Demystifying Scary Thoughts: Understanding the Postpartum Stress Experience with Karen Kleiman

On today's episode of the "Helping Families Be Happy" podcast, Christopher Robbins, co-founder of Familius Publishing, husband, father of nine, author, fisherman, backpacker, and aspirational musician based in the Central Valley of California is going to talk to Karen Kleiman. She is a well-known international maternal mental health expert with over 35 years of experience. As an advocate and author of several groundbreaking books on postpartum depression and anxiety, her work has been featured on the internet and within the mental health community.

Episode Highlights:

• 00:49: For decades in 1980, Karen founded the Postpartum Stress Center. A treatment and training facility for prenatal and postpartum depression and anxiety in 2022, she founded the The Karen Kleiman Training Center, LLC, which is dedicated to the advancement of clinical expertise and therapeutic strategies for the treatment of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders.
• 02:23: Christopher shares his story and how he learned from his wife that after the birth of one of his children, she went in a deep depression.
• 04:59: Karen met two women who told stories of not feeling good after they had had their baby some 50 years prior and not telling anybody and sitting alone in the darkness with their shame, pain, sadness, and grief.
• 06:17: Karen highlights how people are now talking about postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, and postpartum psychosis.
• 07:06: Karen shares how can we help our closest family members.
• 08:04: There are normal hormonal changes and sleep deprivation and all few other things that contribute to a mom's moodiness.
• 09:26: Karen talks about the speech bubble of new moms where she communicates, that she hasn't slept for two days. She hasn't had a shower.
• 11:10: Karen talks about the hashtag that they had started. It's hard to be vulnerable when you are a new mom. It's hard to say out loud when you are taking care of an infant.
• 13:00: What's guiding a new mom's responses are not just the relationship or the cultural expectations. What's guiding this is your own expectations and that often gets in the way no matter what you say she wants to be a good mom.
• 16:18: Karen talks about the disconnect when super wonderful, attentive husbands are not able to quite get there with their wives.
• 17:28: For a new mom. don't try to fix anything, just be there and by doing that it helps.
• 19:23: All new moms cry, but what we want to pay attention to, for example, is how much are you crying? How many times during the day are you crying?
• 20:11: If postpartum depression symptoms are interfering with your ability to get through the day, then you need more support, says Karen.  
• 22:49: It's ok to not feel good and be a great mom and good moms do have scary thoughts, and we aren't worried about the scary thoughts.

3 Key Highlights

1. Karen explains how it is that women are suffering, not discussing about it and pretending to be, ok?
2. Karen explains how the word postpartum depression means different things to different people, but it's a real thing.
3. Karen explains how the hardest thing about the feelings associated with postpartum depression is that they don't feel like symptoms.

Tweetable Quotes

• "I felt very sad to know that my wife had been struggling with depression after one of our children because I never knew." – Christopher
• "I hope we are creating safe places for women who learn to go to places where they will be heard and safe." - Karen
• "We don't want moms to have to diagnose themselves, but we do want to call attention to the fact that there are people who could help her figure out if what she's feeling is ok or not." - Karen
• "What postpartum women will tell you is it's just not that simple to say I need help." - Karen
• "I heard someone say to me once they say whenever you meet someone, imagine that it when meet people imagine that at least 50% of them have something really difficult going on their life is that and that estimate is probably really low." - Karen

 

Resources Mentioned

• Helping Families Be Happy Podcast Apple
• Karen: Website
• Podcast Editing