I've been searching for this all my life just my life I've been looking for a boy who can treat me right hello everyone welcome back to Shenanigans I hope everyone is having a great summer so far so if you're a fan of Vander pump rules or you know you listen to this podcast regularly you've likely heard me discuss my maternal mental health Journey with postpartum OC D and I have gotten so many people who have reached out to me over the last few years and I just wanted to get into that a little more so many people have said that either themselves their sister their friend have suffered similarly but also never heard of postpartum OCD so some have asked for some advice or resources and helping themselves or a loved one get help so this week I want to get into that a little deeper and I feel like when we as women come together you know we are stronger we need to support each other especially with things like this so in that Spirit I've asked my dear friend the beautiful Nia Sanchez to join the discussion today she is not only the epitome of beauty and Grace and I mean she literally has the titles to prove it Miss USA 14 Miss Universe first runner up and also she has her fifth degree blackbell in taek kond do which is so insanely impressive like I want to do one of those self-defense classes with you to come to a class it's so much fun literally but also you so bravely discussed your postpartum Journey on season 1 of the valley I'm sure we'll see more of that on season 2 so I just thought you being here to help co-host this episode with me would just add so much value to it and also here to help guide our conversation and provide clinical Insight on this important topic we are joined by nationally recognized OCD anxiety and parenting expert author of Hello Baby Goodbye intrusive thoughts like yes I need more of that I need that in my life too it's a compassionate guide for new moms dealing with anxiety OCD and and alarming thoughtss so please welcome clinical psychologist Dr Jennifer Yip how we doing thank you for having me I'm glad we're having this conversation it's such an important topic and so often mislook totally so we recently met at the international OCD Foundation conference in Orlando and we had already had this podcast planned but I was so excited that it worked out that we're doing it after we got a meet in person and and yeah Shea got the illumination award at the conference for really highlighting this to the public because as you said there's not much information on postpartum OCD and so many women gets misdiagnosed I didn't even know uh I had never heard of postpartum OCD until you were talking about it on the show I had no idea had no idea until my therapist said to me have you ever been diagnosed with OCD and I'm like you know what my whole life I've felt that I had OCD but it reached a new level after I had Summer and the intrusive thoughts got so much worse that I started looking for resources you know do I get on medication do I try EMDR therapy like what can I do to help this and I feel like I've tried it all I'm still on that Journey just figuring out what works best for me but I just thought it was a really important topic to discuss on this podcast I have a mainly women following who a lot of them have grown with us as they've watched the show they're parents now and also I know it's not just women who can struggle with postpartum you know I know it affects men as well which most people wouldn't think about so I just wanted to get into all things mental health yes yes and I feel like all the mamas need this resource because absolutely there's so much that we don't know so much to learn I feel like we can all have like really good take ways to be able to like apply in our life cuz it's just wild the postpartum period I've had two separate postpartum periods after my son was very much rainbows and sunshine and I was like living my best life and then after my girls I had I didn't expect to be hit with so much emotionally and the thoughts and everything because I had never experienced it the first time but it was just a whole different experience yeah so she had very close pregnancies a son and then identical twin girls right after that so now you have what three under three three under three now it was three under two for 6 months I'm trying to go for four under four we'll see if I get yeah go girl she's a superwoman I watch her Instagram stories and I see her with you know like her son in either the stroller or walking and then one twin here straps one on the back I'm like you do it all and she just always makes it look So Graceful but I know it's like there's stagram there's reality and but it is both with you I feel like you know you have a great life a great marriage you have three amazing kids but also there's so much that comes with that and it's not always easy it may look easy and beautiful always on Instagram but I know it's not always that way so I also just kind of wanted to highlight that you know everything you see online there's always so much more to the story everything you see on TV there's always more to the story oh yeah and I just thought it was important to get into all social media is a highlight real for sure like even yesterday I posted a lot of really pretty Instagram stories I cried on the way to church I was just like I'm too tired and I'm overwhelmed and I can't do it and then like okay you're out people are you know okay smile take a deep breath we're ready ready for the day even though I was crying five minutes before so it's just like social media is a highlight re and even when someone looks like they have it all together very likely they don't you know it's that's just real life no totally how long until camera were up for you so for Asher I we it was after the girls that we started filming so oh it was but after Asher my postpartum was great I got pregnant though 10 and a half months like almost 11 months after he was born so even for example right now I'm slowly weaning and I had never experienced the hormonal dip that comes after weaning because I was breastfeeding and then I got pregnant and we still kept breastfeeding and eventually weaned off but I had the pregnancy hormones so I'm even right now in a new stage where it's like what am I experiencing in my mind and you can probably tell me but like yeah so if we rewind though all the way back to after the girls it was five weeks right they were born they were so tiny they were so little cuz twins as well they're smaller when they're born so they were 5 lb 5 O 5 lb 6 o and they kind of dropped weight so they maybe maybe six lb when we started filming and I think it was the pressures of being a twin mom with a toddler at home the hormone surges which you can tell me more about tell us more about and then also the pressures of filming and like trying to like do I just trying to do it all and it wasn't possible and then I had intrusive thoughts and I had just like it was just like so much sadness it was hard to describe and I was really afraid that it was my new normal like I didn't I didn't see a light at the end of the tunnel I'm like do I have to learn to function like this forever am I just always going to be sad that's just how I truly felt and I was actually producer that was 8 months postpartum and she was like this is not forever you you will get out of it and I was like are you sure I don't think so like it was really really really hard I was just so sad and like on the verge of tears all the time as if anybody watched season one they thought someone would like say one thing and I would just be like instant tears so yeah yeah I think I think that's very normal for the postpartum period especially being a new mama for twins I mean I remember that period in my journey and that was insane because if you're breastfeeding you're not just breastfeeding one right and I remember calling my my my twin boys they're like milk addicts and I felt like I was just a milk factory all you're doing that was all I was doing was trying to pump enough milk to support their weight and there was no time for me no time to think no time to be no time to remember anything except for I need to feed these boys right because they were losing weight too because they're they were twins the thing about the postpartum period is that yes you have your hormonal fluctuations however if you think about it when we are new parents what is our number one responsibility baby our baby right it's to protect our baby and ensure that they are healthy and they're safe and you know unfortunately during this period is also the most vulnerable for the baby right and therefore our minds are naturally going to be thinking more about potential dangers that can harm them and if we're thinking those thoughts that are natural however then we are bothered by them or we feel bad about them we feel guilty for why am I having such terrible thoughts then that adds another layer of guilt and guilt is the one thing that we don't need to have more of and the one thing that actually drives more intrusive thoughts so if you think about it you have your hormonal fluctuations you have the added pressure of this newborn you have the intrusive thoughts that come from all of the uh vigilance that you need to have for the safety and protection of your newborn and then you have no time for yourself to rest to be to think to eat so that's like the perfect storm for or you know maternal unwellness is what I call it yeah absolutely and how long was it when you like days Days oh my goodness I can't imagine I had only been home from the hospital 3 days before we started filing I cannot yeah summer was too young to even be on camera for the first week because the baby has to be 15 days and she was only like 8 days old when we started filming I mean imagine that pressure right yeah so then when and now I'm like remembering this I was like ash I'm like oh no you did you had the twins I'm picturing us at Jackson Britney's house two little babies you had a toddler and I'm like I mean it was gnarly for me with one but for you to have three just a few weeks after I mean that is crazy it was a lot wild okay we're going to take a quick little break and then I literally I've so many questions so yeah we'll be right back if you're a new parent a bad day means you either ran out of coffee diapers patience or D all of the above stocking up on cold brew and deep breaths are all you but at least hello Bellow's got your baby's butt covered so this is something I just set up for my besti Janet because thankfully summer moon is now out of diapers but Janet's baby is still in them for quite some time hello bello believes All Families deserve premium affordable baby products with their Ultra convenient diaper bundle subscription service that includes seven packs of diapers and four packs of plant-based wipes you'll never run out of supplies and better 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triplets are having pregnancies within a certain window of time does that increase someone's chances of developing maternal mental health struggles unfortunately there's no research to support that of course because there actually isn't enough attention on this topic which is why I'm so happy that we're doing this because the more we bring light to this area the more it will Garner interest so that researchers will actually do more um studies around this could that be possible you know sure it could be there could be there's certainly a correlation but we don't really know like what direction is it because of the hormonal fluctuations is it because the more um children you have consecutively without break in between the more your body just doesn't get back to Baseline and therefore the more you're just used to all of the extra oxytocin that's in your body that produces more of that Feelgood you know emotions and the connection with baby so unfortunately we don't have enough information on that and we need to too it's wild that in today's day and age we don't have enough research and like how things are changing even from when I had Asher to when I had the girls with mastitis which I developed both times a few times when I had Asher they said oh do lots of heat rub like the the lumps and everything and after the girl they said no it's inflammation we need to do you need to do ice packs and don't like do too much pressure and I'm like how in this day and age are we like oh we just discovered something new about something that women have been experiencing for all time so it's like how do we not have that information yes well I mean here's the thing we we keep using the word maternal Wellness if you think about it how much attention is actually paid on us mothers right right even during prenatal visits why did you have to go to prenatal visits not because the attention is focused on you and your wellbeing the attention is focused on the growing fetus in your belly and then everything that you're told during that period wasn't are you well are you taking care of yourself no it's what you're doing wrong what you can do better to make sure that your baby comes out healthy and of course our own attention is focused on the baby as well so therefore there really isn't much attention paid on us and then once the baby is born who asks how we're doing you get one checkup after six weeks and that's it six weeks and literally I've talked about this on the podcast before you know you fill out a questionnaire and I even said this in my speech at the OCD conference where you get asked these questions you know you check a box yes no and there were so many questions I lied about because I knew it was not postpartum depression I just knew it was something different so I lied on the questionnaire there was no followup there was nothing had I not opened up to my therapist about what was going on inside my head finally almost a year here postpartum I just would have thought there was something wrong with me I didn't know what it was and like that's why I feel like so many women are afraid to speak out because absolutely you don't want people to think that that's what you actually want to do to your baby it's just there's so much surrounding that and and you know here's the sad part is that not only is there a misconception overall there's even a misconception and often times misdiagnosis MH in the medical world and the mental health world so how many women have expressed their concerns about their thoughts and then get hospitalized yeah right 5150 or they they're concerned because of the negative stigma or the horrific nature of their thoughts that their babies will be taken from them can you just for me can you share exactly like what to look out for or like what ad diagnosis is of like would you say postp OCD I don't want to get because I feel like maybe people listening might have an idea from listening to the podcast but I don't even know like exactly if I had a friend experienc something like what do you look for whether you're a partner or a friend yeah between postpartum depression postpartum OCD MH yeah and baby blues you know I feel like there's so many where it's like oh it's just baby boo and it's like no it's postpartum depression no actually it's not that it's postpartum OCD OCD or baby blues because I like I don't want to give it Powers I don't want to say I'm depressed so it's just baby blues but like it wasn't going away at like at all I think that's the difference between I mean that's the biggest difference is how much does it interfere with your functioning yeah if you're still functioning but you know the stress and the lack of sleep and all that is interfering with your mood and you're you know sometimes feeling like you're not yourself okay that's that's naturally the baby blues however if you're afraid of connecting with baby or you don't want to connect with baby that's something different so to to be more specific postpartum OCD is when you have intrusive thoughts that you do not want to have and that's a huge factor that a lot of people don't understand you get horrific images about perhaps baby drowning baby dying off SIDS baby choking you making a mistake somehow and causing harm to baby or it could even have some like forbidden sexual thoughts so oh my gosh I saw baby's genitalia now I'm thinking about it oh my goodness I must be a pedophile oh my goodness how terrible of me to have these thoughts these are thoughts that a person with postpartum OCD does not want to have it's very different than a person with postpartum psychosis where these thoughts sit aligns with my value and the person suffering from postpartum psychosis cannot tell the difference whether this thought is really a fabrication of my imagination or is it real so there's a huge difference and a person suffering from postpartum OCD wouldn't want these thoughts and therefore they generate a lot of anxiety MH and then they want to do something about it so we engage in compulsive behaviors whether it's checking and cleaning or it could even involve like magical Behavior so like I remember if when I was going through my postpartum OCD every night I would have to go through my memory bank and I would have to make sure that every single thought I had was equal between the two boys oh I understand that and and and because my fear was that one day if I treated them differently than somehow I would cause them emotional damage because I favored one more than the other so that was my postpartum Ting now that's not very common right that's not common UCD compulsions these are like the magical uh compulsions that we can engage in in order to get relief to feel better to make sure that our intrusive thoughts the fear that we have won't come true now postart psychosis you don't have the compulsions you don't have the I need to undo this fear in order for something to to prevent something bad from happening the person with postpartum psychosis actually believe in the thoughts yeah my I have a family member that had postpartum psychosis and it was a really really hard time for our family trying to support her and then turned into bipolar and it was like a whole thing with medication and um it was probably like a year but I imagine it was maybe even a combination of things I remember moments where she you know she was on so much medication so she was very zoned out and I remember feeding her B her feeding her baby with a bottle but not looking at the baby you know not making that connection just like staring off into the distance so she was really and I feel like no I don't know anyone that talks about postp psychosis because maybe it's more rare but that's just it so would the like the kind of Step Up be like baby blues postpartum dep depression OCD postpartum psychosis not necessarily a lot of women with postpartum ocity experien depression so you might have experienced it Sheena I know I definitely experienced it however you experience it as a secondary right because if I'm having these terrible thoughts and I'm judging myself because of these terrible thoughts then naturally I'm going to be depressed and I'm going to feel terrible about who I am as a mother and what kind of person would I be why would I have these children you know you'll you'll go down that slippery slope into Never Never Land with all of the what if thoughts and so so for postpartum OCD the depression is usually secondary now there is also postpartum anxiety which you know postpartum anxiety is kind it's not as intense as postpartum OCD however you're constantly judging yourself about how you're doing as a mother whether you're feeding the right amount whether you're bathing them properly whether you're diapering them properly so it's almost like you're constantly giving yourself a performance review to see how well you're doing as a mother um so postpartum anxiety there's a lot of worries and ruminations and you know I call it a rumin not in my book where you're constantly just ruminating about all of the possible things that you might not be doing as a mother to be the best mother you can be now do you think people who suffer from anxiety or OCD or depression before they even get pregnant do you think that factors into it you know just being that much stronger after you have the baby yeah absolutely it's it's definitely a vulnerable period if you you have experienced post if you've experienced any mental health conditions pre- pregancy it's really important to be more cautious and more um Vigilant about it during your pregnancy period and perhaps getting that extra skill set getting that extra tool so that you learn to manage it when the experiences when the feelings and the thoughts occurs my doctor told me to have like a therapist ready because she was like just be prepared have someone that you already have a relationship with because that will be like an extra tool in your tool Bel abut just in case yeah I had a friend of mine who got depression while she was pregnant we talk about that too yeah she was like six months pregnant and all of a sudden she was like I feel like I need to go on medication I hope this doesn't happen you know after I have the baby and it was like it was really scary for her of course of course yeah so what would you say are some of the best treatments or medications for someone who's experiencing that during pregnancy and postpartum that's something I experienced and I never ever ever heard of women experiencing depression during pregnancy never had I ever heard of it I did not know it was a thing and I fulled tears for no reason Daniel would be like what's wrong and I was like nothing and just like but I'm so sad and I can't get the sadness out of me and I'm such like a positive thinker and like I just if I can just think positively enough maybe it will go away and there was nothing I could do and it was like 3 months and it was so overwhelming and I felt so alone because I had never in my life heard anyone talk about depression while being pregnant and then I had the intrusive thoughts of like is my sadness going to affect my baby will my baby be sad because I'm I can't get rid of the sadness and then like my baby was crying a lot when he was first born I like was it my fault because I was you see how much pressure we put on ourselves but why do we put this pressure on ourselves we come on we have if you think about it 10 years ago even 10 years ago we would all like congratulate each other for being super mom for being a superwoman right and so Society has this expectation of women to do it all to be everywhere to be everything and because Society has this expectation of us we put this expectation on ourselves we assume these resp responsibilities and then we blame ourselves when we feel like we failed just because we I don't know gave gave gave the baby not enough milk I don't know whatever right for the smallest things we will blame ourselves we will add guilt onto our plate and I don't know any men sorry dad's out there I don't know any men who will be able to go through the experiences and the pressures that we have on ourselves MH and you know the the pregnancy period the prenatal period is you know especially the first trimester is the most important period And if you think about it how much support do we give each other when things don't go well are we even supposed to talk about it how many I mean I I went through a miscarriage during the uh first trimester but you're not even supposed to disclose anything you're not supposed to talk about your your miscarriage you're not supposed to talk about if something terrible is happening you're not even supposed to disclose your pregnant during the first trimester why why why do we do that because then if the worst happens then you have resources you have support you have help but it's like there's this stigma around it's like you can't talk about it before 12 13 14 weeks and why do we do that why do we add that pressure onto ourselves so that we can appear perfect we're not perfect we're human we're going to go through these experiences they are not all going to be beautiful pregnancy might not feel Blissful and it's okay and we should and I hate using the word should except this is a big should here we should be able to talk about these things without feeling terrible about ourselves because the support system is the most important barrier to mental illness yeah absolutely we're going to take another quick little break and be right back so yall have been hearing me talk about how much I'm loving the clean and Affordable skinc Care from dime Beauty and it is finally here it happens once a year the dime Beauty anniversary sale is on with 25% off sitewide their work system is amazing the tinted glow wonders screen I'm obsessed with the serums I mean I could go on and on but this I'm telling you is a great time to 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like this I need this I feel like we all need this book even you know this book is written for Mom's overall um it was inspired by my own postpartum journey and and here's the thing when before I had children before I got pregnant I was already working with mothers going through postpartum OCD and anxiety and perinatal U mental health except I never believe that I would suffer it because I had OCD ever since I was a little girl and I thought I managed it and now I'm an expert and it's not going to face me and you know what here's how how daunting OCD can be and how daunting the postpartum period can be is that because you don't have your mental you know bandwidth you you you kind of just get lost during that period so while I was crying myself to sleep at night and every little thing like you said I was tearful my husband was I always had to tell him you can't put that on TV you can't put you know whatever anything having to do with children being harmed oh my goodness I it would throw me into a spiral yeah and I didn't realize how devastating this period was for women in general so this book was inspired by that and as I was writing you know yes new mothers need the help and the resources however I've been a mother for almost eight years now I feel like I still need to read some of my own advice you know just just this morning getting my boys to school I'm like ah I can't do this anymore because because of the pressure having to get them ready having to get them to school then all the you know shenanigans that happens in the morning right and it was just all too much and you know in my book I talk about how to deal with interest of thoughts how to do less with the perfectionism and the mom guilt that we experience I talk about how we have our perfect household disease which we all have because we all want perf my house is a mess even with cameras around I'm like welcome like I can't point you have to give up that's your reality I literally cannot I just three children throwing toys everywhere all day I clean up when they nap and I clean up when they're in bed I can't clean up all but you know what I'm very proud of you for that because I know we're similar in that way where we do always want to paint the pretty picture and have everything look perfect and it's like sometimes that's just not realistic you just got to say good for you and but I do I want my house to be clean now I'm just like sometimes you just got to you know whatever and I'm trying to let a little more loose with my daughter and even just her getting dirty like I had the teachers at her school pull me aside the other day and say she was afraid to go in the sandbox cuz she had white shoes on that day and she didn't want to get them dirty because Mommy tells her not to like get her socks dirty and I'm like well yes I do tell her she doesn't need to play outside in her white socks take your socks off put your Crocs on you know so I've now had to tell her honey it's it's okay you know you can get dirty and it's like that's me having to let go of a little control if she's painting at school you know she's not going to have her little smok on she's going yeah not the Spock the SM but um it's like i' I've had to let go of that control a little bit I'm like you know what it's okay she gets dirty it's okay it's okay it's okay you kind of have to because the more you try to Main main that facade the more pressure you're adding onto yourself and then of course it's not always going to be this way and then you're right you're I can't I can't and then you get into a burnout phase and that burnout period is terrible to feel because that's when Mom rage occurs yeah that's when you're te all the times that's when you don't have the the emotional bandwidth emotional resources for your family and if you're not well your family's not well because the truth is even if you have a partner who is equally involved they're not going to care as much as we are and and you know that's also because we've been brought up to care about our family and our home if you even look at the research that's been done on that do you know that boys and girls even if they live in the same household with the same rules with the same chores girls are usually compensated Less in allowances than boys no way yes way wow no goodness and not and on top of this when boys don't complete their chores they're more overlooked than girls girls get reprimanded more for not completing their chores where boys are like it's okay you can do it later you're a boy so so here's the what I mean you've got girls and boys so so you can decide you know how how you're going to pay attention to that but when this research is shown to parents there most parents aren't even aware of this I imagine you know so it's just like innate reactions that we have toward how we raise girls and how we we raise boys I'm very conscious of that and I feel like as like a twin parent too like I definitely had the like my I feel like my heart would be breaking when I would look at the girls and I would look at one and be like talking to her and then the other one would look at me and then but then I had to break cont I contact with one baby to look at the other baby and I'm like I'm a terrible I can't give them like and then you have Asher in the background like Mom exactly oh my gosh it's so much well I know you and I are both Sheen and I are both like really big big Advocates of like moms taking care of themselves so that we can be a good mom so like what is your I like if you could tell a mama that's listening that's maybe having a hard time like what can moms do to like really take care of themelves like Little Things big things and to help the mom G yes so well first of all let's get rid of the term self-care okay okay because that's been overused and who's listening yeah let's get some new words out there so so here's the thing when you think about self-care sounds optional self-care I'm caring about myself more than my my family luxury right it's a luxury it sounds like a privilege and and then that adds guilt because you feel like you're taking time out for yourself instead of giving more time to your family however what if I say what you have to focus on is self-maintenance a difference it's it's a difference right so like your vehicle do you take it in to you know change the oil do you fill it up with gas every week yes you do you might even take it for a car wash or or vacuuming all the sand from the car right inside so these are the maintenance that you have to uh you have to take care of for your car because if you don't what happens it's going to break down ain't going work yeah yes well how are you different yeah so you have to take that time to maintain your Wellness whether it's making sure that you're you're even taking five minutes a day just to be just to reflect just to breathe that those five minutes might be the best five minutes of your day however you need it so replacing self-care with self-maintenance is super important number two boundaries how many of us realize that boundaries doesn't just consist of physical boundaries we also have mental boundaries and we have emot boundaries MH and unfortunately still today there are many opinions out there about what you should and shouldn't do whether you're breastfeeding or are so ready to share right I ask for your opinion you want to tell me yes so with all of those unwelcomed opinions you have to establish your boundaries your mental your emotional boundaries from them and also when we talk about mental emotional boundaries we have to establish mental emotional boundaries with ourselves so what does that mean when we're feeling guilt when we feel like we're not doing enough when we feel like we're not perfect enough we have to have boundaries with well why do we feel that way why is this important you have to reflect and take time to really delve into those those deep seated insecurities that we have as women and if if it's okay to give them another you know dinner of McDonald's oh well if it means that I have more emotional bandwidth to be with my children rather than making a full you know cooked meal then that's what you do you have to prioritize what's important to you and if connecting with your children is your number one priority then that's the boundary that you have to establish you know not not making sure you're house is clean because I don't think your children cares whether your house is fully clean it's so important and just like I'm even thinking about like last night I did like so much meal prep for the kids like egg bites and made waffles and like all these things making them from scratch and then I picked up the whole house to like have a good Monday but then I didn't get enough sleep so then I'm not taking care of myself because I want to set everything up for the kids like I have to like I've really been trying to like set a hard like stop cleaning by 10 or like something all it's midnight and I know I have to be up at whenever the kids W up at 536 and it's just yeah you're giving me some good advice right now boundaries like prior priorities all of that good boundaries is something I'm trying to be better about too I feel like I struggle in that department and also going back to the opinions of everyone I wanted to ask you how long technically is the postpartum period because I had opened up about everything I was experiencing on season 9 of Vander pump rules none of that was really shown and then a year later we started talking about my OCD and that's been now a part of my story the last couple years but I've had so many people be like oh your daughter's two if she's two and a half you should be over that by now oh postpartum this and I'm like well I did talk about it the first year you just didn't see a lot of it unless you listen to my podcast you wouldn't know what I was with so how long technically is the postpartum period And do you think it can ever fully go away or just be maintained yeah well first of all those comments are terrible because again they're your business and you know you're allowed to disclose whenever you feel like you you're ready to disclose and just because a woman discloses later on doesn't necessarily mean that she isn't experiencing these the suffering during the that time so the postpartum period technically is uh the days after birth till a year after birth though we all know just because that is technically the postpartum period if you're not taking care of your mental health it will spiral and it will worsen over time because here's the thing and especially with um anxiety and OCD the evidence-based treatment for it is exposure therapy yep okay it's not avoidance therapy no it's exposure therapy and what exposure therapy basically means is that I am going to confront my fears in a contained environment in a safe environment at the pace that I'm ready to go however when you are exposing yourself to your fears there's two things that you tackle that you gain from it the first is that you gain the feedback that I actually can handle this situation it's it's it's not you know I I have the resources I have the confidence so you're building more resilience and tolerance for this discomfort the second benefit that you get from exposure therapy is that you get the corrective feedback that this terrible consequence might not be as terrible as you imagin it to be and the problem with avoidance is that whenever you avoid you never get that corrective feedback in fact not only are you not getting the corrective feedback you actually empower the thoughts even more you give them more uh more magnified significance than what they really deserve and therefore they're going to be even scarier so if you have a fear of is this going to last forever and you avoid confronting that then yes I have so many fears yes and I'm like oh my gosh we can talk same thing you know whatever are the in of thoughts that you had the fears that you had the more you avoid them because yes they're daunting however the more we avoid them the the more power they get the less we feel about ourselves the less resilient we we feel and that's what turns it into a spiral so you have to face it you just carefully well into it I mean I had to the exposure therapy I did I had to do on myself were no different than any of the ones that I would subscribe or or you know uh prescribe to my patient which is you have to think of the worst and for me the worst was me doing something where I'm favoring one more than the other and then the other dies of some horrific death so I had to write narratives write scripts about the harm that I caused to my boys and them dying one of them dying of this horrific death and then the other one hating me forever because I caused this right that's what we all fear and then I had to put it on an audio and I looped it and I had to listen to it again and again and again and again until I was able to tolerate it wow and a lot of people people think exposure therapy is Harsh or it's causing trauma and let me just explain let let me clarify this because this is important you're not generating any new material in your brain than what you're already thinking right I'm not saying I want you to purposely make up this new thought in your exposure therapy no I'm asking you to write out exactly what you're already thinking what you're already fearing Ing and then replay those images or replay the audio again and again and again until you grow tolerance to it the other misconception is that you have to do exposure therapy to the degree where you're happy with it or you're okay with it and that's not that's not the point I will never be happy with my children dying I will never be okay with me favoring one boy over the other where I'm to be blam however I do exposure therapy because I am more resilient for it I am more tolerant of the intrusive thoughts that I have because of it not because I enjoy the process not because I agree with the thoughts but because now I can deal with it so the example that I often give to my patients and when I speak about this is if I asked you don't think of the yellow duck don't think of the yellow dog don't think of the yellow dog what are you doing thinking of a yellow dog you're thinking of the yellow dog but I asked you not to think of the yellow dog right and that's what happens when we tell ourselves don't think of this don't think of that we're thinking of it spirals exactly however what if I say I want you both to do nothing except think of the yellow duck yellow duck yellow duck yellow duck yellow duck yellow duck yellow dog yellow dog yellow dog my voice is probably sounding boring now right because you just get so used to the yellow dug that it's becomes boring and that is the point of exposure therapy and that is the evidencebased treatment for OCD as well as anxiety disorders I want to get into a little more about that and then ask you about medication we're just going to take one last quick little break this episode of shenanigans is also brought to you by better help because that is what all of us need we need something better we need some help with that mental health therapy y'all I cannot express how important it is it has been lifechanging for myself for Brock we recently started couples therapy to just kind of figure out you know our parenting differences and better ways to communicate with each other we've both been in individual therapy and Brock started with better help when I started talking about it on this podcast he's like wait wa wait I want to to try that you're in therapy I want to be in therapy too and now we're in therapy together so if you're thinking of starting therapy give better help a try it's entirely online designed to be convenient flexible and suited to your schedule you just fill out a brief questionnaire and then you get matched with the licensed therapist and here's a great thing you can switch therapists at any time for no additional charge I feel like therapy is so helpful for learning just like positive coping skills how to set boundaries has been a big one for me and it empowers you to be the best version of yourself it isn't just for those who've experienced major trauma never skip therapy day with betterhelp visit betterhelp.com goodgold today to get 10% off your first month that's betterhelp hp.com goodgold okay so we were talking about exposure therapy which I have done firsthand one of my biggest fears was doing anything alone with my daughter mhm and so then I started doing so many things alone with her I would take her to the mall I would take her to Target I took her to freaking Disneyland which I know you've done but I'm like for me that was like huge and now it's like I'm upset right now but I'm like I'm so proud of myself yes I'm not as afraid when I do things by myself with her anymore but it's like I still have the intrusive thoughts yes and I go back and forth with do I want to be on medication should I not should I just keep trying to be strong and so I wanted to ask you are you on medication right now and what do you recommend like when do you think like yeah maybe you should yeah I'm not on medication but I just also want to say I've seen you do that and it's like so beautiful to see you push through your fears and I even remember those like little music classes we did in Venice Beach a little bit and I remember you telling me you were so afraid to take her to a class by yourself and how big it was for you and I didn't realize what you were experiencing at the time but now like learning you know getting to know you more and all that is just like such a big thing and I I think it's so inspiring for other women to know like you can do it even though it's hard and it's scary and you have the thoughts like you're living proof that you can do it I love that I never got on medication I very much unfortunately maybe like a grit your teeth and push through it kind of thing person I did get a therapist and all of that which really helped but it was like it was it eventually faded away yeah and it you know it took a few months but I was able to like move past that like depression season but what is the medication kind of well I mean I think there it's it's really a personal choice and it really depends on how much you're functioning if you're functioning and you can push through with exposure therapy exposure therapy is actually the first line treatment yeah for anxiety and and OCD so if you can find a therapist who can help you go through the nuts and bolt of it however then also it's not just about the surface fear we have the underlying core fears that we also have to tackle and unfortunately not many therapists are are knowledgeable enough to know to you have to also go down to the underlying layers of the fear my therapist wants to do I'm like I don't want to go all the way back to childhood leave me alone you don't have to go back to your childhood it's not about going back to your child AR for me it it's it's it's more of like okay if you if all of your fears came true MH what would be so terrible about that and then whatever that is is there something that's worse than that and then whatever that is you keep going as far down as possible to the deepest darkest layer of your fears and then that's what you do the exposures to it's to those deepest darkest layers and that is the hardest part of exposure therapy all of the all of the things that you do initially like you know for me it was not putting bottles into the sanitizing you know that that Gadget thing that threw all the bottles in it was just letting them air dry and and then not checking on my boys when I checked on my boys I had to actually put my hands on their chest like just seeing their chest rise and fall wasn't enough I actually had to feel it um it was not doing that it was not even going in and checking on them just trusting that they're still alive because I see it in the in the baby camera you know and then eventually was like not even using the baby camera because women you know I don't know if I'll ever get women a decade ago she'll be 17 and still have a monitor in her well so it's it's those are the baby steps that we take initially however that's really still The Superficial layer yeah what's underneath all that fear like if our if some terrible consequence happened to our children what would that mean about us that is what we have to do to exposure therapy too and of course if we can't do invivo exposure which is like you said you know taking her to Disneyland and and taking her breath we off her and not monitoring her breath all night long yeah so so that's Vivo however not everything is in Vivo so like for me I mean I couldn't do exposures to actually harming one child so that we have to do that through scripts and audio Loops um and then if you're someone who you can't tolerate the exposures then there is medications um we don't have research that shows that medications are going to cause harm uh during the prenatal period mhm um so that is a a possibility however you know it's important to consult with your uh psychiatrists to to ensure that that is your best option yeah but if you can do exposure therapy if you think about it doing exposure therapy and changing the way that you think so even for depression the evidence-based treatment is cognitive behavior therapy um and that is cognitive behavior therapy and exposure therapy is a type is a subset of cognitive behavior therapy however CBT basically means we're going to teach you the flaws in your thinking because we all have flaws in our thinking whether we're aware of it or not so it's to identify the flaws in your thinking so that you're able to recognize it and adjust your thoughts more accurately and then the B the behavior part is teaching you ways to engage with your environment with your world and help healthier ways rather than maladaptive ways so for those of us with OCD and anxiety we engage with our world by avoidance That's not healthy that's actually going to make it worse we give Credence to our intrusive thoughts which empowers the thoughts even more and actually makes the OCD cycle go even faster so like I'm getting anxiety thinking about it because then I'm thinking about my thoughts that like H I have so many yeah thoughts that feel crippling and things that we don't do and I like just because I want to be safer and I feel like it's not safe so we can't do it so like only one child at a time we have three we have three kids and two adults so it's not like we just my mind spirals sometimes right right right so from what you're what you're saying you know sounds like that you do worry a lot about their safety and and their well-being which most parents do as well the question is how much of your time is spent on on it you know so so it's natural for all parents to be worried about their children however if it impedes on your ability to parent effectively or impedes on the child's functioning because you're constantly ruminating over what might go wrong then that's going to interfere with your functioning and then that's when you get diagnosed with an anxiety disorder so what you could be experienced might be postpartum anxiety and depression is naturally the secondary or it could be a combination of the two which a lot of you know new parents experience I have a question going all the way back to like the postpartum period because to me it's mindblowing that like medically it's diagnosed or like said that it's just the first year because from my understanding and I haven't like done the research but from like what I've seen like even as women our bodies if we've carried a baby like hormone Al and like all like the nutrients that are in our bodies don't fully return back to Baseline after one year so we still are sometimes it doesn't ever return to B exactly so like we're still experiencing depletion like maybe we're breastfeeding up to two years I wonder if like maybe that window to one year might change because even as between when I fed ashro to now when I'm feeding the girls apparently the American Board of whoever somebody said that you should breastfeed your up until one year if you choose to do that and then now they say oh there's benefits to breastfeeding your baby up to 2 years and I'm like how did what what in the world how are these things just changing now if this is like common knowledge stuff like why wouldn't it have changed like 50 years ago like there there wasn't a wild so I I think postart period is longer than a year even though the medical community doesn't like say that know like our our hormones our nutrients our minerals like our body's not back to normal after a year especially if we're breastfeeding all of that yes you know yes I agree yeah but let's let's think about this who do you think do most of these research right men okay they don't know they've never experienced and wait wait okay speaking of men I have read some things about men experiencing postpartum depression so I did want postpartum depression postpartum OCD absolutely yes hormones play a part in what we experience however if you think about it again the weight of the responsibility falls on on your partner's shoulder as well so if you happen to be a father a new father and you already have uh vulnerability for depression or OCD or anxiety then of course this is a critical period for you as well and it's easy for you to slip back into that OCD depression anxiety state of mind so yes it can happen to both women and men which is why we know postpartum mental illness isn't just hormones it's that sense of over responsibility that's natural for all women that's kind of what I wanted to ask too is if you know you get a surrogate can you still experience those same postpartum things that are obviously not hormone based because if we do have another child that's our only option other than adoption so I'm like how is that going to be for me when I've already connected with a baby inside of me I've also lost a baby but now I'm going to put the baby inside someone else and like I still think I'm going to have postpartum OCD and anxiety and who knows what else so that's not hormonal no it's not and and then that is a very real possibility because you care so let me let me just yeah let me just say one thing a lot of women who suffer from postpartum OC the anxiety feel like they must be bad mothers and the truth is you suffer because you care OCD tackles whatever it is that you care about and of course during this postpartum period or even perinatal period the most important thing that you care about is your newborn or your fetus right your baby so if that's what you care most about then boom OCD is going to tackle on that and that's going to be true whether you have a surrogate or you choose to carry the baby yourself yeah I feel like it might even be worse with a surrogate because I'm going to be it's not your body yes you are right put that in someone else and just trust that in N9 10 months from now like everything's going to be okay right you like I don't know I'm not there mentally we're meeting with the fertility specialist at the end of this month to fertilize the eggs that I froze see if any of those can you know be a viable embryo if not we'll go through another round of freezing eggs making embryos but I'm like that's just like one step like mentally I am so not there to be like oh okay we have embryos let's let's get a surrogate I'm like I still need to figure out if you're ready I can do that if I'm a one and done I'm very happy with my life right now maybe we adopt maybe we adopt an older kid maybe we don't get a newborn like there's so many things and it's like people constantly are asking when are you having another when are you having another when it's like I've just started lying and I'm like soon we're gonna we're gonna start trying soon because then they stop asking if I say I'm not and then I have to go into oh Heth syndrome and traumatic labor and just like so many things that I've learned either just be like nope done or yeah we're going to try soon yeah like because everyone has an opinion on your body and your life and that blows my mind like if I have friends that say they don't want kids I'm like oh good yeah love your life you live your life I don't have to tell you how I think you should live your life I don't know why it's not for everyone you should do that agreed agreed so yeah you have to be ready for it mentally emotionally and that means going through the process and perhaps if that's the route that you take even going through the process of okay if you do choose to have a surrogate what would be like your worst fear about it what would be the worst thing to happen from it and then to prepare yourself by writing these script you know one thing that I tell a lot of um moms to do is what I call the 15-minute worry time because we naturally worry right you give yourself a period of time to worry yes yes so like for 15 minutes once or twice a day whenever you find time is you you take a pen or pencil and piece of paper not typing MH and you actually write and you're writing your worries not ruminating writing your worri so I'm worried about my children's health period I'm worried that if they don't get the nutritional value then they won't be their best self period so you know if you hear it's it's like it's like a it's not a runaway train where if you're ruminating it's a runaway train yeah whereas if you're writing these worry statements it's like a train that stops at every station and if you're able to um write these worries out I guarantee you you're going to run out of worries before that 15 minute is up and if that 15 minute is up and you're out of worries what you have to do is keep writing until that 15 minute is up and then how how is this helpful well number one you're externalizing your worries you're not keeping it in here it's actually on paper if you're able to see what your worries are you're more able to work with the worries rather than keeping it in your head and ruminating and you're setting aside specific times to do your worry cuz if you're going to worry anyways why not take control over it by deciding when you're going to do it rather than letting it spontaneously occur um like an ivy drip of worries into your veins oh my gosh I love this I'm going to go home and write down all my worries yeah I have a lot and I think it would actually help to get it out and like list them because it just it is kind of like an ivy drip and it's just kind of here and there and then like I never actually fully think through it because again like positive thought girl like I just like try to move yeah but then it still just comes into my head and I I think if I just wrote them all out it would be like what is it cathar cathartic theraputic cathartic both write them all down and then we compare yes yeah probably have a lot of similar ones I literally even when my girls started eating foods like I was so chill with Asher I'm like eat whatever you're good you're a kid you know what you're doing terrified of like everything had to make everything the that perfect texture and like Cho the right way and like still was scared and it was like why I was good with the first one why am I terrified now yeah I felt like that's where my intrusive thoughts started was right around 6 months I mean I was terrified of dropping her her I had a gnarly dream when I was pregnant that her head fell off and I picked it up and put it back on and it was fine that was the first like real intrusive thought I had and I was sleeping I woke up and I was like oh my God so in that time you know while they can't hold up their own head I was terrified when she started eating I was like oh my God she's going to and then it was like that's when I finally opened up to my therapist between 6 months and a year I'm like I'm afraid of her choking but then at about a year it was like okay well now I'm afraid of her falling down the stairs now I'm afraid of this and so many it just spiral yes and and that's exactly as I was saying if you don't attend to your thoughts if you avoid it then they're just going to keep spiraling over time do PE have you ever talked to anybody about having intrusive dreams because my poor husband it is like the middle of the night 2: a.m. whatever who knows what time and I'm dead asleep and then I have like a like very quick like the baby's falling off the bed or something even though there's no baby in our room they sleep in their own cribs and I jump up and I grab him like the baby and then he's like what is happening this literally happens at least two times a week husband he's like you woke me up at 3:00 a.m. and I couldn't go back to bed it do you ever talk to anybody about that it happened to me often it's terrible I mean we dream about things that we worry about you know so I wonder if you work on those worry times like you did it twice a day you know for a week are you going to start seeing less of those dreams hopefully cuz my poor husband literally last night he was like you woke me up at 3:30 because I I this one it was it's always something new I think some I had a dream that like someone had the baby and like it was it was a stranger and I like was and I just like get the maybe and like I thought I had like a vision that someone in their our room like terrifying things but it comes out of nowhere I'm dreaming about like rainbows and sunshine and then that just like pops up unicorn kidnapping boom boom yeah I wonder you know test it out you know if you're doing the worry time because you're acknowledging the worries already they're already on paper then perhaps you won't need to dream about it you know because When We're Dreaming we're processing our thoughts we're finding Solutions to our problems so if this is a problem your worries are technically are madeup problems and if you're writing them out you're externalizing them you're giving them you know uh a place to work with space then perhaps you won't have those dreams that would be nice we'll see one thing that I do want to add is I hear you guys you know you're talking about having your positive thoughts and I think having positive energy is very very important important however what I do want to make a differentiation is there's a difference between just positive thinking versus optimistic thinking when we and you know this came from a lot of positive psychology you know two decades ago um with affirmations you know you wake up in the morning you tell yourself oh it's going to be a beautiful day everything will be wonderful blah blah blah blah however if you're only thinking in these positive ways and then something terrible happens you haven't really worked out well how am I going to deal with this not so positive thing right and then what happens is then it question makes you question well what happened why am I having you know not a great day didn't I put out positive energy out there and this isn't you know the this positive thing isn't happening so what I teach my patients to do instead is to think optimistically which is I have no idea what's going to happen today what I do know is that whatever comes my way I have the tools and the problem solving skills to deal with whatever lemon gets thrown at me you know so that's kind of like a shift in thinking where it's not just you know positive however it's I I can handle it whatever that is yeah I feel like I'm trying to do that a lot when she's swimming and we have her in swimming lessons but it's still like one of my biggest fears is drowning and you know you've heard about kids they fall in the pool they drown like that's a real thing it's it's terrifying and then I've heard about dry drowning and I'm like oh great she swallowed a little bit of water is she going to die tomorrow like so many things but like yesterday like we're filming and she's in the pool and Brock's waiting to get in and so like my feet are right there but I'm not in the pool with her she's like watch me I'm like and I was just like hold on hold on like wait until D but I'm like you're fine you take swim lessons you know how to come up for a breath and that's that's optimistic thinking right like I'm like you're you're okay you know what to do I'm right here God forbid I need to get in I'm right here yes but I was just like yes she has the skills she she learned to swim she knows what to do and if anything happens you're right there so that's that's the optimistic thinking that totally you know you're doing it yeah I have one last question for partners that struggle to understand and this was one thing that was great about having Brock at the conference with me and he he stood up and asked a question it was so amazing but what would you say is the best way to communicate what you're experiencing and the best way for them to support yeah I think a lot of women during the perinatal and postpartum period feel alone because we're again expected to do everything I would ask the partner to read my book in fact my sister my sister just um had her she just had her baby at 43 her second child a few days ago and my mom gave him the book my mom's like you need to read that yes I love that and and you know there is you know in this book I do share different stories of women I've treated around the world and in one story it does specifically talk about the conflicts between the partner and the mother MH um and how she felt alone and she felt like she's expected to do everything and to change her schedule and to only think about the baby and yet all her partner could do was tell her go take more yoga lessons go do more meditations you need to calm down and oh my gosh how how many women have actually calmed down because you told her to calm down I think anytime my husband has said that to me it had infuriated me even more right yeah so it's it's learning for for the partners it's learning about what the woman is actually going through not just the bodily changes however the emotional expectations that are placed on her the the heaviness of all of this responsibilities that she has to carry that he doesn't so so like just because you're not carrying the baby why do you get to keep doing all of the same why do you get to go play golf it's always golf right why go why why do why can't I not do the things I can't even like have a glass of wine but you can go play golf and go have fun with your buddies why is that okay so I think it's and and you know what if you want to go play golf fine you go however you also have to have realistic expectations of me if I'm not capable of doing X Y and Z because that's what I did pre pregancy or pre bab so it's having these conversations in a way that he can understand it yeah Daniel and I are like communication like fiends like we just talk talk talk talk talk like overly talk about things but he's my husband has experienced anxiety and depression before we met like crippling anxiety and depression where like he couldn't leave the house so he I'm very lucky that he was able to at least have an understanding of what I was going through and so he was really supportive and even shown a bit on season one um but even with like household chores and stuff like when I'm pregnant he steps up so I'm very like lucky that I have that and I feel like Brock is that same kind of person like I got you do you like they've bonded over that you know one changes the diaper the other one's breastfeeding like very handson yes so so it's really important right and then in my book I talk about how it's important for us to share our invisible Lo so one of the things that I think a lot of Partners don't understand is all of the things that we mothers have to keep in our heads so like school is starting do you know what class your child is going to be in do you know what school she even goes to right there was this comedian I don't remember his his name and he joked about how the school called him to pick up his daughter and his question was okay yeah I'll come pick her up what school does she go to you know and that is that is like an ex reality for some people that is real right that but that's the reality for a lot of people totally yeah it's having these conversations about you know what is the invisible low that I have to carry that I don't want to carry all by myself that I need you to help with totally I'm so excited to read your book to have my husband read your book everyone if you can relate hello Baby Goodbye intrusive thoughts thank you so much Dr Jenny for being here Nia for co-hosting with me be sure to check out her podcast hold my crown and stay tuned for season 2 of the valley thank you so much for being here thank you for making this topic Happ this was amazing and thank you guys for listening and watching we will be back next week bye just my life I've been looking for a boy who can treat me right your dark head so bright it tell my soul and it my