[00:00:00] Dr Renee White: Knowledge is power, and we are all about empowering the mamas of the world. In each episode, we will unravel and interpret the latest research and evidence based practices for pregnancy, postpartum, and motherhood. As mums and researchers ourselves, we have experienced firsthand the overwhelming complexity of information, myths, and those classic old wives tales.

[00:00:27] I'm Dr. Renee White, and this is The Science of Motherhood. Hello and welcome to episode 162 of The Science of Motherhood. I'm your host, Dr. Renee White. Thanks so much for joining me today. We've got a very interesting episode today. It's quite a heavy one. I'm not going to be beat around the bush on this one.

[00:00:47] As you would have seen from the title, it is a mother's perspective on experiencing postnatal depression and or anxiety as well as psychosis, as I said, it's quite a heavy episode, uh, with Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini and so I just wanted to, I think, first of all, say that if you are not feeling the greatest today, if you don't have someone to, I guess, have a chat to and take some time and reflect, um, after this episode, maybe just pause, maybe come back to this, um, when you're feeling a little bit better, I will say always that if anything is triggering for you and that you feel like you need to reach out and get some additional assistance, the PANDA hotline, is a fantastic support network that is a national helpline, it's free. It's open from Monday to Saturday in Australia. The number is 1300 726 306, that's 1300 726 306. So yes, please feel free to utilise those amazing services if you require them. Now, we had Siobhan and she's been a regular on this podcast from the very beginning. I think she was, I don't know, episode eight or something quite early on in The Science of Motherhood.

[00:02:25] And you would have heard her recently in December talking about how to best manage how kids push our boundaries. She is just an amazing woman. And in that discussion, she kind of touched on the fact that she developed postnatal depression and psychosis. And when we went offline after the episode, I kind of said to her, you know, would you be interested in coming back onto the podcast and chatting about that as a personal experience, which we don't typically do here on the Science of Motherhood, kind of a more you know, keep it a bit light and we're all about facts and latest research and things like that.

[00:03:08] But I also think that as time goes on, it's, it's key for us to intertwine, you know, personal, you know, circumstances and real life experience with, with the research that we talk about and, and those facts as well. So Siobhan has kindly and graciously said yes to that. And I guess in this interview, we walk through what that journey looked like.

[00:03:35] We look at her self awareness of it, you know, the dynamics between her and her partner throughout it, what the red flags were, and I guess what she has learnt from all of that, and let's just preface this by saying this was with her first child and she subsequently gone on and had a second child. And I guess, with that all in the past, what did she do differently the second time around, which was very, very insightful as well. So, as I said, if this doesn't feel good for you right now, just pause and maybe go back to this later, this episode later and, and, and come back to it when, when you're feeling a bit better about it.

[00:04:22] Cause it is quite, a deep episode. All right, without further ado, here is Dr. Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini. Hello and welcome back, to the podcast, Dr. Siobhan, how are you today?

[00:04:38] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: I am very well. How are you going?

[00:04:41] Dr Renee White: I am fabulous. It is shining bright here in Hobart, thank goodness, because we've had some cold weather, cold, cold weather. So the listeners would've heard from our introduction that I had you on the podcast, episode 152 and in passing you made reference to your own personal journey around experiencing postnatal depression, anxiety, and psychosis as well. And I wrote that little nugget down during the episode and then once we hit stop, We had a little conversation afterwards, uh, because I didn't want to like throw you under the bus and put you on the spot.

[00:05:30] But I asked you, would you be keen to talk about that journey? And you have so graciously said yes and been very generous with your time. It's something that you do hear about occasionally, particularly psychosis. Um, it's kind of that thing where you're like, Oh yeah, I heard a friend of a friend have it, or you might hear about it in the media, but I don't think that gets as much airplay as like a postnatal depression and or anxiety.

[00:06:03] Obviously it's the extreme end of it all. But I thought, It would be really good to have someone who's experienced it firsthand on the podcast.

[00:06:12] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah.

[00:06:13] Dr Renee White: So first of all, thank you. Thank you.

[00:06:15] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: You're so welcome. You're very welcome. I mean, I love to talk. I mean, I don't love to talk about it because obviously the most traumatic thing that's ever happened to me, but I love the opportunity to talk about these things because it's so important.

[00:06:28] And I know that a huge part of my own healing and I'm starting to feel normal and okay with it all has been hearing other people share their experiences and talking with people who've shared similar journeys. And, yeah, I think it's like, it sounds cliche and tweed to say, like, everyone needs to share their journey.

[00:06:49] It's important to be honest. But, like, the thing is, it's true. And the reason, like, we say those things is that it does make you feel less alone. And when you're in the depths of mental health, mental ill health, you feel alone and you feel broken and you feel terrified. And the idea that anyone else could feel the level of pain you're feeling is so foreign.

[00:07:11] So the more we're able to share our stories and share that, yes, this is me too. And no, you're not broken. I think only does a service to everyone.

[00:07:20] Dr Renee White: Yeah, absolutely. So walk us through what that journey looked like and also I think if you can just build in some context around the fact that like, you know, stepping into this motherhood journey, were you aware, like, did you have an acute awareness of like postnatal depression, anxiety, psychosis?

[00:07:42] Did you know what the red flags were?

[00:07:44] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yes and no. So I have, so let's, let's walk it all the way back. I, um, and so much I'm still learning so much about my own kind of experience of mental illness and my own, like, experience with anxiety and depression, all these things, which I have had several major depressive episodes throughout my life, which, like, in high school and, um, throughout university.

[00:08:10] So, I was very aware of postnatal depression, and I knew what I knew what depression felt like, and my whole family were on kind of, not high alert, but we had our ears pricked for. We knew that I was at an increased risk.

[00:08:24] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:08:24] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: So we really were quite aware of that. We, the depression. So how so much context to fit in such a tight little box.

[00:08:33] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:08:34] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Um, so I'll come back to that, but we weren't, we weren't looking out for anxiety, which is how my symptoms largely presented. And that's definitely what presented first.

[00:08:44] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:08:45] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Um, my depression kind of came as a result of intense anxiety burnout. So, for me, it was very much anxiety and then depression because I was exhausted from all the anxiety and then psychosis because my body, like, I had a literal nervous breakdown and my body gave up and my mind left my body and it was all like, from my own internal experience, like, it was just the wheels fell off is how I often describe it, but hearkening back.

[00:09:15] In hindsight, I have had anxiety my whole life, but in the 90s, we didn't really have an understanding that children had an internal world, let alone an experience outside of positive happiness because they're children. What do they have to be sad about? And none of that is to criticise anyone like, that's just society as a whole.

[00:09:33] We didn't have a proper understanding of those things. And a lot of it, my, a lot of my coming to understand this is seeing my own child and children. Navigate the world and realise that they are experiencing some of the things that I, like, the fact that I can so deeply resonate with their experience. I was like, oh, that's what I was feeling.

[00:09:54] That's what anxiety looks like in a 5 year old, a 6 year old.

[00:09:58] Dr Renee White: Yeah,

[00:09:59] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: But regarding. So, yeah, I had depressive episodes in high school and university. I'd been medicated in university for them and I've kind of been on meds on and off ever since. And so I fell pregnant in 2019 and I had my eldest son in December at the very end of December 2019. And that was all fine. We, fine. We had a traumatic birth. Um, he was stuck here at Sheldon Astosia. I dissociated during the birth. I didn't really realise that's what I was doing at the time. A lot of this has come with hindsight, but

[00:10:36] Dr Renee White: What was that manifest? Like, how did that manifest? How, like on hindsight, how did you know you dissociated?

[00:10:42] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah. So what happened was I had a really long labor. I was. My waters broke on Christmas Eve and he was born on Boxing Day, so I had 52 hours between those two things. I had no sleep, I was exhausted and like skeleton staff at the hospital. So, even though they were doing the best, there just wasn't the level of support there for me to feel safe and comfortable.

[00:11:06] And then he was coming. So, I was just stressed and tired and all of those things, but then we'd had a very experienced midwife who was delightful, and she was very supportive. And then I saw her look at the monitor, and then I saw her face blanch like she, was so she was the picture of calm the whole time and then her face dropped so I could tell things were bad.

[00:11:31] She slammed the red button, 14, 15 people ran into the room and I remember having the thought. Oh, this is really bad. This is really, really, really bad. You don't need to be here. So, I basically, it's like my self left my body.

[00:11:49] Dr Renee White: Okay.

[00:11:49] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Um, and I remember being very consciously aware it was happening, but there was no emotional connection to any of it.

[00:11:55] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:11:56] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Like, and it's like, I was narrating what was happening. It's like, oh, the doctor's doing that. Oh, where's Alex? Is he? Okay. Like, it was just so devoid of.

[00:12:03] Dr Renee White: Yeah,

[00:12:04] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: connection to what was happening and process that in therapy a boatload because I've got a lot of, or had a lot of feelings of guilt because I felt like I abandoned my husband, like, that he was just left to feel all these feelings, and I just noped out of there. Obviously, that was a coping mechanism. It was too emotional and like, too scary for me to be there. And then he was born and it was quote, unquote. Okay. And then he was a very unsettled baby. He had what would later be diagnosed as gastroesophageal reflux disease.

[00:12:40] So he was just in pain all the time. He would vomit over everything like we did 4 5, 6 loads of washing every day, um, because everything was always covered in vomit. He would just scream all the time. He would only sleep for 2 or 3 hours at a time. Around the clock, and this is like a newborn baby, like, they typically sleep for longer stretches than that.

[00:13:02] Dr Renee White: Yeah,

[00:13:03] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: He would, he wouldn't lie down flat because he learned pretty quickly to associate being horizontal with pain, um, so we had to hold him all the time, hold him to sleep. Like, he would only sleep for 2 or 3 hours if we were holding him vertically, which then, of course, meant we weren't sleeping. And that went on for about 9 months, which is too long.

[00:13:26] And at about 9 months, it switched from every 2 to 3 hours to every 30 minutes. So, for 2 months, he was waking every 30 minutes. So I, that's when, that's when the quote unquote wheels fell off. And then in that, when he was about 11 weeks old, the lockdown started.

[00:13:46] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:13:46] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Um, cause this is COVID and I've reflected on this so much and like COVID mums who'd had babies in and around COVID have a special collective trauma because we often forget how intense it was.

[00:13:59] Like I remember starting, like my, my mother's groups were canceled. My government sponsored mother's group are canceled because we started hearing whispers of this, like, virus coming out of China and we're all going, oh, that's a bit weird. And then the death count, like, a mother, a new mother shouldn't be at home by herself with no 1 able to visit her locked in a house, watching death counts and like, again, there's so many reasons everyone was scared, like, but the ramifications of that for me, were catastrophic like it took what was already a dialed up nervous system and just threw like gasoline on the fire like we would I and I had all this like so I come from a really big family my husband's from a big family everyone lives in the same city in Brisbane and so we had all of this support lined up because we knew I was at risk and then for very sensible reasons because we all thought we were going to kill each other if we hugged each other it all just disappeared so I had a screaming baby.

[00:15:05] No sleep. My husband and I felt so out of our depth. Um, we kept thinking, what the hell have we done? Why did we, what a terrible mistake, we've made having a baby. We, we seriously sat down 1 day and said to each other, how do we get out of this? We, we can't because, we're not bad enough for the Department of Child Services to take him off us.

[00:15:30] And if they do, they're just going to give him to our parents and that doesn't solve the problem. Like we were literally trying, like, because we were, we were both, and he experienced some, he experienced postnatal depression and anxiety too. We were both, like, it was a family unit disaster and we just didn't know how to how to fix it because then there was no fixing it is the thing. So, yeah, at about 9 months. My husband, so it was a perfect storm of the sleep got so much worse, which is very standard for babies around that age. But we were already operating on no sleep and it got worse and I kind of decided, prior to that, how much worse can I get? This is already so terrible. So, I'd kind of decided this is as bad as it's going to get and then it got so much worse and then my husband's work. Became very busy around that time, so all the support he was able to give me disappeared and I remember having this very specifmummoment.

[00:16:26] I was, um, I can, like, I can remember it picture it in my head like a movie right now. I was bouncing on the yoga ball with a screaming baby. My husband's in the other room on meetings, zoom meetings, and then I remember thinking I was listening to a podcast that was talking about activating your village.

[00:16:43] And I remember thinking, I don't have, like, I have a village, but I can't use them. Like, they're there, but I can't get to them. And then I remember thinking, fuck that we're going to the village. And so I packed a suitcase and took my baby to my parents house. I didn't tell my husband like, it was, it was such a, a reactive panicked decision, but I basically put my head in to my husband's off and said, we're going and he had no, like, he had no idea what happened. All he knew was that he had a wife that was struggling and then she left with the baby. So he was petrified.

[00:17:25] Dr Renee White: Yeah,

[00:17:26] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Understandably. I turn up to my parents house crying. They took my little boy. They had him for a sleepover, um, which was horrific to me. It was only nine months at the time, but my mum could see how much I was struggling she was terrified. Um, and she said, go home, go home and sleep. I remember driving home sobbing. I, it felt like my arm had been cut off. Yeah, like, it felt like my heart was ripped out of my body like that.

[00:17:57] I remember people was describing that idea, and that was the first time I'd really felt it that intensely. And then the cutest thing, and I've got a beautiful photo of him the next morning. We went to pick him up and he was happy as could be. He'd had a wonderful time and we had him for a few more, like, we just continued like, normal for a few days as the 1 night of sleep is going to fix anything.

[00:18:18] Dr Renee White: Did you actually sleep?

[00:18:22] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Uh, huh slept like the dead.

[00:18:24] Dr Renee White: Okay.

[00:18:25] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Um, because I was so by this stage, my, I was so fried, everything was so, I was, it's tricky. I can hear myself stumbling across my words because I'm obviously tapping into those feelings of what it was like, but there was just nothing left.

[00:18:42] Yeah. I have a memory, a memory of my dad. Making a cup of tea for me, I'd ask for a cup of tea and he made it and I burst into tears and ran into the room in the fetal position because I don't even remember what, but he'd done it wrong somehow, which is like, just kind of an example of how sensitive and how overreactive, I was like the teensiest little things, like, caused me to absolutely spiral. Um, and I remember seeing his face of like, what, how do we make a cup of tea that wrong? And I remember thinking, yeah, I don't know how you make it that wrong, but it is that wrong. And I always, like, I had this sense of kind of a higher self kind of observing how disastrous this was, but not knowing how to help.

[00:19:27] And then not long after that, I, the psychosis started and I still kind of like, obviously everyone has different experiences for all these kinds of things, and for me, the psychosis was very much like a tertiary symptom. It was like, intense sleep deprivation, obscene levels of anxiety, just a nervous system that is absolutely fried.

[00:19:50] And then the psychosis as a result, whereas some people's psychosis is their first symptom. Um, so it's like, everyone is different and I don't want to paint the picture that this is how it is, but mine was very much like just a body and a mind that was on its final legs. And I just had like, intrusive thoughts, I've had, I've always had intrusive thoughts my whole life.

[00:20:14] But they were starting to become more violent and more confronting and really, really scary. And then I was hearing voices, like, not scary or like ominous voices, but I was just hearing noises and voices that I knew, weren't there and I had, I think, a big part was, I was with my psychosis. I was just experiencing a lot of hallucinations, auditory and visual.

[00:20:37] I was able to notice pretty quickly that they weren't real. So, they weren't too scary for me, but they were scary in that. I knew that. Oh, healthy brains don't work this way. So, it was more, it was a scary symptom of how bad things were and then I was, I started to become suicidal and that's when I. And I, I've been suicidal before in my life linked with my depressive episodes.

[00:21:06] Um, so my husband and I had talked about that before and I, I think it. I had started hiding the knives because I didn't trust myself around them in the kitchen and then I did that for about a day and then I realised that, that wasn't going to work as a solution and I had to tell someone. So I came to my husband like tears and just so much shame.

[00:21:32] Telling him I'm really scared. I don't trust myself. Um, and to his credit, he just held me and said, right, we're, we're going to see Maria, which is our family doctor. Call your mum. We're going to see her right now. Um, so we went to my doctor and she is the best and she was terrified and seeing how terrified she was made me realise just how bad things were because nothing phases Maria and we've since had lots of conversations about that particular day because my mum took me and I was adamant that I was going to tell her how things were going and she's Maria told me she's like, you were saying words, but it didn't make sense.

[00:22:12] She said, clearly, you thought you were making sentences and coherent speech, but she said it was gobbledygook. And like, just like, it was so I was walking into walls. Like, I just was a non functioning human. So, like I said, Maria's known us for 20 plus years. So I was put on mandatory bed rest for three weeks.

[00:22:32] I was, I had family move in both, like, both sides of the family move in and I was babysat for three weeks, four weeks. Wasn't allowed to be left alone with the baby. Um, wasn't allowed to be left alone full stop. I mean, I was, you know, I was basically on suicide watch. So yes, it was a lot. It was a lot of work.

[00:22:49] Dr Renee White: Wow, Siobhan, that's um, that's a lot. First of all, thank you for being so brave and honest with that. Like that's um, I have so many questions.

[00:23:02] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:23:03] Dr Renee White: You touched on the fact that your husband, partner, I always, yeah, I always like, I get, I'm like, okay, I need to make sure this is right.

[00:23:15] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah.

[00:23:16] Dr Renee White: So he experienced postnatal depression and anxiety as well. Is this something that. The two of you like, did you go through some counseling together and individually? What did that look like?

[00:23:32] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: So we did not go through counseling together. He. So, I could have, like, 12 podcast episodes about this, but he. It was tricky, so I, my. I mean, obviously the trauma will always be with me.

[00:23:48] It's a big part of my story, but my acute healing, where I kind of got to the point where I felt vaguely like a person again, took about three months, like just where I was vaguely functional. And I don't think I actually had therapy at that point because it was COVID still and you couldn't get into anyone.

[00:24:06] So I was on wait lists, but I, so he. Everything was focused on my healing, like all of both sides of the family just kind of, um, activated and was on like, team help Siobhan get well, and that's put a lot of strain and stress on everyone. Of course. And after I was vaguely well, again, my husband had his own breakdown less intense, like, in turn, less of less, less catastrophic, but he went through his own stuff because I think we've talked to he and I have processed a lot about it, but basically he talked about how he wasn't able to be unwell, prior to that, like, he, he had to put all his energy into making sure I was okay.

[00:24:53] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:24:54] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: And so, finally, when I was at a point where I was okay, that's when he was allowed to feel the full weight of his feelings

[00:25:01] Dr Renee White: And completely let go.

[00:25:03] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Exactly.

[00:25:04] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:25:04] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: And he had so much of his own stuff going on and I won't share too much of his story because it's his, but he, he was worried every day that he would come home to no child and no wife.

[00:25:14] And that's kind of stuff where. Now, almost 5 years later, he kind of trusts that that isn't a risk anymore, even though, from my perspective, it hasn't been a risk for a really long time.

[00:25:26] Dr Renee White: Yeah

[00:25:27] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: But obviously that's such a deeply held and valid fear. That that has been really big and in terms of therapy, his.

[00:25:36] Um, he's always been adamant that talk therapy just isn't his vibe, which I get. So a lot of his therapy was exercise. He just got into running and being innate, like trail running was actually both of our separate and together therapy. Like we'd go on trail runs together and then during our warmups and our cool downs, we'd talk.

[00:25:55] Um, and. We've had some of the best conversations and some of the worst conversations on Mount Coo-Tha, which is a mountain near us that, um, and 1 of the biggest things that I think isn't necessarily talked about is how devastating this was for our relationship. We, there was a point when I'd started to get vaguely well, where we were so disjointed and disconnected that, like, we had some serious conversations about, are we going to break up?

[00:26:26] Like, how is this? How is this going to work, which we've been together for almost 20 years. So, to have those conversations was probably like, one of the most. Like. The worst things I've ever felt, because prior to that, I truly thought of us as a couple as unbreakable, which maybe is like naive, but I just thought that nothing could shake us and to have something so drastically and fundamentally like rock, the bedrock of our relationship was really humbling and really terrifying. And we've done so much work on our relationship and us as individuals to be in such a healthy place now, but it was, yeah, like none of this stuff is easy and it affects every aspect of every relationship, um, in your life.

[00:27:18] Dr Renee White: Yeah. What kind of two follow up questions when you're, when both sides of the family. you know, as you refer to it, were activated and everyone came together. Were there certain things that they did to, I guess, move the needle in terms of your mental health improving? Were there certain things where you're just like, oh, that's an absolute game changer.

[00:27:48] Like, can we do more of X, Y, Z? Or was it essentially like the compound effect of having the village around you for once and then you were like, Oh my God, I can actually take my foot off the gas in terms of being a parent and just be supported.

[00:28:07] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah. For the first like three weeks, month, I was a zombie. Like, I, we upped my meds massively, like, had to call the federal government to approve the dose kind of level.

[00:28:19] So, basically my home. So, because we've known my doctor for as long as we have, she knew that the level of support was there and she could trust it. But she, I only found this out afterwards. She told my mum. You guys have 3 days for this to no longer be like, acutely dangerous, and if I don't see any level of improvement, it's straight to hospital.

[00:28:41] And she had since said that if I didn't know the family as well as I do. It would have been straight to hospital. So, in essence, I was institutionalised. It's just that I did it at home.

[00:28:52] Dr Renee White: At home. Yeah.

[00:28:53] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Um, but, yeah, I was, I was an absolute zombie. I basically breastfed and did nothing else and that's because my baby didn't take a bottle.

[00:29:01] We tried that and so I don't really remember having many, memories or feelings at that time there was one. I remember sitting in, so, yeah, I was off night duty for 3 weeks and then I remember one time in the day. I have a single memory of just sitting there and watching my baby play with my mother in law out in the garden and thinking that's really sweet.

[00:29:26] Um, and kind of like, I wish I could join them, but I can't, but yeah, in terms of, I just, but no, I didn't feel grateful. And that's not because I shouldn't have been, I definitely should have been, but I, I felt so ashamed that I needed that much help, um, which is all stuff I've been working on ever since, because I have always viewed myself as like pathologically independent where I don't need help. I've got my shit together. So I, yeah, in all honesty, I felt. An immense amount of shame.

[00:29:57] Dr Renee White: It's, it's such a hard, I talk about this all the time, and I think, you know. Whilst I didn't experience this level of postnatal depression, anxiety, or knowing like no psychosis. I have this big chip on my shoulder with society who I'm probably going to get in trouble for this.

[00:30:21] But I feel like the pendulum has swung too far in terms of you know, we've built women up to be this, you can do it all and you can be independent and you can have your career and you can have your babies and you can have your social life and all the rest of it. And I just, feel like we're setting ourselves up for a big fail when it comes to motherhood.

[00:30:46] Yeah. Because we're rewarded for climbing the ladder and we're rewarded for being independent and, you know, told that our value is typically comes from like money and that if we're not financially contributing to the family which would come from a career then we're not equal but then we enter motherhood and there's no way we can do this by ourselves like

[00:31:16] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: And even if you can, which you can't, you shouldn't.

[00:31:18] Dr Renee White: Exactly. Like, it's not when the changes that happen to our body, our mind, our soul are not conducive to performing that function in isolation.

[00:31:32] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: No.

[00:31:32] Dr Renee White: It just doesn't compute. It's an evolutionary mechanism that we're supposed to come together as a village and support one another because it's bloody hard.

[00:31:42] And so, yeah, we, I, I see this time and time again with families that we support, and we always get the lowdown on, you know, what's your personality type? And, you know, And it is. If you're an A type personality, and as you say, you're pathologically independent, then it's one of those things that we kind of have to be on high alert for, because it's a slippery slope, as you've said.

[00:32:08] Because we think that we can do it all by ourselves, and we don't know how to ask for help. Did you find that was one of the difficult things as well? Like, like going, holy moly, I'm gonna have to ask for help now. And this is so, like, it's like, fingers down a chalkboard for

[00:32:25] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yep telling my like coming to my husband and telling him how bad things were was one of the most painful things, partly because I knew like, I'd be quote unquote admitting how bad I was but mostly because I knew that he would activate help.

[00:32:40] I knew that that's exactly what he was going to do. Um, so coming to him was asking for help and not from him necessarily, but I knew that he. Like, and then I'd go in, I remember taking my oldest to my mother's house for that first sleep over a few weeks prior. I again, have a picture image of which is definition of trauma.

[00:33:02] The fact that you have, like, such a crystallised memory is usually because it's traumatic or hugely emotional is I remember, like, pressing the doorbell and I can picture everything perfectly because it felt it felt like admitting defeat. Um, it felt like saying I'm not cut out for this. Um, which is horrific because I've worked with children my whole adult life.

[00:33:25] I've been heavily involved and invested in parenting, like the parenting space and it's something I've always wanted as long as I could remember was to be a mother. And I just felt like everyone else can do it. Why can't I and I've done so much reframing and therapy around, like. Like, and in really helpful ways, like, I like, I used to always describe my breakdown as I fell or the wheels fell off.

[00:33:51] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:33:51] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: I've been able to reframe it as I didn't fall. I landed. Um, yes, that I, I came, I, I was up at such an untenable level, um, heightened level that I, um, landed safely with the help of my family. And, yeah, lots of those kind of and lots of EMDR therapy which is on movement, desensitization, but EMDR Eye Movement, Desensitize, I'll look it up Reprocessing.

[00:34:20] Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, which is a specific type of therapy for people with post traumatic stress disorder, which I was diagnosed with as well. And it was magic, like, it,

[00:34:32] Dr Renee White: What does that involve?

[00:34:34] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: So, um, I think it's like a 10 session program, but the, the crux of it, which is the kind of sexy part of it that gets all the focus is, um, and I might get this wrong, but my understanding of it is basically the way memories are formed has a lot to do with the hypothalamus as it's a part of the brain, which also is how we.

[00:34:55] When we're dreaming, we think that, so current scientific understanding is that when we're dreaming, we're consolidating memory. And that's kind of what's got to do with the rapid eye movement sleep REM sleep. So they think that there's some kind of connection with eye movements and memory formation.

[00:35:12] So, what happens is there's a whole bunch of, I'm sorry, a whole bunch of prep work, but the actual core sessions are with my therapist. I, um, she has all these prompts to guide me, but basically I focus incredibly intensely on the, like, um, technical memories, those memories that are incredibly visual and palpable and the kind of traumatic memories where you can step right back into it and feel the feelings immediately.

[00:35:41] And then she gets you to move your eyes left to right and then you just focus on the memories and while I was doing it, there were just tears streaming down my face and it was so acutely painful. And then within a few days after doing that session, it's like someone had taken the brightness on the memory and dialed it down.

[00:36:01] So it got it had gone from like these technical technical memories where I could it was like a tv screen and I could step into it and I could feel everything I was feeling right then and then now it's just a normal memory very painful memory still but it's not like when I think about those memories I don't feel all those feelings again okay it creates a separateness and I think that it's got something to do with it forces the brain to reprocess those memories and not treat it as though it's a current experience.

[00:36:31] Dr Renee White: Right

[00:36:32] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: To push it into long term memory storage.

[00:36:35] Dr Renee White: Okay. That's fascinating.

[00:36:38] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah, so it's only existed for about 20 or 30 years and they've done a lot of, like, PTSD veteran, like, for veterans and had a lot of success. But. It's wonderful. It's really hard and very painful because obviously you're processing the worst times of your life with someone over and over again. It sucks, but it's been groundbreaking for me.

[00:37:00] Dr Renee White: I'm curious to know, because I did a workshop. So last year or the year before, I can't remember, with Bernadette Lack and Lael Stone, on a Centering workshop. And I'm someone who kind of walked into it pretty like la di da and like, yep, cool. And I'd had a really busy week and I was just like happy to be there.

[00:37:20] And I went by myself. I didn't know anyone else there. And I had done a lot of therapy around, you know, before I even became a mum. And then, you know, once I became a mum, even more therapy, because, you know. Those things just crop up when you have a baby. They're like, hello.

[00:37:39] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Hi, here's a little thing you haven't thought about in forever.

[00:37:40] Dr Renee White: Yeah. Yeah. It's like, Oh, you know that thing that you kind of like shoved in a box back there? Um, yeah, we're back. So I, I'd walked in and kind of done a little therapy and I thought like, I'm all good. And then, Bernadette did this thing, it was a whole day workshop and she, I think it was like just before lunch, she, she was like, okay, we're going to do like a bit of a body scan little activity.

[00:38:07] And I was like, okay. And then, so we're all lying on our backs and it's like, there's like 35 women in this room and we're all lying there and like, we're doing the body scan and I'd done yoga nidra before. So I was like pretty cool with that. I was like, okay, yep, and then it got to, and now we're going to focus on our wombs.

[00:38:24] And we're going to like, think about the babies that we've had and I completely lost it, Siobhan. Like hysterical crying like, as you were saying, you know, you just got tears running down and you're just like, Oh my God. And to me it was the processing of like, I'm never going to be pregnant again. Right?

[00:38:44] Like, cause we're one and done. And she said to me, um, afterwards, cause she got really worried and she was like, are you okay? And I was like, I was like, I don't know why I can't stop crying. Like, I just cannot stop crying and I had to like remove myself because I was like, I'm going to, I'm going to disrupt other people.

[00:39:02] Like, it's like, got to that point.

[00:39:04] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah.

[00:39:05] Dr Renee White: And she said to me, have you processed this? And I was like, I've done so much therapy. And she looked at me, she's like, have you done any body work? And I was like, What do you mean? And to me, that stuff was foreign. So my question to you is, did you do any body work?

[00:39:21] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yes and no. So I didn't do any, like, I didn't work with any like body workers where that's their main thing.

[00:39:28] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:39:28] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: But my therapist. Is bloody amazing.

[00:39:32] Dr Renee White: Yeah,

[00:39:32] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: It's Spilt Milk Psychology. I'm going to just double check what her last name is because I think it changed for the last time I went to her. So I'm checking what we've got now.

[00:39:43] We so it's Amanda, amanda Connell. There we go. Yeah. Perfect. She is brilliant. So she is a psychologist. So there is talk therapy involved, but the body work and the, her talking me through body work was what I did. So, and so we did a lot of that because again, kind of type a highly intellectual, highly analytical. I'm very good at talking about my feelings.

[00:40:06] Dr Renee White: Yes.

[00:40:06] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: I'm very terrible at feeling my feelings.

[00:40:09] Dr Renee White: Yes.

[00:40:11] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Like I'm so good at talking myself out of feeling my feelings.

[00:40:15] Dr Renee White: Yeah. I call it compartmentalization. I'm like, I'm so good at compartmentalizing and people like, Oh, that's great. And I'm like, I know , and then, and then you go. Oh, but like, you know what I do, I just shove them in a box and I'm like, see ya.

[00:40:29] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Thanks. Thanks for coming. You're not needed. Bye. Um, yes, no, I'm, I'm brilliant at that too. So a huge part of my therapy was not like having a choke hold on my feelings. Um, and this is work that I'm still doing now where I feel a feeling and I don't go shut it down, shut it down.

[00:40:48] I have to like lean into it. And it's I had a really emotional day last Wednesday for lots of different reasons, but I ended up like so much of my therapy now is much less talk and much more movement. So that's my body work. So I get, if I know that I'm highly affected, anxious, emotional, whatever I go for walks in nature.

[00:41:10] Dr Renee White: Okay.

[00:41:11] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: So I knew that I needed to cry on Wednesday, but I couldn't do it. Um, so I just went for a really, really big long walk and then I found myself in the last 10 minutes of the walks, like a few tears coming down my face. I needed to have a full on like explosion cry that didn't happen. But a few tears I took as a win because I'm just very quote unquote good at shutting it down.

[00:41:34] And yeah, a huge part of my therapy was learning and like a huge part of my challenges prior was that I'd have all these feelings come up. I'd have this panic. I'd have this, this trauma and I would intellectualize it, or, like, wrap it up tightly and shove it away. And so it was just stuck in my body. So I think I don't know if we've talked about it before the book, the body keeps the score.

[00:41:57] Dr Renee White: Yes, I think so.

[00:41:58] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah. So that was huge for me as well and I've read and done so many of those practices that he talks about in the back of the book because yeah, like I think so much of, and I think part of the challenge of why talk therapy was not the best for me.

[00:42:14] And that's what I started when I, after I had my son, I started lots of talk therapy, which was vaguely helpful, but was not like, so much of my trauma was somatic. Like I would have these fits of panic and, um, crying that I couldn't and like therapists be like, oh, so what are you thinking about? I'm like, I'm not there are no thoughts connected to this.

[00:42:40] Like, this is just like, oh, but you have to I'm like, yeah, yeah, but I don't know what the hell it's connected to. And, of course, there are deeper held things that over time we got to, but so much of my stuff was felt in my body. So a huge part of my therapy was running, was going for walks, um, was like getting my body and my nervous system to a state where it could even feel calm.

[00:43:05] Yeah, because I was so heightened, like, I couldn't be calm and my version of calm was not was just not acutely anxious, like, I was always operating on such like a not, I don't want to say high frequency, but I was like,

[00:43:20] Dr Renee White: Just a heightened state, like your baseline.

[00:43:23] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah. Yeah. So, of course, and like, the body can't process things when you're so heightened.

[00:43:30] So, it was so much of it was just learning to calm myself and just little things like, and I don't know whether anyone relates to this, but, like, everyone talks about breath work being amazing. And I was like, and it is, but when I first started doing those things, it didn't do anything for me. Because you can't, if you're operating at 200 breathwork brings you down to like a hundred, but you're still way too high. And I couldn't feel the difference. And I remember the first time doing breathing exercises actually helped me avoid a panic attack. And I was like, this shit's magic. But it's because I'd finally come to a, like a stage where I could even get under.

[00:44:09] Dr Renee White: Yes. How long did it take you? Like what was the progress?

[00:44:13] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Two, three years.

[00:44:14] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:44:15] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: At least

[00:44:16] Dr Renee White: And then, like, I'm assuming, like, consistently doing it, right? It's not like pull out of the toolkit every so often.

[00:44:23] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: No and, like, mostly and it's what everyone always says. But, of course, I dismissed it because I think I'm too clever for my own good, but it's like doing it when you're not heightened. Like, you have to practice these things. when you're in a calm state, for your body to even identify that this is a useful strategy.

[00:44:41] Dr Renee White: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:44:42] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Whereas like, I think before that, a lot of the time I would be like, really heightened or really panicked. And I'd be like, this breath work, this breathing's not doing anything. It's like, of course it's not. Of course it's not.

[00:44:55] Dr Renee White: Hey, I want to know, uh, because you've since had a second child. What did that, if you're happy to share, what did that process look like in terms of, you know, having that conversation with your husband of like, okay, I think we're ready. What are the, what are, we didn't have COVID, what were the things that you put in place? And you know, was it a completely different experience?

[00:45:25] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yes. And I feel like this is episode number 2, but let's let's go. It's amazing.

[00:45:30] Dr Renee White: Let's do it.

[00:45:30] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Let's do it. So. When so, I said prior that at about 3 months after. The wheels fell off, I was functional again and then about 6. 6 to 8 months after again, I was kind of well'ish, and I came to my husband.

[00:45:50] I said, I think we should start trying for another baby. And he got so angry. He was furious at me at the time I was furious right back. But again, we've had lots of conversations about this. Like he was so hurt that I would even say that because from his perspective, I almost died. Why would I do that? Why would I want that again?

[00:46:16] So, from his, he was one and done. He's like, we, we shot our shot and it almost went terribly. So we're just lucky that we're here. Whereas I come from a big family, I've always wanted multiple children and the idea that we were done was just not at that at that time was just a non negotiable. So we had lots of fights.

[00:46:40] Lots of very destabilizing arguments. I wasn't seeing it from his perspective. He wasn't seeing it from mine. It was really bad. Then again, lots of talking, lots of processing together and apart and lots of conversations on the mountain. And there were a few, he said that for him, the key thing that made him even consider was that when I said that I was open to a cesarean and he said that for them for him, it wasn't even about the cesarean.

[00:47:09] Although we did have a very problematic vaginal birth and we had been told that if I had another birth. The chances of that happening again, increased and that they would recommend a cesarean, but I said that I was open to it and that for him, that was an indication that I was becoming more flexible in my thinking.

[00:47:27] Dr Renee White: Okay.

[00:47:28] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: So, for him, the facts I used to be much more black and white as like, which is indicative of all of my challenges and anxiety and all of those things people with who are highly anxious often have much more black and white thinking.

[00:47:40] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:47:41] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Surprise. And so, yeah, it was kind of indicating that I was becoming more flexible and open to these kinds of things.

[00:47:49] And he wasn't even close to being on board, but he could even, he could entertain the thought. And then I think it was like at least another year of intense discussion. And he came to me and he said, I'm worried that if we don't have another baby, you will regret it for the rest of your life. And I said, I want to be able to say that's not true, but I don't think it is.

[00:48:14] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:48:15] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: And he goes, and he said, I'm worried that you're going to resent me. And I said, again, I hope that that's not true. But I think it is, yeah, and I don't like, I don't love that about myself, but I think it was absolutely

[00:48:27] Dr Renee White: Honesty right.

[00:48:28] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Totally, and especially after our collective breakdown, we promised to be 100 percent honest with each other at all times.

[00:48:39] Not that we weren't before, but we were trying to protect each other. So that that had gone and we're both really honest, and we were terrified, but we decided to try it within, which was terrifying because we thought it would take longer. Again, we, what have we done? Why have we done this? This is a terrible idea.

[00:49:00] I had panic attacks for about 3 months and then they stopped as soon as I decided I was having a cesarean. I locked it in with all of the healthcare professionals because I think prior to that, and I this before all of, before becoming pregnant, the second time, I didn't think I had birth trauma. I hadn't processed any of that

[00:49:18] Dr Renee White: Fascinating

[00:49:19] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: At, at all. Um, people had, people had asked us, how was your birth? And I'd said, oh yeah, it was fine. Um, and my husband would look at me like, what the fuck are you talking about?

[00:49:30] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:49:30] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: And I'd be like, oh yeah, there was some complications, but it was fine. Like, and I genuinely believed it. And it was only after three months of panic attacks at the concept of having to give birth again, vaginally, I was like, Oh, there's something here.

[00:49:43] Dr Renee White: Yeah. There's this little box that I found stored away and it keeps, it keeps making noise.

[00:49:51] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: What's that about? And so that's when I got back into therapy because I was like, Oh, none of this. Like, I really thought I'd processed everything. Um, and I was like, oh so none of this. And then, so basically, yeah, I was about 10, 11 weeks pregnant and I was in therapy every week, twice, like, so every week with a psychologist twice every fortnight with a mental health OT.

[00:50:14] And then I saw a social work, like I just.

[00:50:17] Dr Renee White: Double down

[00:50:18] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Hardcore, I was seeing people all the time. I was, I met with Kathryn from MotherUp who does postpartum planning.

[00:50:24] Dr Renee White: Yes

[00:50:25] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: I did that from about 6 months. Um, and we did some really intensive postpartum planning around every aspect of like, practical, emotional, social, I went back to work at 5 months after I gave birth to my son, and that was planned because for me, work was really calibrating for my sense of self. Yeah, just so much intense and intentional support and some real honesty. And, like, the plan was that if, um, he was as an as much of an unsettled baby as my eldest, my mum would move in and my mother in law would move in.

[00:51:01] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:51:02] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: And we'd have, like, there was just so many things in place, but the biggest takeaway was that. And I kept just my mantra was, I'm different, this is a different baby, I'm different, even if things are as terrible as they were. They'll be different. So, it was really embracing that it can be as bad as before, but it will be different bad. And we've been there before and we survived. So we can do it again, but it was terrifying. It was utterly terrifying.

[00:51:35] Dr Renee White: But was he as unsettled? Did you have to?

[00:51:38] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Not even close. Yeah. Not even close. I, for the, easily the first four or five months. My husband and I would pinch ourselves every three or four days being like, he's asleep. He put himself to sleep. Like you just, if he would grizzle, you'd pick him up and then he'd go to sleep.

[00:51:55] Like he was the baby where, you know how they say, like pat them on the bum in the cot. I could do that. Like the idea that that is even poss like I just assumed all the books were lying. And like intellectually I knew that there must be some babies like that, but it didn't even occur to me that that was possible.

[00:52:13] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:52:14] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: And so often I'd be holding him and someone would be like, why are you holding him? I'm like, oh, he made a noise. And it's like, I was just so used to,

[00:52:23] Dr Renee White: Yeah, this is just how it is.

[00:52:25] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah and he was just a happy baby. Wow. Which still blows my mind.

[00:52:30] Dr Renee White: Yeah. That I think I recall seeing your stories on Instagram when you had him and you, I think you had made comments about it, just like it being such a different experience this time.

[00:52:44] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: It was night and day, and because he was different, like it's not, yeah, I found it so challenging. The number of people would say, oh, it's because you're calmer. It's because you're not anxious. And I'm like, No, no, I'm not anxious because he's not screaming all day.

[00:52:59] Dr Renee White: Mm hmm. It's cyclical.

[00:53:01] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah.

[00:53:01] Dr Renee White: It's not chicken or egg.

[00:53:03] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: No. It's exactly it's all like dyadic and influences each other. And I, it, yeah, it was absolutely night and day. And he. And having said that, we had a traumatic birth with him too. So he, although I didn't experience it as trauma in the same way, he, although I had flashbacks during, so I got the, um, my spinal, like my epidural done.

[00:53:24] And I had like a full body flashback of like, and shaking and everyone in the operating theater freaked the hell out. I'm like, dude, it's in the notes, but, my husband was able to come and I was like, no, no, this is just PTSD. It's nothing. She's not responding to the meds or anything. Um, just, just PTSD. Um,

[00:53:43] Dr Renee White: Yeah, I know right. Like

[00:53:45] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah, yeah. But anyway, he was born and he had, uh, um, some breathing issues and like an area of collapse in his lung. And so he was rushed off to NICU and was there for three days, two days, three days. So that was really hard and challenging, but I think cause I'd already experienced. I think I just didn't experience it as traumatic in the same way.

[00:54:08] Um, and I don't really know why. Uh, it was really sad. I was very angry because doctors kept saying like, Oh, we're going to discharge you. I'm like, see how there's no baby in my room. You are not discharging me. And I'd had it because of all of the preparation and support I had around like what happens if I do have a traumatic birth, like I'd had lots of doctors and people be like, you just stand your ground and you say.

[00:54:30] I'm not leaving on mental health grounds. You can't make me leave the hospital. And then I have got a, um, my sister in law's a doctor and she said, you've got about two weeks before they start the paperwork because it's too much hassle. So they don't really, it's easier for them to just go. Oh, okay.

[00:54:47] Dr Renee White: Okay.

[00:54:47] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah. And I was like, that is very useful to know

[00:54:50] Dr Renee White: Give you another menu for tomorrow.

[00:54:52] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Precisely and I was like, thank you. I'll be doing that. I think we ended up staying five days. I think previously they had wanted, I think they wanted me out after about two days. I know.

[00:55:03] Dr Renee White: Good on you.

[00:55:03] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: I know. I just kept saying no, thank you. I'm not leaving. There was very little pushback. They just spoke oh, so we hear you're getting discharged. No, I'm not. No. Oh, okay.

[00:55:14] Dr Renee White: So for all those playing at home.

[00:55:16] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yes.

[00:55:17] Dr Renee White: Just take a leaf out of Siobhan's book.

[00:55:19] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: And this is in the public hospital in Queensland and obviously different, different places are different, but yeah, this was a public hospital. And I just said, my baby's not here. I have a history of mental health issues. Check your notes. I'm not leaving.

[00:55:30] Dr Renee White: I love that. Good on you.

[00:55:32] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yes

[00:55:33] Dr Renee White: We've run out of time.

[00:55:34] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Of course. Yeah, we've been talking seriously, I've been talking about it for years. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:55:39] Dr Renee White: I have talked about this for eons, but I think this is such an important topic. I think you've hit a few, like, really key points for me, which is, you know, obviously identifying the fact that you had this pre-existing kind of mental health challenges in the beginning and then it. I don't want to use the, like, to me, it's almost like it's metastasized in motherhood, you know, like, and it's, and it's, it's motherhood, it's COVID, it's lack of village, you know, as you said, and being someone who, and I relate to this, you had the chess pieces on the board, right, in this first pregnancy and you were like, I got this, you know, I got this person here, that person there, that person there.

[00:56:28] And then when you have the world go down the toilet and the carpet pulled out from underneath you. Yeah. That is, that is actually, I think, as someone who experienced this many, many times in my life, worse than not being prepared at all.

[00:56:45] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yes.

[00:56:46] Dr Renee White: Because you're like, hold on a minute. I had everything prepped and now you've just taken it all away from me.

[00:56:51] So it's that.

[00:56:53] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: I did what I was supposed to do. I did all the right things.

[00:56:55] Dr Renee White: I did all the right things and you have betrayed me. And And then society's like, yeah, but can't you do that all by yourself?

[00:57:02] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah.

[00:57:03] Dr Renee White: And so now you have to feel guilt and shame. And as you say, like you feel embarrassed asking for help. And then you just like some people like myself, I didn't even know how to ask for help.

[00:57:14] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: No.

[00:57:15] Dr Renee White: Like you just like, what's that? What is the language for that?

[00:57:19] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: And I'm still bad at like, I mean, I've become incredibly practiced. I still hate doing it. Like typically when I ask for help, I preface it with, I am bad at this.

[00:57:27] You know, I'm bad at this. This is me asking for help. Please give me some, like, I have to frame it as that.

[00:57:32] Dr Renee White: I don't know about you, but I find that I resort to, um, texting my husband because I have a, like a big thing with face to face. there's something about it where I'm just like, I can't hide. And then I start to stumble my words and I'm just like, Oh, this is too much for me.

[00:57:52] And so I'll just have to text him. And I don't even care if it's like, he's in the other room, you know, I'll text him and be like, I'm having a really hard trouble with this.

[00:58:01] Please come and help me now.

[00:58:02] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: That's a brilliant idea. And I think as well, Yeah, I was thinking about what you were saying, like, the kind of our concepts of, and like, I mean, Dr Sophie Brock talks about this stuff, like, the patriarchal motherhood so brilliantly, but particularly women and people who are type A come to parenthood, and we've typically been high achievers in school where we have, like, a very structured system that grades our performance.

[00:58:26] Dr Renee White: Yes, the matrix.

[00:58:28] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yes. And then like, we, we have outcomes that are very tangible. I mean, abstract, but tangible.

[00:58:33] Dr Renee White: Yep.

[00:58:33] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: And then university, same thing, a career where we have KPIs, we have very clear outlines of what our roles are and what our responsibilities are. And when we get to rest and relax, like, it's also structured.

[00:58:44] And then you come to motherhood and your boss is this tall, like this, I'm sorry, this small little human that just screams, tells you nothing. You are the kind of person who is seeking advice from everyone and everything, because you're trying to quote, Get it right. Um, and that's wonderful, but everyone has advice and everyone has different advice and their advice relates to their child, not your child.

[00:59:05] And you're told also trust your instincts and you're like, what the fuck are instincts? I don't have those.

[00:59:10] Dr Renee White: Um, I've pushed those feelings away. Like, what are you talking about?

[00:59:14] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah. And so it's like,

[00:59:16] Dr Renee White: Oh, and P. S. You have to keep them alive. Yeah. You know, it's not like a job or a subject at uni where you go, I don't like this. I'm actually just gonna like, can it. And I'm just gonna find something else to do. Yep. Um, or I'm going to find another job, or I'm going to find another set of friends. It's like, no, no, no, on top of that, you need to keep this thing alive. And PS, when you said to me, I had this conversation with my husband of like, how are we going to get out of that?

[00:59:48] That I, again, like, as you were saying, trauma. You see the, like, the actual scene in your head. I'm lying there. I went in bed, my husband's holding my hand, and I said to him, I don't think I can do this. I want to get off the merry go round. Get me off the merry go round. And he's like, we're on it. This is it. And I was just like, I don't want to be here. I don't want to be here anymore.

[01:00:17] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yep.

[01:00:17] Dr Renee White: And that was day three for me Siobhan.

[01:00:19] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah. Oh, I. We have this amazing photo of so we have friends who's their eldest is 2 days younger than ours, and they had a really hard time too, um, in lots of similar and also different ways.

[01:00:32] And we both met up when our little ones are about 6 weeks old. And in the photos, we look like broken, exhausted people because we were and we were saying to each other, like, jokingly, but we share a very dark sense of humor. Like, why? What? What and then they've since had a 2nd child who's now it's a beautiful toddler and I remember finding out they were pregnant and this was at a time.

[01:00:53] It was very hard for me because I wanted to be and wasn't and we were still discussing. So they're little ones about 6 months older than our youngest. Previously, the husband had said. Why does anyone go back for another one? Like, they're idiots. Like, they know, like, I can understand having one you've, you don't know what kind of mistake you're about to make.

[01:01:16] Um, because, but what, why would any and then we found out that they were pregnant with the the second I said, hey, what happened to the pact that we had women in their wiles?

[01:01:27] Dr Renee White: Yeah. Yeah,

[01:01:29] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: but yeah, it's just. I don't know, like, there's so there's so much more I could share. Like, I would have for at least about a year of my eldest.

[01:01:37] I had panic attacks in the, like, supermarket when I heard when I to begin with, when I saw pregnant women. Okay, because I really wanted to go and tell them, no, what have you done? And like, again, intellectually, I knew that they probably wanted this and they would probably be okay, but I really was like, you're making a terrible mistake, which, of course, would never say that.

[01:02:00] And then with babies crying, like, I have many. Like, I would be in the corner of the supermarket, just hunched down, um, having, having a panic attack, having a PTSD response because I couldn't handle the crying, um, of my baby or other babies. So, it's a lot better now I can handle other, I can mostly handle other babies crying, but yeah, it does a number on you.

[01:02:26] Dr Renee White: Hey, we're going to jump into our rapid fire.

[01:02:29] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yes. Yes. I love these.

[01:02:30] Dr Renee White: Thank you so much for sharing that. Okay, here we go. What's your top tip for mums? And I'm going to reframe this if they feel like they're experiencing postnatal depression, anxiety, or psychosis.

[01:02:44] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: You have to tell someone whether it's text, like, texting them. I think that is a brilliant idea because then you don't have to deal with all of the or experience all of the perceived reactions facially or whatever. You have to tell someone you really do, like, not only because of, like, you, but for your child, for your family, for everyone, I saw an interview with Elizabeth Gilbert from Eat Pray Love.

[01:03:05] She was talking about the most harm she's ever done to anyone else was when she wasn't able to care for herself i,

[01:03:14] Dr Renee White: That's really thought provoking.

[01:03:16] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: I know. And it really struck me because I was like, yes, that's absolutely my experience. The most harm I've ever done to anyone else I love was when I wasn't able to look after myself and all of the ramifications thereof. That self care is the, the most profound and meaningful form of care and love for humanity and others.

[01:03:36] Dr Renee White: So I still love that book. That's a, that's a core memory of that book.

[01:03:39] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah, it's a good one.

[01:03:40] Dr Renee White: Do you have a go to resource, whether it be a book, a workshop, anything that kind of got you through? I mean, you've mentioned your amazing psychologist, but was there anything else that, or, or a quote, a poem, something that you kind of like just leaned on a little bit?

[01:04:01] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: So many, the one that's jumping out to me is, and the reason I'm sharing this, because I don't think it's nearly well known enough. Actually, there's 2, there's, um, Peach Tree Perinatal Wellness, which is in Queensland. I don't know if they're elsewhere, but it's, um, I went to their groups quite a bit and that kind of, and it's support for perinatal mental health.

[01:04:25] Um, it's brilliant and also the White Cloud Foundation, which again, I don't know if they're only Queensland, but they, I got,

[01:04:33] Dr Renee White: I don't think I've heard of either of those.

[01:04:35] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah, they're brilliant.

[01:04:36] Dr Renee White: We're going to have to put those in the show notes, I think.

[01:04:38] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Absolutely. So White Cloud, at least when I was pregnant with my youngest, who's now almost 18 months, he, they, I got free social work counselling through them.

[01:04:47] I got free mental health counselling. Occupational therapy through them. They also offer, um, meal delivery for mums and dads affected by mental health challenges around, um, the prenatal space. They're a government funded source, like resource. They're brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

[01:05:04] Dr Renee White: That's amazing. I'm just on their website. Oh my god, I love their thing for, um, for men, steaks with mates.

[01:05:13] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah.

[01:05:14] Dr Renee White: That's awesome. That's like beers and bubs. I love that.

[01:05:17] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yes.

[01:05:18] Dr Renee White: That's cool. Yeah. We're going to put that in the show notes for sure. And I did ask you this in the previous episode, but it might have changed. What do you keep on your bedside table? What's on your bedside table now?

[01:05:29] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: It was a bunch of books for my toddler. He's fully embraced toddlerhood in the last two weeks.

[01:05:34] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[01:05:35] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Which is great and terrible. So nothing is anywhere.

[01:05:40] Dr Renee White: Nothing's safe?

[01:05:40] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: No. So it was a bunch of books. They have since been strewn all over the house. I think there's nothing to keep it safe from him.

[01:05:49] Dr Renee White: Alright. That's fine.

[01:05:50] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah. There's, there's blueberries under every cushion and couch and nothing is where it should be.

[01:05:59] Dr Renee White: It's like, tell me you have a toddler without telling me you've got a toddler when you walk into the house. Yeah. Blueberries everywhere, books everywhere.

[01:06:07] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yep.

[01:06:07] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[01:06:08] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: His current favorite thing to do is take things out of the dirty, um, washing basket and throw them into the bath that's full.

[01:06:15] Dr Renee White: Yeah. Okay.

[01:06:16] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: And then he falls about laughing and you go, yeah, it's very cute. Now stop.

[01:06:22] Dr Renee White: What a gorgeous child.

[01:06:24] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: They have to be, right?

[01:06:25] Dr Renee White: Yeah, they have to be. We keep them on the books. That's what I always say to my kid. Oh, you're funny. I'll keep you on the books. Siobhan, this has been so enlightening and I almost cried. I was like, keep it together, Renee. There was some moments there where I just thought, oh man, my heart is just breaking for you.

[01:06:45] And yeah. You know, the previous Siobhan and I, I know I can see the work that you've done to put in and. It's just amazing that you were able to articulate to your husband that you needed help and that you had the support system around you. But it was a very, very dark time for yourself, for many others during COVID.

[01:07:12] Um, and it's somewhere where I just don't want any mum to be ever again. You know, as we've said. We need the village and it went out the window during that time. Um, so thank you for being so generous with your time and with your story as well.

[01:07:33] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: You are so welcome. Very, very welcome.

[01:07:37] Dr Renee White: Where can we find you otherwise?

[01:07:39] Because you are hanging out on Instagram and you're providing a lot of beautiful content around kiddies as well, which is your main profession.

[01:07:49] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yes. So, yeah, my background is in child developmental psychology and I share lots of fun facts and tips, um, around kiddos, and typically zero to five, and my Instagram is at science underscore minded.

[01:08:03] I'm also doing circle of security, um, workshops at the moment, which is all about, um, helping to strengthen and support secure attachments between parents and children. Um, so you can check that out on my website at scienceminded. org. But that's, that's mostly what I do with my time when I'm not, um, trauma bonding with Renee.

[01:08:23] Dr Renee White: And wrangling, uh, dirty washing out of baths.

[01:08:26] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Oh yes He's helping, right?

[01:08:29] Dr Renee White: Yeah, of course he is. Thank you so much for your time, Siobhan. I really, really appreciate it. And, um, we will obviously have a listing in our show notes of all the mental health, um, hotlines and resources that people can access. If this is just a bit too much, um, and you need to contact someone, but, um, yeah, they'll all be in the show notes.

[01:08:54] All right, everyone until next week, we will see you. Bye. If you loved this episode, please hit the subscribe button and leave a review. If you know someone out there who would also love to listen to this episode, please hit the share button so they can benefit from it as well.

[01:09:15] You've just listened to another episode of The Science of Motherhood, proudly presented by Fill Your Cup, Australia's first doula village. Head to our website ifillyourcup.com to learn more about our birth and postpartum doula offerings where every mother we pledge to be the steady hand that guides you back to yourself. Ensuring you feel nurtured, informed, and empowered so you can fully embrace the joy of motherhood with confidence.

[01:09:43] Until next time, bye!