The Postpartum Disaster I Never Saw Coming

You go into motherhood with so much excitement and joy, but the postpartum experience can quickly take you by surprise—especially because it’s so hard to prioritize your own needs and wellbeing after having a baby.

 In this vulnerable episode, I open up about my battle with postpartum depression and, much more importantly, the scientifically proven habits I’ve since learned are crucial for moms’ mental health.

BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER:

•  The recipe for disaster (aka, what NOT to do when having a baby)
•  How loneliness, martyr mentality, and impossibly high standards combined to make me suicidal
•  All kinds of small, simple steps that protect moms from losing themselves in new motherhood
•  How making time for yourself—even just a few minutes—has an exponentially positive spillover effect

HOMEWORK:

Download my FREE “Everyday Essentials” checklist of 18 scientifically proven habits to boost moms’ mental health. Print it out, then challenge yourself to do at least a few things every day for the next seven days. Let me know how it helped!

COMING UP NEXT:

Don’t miss the next episode where we’ll talk all about the sneaky thing sabotaging your productivity, no matter how well you’ve planned out your day or how much of a time management guru you are.

CONNECT WITH AMBER: Website | Instagram | YouTube | LinkedIn

Ready to finally get to the root of your problems and change your life FOR GOOD? Book your free 60-minute consult to learn more about working 1:1 with Dr. Amber.

Transcript

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I'm really nervous to share this episode because you are about to hear just how dark and desperate a place I fell into after becoming a mother. As I said at the end of the last episode on martyr mentality, my mission is to make sure no other mom ever feels as hopeless as I once did. But the scars of my experience are still a little raw because things could have turned out so differently. And it really scares me to think of what that would have meant for my life and for my kids' life. Welcome to More Time for Mom, where overwhelmed moms get science-backed strategies to overcome the hidden sources of stress stealing your time and joy. I'm your host, Dr. Amber Curtis. Ready to make more time for you? Let's dive in. I do want to offer a quick trigger warning that this episode deals with the very heavy topic of suicide. If you or anyone you know is wrestling with suicidal thoughts, please reach out to 911 or the Suicide Hotline at 988. Now, rather than ramble on in typical narrative format, I'm actually going to share an interview I gave last summer where host Rafael Escobar had an incredible way of asking questions that got me to open up and, more importantly, highlight the simple things that I did and you can do to slowly rebound and turn your life around when you are feeling stuck or discouraged. I can't wait to hear what you think. Here it is. Welcome to another amazing episode of the Thriving Through Parenthood Summit. Today, let me tell you, ladies, we are honored to have Dr. Amber Curtis with us, who is the founder and CEO of Solutions for Simplicity. Now, Amber, she specializes in helping overwhelmed mothers go from a life of stress to no stress, to more productivity, to more happiness, to more joy, to more fulfillment, to stepping into a land of thriving. So we are so honored to have her here today. Amber, thank you for being here with us today. Thank you so much. I'm so excited. Yeah, definitely. Why don't we kick it off here? Why don't you tell us really what motivated you to be here today and share from the heart? Oh, where do I start? I am so excited to speak to anyone and everyone that might feel like they are struggling or they're just not anywhere near where they thought they would be in their motherhood journey. because I had so many misconceptions about everything and ended up getting so stressed even to the point of getting suicidal after I became a mom because my life looked and felt so different than I had imagined. And everything I was used to doing, all the ways I was used to performing and keeping up, suddenly no longer worked. And it was really hard to work through all of that. And now that I'm on the other side, of course it's easy to look back and think, why did I struggle, right? But I've also realized how common it is to feel alone in those frustrations. And at the time, I didn't see other productivity speakers and experts that could resonate with my season of life and my situation as a mom of multiple young kids working full time and trying to keep some semblance of my own identity, feeling like everything was just a whirlwind. And so now if I can help spare anyone a little bit of the stress I went through, I'm so happy. Well, I can already tell this is going to be huge. And this is why, Amber, you are so kind-hearted. I mean, to lead from this vulnerable space and to do it with a sense of passion, to really just give back. I can tell you our mamas are really going to take away something special today because that's what it's all about. We're here to really help get to that other side where we navigate through those emotions. And we want to keep people in alignment with the actions that you know, really will amount to the result that they want in their life. So how about we start here, okay? Because I think we can all resonate with being in that dark emotional space, and we're not gonna stay there, but it's important for us to venture that land. So how about you bring us back to some of those earlier motherhood days, and you take us through maybe one significant challenge that really pushed you to the limit, and share with us what are some of the steps you took to get out of it? Thank you for this opportunity because I do think it's really important to reflect back and process what you have been through. Of course, we want to be very forward-focused, but if we haven't come to peace with the journey, then we don't actually reach our destination. My own journey started with actually infertility. and desperately wanting to be a mother and not being able to. I will never know what changed, but my husband and I struggled for six years to get pregnant. And we literally gave up. I accepted this big prestigious tenure track job. We moved across the country. One week after I accepted that position, I found out I was pregnant. And it was the biggest blessing. I was so overjoyed. But I guess I should have started by saying that when I was a child, all I ever wanted to be was a wife and a mother. And I really envisioned myself as just being in the home. And because of our struggle, that wasn't my reality. And I was very, I was really sure that God had lined up these events in the way that he did for a reason. But I was so naive because I then still wanted to be the perfect wife and mother and devote myself fully to my family. at the same time that I had just taken on some very demanding expectations at this prestigious university. And I really just thought I could do it all. I look back now and I see how so many of the characteristics and the strategies I had pre-kids really set me up for failure after becoming a mother. Because the hardest thing I learned is that time is just no longer your own. When we don't have kids, we have this illusion of being able to wake up and plan our day and just, you know, walk out the door, leave the house, go do whatever we want to do. And then after becoming a mother, I just could never have imagined a, the emotional pull on my heart to be with my sweet babies, and then two, how exhausted I would be from all of the getting up at night and all of the other, you know, mental load, stress women carry. And then I really, really just didn't understand that I would experience so much brain fog. Everything that goes along with the postpartum period is just beautiful but challenging. I don't think women are well-prepared for this. I had never, never in my life heard about postpartum depression. It wasn't until I was in the thick of it and suicidal that we realized that was a thing and that's what I had. And so yeah, in those dark moments, I just always wanted to be the perfect everything. And looking back, I had been pretty successful at doing that for better or worse until I had kids. But then time was no longer my own. I didn't feel like my old self. And I immediately started to feel like I was failing at all the different things. I had nowhere to turn, couldn't identify the name for my struggle. And it was just a very dark, vicious time. Yeah. As you reflect back and you're in the thick of it, you're going through this, these emotions of failure, of loss, of grief, of, you know, anger, of all you name them. Right. What what did your life look like? What were some of the events playing out? And what was maybe that one event that was like, oh, something's got to change. Can you take us through that? Yes. So again, we had moved right before our son was born. And we left all of our family, our entire network, and moved across the country. And so I just started to feel so alone. I had no one to turn to except my sweet husband. But he was also working full time. And it was just hard for us to communicate and understand. And I was not good at verbalizing to him what I was feeling or needing. I, you know, I really went through several months of thinking that I could just do all of my work in the windows where my son slept. And so this was the real, I think, thing that broke me was that I wanted to be fully present and focused on my son every waking moment. And then when he would sleep, I would cram in the work that I could do. But eight months of that meant I was never sleeping. And for a variety of reasons, the exhaustion just really caught up with me. And so it was when he was eight and a half months old, it was Easter of that year, and we had no family, we didn't have any big place to go or to celebrate. And I just had a real moment where The dark thoughts crept in, and I thought things would be better off without me. And so, you know, I don't want to get too dark. It really does have such a happy ending. But in the darkness, I, again, didn't have words for what I was feeling. I was so convinced that I was the problem instead of realizing how much help I needed and that there were people who would have loved to help, including my husband. And, you know, it was never about my son. Oh my gosh, I was so in love with him and all my children from the beginning, but I didn't feel like I was good enough for them because I couldn't do all the things that I imagined the perfect mom would be doing. Wow, you know, first, let me just acknowledge the really the graciousness and the vulnerability and the humility. Thank you for going into that space because I know it's not easy, but you know, but it's very real. And that's what matters is that when women and people go through this space and we're not talking about it, then we're just leaving people in the dust. And that's what it's not about. You know, it's about really sharing so that we can see how we can get to that place of, you know what, maybe the world would be a better place with you. Right. We need you here. Right. And if anyone takes just that message alone from you in this, I think we've done our job. But how about you take us through. OK, so it's Easter. You went into the darkness. You saw that this world would be better actually with you. What are some of those initial steps that you took to get yourself back to yourself and really prioritize yourself? Such a good question. First and foremost, it really was about taking care of my physical self and sleep was at the crux of that. And so my mom flew out to help us. My husband kind of locked me in a good way, but said, you need to sleep the whole weekend. And then we realized it was time to get some help with childcare because prior to that, I was so, wanting to be with my son all the time, and then my husband was with him when I had to go in and teach, but we just had really underestimated the amount of help we would need. So we got help with childcare, things started to sort themselves out. But then it gets a little more exciting in that we got our second son and we then had two kids under two and went on to have three kids in four years. And again, biggest blessings, but every single time it was a bit of a roller coaster all over again in terms of time, in terms of logistics and in terms of the stress that I felt on my body to try and do so much for my family while also meeting all of the Requirements and expectations and they were not just externally imposed. There were a lot of self imposed expectations for performing at my job. But yeah, it was a matter of trial and error. It was really realizing that there were answers out there and I just needed to start searching and acknowledge that I didn't already have the answers the way that my perfectionist self used to think I already knew it all or that I could figure it out. And so after my third son was when I really started to apply my research skills and delve into these scientific studies to figure out ways that we could do more, but with more intention and in less time and honoring our natural needs to stress less and then really be happier so that we can serve our families and continue to thrive. Yes, I love that. Here's the thing is you just took us through that period and I'm not gonna let you just fly through it because here's the thing is it took real courage and resilience and dedication to go through three kids in four years and especially coming from a space where you had given up on kids altogether. So we're gonna dive into that in a second, but just to give a little segue, it's gonna also lead us into your natural born expertise. You just told us that there's a way to do more in less time. There's a way to let go of that perfectionism. There's a way to make it all happen. So we're going to get into that land. But first, tell us, you brought us into the space of sleep. And this is a hot topic. So in that span of three years, right, or four years when you're having these kids, was there a routine or a time you went to sleep, a time you woke up? And if you did have that routine, what are other pillars of self-care that you embodied so that you could get into that productivity space? Okay, yeah, I love this. Let's get super tactical. Honestly, there was not great routine for the first several years. I loved getting to bond and nurse my babies, and so that meant I was available any time of day or night. And I really just started to embrace that instead of resist it the way I had with my first son. And I recognized that it was normal for my children to be waking up a few times a night, but I also ended up hiring a sleep coach with my third son to break some of the associations and habits that I unknowingly had put in place with my first two. More than anything, I really asked my husband to step in and do more in terms of helping to put the kids to bed at night so that I could go right to sleep when they went to sleep. Or we would trade off who got to sleep in a little bit in the morning. And then I hated this advice every time someone told it to me before kids or early kid years. But it's so true to try and sleep when they sleep. And I fought this so badly because, you know, when else are you supposed to get anything done but when your children are asleep, right? So every time they would be asleep, again, that's when I was initially trying to do my academic work. That's when I was trying to scramble and clean up the house. And I was holding on to extra high expectations of what my house should look like. And again, my default mode of doing things that I had loved and thrived on before kids, but it just didn't work in that season of young kids. And so I finally not only got help on the sleep front, but started caring a whole lot less about dishes being left in the sink at night or how well the laundry got folded, right? And those are just a couple of really small examples. Some people might think I'm crazy, but it used to really bother me if my house was dirty. And now I just recognize that sleep was more important and time with my kids was more important. And the state of my house did not have any reflection on my worth as a person, let alone a mother and wife. That is huge, because I think that the more we talk about this, the more open we can be on letting go of expectations, and not only that, judgment, and the way things should be. I can tell that you are a very deeply driven professional so that the way you do one thing is the way you do everything. So I can only imagine the inner battle you went through to have to let go of letting the dishes just be. Letting go of the laundry being perfect. It's like you recognize that Sleep and your children were at the top of the priority. So it sounded like you just naturally allowed yourself to open up the space for that so that you could get some rest, right? So you got some rest. You got yourself moving. What were some of the, once you got a little bit of rhythm and help there, what are some of the other tactics that you applied from a self-care space and then take us into the productivity space? How that self-care bleeds into being more productive. Go ahead. I could talk forever about this. So a couple of big things were, of course, being outside and getting fresh air and moving my body every day. I wasn't able to do the same kinds of really intense exercise as I had done before kids. And I've gotten back to that point. But, you know, initially, especially with having multiple kids so close in age, your body needs time to rest and recover. And so I just had to accept that and find other ways of being active. But it was more for the mental health benefit than anything. I loved journaling, but I didn't have two free hands to journal, you know, the way that I used to. So I started keeping an audio journal on my phone. And every time I would drive even just to the grocery store or to drop my kids off at daycare, I would turn on the recorder on my phone and just speak to whoever, right, whoever this invisible journal person is. No one's ever going to hear it except it's on my phone. And that was just a really cathartic way of getting my thoughts out and feeling like I had a safe space to share what was on my heart. And then the biggest thing that helped in terms of productivity, actually, second biggest thing, and then we'll get to the biggest. The second biggest thing for productivity was learning how to effectively prioritize my tasks. Because I had this never-ending list of to-dos, And again, it's so easy to feel like everything has to get done right now, everything is equally important, and it's not. I know that now. So I developed my own system for trying to figure out what order of tasks needed to be completed, and then having my set priorities so that if I got those couple of things done each day, it was a win no matter how much was left to do. Yes, I love that. Okay, listen, you've given us the mental and the emotional, really, vulnerability at the beginning. You've loaded us with self-care tips and actual productivity strategies. Take us through what is one or two things that mamas can do immediately, present day, to really shorten that timeline that us as experts get to develop. What can they do now to really take this knowledge and put it into place? Okay, that brings me to my top productivity tip, the biggest thing that I alluded to, and this has been such a game changer for me and for my clients, and I really wish I could shout it from the rooftops. But I've realized that we naturally have these different energy rhythms, and the reality is that as much as we all think we need more time to get everything done, We don't. We could have all the time in the world and we're still not going to be able to get it all done because we won't always have the energy we need in order to complete things up to par. And if we try, we're only going to further exhaust ourselves. So it is now my mission to help women align their time with their natural energy rhythms I have some programs where I teach these in greater depth, but a quick overview is your circadian rhythm, which is your natural 24-hour body clock, your ultradian rhythm, which is how long you're able to focus for any length of time during the day, your infradian rhythm, which is so essential for women. This is your monthly cycle and the different phases that you go through as part of that. And then finally, your weekly cycle, as well as how that is all moderated by seasons of the year and daylight hours and all that good stuff. So. Maybe more than we can unpack in depth here, but it's so, so, so important if you do nothing else to just be aware that you are not a machine. I wanted to be a machine. I think the standard productivity space is very well-intentioned, but it leads us to think that if we just employ all of these tips, then we can do it all and be amazing. But again, we have varying capacity depending on our season of life, and depending upon all these different energy windows that we naturally go through on a recurring basis. And so learning your unique energy rhythms, because they're unique for everybody. I can help you track them and pinpoint them, but learning when you will and won't have energy so that you can then plan in advance the kinds of tasks you tackle to match the energy that's required to complete them. It's, again, just such a game changer. I love that. Thank you so much. Listen, Amber, you've given us real life strategies that if you ask me are hidden gems, right? It's, it's matching that energy, allowing you to be more productive, but also just breaking away from all the stigmas and all the negativity that surrounds motherhood in those early stages. So thank you so much for your generosity. What I'd love to do now is just really open up the floor for you to tell us what the free gift that you have for our mamas is and where they can find you. Perfect, thank you. I love talking about all of this stuff and I am so open about my struggles because I don't want any other woman to ever feel as hopeless as I once did. And again, I'm just trying to be the resource that I couldn't find in that moment when I was struggling. I would love to share with everyone what I call my everyday essentials checklist. And again, I've spent years researching all the science behind these things, but it is a checklist of 18 proven habits to really help you set each day up for success so that you're caring for your body, mind, and soul, excuse me, really helpful. And then I can be found at my website, solutionsforsimplicity.com. I have a YouTube channel with over 180 videos on planning, productivity, and purposeful living tips. Super active on Instagram at Solutions for Simplicity. And I do have a bunch of digital products, my programs, including the Harness Your Energy program that teaches you your body rhythms. And then I do one-on-one client work. So if anyone wants to reach out, I would be so honored to connect. Amazing. Thank you for that. And for those of you listening, I encourage you to go. You got her Instagram. You got her website. The only thing stopping you from where you are now into a place of thriving is you. And the best part is we're here to support you on that mission. Both Amber and I appreciate you. We love you. And Amber, to you, on behalf of our audience, I just want to say again, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for your generosity. And thank you just for the open heart. It's my honor. Thank you so much. Again, I am so curious if any of that resonated with you. If it did, I would love for you to reach out to me by email through the link in the show notes or DM me at solutionsforsimplicity on Instagram and let me know. Your homework is to download the free Everyday Essentials Checklist I mentioned from the link in the show notes, print it out, and challenge yourself to do at least a few of those simple, scientifically proven things every day for the next 7 days. I promise they will start to help you feel so much better. Then, Join me back next episode, where we are going to fast forward back to present day and talk about the hidden thing sabotaging your productivity, no matter how well you've planned out your day or how much of a productivity guru you are. You will see how automatically this thing shows up in your everyday life and the skill you need to develop to still push through and do what you need to do. Until then, remember nothing you do changes how wonderful and worthy you are. Have a great day. I know more than anyone how precious your time is, so the fact that you spent it listening to this podcast means the world. Make sure to subscribe, and if you got value out of this show, I would be so honored if you'd leave a review and share this episode with another busy mama who needs to hear it. We've got this.