Parenting columnist Andy Lawrence shares part 1 of her battle with mental health after childbirth

“I think we can call this what it is: postnatal depression.”

My therapist’s words seared through me and landed like a burning coal in my gut. My mind rapidly began pulling out all the justifications and defences even as my chest caved inwards at the truth in the words. I had spent months rallying against the diagnosis, determined to move through this difficult phase after the birth of my second child without that particular label. But there it was, burning through my defences, reducing them to ash and crumbling embers.

I left that session feeling broken and utterly defeated. Until that point, I had passionately refused to acknowledge that my mental health had dipped into that numb sea of depression, into a lack of emotion that scared me infinitely more than the outbursts of rage or grief.

In preparation for my second postpartum — in an attempt to rail against the strictures of modern motherhood — I tried to do everything right. I hired a postpartum doula, the same beautiful soul who supported me in my pregnancy. I stocked my freezer with nutritious meals, had hard conversations and held firm boundaries with family, and I invested a huge amount of energy into my personal growth. I made sure I had continuity of care through a private midwife and birthed at home surrounded by my trusted birth team and my little family. I gathered a group of incredible, like-minded pregnant women around me, vulnerably inviting them into a friendship circle for mutual support as we grew and birthed our babies together.

And it wasn’t enough.

The six weeks after my second daughter’s birth flew by in a daze and suddenly the visits from my midwife and my doula ceased. That paid support dried up just as my needs and the needs of my family became more complex. I was dealing with significant conflict in my extended family with childhood traumas rearing their heads asking to be looked at and dealt with. We were under significant financial strain. I was parenting and breastfeeding two children under two without any formal or informal childcare and from the day of my daughter’s birth it started raining… then didn’t stop.

That notorious rain-streak over the east coast of Australia in 2022 that didn’t stop for five months nearly killed me. I was isolated in the house with two babies — my friends all stuck in their own houses — hemmed in by illness and weather for half a year. This was compounded by enduring two pregnancies during Covid lockdowns, adding to the loneliness that became a motif through my transition to motherhood.

And I had the GALL to blame myself. To feel like I had somehow failed and was unworthy by succumbing to the diagnosis of postpartum depression. As if my knowledge of our unrealistic cultural standards for mothers would somehow protect me from living out the realities of it. As if the privilege that allowed me to access significant paid support would be enough to protect me against postpartum depression. I can only imagine how mothers with less privilege and more complex family and mental health considerations navigate this season. That musing only added to the weight of my perceived failing.

That’s what our cultural conditioning does to us. Mothers live under the cruel and constant scrutiny of the ‘good mum ideal.’ An ideal that has us believing that we must get it right. It has us believing that if we make mistakes or, god forbid, have a moment of apathy or despair toward our role, we are bad and unworthy and not ‘good mum’ material. So shame and guilt wraps us tighter in its grip. The handmaiden of the patriarchy, she keeps our attention focused on ourselves so we don’t peek toward the real root of our anxiety and depression, the real reason so many of us are unable to thrive.

I am a firm believer that perinatal mood disorders, rather than being a pathology or dysfunction are, in fact, a normal and healthy reaction to an unsustainable level of pressure facing mothers in our modern parenting culture. And admitting that I had postnatal depression felt like letting the patriarchy win.

Never before has so much been expected of mothers: not only must we undertake the bulk of the unpaid and unvalued care of society’s children, but the expectations on the standard of that care is higher than it’s ever been. From nutrition to behaviour management to sleep methods to beliefs on attachment theory to play styles and frequency to screentime usage: we need several degrees to function and still fall short in the parenting department. We operate under significant financial strain, under political and environmental existentialism, and we do so within a milieu so saturated with information that all deference to an internal compass of knowing is waived. Thus, the pressure to get it right permeates through us, manifesting as intense anxiety. We do all this alongside the expectation that we also have careers, which we must return to ASAP. The overt messaging being that we are only valuable to society within those careers, when we are deemed ‘productive.’

It’s no wonder we are so keen to pathologise ourselves. To take any label and plaster it on ourselves as a solution to describe and justify our apparent ineptitude. We do this even though that solution means abandoning ourselves. Because, it is so much easier to say that we are deficient, that we aren’t enough, or that we are too much, than it is to recognise that our culture has betrayed us, that it oppresses and disempowers us. The core human need to belong, even to a damaging collective culture subverts our self-preservation. We’d rather belong and be broken than be whole and alone. But I discovered something beautiful on this journey. I discovered that there is no such thing as being alone.

Mental health and emotional support

If you need to talk to someone immediately, the Mental Health Line is open 24/7 on 1800 011 511.

NSW Health recommends the following support services for parents:

• Beyond Blue offers emotional health and wellbeing resources for new parents and carers. You can also call their helpline on 1300 22 46 36 for 24-hour support.
• PANDA on 1300 726 306 if you have postpartum depression or are experiencing anxiety and depression during pregnancy
• ForWhen helpline on 1300 24 23 22 for free mental health support and help accessing local services for expectant and new parents
• COPE for emotional support before and after having a baby
• Mensline Australia on 1300 78 99 78 for 24-hour professional counselling and support for men for family and relationship issues
• Transcultural Mental Health Centre provides translated mental health resources in over 40 languages
• Miracle Babies Foundation or call 1300 622 243 for 24-hour support for families with premature and sick newborns.