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:06:10] That's a pretty progressive hospital then I think that you were going to.

Jamie Bodily [00:06:15] Right.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:06:17] And how was. What was that experience like?

Jamie Bodily [00:06:21] It was amazing. I mean, it was a fabulous experience. She just, she got my husband to pay full attention to me. She got the medical staff to really listen to what I wanted. And, and I was thrilled.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:06:36] And then from that experience forward, did you have postpartum depression with that third child or not?

Jamie Bodily [00:06:43] I had some situational depression, but that passed as the situation passed. So I would say yes. But it was. I mean, I know what was going on. And as soon as that situation cleared, I was fine.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:06:55] Okay, and so then how did that kind of move you forward to becoming a doula yourself then?

Jamie Bodily [00:07:03] I just thought I had to give that back to other women. It was just an amazing gift. And I started researching. It took me a couple of years to get all my money together and do the thing, the training and all of that, but that's what I've been doing for the last nine years.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:07:20] Okay, can you walk us through the training? What does that entail? What are the certifications involved? And

Jamie Bodily [00:07:28] so you go through. It can be two days or three days, depending on which organization you're working with. And I went through a three day training. So you do that live. There's a lot of hands on activities, a lot of education, lots of videos, lots of just learning what happens to the woman in labor in the most normal physiological sense and the spiritual and the psychological impact of birth.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:07:55] Did you have to have any pre qualifications, I mean any type of nursing background or anything like that, or this three day workshop was. Or certification was what the only thing that you needed as far as moving forward from there?

Jamie Bodily [00:08:08] No, there's no nursing background because a doula simply provides informational and educa. Informational and emotional support to the laboring woman. So I never do a blood pressure check or a fetal heart tone check. I don't do any cervical checks. I'm totally there for her and to help her achieve her goals and Then after you take the class, you have a very long reading list.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:08:34] A very long reading list.

Jamie Bodily [00:08:36] A very long reading list.

Jamie Bodily [00:08:38] So lots of books on normal pregnancy, breastfeeding, supporting the mom. There's just a variety of topics that you read up on.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:08:46] Okay.

Jamie Bodily [00:08:48] And then there is a post test that you take that you should know. After the reading, you attend a childbirth education class as an observer, and then you do three births. And these births have to meet very specific qualifications. So for most doulas, it takes at least six. I think for me, it took 10 to 12 to meet all the qualifications they wanted. So it took a bit of time, but it was well worth the investment.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:09:20] Okay, and then is this something then that you work through a hospital or what kind of setting is it that you decide to work through?

Jamie Bodily [00:09:31] Well, when I started, I did private work, so couples would contact me and hire me as their doula, and then we would work prenatally through the postpartum period together. At one point, my girlfriend called. She had applied for a job at a substance abuse treatment facility, and she didn't want it. She said, I just. I can't. In my heart of hearts, this isn't the population for me, and I know it, but I think you'd be great. So I went and interviewed, and they offered me the job. And I kind of thought, I don't know. I don't know if this is my population either. I've never worked with women in recovery. I don't know much about it, but I took the job anyways and found out that I really enjoyed it and really found that there was a lot of need for these services in this population.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:10:20] So going back to when you were in private practice and couples would contact you about wanting a doula, is this something that their insurance companies would help reimburse for, or is this something that mostly people were paying for on their own?

Jamie Bodily [00:10:34] You know, nine years ago, it was very hard to get an insurance company to even look at it. Now there are doulas getting reimbursement through various insurance companies, and there are some states where Medicaid will cover it. So couples just kind of have to really research that part of it.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:10:54] And then the certification process that you did. Who are the organizations that are offering that type of certification?

Jamie Bodily [00:11:02] The three major organizations are dona, which used to be. It's DONA International, D, O, N, A. And then you have capa, which is C, A, P, P, A. And you have two labor, like the number two.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:11:19] And then labor after that.

Jamie Bodily [00:11:21] No, it's to and then all capital L, A, B, O, R. Okay.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:11:27] And which one of those did you go through?

Jamie Bodily [00:11:29] I went through two labor.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:11:31] Okay. So going back to this job that you took as working in this addiction treatment center, can you tell us a little bit about your experience there?

Jamie Bodily [00:11:45] I found that I really enjoyed working with this population, that there was a huge need. The addictions field is very good at working with substance abuse. They know that and they know how to work with it. But there's not a lot of people trained in the pregnancy and postpartum aspect of bringing a woman from being addicted to becoming a mother. And what happens in this whole process. And I found that I had to study a lot, I had to work really hard to get the knowledge base. But as I've done this, it's just been. I mean, I find that it makes a huge difference in the outcomes for the women and children.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:12:27] And this is a treatment center that offers then therapy, probably the 12 step type of programs. And then also attached to that are services like these for women who are becoming mothers.

Jamie Bodily [00:12:44] Right. So the facility I started at was a residential facility housing 26 women and their children. And they lived on the site, they were called cottages. And they had their own room, own bathroom, and each room had a crib and all the things they needed for their baby.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:13:04] So this was inpatient?

Jamie Bodily [00:13:06] This was inpatient long term. So most of them were coming out of a criminal justice system, out of jail, with the chance to do treatment instead of jail time.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:13:18] Uh huh, yeah. And you saw the success rate being positive as far as you felt like the treatment was successful, and you saw women being able to kind of move forward in their lives in a positive way.

Jamie Bodily [00:13:31] Yes. And these children were able to have, you know, they were able to be born substance free, which is huge, which takes out a lot of disadvantages for them. And then their moms were bonding with them, which of course we want to see. And so lots of good results when the women were motivated to work with their treatment, which was most of the time.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:13:55] That sounds like fascinating work. Is this what you're still doing? Is this where you're still working at this point?

Jamie Bodily [00:14:01] Well, we moved to Missouri because my husband got a job promotion. And at that point I applied to several treatment facilities and I ended up getting a job working with the children at Queen of Peace center in St. Louis, Missouri.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:14:17] Okay, where was this that you were working at the substance abuse center before? What state was that in?

Jamie Bodily [00:14:22] The first one was in Arizona.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:14:23] Okay.

Jamie Bodily [00:14:26] And I worked here for a while. I had to take a leave of absence for various reasons. And during that leave of absence, I found that there was a grant open for a dual program. And I called the operations director. We had five days to get a federal grant in, and he said, I'm really interested in a program, but I don't know, 5 days is not much time to write a grant. He said, let me see what I can do. And in about 15 minutes, he had a grant team assembled, ready to go to work. And we wrote and wrote and wrote and we got it.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:14:59] Wow. Had he ever written a grant before?

Jamie Bodily [00:15:02] Had I ever written a grant?

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:15:04] Yeah. Or been involved in that type of a process?

Jamie Bodily [00:15:07] No.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:15:08] No. Wow. That's pretty impressive. And so what was the grant given for?

Jamie Bodily [00:15:14] The grant covered two years of doula services to our women in treatment. So we had three full time doulas who worked to assist these women from whenever they entered the treatment program through their postpartum phase.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:15:28] And this is now in St. Louis, in the St. Louis area.

Jamie Bodily [00:15:31] Well, unfortunately, we did not get refunded for our next year of funding, so the program came down in September.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:15:38] Okay. Okay.

Jamie Bodily [00:15:41] But if anybody wants to donate, we'd love to get it back up.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:15:44] Sure, sure. Okay. And this is working in this children's center that you were speaking of?

Jamie Bodily [00:15:49] Actually, it's addictions treatment. So I moved. Once the doula grant came through, I moved over to working with the moms.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:15:56] Okay. Okay. All right. Well, that's great. Anything else you want to share about your professional life, or are we ready to move on to postpartum depression and your understanding of that?

Jamie Bodily [00:16:10] I think we're ready to move on.

Clinical Overview of Postpartum Mood Disorders

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:16:12] Okay. So I think I'd like to start with you being able to give kind of a basic maybe idea of what it is to have, what it should be like from a normal perspective. With normal kind of in quote, unquote, after the birth of a child, what can a woman and her spouse or partner or family kind of be able to look at as part of just normal recovery and the struggles that go along with that, that wouldn't be considered postpartum depression.

Jamie Bodily [00:16:50] Okay. So in understanding postpartum adjustment, it's really important to understand what the placenta does during pregnancy. The placenta stores a lot of the hormones, and as pregnancy progresses, the hormone levels increase of progesterone and estrogen to very high levels. And the placenta is storing all this good stuff. And so a lot of times, even moms who may experience depression sometimes feel very good as the pregnancy progresses just due to the influx of hormones, meaning

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:17:24] women who experience depression before pregnancy.

Jamie Bodily [00:17:28] Right. Not everybody, but some women feel very good through their pregnancy and don't have problems that they've had before. Then at the time of delivery, the placenta separates from the wall and of course, is delivered just after the baby. So when that's delivered, all those hormones go with it. So a woman goes from having this very high level, the highest level she's ever had in her Life, and within 72 hours, she's going through a crash because she's at preconception levels, which is why the majority of women will experience some baby blues. It's that shift in hormones, and you move from progesterone to prolactin to start producing milk. So there's this huge shift, and they're different hormones, so they do different things. And women definitely feel that shift in their body. Okay, so there's a hormonal aspect to what we're feeling. You also figure too, that for most women during delivery, in order to manage the sensations of contractions and all the things that are going on, our body produces endorphins. And those endorphins make us feel pretty good, and they help to relieve some of the pain that they feel during labor. So when they pick up that baby, all these endorphins are flowing and going. And of course, those go down as time goes on, too. So, again, our body's doing a lot of things that really affect how we feel. And then we add that, you know, in the hospital, we're got lots of support and people are helping us. For most women, the milk doesn't come in until the third day postpartum, which is just when they're going home. So they haven't had a lot of pain associated with the engorgement and the things that go with breastfeeding. And then they go home and all the help is gone for the most part.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:19:18] And the milk comes in.

Jamie Bodily [00:19:20] And the milk comes in, and the baby doesn't sleep as well because baby's starting to wake up now and all these shifts are happening. So it's really normal to feel feelings of being overwhelmed. It's easy to have this sleep deprivation where you're just irritable and not yourself. Those things are somewhat normal. They should start to pass as life moves forward, of course. And crying a little bit. I mean, crying at a Hallmark commercial, crying at the Huggies commercial, those are kind of normal things. But if they keep going on and they're not easing up over time or with a little bit of additional help and support, that could be a clue that Postpartum depression is happening.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:20:05] And what time frame are you looking at? Like how, what, what's the normal baby blues adjustment period look like?

Jamie Bodily [00:20:13] By two weeks, you should be starting to feel at least a good bit better. If you continue to have more bad days than good days at that point, it's probably good to have an assessment done by a professional.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:20:27] And what's the best place to go and be able to do that? Do you go back to your ob gyn? Do you call your primary care physician? What's the best place to start asking for help?

Jamie Bodily [00:20:39] It's going to depend really on what state you're in. If you're in New Jersey, all OBGYN screen with the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Screening Tool. And so they can definitely manage that. And there's a clearinghouse that handles if it comes up positive, getting connected and referred to professionals in this field. If you live in states that aren't so progressive, it may be best to go to a counselor first or to a psychologist who has experience in reproductive mental health. Also on my website@parentscount.com in the handout section is the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Screening Tool. It's a self screening tool and the instructions for scoring it are on the bottom.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:21:26] So women could take that on their own and kind of assess themselves in a way.

Jamie Bodily [00:21:31] Right. And then if it's showing that there is a problem, they can go to a clinical professional having some information in their hand as to what's happening.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:21:41] Okay, so why don't you go into more of the classic symptoms of postpartum depression? What is it that women with postpartum depression are typically feeling? What are the diagnostic criteria that go along with that?

Jamie Bodily [00:21:59] So they're a lot like normal depressive symptoms and might include feelings of anger or irritability. They might feel a lack of interest in the baby. They do the normal things to care for their baby, but they have a hard time making that really good connection or feeling really connected to the baby. And I just want to point out that not every mom feels the oh my gosh, my baby, my baby as soon as the baby's born. For some moms, it's a process of bonding with their baby, but this is when moms just really don't want to connect much at all.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:22:32] And do you find that when that happens, there's usually guilt associated with that, like they're not falling into what the cultural norm is that we kind of have the expectation that women will automatically bond with their child?

Jamie Bodily [00:22:46] Yes, there's a lot of guilt that women feel when this is happening and they don't understand why.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:22:55] And is there also, do you see some made judgments being passed by or concerns being passed by the spouse or the family members if they're noticing that with the mom that there's a lot of anxiety around that kind of stuff?

Jamie Bodily [00:23:11] It definitely can be. And some families, it's just not noticed, which is, you know, it's very hard because it does affect the baby, because the baby's cognitive development depends on the mom interacting with the baby. The baby's emotional regulation depends on that interaction, which is why it's so important to catch these as soon as possible and get treatment and help.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:23:33] Right. Okay, so back to your diagnostic criteria. Sorry to interrupt you.

Jamie Bodily [00:23:40] You're fine. A mom might also have a very low appetite or a very high appetite. Just like we might see with depression. We're eating more or less, depending on what's going on.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:23:51] And that can be easily confused, especially if you're having more appetite with the fact that you're breastfeeding now. And maybe you're thinking, well, I'm just eating more because I'm producing all this milk.

Jamie Bodily [00:24:03] Right. And sleep disturbances. I mean, and this is a hard one because again, if you're breastfeeding, your baby's getting up every two to three hours. And so are you just sleep fatigued or are you really, you've got insomnia and are not sleeping well at all. And I think it's real important for moms that have a history of depression to know to plan ahead of this and think how they're going to get a good night's sleep at least two to three times a week because it makes a huge difference.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:24:35] What are some suggestions for that?

Jamie Bodily [00:24:38] A lot of times moms will have dad take the baby if he's got a flexible work schedule where that will work. And she'll pump once in the middle of the night just to keep her supply up. But dad is feeding the baby from the bottle. Dad has the baby all night when the baby gets up and is allowing mom that good eight hour period of sleep.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:24:58] And how often do you find husbands being willing to do this? Is this something that most. Are you seeing most husbands being willing to help in this way or do you find that some resistance in that?

Jamie Bodily [00:25:11] If they know that there's been a history of depression, I found dads are amazingly fabulous. Or if mom is just really having a hard time and it's a suggestion that may work, they're really open to it. If dad doesn't have that flexible work schedule or travels a lot. There's nurses, there's nannies, there's postpartum doulas who can come in and do the same thing.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:25:34] What about women who can't afford that?

Jamie Bodily [00:25:37] Sometimes, and this is tricky because, of course, you got to work with the insurance company, but sometimes with a mental health diagnosis, they will pay for those services.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:25:46] Okay. Yeah. And then, of course, there's a lot of women, I'm sure, who are uninsured as well. So these are all topics that probably have some socioeconomic issues related with them. You know, the more economic freedom you have, the more you're going to have resources available to you to help you with these kinds of things, I'm assuming.

Jamie Bodily [00:26:07] Right. Absolutely. And of course, you know, we have the crying and sadness that would go with any depression, but you also have some moms who just don't seem to sleep. They just seem like they're driven by a motor. So either way, it can be an indication of depression. And a lot of people get that confused, you know.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:26:29] Mm.

Jamie Bodily [00:26:29] That it's not always just feeling down in the dump. Sometimes it's just this abundance of energy that mom doesn't even know what to do with, and she doesn't even feel good having it.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:26:40] Almost like a manic episode in a way.

Jamie Bodily [00:26:42] Right.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:26:45] What would you say is the likelihood, if a woman has had a history of depression in her past, what is that tied to the likelihood of her having postpartum depression? And along with that question, what about women who've never had an episode with depression but then only seem to have it postpartum?

Jamie Bodily [00:27:07] So both those play if there's a personal or family history of mental health. So depression, anxiety, or postpartum depression with sisters and mothers, the woman's risk is definitely higher that she could get this disorder. And for many women, the first history or the first incidence of this is postpartum,

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:27:30] meaning that they haven't had a major depressive episode before this.

Jamie Bodily [00:27:36] Right.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:27:38] And then do you find that people who have postpartum depression are then more likely to have major depressive episodes later in life, even without another pregnancy?

Jamie Bodily [00:27:51] I haven't seen that in the research. They are more at risk in the next pregnancy.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:27:55] Okay. So if you only have depression during postpartum, then those are probably the more likely times that you're going to have to worry about it again.

Jamie Bodily [00:28:05] Right. It seems to be, in many ways connected with all the hormonal shifts that are going on, although that is not the only risk factor, of course.

John Dehlin [00:28:16] Right.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:28:19] So are you able to share some kind of examples of women who have struggled with postpartum depression and some of the things that you've seen as far as more personal examples.

Jamie Bodily [00:28:35] So what we know is that nutrition plays a big part in how our body functions just generally. So when women are able to balance the protein and carbohydrates that they take in at every meal, that does seem to help things out. Because a lot of women, when they get into the depressive state, they're eating mostly carbohydrates because those are the comfort foods. And with that, the body just isn't producing what it needs to be able to recover properly. Because childbirth is a lot of work.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:29:09] So upping the protein.

Jamie Bodily [00:29:11] Mm. Trying to balance those out at each meal.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:29:15] Okay.

Jamie Bodily [00:29:16] We know that when women are dehydrated, they have more anxiety. So if moms can definitely keep hydrated, that helps. It's another way that they can do things for themselves. Exercise is fabulous. The research shows that it does a very good job at helping to ease depression. But it has to be used just like medication. You have to be regular in your time. You have to be regular at doing it every day. It takes a huge commitment to make that work, especially for the baby. Yeah. And for women who are very dedicated and don't want to use medication, it can be a very good option. But again, it takes the support and the encouragement of people willing to take the baby while she's doing it and being consistent.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:30:08] And then there's usually a six week process where the doctor is saying you shouldn't be exercising anyway. Or I forget what the weeks are, but that seems to sound right to me.

Jamie Bodily [00:30:18] Anyway, right around six weeks is when they have the postpartum checkup. So they don't want them doing a

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:30:26] whole lot of exercise before then.

Jamie Bodily [00:30:30] Right.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:30:33] So as far as things, more natural ways of trying to deal with this, obviously you mentioned the sleep getting people to maybe help you with the baby at night. Getting an eight hour stretch or even six hour stretch can be a big deal for a new mom. As far as getting some sleep, nutrition, exercise, anything to add to that list.

Jamie Bodily [00:31:01] Even getting help in the home just to keep things straightened up and neat can make a huge difference in easing mom's stress level.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:31:10] So through family members or friends or spouse, whoever's around, if they're kind of aware of that.

Jamie Bodily [00:31:18] Right. And I think one of the things that in our culture is we've gone to the nuclear family, we live in our own homes. We usually don't have parents come in for very long after A baby's born, and so motherhood becomes this very isolating experience. And if you're feeling these feelings of depression or anxiety or you're feeling guilt that you're not doing it right or good enough by ourselves, those seem to just intensify and roll and roll because we don't have anybody to bounce off to say, oh, yeah, I felt that way too. Oh, yeah, you know what? The passes, you're going to be okay. If you're not hearing the message you're going to be okay, you start to wonder if you're ever going to be okay again or can you really be a mom? And for a woman that wanted to be a mom or believes that this is what she's meant to do, that can be devastating.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:32:08] That somehow it's not fitting into their identity as they thought it would or should again, kind of going back to that guilt complex of, this is what I've always wanted. I should be enjoying this, I should love this. And then feeling badly when they don't have those natural feelings.

Jamie Bodily [00:32:28] Right. And so if a mom can find a support group with other moms, whether that's a breastfeeding support group or just a general mothering support group, or even one that focuses on depression, because we have all of those different support groups in many communities, it can be a huge help just to feel you're not alone, just to hear that what you're feeling is normal. Moms are feeling it all over the place. And I think it's unfortunate that we've created it to be so isolating for moms, because it's hard.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:32:59] Right. And you mentioned the families support system. A lot of people live away from their families. So even if the families are coming in, they're coming in for maybe a few days or a week at a time. They're not really able to stay for long, extended periods of time.

Jamie Bodily [00:33:13] Right. So pretty quickly, mom is back to having to cook dinner, clean the house, take care of this new baby. And there's, you know, there's the sleep deprivation, there's the adjustment to motherhood, just normal, the change in relationships. And so there's a lot going on

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:33:30] and many times taking care of other children as well, if this isn't the first pregnancy.

Jamie Bodily [00:33:35] Right.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:33:37] So you mentioned medicine. Where do you see that playing a role for people who choose that route?

Jamie Bodily [00:33:47] Medication is a great option. It works well and it works quickly. And when you have a good clinician who understands the different postpartum mood disorders, because there is depression, but there's also anxiety, there's ocd. There's post traumatic stress and there is psychosis. So a good clinician is able to weed out those different symptoms and make sure that the right medication is prescribed. It can be a lifesaver.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:34:14] Women who are using. I'm sorry, can you touch on some of those different types that you're talking about and give a quick synopsis of some of those, like what is the difference between depression and anxiety and OCD and some of those other things you mentioned?

Jamie Bodily [00:34:32] Right. So anxiety is really excessive. Worry is what we're seeing. And that's a mom who's constantly worrying. She feels that something bad is going to happen. You know, just cannot focus on and enjoy the good things that are happening. She's focused on when is something bad going to happen. The racing thoughts, the disturbances of sleep and appetite, the inability to sit still. She may even have physical symptoms. The dizziness, the hot flashes and the nausea. Some moms will even have panic attacks during the postpartum phase, which feel much like you're having a heart attack. So you get that hot flash, you get the heart racing, hard to get your breath. It's a really scary feeling.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:35:17] Right. And then some of the other ones

Jamie Bodily [00:35:20] that you mentioned, so you've got postpartum obsessive compulsive disorder. And normally we think of checking the lights, checking the stove, those types of things that go with ocd. In this case, these thoughts are persistent, repetitive thoughts related to the baby, and they can be frightening thoughts of harming the baby. Most moms will do things to protect themselves. So if they're thinking that they're going to drown the baby while they're giving the baby a bath, they may hand the baby off to other people and ask them to bathe the baby. So they're very protective. They realize these spots are not okay. And if a mom's telling you that there's definitely medications that can help and it's definitely treatable, and that can be

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:36:07] very, well, like you said, scary for the mom to feel like she's having those thoughts. And then I would assume also, shamefully, how could I be thinking of hurting my baby?

Jamie Bodily [00:36:18] Right. They're absolutely terrified. They have the thoughts.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:36:24] I'm assuming that some keep these thoughts to themselves because they're so embarrassed by

Jamie Bodily [00:36:28] them, or there's embarrassment, there's fear of Children's Protective Services getting involved. And that's one thing moms need to be aware of. When you go to a clinician and get help, you're going to have a lot less risk of children's protection services getting involved, because you're probably not going to act on these. Your clinician is going to be watching and making sure that things are working right. It's when they continue to go untreated that there can be problems.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:36:53] Right. Well, the last one you mentioned was psychosis, full blown.

Jamie Bodily [00:36:59] Right. And psychosis only occurs in one to two women out of every thousand deliveries. So it's not very common, but it is very associated with a history of bipolar mood disorder. So a woman who has bipolar disorder should definitely be talking to a clinician, should be talking to her psychiatrist and her OB throughout her pregnancy. This is how we prevent it from happening. In this case, she has thoughts maybe of harming herself for the baby or maybe just really strange delusions, but she's not able to connect that these thoughts are not right.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:37:38] So it doesn't have the attached like embarrassment or shame that a person like you were describing with OCD thoughts might have.

Jamie Bodily [00:37:47] Right. And we definitely see a decreased need for sleep, a lot of paranoia and a lot of rapid mood swings. So one minute she seems okay, the next minute she seems down, then she's irritable. So we're just seeing things go all over the board pretty quickly. And a lot of times what they will have is religious hallucinations. That's kind of a key that this is definitely not okay.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:38:13] Can you expound on that? What does that mean?

Jamie Bodily [00:38:21] I don't really know how to explain it because I myself have not had a hallucination. But my clients say it's like one of them said, I'm not religious and every dream I have is about Jesus coming to me. And it's very strange. I don't understand it.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:38:35] What about people who are religious and have that background? Is that. Do you see that even more or doesn't matter necessarily if they're religious or not?

Jamie Bodily [00:38:45] I'm going to say I haven't studied that.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:38:47] Okay.

Jamie Bodily [00:38:47] So I don't know. But I do know that, you know, every one of my patients that's had psychosis has had bipolar disorder, and the ones that have had a break have not been treated properly through their pregnancy or they haven't told anybody. So getting a good team and working through it during pregnancy, in my opinion, is just critical.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:39:12] Okay. Yeah. So religious hallucinations would probably be having thoughts of either grandeur, like I am God or God is on, you know, working with me, or maybe having thoughts just like you said, of visits or visions or things that don't completely make sense, which in a religious framework can be sometimes not caught. Because if somebody has a religious dream or has even a vision, like for instance in our Mormon culture, that can be considered a spiritual occurrence.

Jamie Bodily [00:39:49] Right. I think that critically, I mean, you will notice that the mothers act differently. It's very noticeable.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:39:59] Yeah. It's not comfort. It's not like they're coming to you with a spiritual like, wow, this really happened to me and this was neat. It's more like they're acting strangely along with that.

Jamie Bodily [00:40:10] Right. And one of my clients, she continually handed off the babies to neighbors

John Dehlin [00:40:17] and

Jamie Bodily [00:40:17] her husband couldn't quite figure out why she was doing that. When we finally got to what was going on, she was afraid she was going to hurt the baby. Luckily for her, she didn't. She was having more thoughts of harming herself than the baby and she was very protective. But when the psychosis finally came to a head, she just wanted the baby out of her way. She didn't want to deal with the baby, she wanted to deal with herself. It was really very scary. And you'll notice their judgment. I mean, it goes a lot with what would be considered in bipolar, a lot of impulse control issues. So buying clothes they don't need, going out to see people they don't need to see, buying, purchasing things that make no sense that they don't need just to buy them. So you kind of see behaviors that are along that impulse or compulsive type behaviors.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:41:16] So going back to the medications for most people, like you said, only one to two per thousand will fall into more of the more serious ailments for most who have postpartum depression or anxiety or even some of the OCD thoughts, you're saying that medications can be very much a helpful part of their treatment. Do you get the concerns that I hear often, which is, well, how will this affect my baby if I'm still breastfeeding? Or some people are choosing to be on antidepressants or anti anxiety meds during the pregnancy. How's that going to affect my fetus? What all do you know about that and what can you share with us?

Jamie Bodily [00:41:55] So the research shows that the antidepressants that are used today, known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors or SSRIs, are very safe during pregnancy and breastfeeding. There are a couple that are contraindicated or not recommended, but most doctors are well aware of those and can prescribe the preferred medications. And those medications seem to work very well. What we know is that most of the medications are safe during breastfeeding. Only a small amount will pass through the breast milk. And the long term studies at this point do not show negative effects on the baby.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:42:33] So that's pretty important information for women who really, from what I see, their anxiety is very much about this. Not wanting to harm the child in order to treat themselves.

Jamie Bodily [00:42:46] Right. And what we know is that when a mom is depressed, it affects her and the baby. It affects the entire family. She has a very hard time functioning. She's not connecting to the baby. So if you don't do anything to treat it, you're also putting your child at risk. So it becomes really looking at the benefits and risk. I mean, if you're really not wanting medication, then you need to take seriously the suggestions for taking care of yourself and making sure you're getting exercise and eating well and just reducing your stress level in every way possible to try and help yourself. But sometimes even all those things do not work because it's a chemical imbalance in the brain. And the bottom line is not everybody can shift it on their own. And that medication can be a lifesaver.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:43:38] Do you see a lot of resistance to that type of an idea? That this isn't something I can fix on my own or that I should will myself better? Do you see people having a better understanding about depression or do you still see a lot of those stigmas attached to people seeking treatment and wanting to go on meds, for instance?

Jamie Bodily [00:44:00] I think initially there's a lot of stigma, but as women learn that it is a chemical imbalance, it's not something that they can control or will to go away as they understand that better, and as they understand that the purpose of medication is to help the brain heal and to get better so that it's imbalance again, that it reduces significantly.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:44:23] So a big part of this is education then as far as educating the mom, educating, I'm sure the spouse who many times has similar concerns, and even at times educating family or friends who may put forth criticism or judgment when they hear that the woman has gone on medication or is seeking some type of treatment.

Jamie Bodily [00:44:47] Right. Because we would never tell somebody who has cancer or diabetes don't take the meds. That's not. You can just make yourself better. We know they can't make themselves better. It's a physical, physiological thing. The same thing is true for mental health. If people could will themselves better, they would in a heartbeat. Because I don't know anybody who likes feeling this way. Yeah, but in the end. Yeah. And so why would we tell somebody who has an imbalance in their brain don't take the medication that can make you feel better, that can get things rebalanced for you. A woman taking medication should look at thinking about six months on it to allow things to get back into balance and then working with her team to slowly come off it, if that's her choice. Some women stay on it much longer because they find it makes a huge difference for them. They may have been suffering and never really been able to put a word to it or a label to it,

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:45:44] meaning that they were probably suffering with depression even before the birth.

Jamie Bodily [00:45:48] Right. And so I definitely think that, you know, all of these tools have a place and that they're powerful in healing. And that's what we want. We want a mom and a baby who are connected. We want a family who feels good about being a family. And that just can't happen when somebody's suffering with depression or other mood disorders.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:46:11] Right. What, going back to a previous question, I asked, what are some case examples that you can share with us as far as, you know, there was, you know, give us a few stories

Jamie Bodily [00:46:27] as

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:46:27] far as just people you've worked with, as far as, you know, what you've seen. And maybe, you know, like this a particular client of yours who came in and this is what she was complaining about, or these were her symptoms. And then this is what you tried or didn't try. And now what were the results?

Jamie Bodily [00:46:48] So I had one mom who came to me saying shortly after the birth she'd had kind of a rough birth, quite frankly, due to some hospital policies and things that were going on, some emergencies. She was delayed four hours on getting her epidural and she had planned for an epidural. So that was a pretty big deal that she had to go through four hours of labor with no medication. But after the birth, she just had a very hard time. She kept calling me, saying, I'm confused. I can't remember what I'm supposed to do for the baby. And this was before I'd had a lot of training and I knew it didn't sound right. I just didn't know what it was. And at one point we found out that she had been unmedicated for seven years for bipolar disorder and it had kicked in full blown in postpartum. So she just had a lot of confusion. Like she was telling me, I write down what time I'm supposed to feed the baby, I write down what time to change him, I write down what room he's in, because I can't remember, which does sound strange. And we sent her to her ob, who really was not familiar with postpartum disorders, unfortunately, and did not prescribe the proper medication to help her soon enough. Which is, again, why it's really important to choose clinicians who are skilled in reproductive mental health.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:48:18] Yeah. Which is interesting. You think that that would just be part of the norm of an obgyn to be skilled in that area, but you're saying that that's not always an area of expertise. Is the mental health part of the OB GYN field?

Jamie Bodily [00:48:34] Right. Which was why a lot of them now are connecting with either a mental health counselor or a psychologist to pair up with, because that's the group that has more experience with this and more knowledge.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:48:48] So how was this particular woman's issues resolved? Or were they.

Jamie Bodily [00:48:52] She had to be hospitalized at one point, but she is doing very well now. She was able to take medication. She is still on medication and doing very, very well.

Trauma, Culture, and Support Within Mormonism

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:49:04] You mentioned briefly, I think, when we were talking about the different types of disorders, you had also mentioned trauma. And I know that that was one of the questions one of our posters on Mormon stories asked about is when is trauma past trauma? Especially if you've had somebody who's grown up with either sexual or physical abuse or even a lot of emotional abuse, and now they are in the role of being the parent. How often do you see that becoming part of the issue with postpartum as well?

Jamie Bodily [00:49:38] About 1 to 6% of women will experience what's called postpartum post traumatic stress disorder. And it's really recently that this has come to be a disorder that's been taken seriously. Really what happened was, for a long time, we were using the Edinburgh, and the Edinburgh is fabulous. It has a very good rate of picking up postpartum depression and anxiety, which is what it was designed for. However, a lot of the symptoms a mom with post traumatic stress disorder has are also similar to depression. So they'd be labeled as depressed or it wouldn't show up on the Edinburgh because it wasn't assessing the right things. So what we know now is that there has to be different tools for moms that seem to be having symptoms which would be re experiencing that traumatic event. So that would probably be the childbirth itself. And so they just can't get it out of their mind. They just keep feeling it, seeing it over and over again.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:50:43] The trauma of the childbirth.

Jamie Bodily [00:50:46] Right.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:50:50] So is that flashback nightmares about the childbirth itself?

Jamie Bodily [00:50:53] That would not be uncommon. Again, relating to the childbirth itself.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:50:57] Okay, so that's a little bit different than from if you're coming into motherhood with your own traumatic past experiences versus you're talking about the childbirthing experience being a trauma in of itself.

Jamie Bodily [00:51:11] So there is what's known as postpartum traumatic stress disorder following childbirth. And then there's some women who will enter the childbearing year with experiences of sexual abuse or child abuse that can definitely impact their experience.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:51:27] And what do you see as far as that? What kinds of things are you seeing to pick up on that as far

Jamie Bodily [00:51:35] as childhood sexual abuse?

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:51:36] Yes.

Jamie Bodily [00:51:38] So a mom who has been sexually abused may re experience a lot of

Jamie Bodily [00:51:44] her trauma during the birth.

Jamie Bodily [00:51:45] There's a lot of very invasive procedures that occur during childbirth, from putting an IV in, which definitely is invasive, and going into somebody's veins to routine cervical examinations. And those can be very difficult for

Jamie Bodily [00:52:04] women who have experienced sexual abuse. And if they're not open about their experience or willing to talk to medical staff about that, then the staff doesn't know and they go on as normal. And a lot of the things they do can be very difficult for the sexual abuse survivor.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:52:25] Almost retraumatizing then. And then I assume once the birth is over, they're dealing with those emotions and feelings for a long time after the birth.

Jamie Bodily [00:52:37] Right.

Jamie Bodily [00:52:38] And so I think this is where a doula who has a background and the experience in understanding childhood sexual abuse or child abuse can be immensely helpful in planning and preparing.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:52:53] Was that part of your training or is that extra training that a doula would have to look for?

Jamie Bodily [00:52:58] I have done extra training on childhood sexual abuse.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:53:03] Okay.

Jamie Bodily [00:53:04] There is advanced doula trainings on it. You can ask a doula what training and knowledge she has in this area because there are a lot of great tools for planning ahead and preparing and helping a mom to get ready. I say too, if she hasn't had any counseling around this, this is a great time to do it. Because birth can be very healing. It can be re traumatizing when a mom's not prepared, but it can be a very healing and empowering experience for a well prepared mom.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:53:37] Yeah. And in my experience with working with past trauma, especially when it's sexual abuse, is that many people I see are not really coming to deal with those issues or to talk about those issues until, you know, they're in their late 30s or 40s. So they've gone through a lot of their child rearing experiences without having addressed some of those issues. I think maybe because of some of the shame or stigmas or embarrassment or just not wanting to talk about those things. It's a coping mechanism in of itself, to protect oneself is to not talk about it.

Jamie Bodily [00:54:12] Right. And if it's happened within the family, which is a high amount of the sexual abuse we see, unfortunately, there's even more reason to keep a secret or to feel ashamed or even maybe guilty that you had part in it. And that's very difficult for women. So I think the more we talk about it and address it, the better it is.

John Dehlin [00:54:33] Right.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:54:35] Well, that's. Yeah, that's very interesting. Yeah. Hopefully listening to things like this can help women kind of normalize those kinds of situations for themselves and understand that getting help is definitely an option and they don't have to do it all alone. Shame doesn't have to be just

Jamie Bodily [00:54:56] knowing. There's counselors who will listen who aren't there to judge it. We're there to help you work through it.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:55:02] Right. Okay. So we talked a lot about medicine. We talked about a lot about kind of just some general things that most people kind of know intrinsically anyway. Just kind of like the exercise and getting sleep and good nutrition. Are there any other, maybe more holistic approaches that you recommend when it comes to any of these types of things? We've been discussing.

Jamie Bodily [00:55:27] There are chiropractors that can help with herbs, and chiropractic. Some people find that can be very helpful. I mean. But basically those are what we have available right now.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:55:41] Okay. So just being willing to look at each individual with kind of a treatment approach. Some of the things may work for one person that may not work for another. And each individual having their own treatment plan, per se.

Jamie Bodily [00:55:59] Absolutely.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:56:00] What about helping spouses and or family members understand all these things and getting them on board? Do you have any ideas for successful ways of going about that?

Jamie Bodily [00:56:13] Postpartum Support International has awesome information for friends and family on their website, which is postpartum.net and it's just a wealth of information. And there's. I believe there's even a book called Postpartum Dads. That's awesome.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:56:31] Okay, great. Those are great resources. We'll try to link to some of those as well. From Mormon stories. Now, since this is Mormon stories, how often are you finding yourself working within the LDS population? Is that much of your clientele or not so much?

Jamie Bodily [00:56:48] That has not been much of my clientele.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:56:52] So then, within the Mormon culture, just from your own maybe personal experience, what do you see specifically within our belief systems or traditions or maybe cultural aspects that might exacerbate this problem or that may make it difficult for people to reach out when it comes to Postpartum Depression.

Jamie Bodily [00:57:15] We definitely idealize motherhood, but I think as a general culture, we do that as well. But there's a lot of emphasis on this is what we're meant to do, this is what we're meant to be. And when things come crashing down, that can be really hard because it feels like maybe it's a personal failing rather than our body having a hard time adjusting to shifts in hormones and shifts in what's going on.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:57:44] So now a normal bodily procedure turns into a spiritual failing.

Jamie Bodily [00:57:49] Right. Or, I mean, unfortunately, I've heard advice to just pray more or read your scriptures more, which could be great advice. But if we have a biological problem, we've got to get to the root of that in order to get it solved. It won't solve it on its own.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:58:09] And maybe from within the culture, then also, not just the mother struggling with these feelings, but the rest of us looking at somebody who is struggling and making those types of assumptions, well, they're just not spiritually in tune enough or strong enough or if they would only be doing those. Those are kind of judgments that maybe others pass that need to be checked by all of us as a culture at large.

Jamie Bodily [00:58:32] Right. And for a lot of women, they have husbands in bishoprics or stake presidencies. And. And I've heard them say, you know, they have an image to uphold, and so falling apart in their mind doesn't fit that image. And so they try to hold on and hold on and hold on until it all falls apart. And then it's just really hard

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:58:54] because it's much harder to get the treatment you need the further along you are, versus doing more preventative work.

Jamie Bodily [00:59:01] Right. And by the time and the more you wait, the more it's impacted that entire family unit, which, of course can lead to the kids having problems. It can lead to the couple having problems ending in divorce. You know, there's just things that can happen when we don't treat these disorders.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:59:19] Right. What about the other side of that? What do you see? Maybe some of our doctrines or teachings that might be useful in this type of setting.

Jamie Bodily [00:59:33] You know, when release societies are working well, there's a lot of support for moms within the church, and that can be a great source of support. A Relief Society president who has a listening ear or who recognizes that maybe some extra help is needed can be huge, because that help can come from within the culture, within the group, and it can be done very lovingly. And so I think that can be a huge strength when things are working. Right. I think, you know, visiting Teachers who can come in and pop in and just see that something's not quite right can be huge. We have that built in safety feature. We also have each other. I mean, if things are going well and a woman feels connected to her group and she feels accepted, there may be a safe place to actually talk about these things.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:00:23] Right. Which hopefully more and more women can start doing. Because I don't think that this is something that it's an isolated event here or there. I think this is actually probably somewhat common for people in a ward. There should be at least two or three or four people that maybe have had similar experiences.

Jamie Bodily [01:00:41] Right. And so if you can find those connections and we can help each other, it can be very powerful.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:00:48] So moving beyond culture, what about, you know, doctrinally itself, what do you see as far as our belief systems that could help a woman or her family that's struggling with this?

Jamie Bodily [01:01:05] You know, I believe that our belief in God and in a kind and loving God is huge. If you can believe that somebody's rooting for you to get better and to do better, that's a huge part of it. You know, when we don't believe that there's somebody to turn to, it can be very difficult.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:01:24] Or when maybe the. When maybe your perception of God is more rigid than that of a loving,

Jamie Bodily [01:01:30] unconditional God, that can be difficult then.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:01:34] Yeah. Right. So a lot of that has to do with our own perceptions and relationship with whatever it is we see as the divine. Well, this has been very helpful information. I really appreciate you coming on. Is there anything else that we've missed or that you'd like to touch on before, I guess, close up here?

Jamie Bodily [01:01:56] I do want to say that one way that women can help themselves is the research shows that having. And I'm going to sound like I'm promoting myself, but having a doula really reduces the risk of the post traumatic problems, the postpartum depression. Having someone who can guide you through this experience can be very, very helpful. And there have been, I think the last research study I read said There had been 14 studies with 5,000 women involved. Yeah, that's a huge benefit, you know.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:02:29] Right. Well, and like you said, the main role of the doula being that of educator and advocate. I think that those are two things that just can be so helpful and well in anything, but especially within a birthing process. So I think that's. Yeah. Can you tell us a little bit about what services you offer and if people are wanting to use you as a resource, how can they best do

Jamie Bodily [01:02:54] that I am a birth and postpartum doula. So I help moms through both phases. I do in home support services and I do help them through. I'm there for the labor and delivery, however long that takes. Basically I will do. I do talk to people on the Internet who want some extra guidance and help. You can find me@parents www.parentscount.com okay.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:03:24] And if they want to find a doula maybe more geographically close to them, are there any type of listservs or places where people can go that are recommended to find a certified doula?

Jamie Bodily [01:03:39] There's doulamatch.net and there is dona.org and I think2laboristolabor.com Let me check that for you so you'll get more prepared.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:03:56] Oh, that's okay. All of those sites will have kind of links to geographical resources, right to their certified doulas.

Jamie Bodily [01:04:03] So it is two labor calm.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:04:05] Okay. Well, Jamie, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing this information with us. I think that it's been very educational and hopefully helpful to our listeners.

Jamie Bodily [01:04:15] I hope so.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:04:16] Okay.

Jamie Bodily [01:04:17] Thank you for letting me come on.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:04:18] No problem. We'll see you soon.

Jamie Bodily [01:04:20] All right, thanks.

John Dehlin [01:04:23] Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. To comment on this episode or to discuss it with others, please check us out online@mormonstories.org if you want to find other friends, family members, former missionary companions, or ward members who approach Mormonism like you, consider adding me, John Dehlin, as your Facebook friend. This may seem like a strange idea, but many of my closest friends have discovered that they are not alone in their thoughts or feelings or family or even ward situation through discovering mutual faces. Finally, to keep Mormon Stories alive, please consider a donation@mormonstories.org music on this episode was provided by Clayton and Sky Pixton.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:05:19] Still all my song shall be Nearer I go to the nearer my go to thee.

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