Help for Anxious Moms

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Brigid Bergin: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. I'm Brigid Bergin, WNYC Senior Political Correspondent filling in for Brian who's off today and tomorrow. Mother's Day celebrates all the wonderful parts of being a mom. Even if the past year of a pandemic, parenting has been especially challenging. Now we'll take a closer look at some of those joys and challenges during the past year and what it meant to be a mother. Joining me now is Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco, psychologist and author of Mom Brain: Proven Strategies to Fight the Anxiety, Guilt, and Overwhelming Emotions of Motherhood, and Relax Into Your New Self. Welcome to WNYC, Dr. DiMarco.

Ilyse Dobrow Dimarco: Thank you so much for having me. Excited to be here.

Brigid: Let's start with the title of your book for listeners who aren't familiar. What is mom brain, and how is the term used? It sort of has a negative connotation, doesn't it?

Dr. DiMarco: It does. I'll talk a little bit about the sciences mom brain, and then I can tell you why I chose it as the title of the book. There hasn't been much research on the maternal brain, which is incredible considering everything that happens. When you become a mother and when you're pregnant, and all that, but emerging research has shown that mom brain, far from being a deficit, which is how it's portrayed in the popular media, like moms leave the house without shoes on, or forget where their cell phone is. Far from being a deficit, it actually puts moms at an advantage because the brain has structural and functional changes which enable moms to focus on their kids.

Our brain basically prioritizes our children, and that's wonderful from a caregiving perspective because it ensures that kids are always top of mind, but what that also means is that things that were previously top of mind like where we put our cell phone fall a little bit lower down on the list. I think mom brain has a bad rap when in reality the science shows us, as I said, it's very advantageous.

I chose the title for the book to just refer to all the myriad changes that women undergo when they become mothers. Cognitive and emotional, relationship changes, identity changes, and I thought Mom Brain was a good title to encapsulate all of that.

Brigid: Absolutely. As you're saying, so this runs contrary to the popular belief that there's some evidence that mothers suffer from declines in brain functioning when they have kids. What is it that women are actually experiencing when they become moms?

Dr. DiMarco: Oh, so much. [chuckles]

Brigid: Loaded, huge question.

Dr. DiMarco: There's so much that goes on. I think one of the things that has always been an issue for women as they become mothers is that there's this perception that motherhood is the sort of transformative sunshine and flowers wonderful experience. It is, but there's also so many other things at play, and so many other things going on that really complicate the picture.

You're also losing your identity in many ways. Maybe you were like an athlete, or a travel junkie, or something before, and all of a sudden, you feel like all you are is mom. You have emotional swings, highs, and lows, and in between. You have relationship changes because once you brought the baby into the mix, into a relationship with a partner, with extended family, with friends, it can really change the dynamics of that relationship.

Needless to say, you've got all sorts of bodily changes going on as well, for those women who became mothers via pregnancy. It is a complicated time and a wonderful time, but also a difficult time. I think there hasn't been enough airtime given to the difficulties.

Brigid: Absolutely. A lot of those conversations seem to only happen among mothers once they become mothers. I'm wondering how long does this time of mom brain last?

Dr. DiMarco: Honestly, I think it's always, but I think it changes. It's funny, my mother herself who is 76 years old says that she still has mom brain because while my sister and brother and I are adults, and we have our own children, she still has us top of mind and now has her grandchildren top of mind. I think that's true. I think we always have our kids top of mind. Now, of course, it shifts and varies what we think about our kids and what is top of mind depending on what developmental stage our children are in, but I think it is a fundamental change that remains a change.

Now, of course, when your kids get older, you start to have more flexibility, and you can have an easier time reclaiming some of the parts of yourself, getting some alone time, getting breaks, things like that, but I think mom brain is a permanent condition. [chuckles] I think once you get it, you're you have it for life.

Brigid: A blessing I think in many respects. You are an expert in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, also known as CBT. For those who aren't familiar, can you explain how that form of therapy works?

Dr. DiMarco: Sure. CBT is a research-supported present moment-focused short-term type of treatment. It is not the type of therapy where the goal is to gain insight into a problem, the goal is not to do a deep dive into your childhood. Instead, the goal really is to help you in the here and now. If you're having a difficulty in the moment, what can you do to manage? CBT and related evidence-based treatments present a rich set of skills that you can use in the moment to help you cope.

I started my career as an expert in CBT for anxiety and mood, generally speaking. When I started to work with a lot of new moms because I was at that stage myself, I realized, "Wow, these strategies apply beautifully to the mothers with whom I'm working, and myself as I'm going through this too," because they're easy to learn, they're easy to use, and in the moment when you are struggling, you can put them right into practice. That's how the CBT I did translated from being just-- Not just, but for anxiety and mood issues to mom issues more generally speaking.

Brigid: I know we want to talk more about those strategies, but I want to invite our listeners, any moms or mother figures out there listening, we hope you had a wonderful day yesterday. After a year of pandemic parenting, we want to know what some of your wins are, some of your accomplishments. Maybe this came up during Mother's Day yesterday while you were reflecting with loved ones. What are you most proud of from the past year? Did you handle one aspect really well no matter how big or how small? We want to celebrate these small victories of motherhood, particularly in this past year.

You can tweet @BrianLehrer, or give us a call now at 646-435-7280 with your stories, or questions you might have for our guest, Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco, a psychologist and author of Mom Brain. That number is 646-435-7280. Dr. DiMarco, your book is full of different strategies for moms to deal with the pressures of being a parent, as you mentioned, self-care tips to dealing with the worst-case scenario anxiety that a lot of parents feel, I relate to that very personally. One tip you have is to keep a diary of wins. Can you explain what that looks like?

Dr. DiMarco: Sure. I think there is so much focus when we become mothers on the things we perceive that we're doing wrong and very little focus on what we're doing right. We're doing a lot of things right, especially I think during this year when the challenges were just unfathomable for all of us. What I encourage the moms that I work with to do is to keep a running list on their phone and the notes pages of mom wins. Maybe they did something they were particularly proud of, maybe their kid did something that was really cool. It can be the smallest thing to the biggest thing. Like I had a mom recently when I ordered the right sizes online for my son's bathing suits.

The bathing suits came and they were the right sizes, and I didn't have to return them. I was like, "Mom wins. This was great, I don't have to return them to get new ones." It could be something that small, but it's really important that we're considering the positive information as opposed to just the negative. This is something we see in CBT for mood and anxiety issues all the time, that people will really only hold on to the negative stuff and disregard positive stuff.

Like I said, I think for moms, it's particularly problematic. It's important to keep this running list and then at times when you don't feel like the world's greatest mom and we all have times like that often, you can take a look at that list and remind yourself, "Okay, so whatever, so and so didn't go so well, but look at this long list that I have of things that did." I'm very much a fan of this positive evidence building and referring back to it whenever you can.

Brigid: It seems like that could very much help counteract another thing that you examine, which is the anxiety that can be fueled by social media, which subjects us to as you write the relentless comparison making and mom-shaming. This might be very true this year when so much social media had really been our only social outlet. What practical tips do you have for moms who might be feeling heightened anxiety because of social media?

Dr. DiMarco: There's so much of this going on now. You're totally right because of COVID, social media for many of us, was our only link to the outside social worlds. I think we really dove even further into it. I have a lot of strategies for social media comparison making that I say that's a general theme of all of them is to really be critical of your own social media comparing.

Meaning, spend some time paying attention to who you're comparing yourself to because what often happens is we'll compare ourselves to people about whom we have little or no information. This is the example of going on Instagram and comparing ourselves to like celebrity moms, or what they're calling momfluencers now. Or even people that maybe we knew at one time like from middle school who we have not laid eyes on in 20 years or whatever.

A lot of times, we'll make comparisons based on these posts that we're seeing when we know nothing about these people. We don't know what it took for them to get that perfect picture. We don't know what their lives are like behind those perfect pictures. All we know is what they want us to see. I tell my patients to be very critical and ask themselves, what information do I have about this person? I have them do that, actually, even with people who they do know, I'll say, "Hey, you're comparing yourself to your neighbor's posts that you just saw on social media.

Tell me about your neighbor. Do you like this person?" Like nine times out of 10 of mom I'm working with will say, "Oh, no, I don't like her at all. I don't like her kids. I don't like her." I'll say, "Well, okay, if you don't share her opinions, and you don't share her values, why would you compare yourself to her?" I often will say, "That's like going to a doctor whose training you don't respect and then listening to their medical advice." That's basically what I see it as akin to.

Again, even with people they know, I'll encourage moms to really be critical of their own comparison-making, and then to be really strategic about who they choose to compare themselves to. Pick moms that you know well in your lives, especially those who have older kids because it's always helpful to hear from more seasoned mothers, but pick moms whose values you share, pick moms whose opinions you value, those are the people to whom you should be comparing yourself. That's the overall theme, and I've got some specific strategies too in the chapter that I devote towards, but it's basically about being critical of the comparing because otherwise, you can really fall down a black hole with that and never come out.

Brigid: Let's go to Joanne in Brooklyn.

Joanne: Hey, hi.

Brigid: Hi, Joanne. Welcome to WNYC.

Joanne: Hi.

Dr. DiMarco: Hi.

Joanne: I'll just say briefly that when I had for the last year was being at home with my daughter remotely and helping her get through this awful year. She's in her senior year of high school, so that was a great one. We went out to Mother's Day last night just meet her. I'm a single mom. She was very frank about her feelings about the world. I don't know how to help her because she's very clear on how devastating climate change is going to be for her.

She said, "I don't plan on having children because I don't want to bring them into this world, and nobody right now cares because we're all going to be dead by the time that happens." She has a very dark and probably very realistic view of the future, and I don't know how to help her because I came out of a completely different reality.

Dr. DiMarco: Yes, it's a really scary time to be a kid. It's a really scary time to be a kid. I'd say a few things. I think one of the nice things about being 18 is that your brain is at that point where it's hopefully going to start getting to that adult brain. With that adult brain comes a little bit of perspective, and so my hope is that as she gets a little bit older in the ensuing years, hopefully, she'll get some perspective on it and can hold two things in her hands at once, which is actually even something she can start to work on now.

Like, hold in one hand how scary things are and how dire things are, but also hold the other hand, those things that are hopeful. Those things that we can do to make change. That's actually what I would encourage you to talk to her about. I talk in Mom Brain a lot about what I call big stuff worries and this is exactly what you're talking about, climate change, all the violence, political upheaval, all this stuff, and the hopelessness that can come from feeling like you have no control over these things.

What I say in the book is again, in one hand, you've got to hold on and be accepting of yourself and compassionate towards yourself or your kid who's dealing with these scary things, but in the other hand, you can say, "All right, well, what can I do? What change can I affect however small to make me feel like I'm making an impact?" This is like joining a climate change advocacy group, starting to do some real work from the ground up.

I can actually say, and I talk about this in Mom Brain, a couple of years ago, I was so upset about the gun violence situation in schools that I went door-to-door canvassing for a gun offense candidate with my representative. This is not my thing. I am not a door-to-door canvasser by nature, but I decided I am so upset about this, and I'm not in government, and there's nothing huge I can do, but here's something small I can do that maybe can make a difference.

Lucky for me, she was elected, and it was awesome. It's not like I don't fret about gun violence now, but I can hold that in one hand, and on the other hand think, "Wow, I've got a representative in Congress who's working on this." I helped to do a little something to get her there, and I would encourage you to see if your daughter can get herself involved, again, in just a little something that can help her feel like she's really making some an impact because I'll tell you again from personal experience, it can make a real difference in the anxiety and hopelessness that you feel about these big stuff issues.

Brigid: Joanna, thank you so much. Good luck to your daughter. That's a helpful strategy. I think something that I'll take away from our conversation as well. Let's go to Mariana on the Upper West Side.

Mariana: Hi, can you hear me?

Brigid: Welcome to WNYC. Absolutely.

Dr. DiMarco: Hi, yes.

Mariana: Hi, thank you. First-time calling, long, long time listener to Brian Lehrer Show, and you ladies and Alison Stewart as well, I love her. Anyways, I'm calling because yesterday was Mother's Day, I'm a mother of three and a half-year-old and a six-year-old. What we've been doing for the last few years is my husband takes our two kids, and he goes to New Jersey to visit his mom who obviously wants to be with her grandchildren and her son, and I get to have a day to myself. I get to do whatever I want. I made some soup, I went to the market, and I took a stroll, took the long way through the park. While doing this, I love it. I still always feel a little guilty telling people that I do. I still do it.

I hope that over the years and even this year, example is I'm able to call and vocalize this on the radio that it shouldn't be perceived as so counterintuitive, it should be okay to say, "You know what, this is Mother's Day, I'm going to take this day to do whatever it is that I want to do for me," and not feel guilty about it. I just wanted to share that. I think often I see everybody going out to celebrate which I understand considering our traumatic year that we've all experienced some a lot more than others, but as a mom going out to lunch or anything with the two kids, it's far from relaxing. Yes, I just wanted to share that it's okay to take a day to yourself, and not have your kids with you.

Brigid: Thank you so much, and happy Mother's Day.

Mariana: Yes, I love that. Yes, I could not agree more. Absolutely.

Brigid: Dr. DiMarco, talk about the importance of some of what Mariana was describing there that I think clearly boils down to making time for yourself and some self-care and how important is that in terms of strategies to help you face the challenges of motherhood?

Dr. DiMarco: Absolutely. It's so important and I love that she brought up the shame around that because there is. She's absolutely right. Part of my mission in writing this book honestly was to help moms cut down on the shame of many, many things. One of which is this notion that you're supposed to be sacrificing yourself at the altar of your children at all times. There's been some great writing about this in the past and there continues to be writing about this and yet, we are still feeling like we need to deprioritize ourselves always.

I love the idea of Mother's Day to yourself, by the way, because that's what we all really need. We need a break. I talk a lot in the book about taking care of yourself. What I tell moms to do all the time is you first of all have to make a self-care lift for yourself. Just spend some time noting down those things that for you are replenishing and nourishing and they do not have to be manicures and pedicures, which is what self-care is always portrayed as in the media. It can be anything. Anything that for you, particularly is nourishing and helpful. You have that list.

Then, what I tell them to do is be really strategic about actually scheduling in time to take care of themselves every day. The moms I work with on like the night-- When it's night time, look at your calendar for tomorrow, see where you can get some time to yourself, look at your self-care list, figure out what it is you want to do, what it is that's feasible, and make sure to make it happen. Oftentimes, it takes advanced planning. It may be that you have to the night before if you are with a partner, ask your partner, "Hey, I need from 3:00 to 3:30, 3:00 to 4:00, whatever off so I can go for a run tomorrow."

It may be you have to block out your work calendar so you have a little bit of a lunch break, where you can go and do some mindfulness activities. You really have to be strategic, because what I found in working with moms is that mums will go in today with the best intentions of taking care of themselves. Then, like the siren song of the laundry, like Laura said, and the day is over and they've done nothing for themselves. I think what's required is just to be really, really strategic about when you're scheduling time. Like I said, to make sure that you set the stage so that it can definitely happen because otherwise it just won't.

Brigid: That siren sound of the laundry, I've heard many, many times.

Dr. Dimarco: For sure. I just did this morning. I'm sorry to say.

Brigid: Let's go to Margaret in Madison, New Jersey. Margaret, welcome to WNYC.

Margaret: Hi, thank you. I just wanted to mention that I'm a different kind of mom. I'm a older mom. All my children are grown, but they were all home for the pandemic for which was like an amazing time to have three young men all in the house together,, but bt's something I never would have gotten to have, but because they're young guys, there was a lot of drinking. Our alcohol bills went through the roof, which was like, "Hey, this is fine. It's a party," but like four months in it's not a party anymore, it's a problem.

I got really scared about it and I found out about this thing called The Alcohol Experiment, which is by Annie Grace. It's a free 30-day, you sign up and she just talks you through what alcohol does to your body and how it relates to anxiety and depression. For 30 years I didn't sleep. I went to the Morristown sleep clinic. They were like, "Hey, you're healthy. We don't really know why you can't sleep." Then I told my doctor and my doctors have never-- In reading the book either Alcohol Explained or her book The Naked Mind, you understand that it takes two weeks for alcohol to leave your system.

Just not drinking one night isn't going to let you sleep. I've not had a drink since January 1st and I'm sleeping. People say to me, "Well, why don't you want to just moderate or drink?" I'm like, "Because I haven't slept in 30 years and I'm sleeping." I have to just shout it out there. The culture is for young mothers. It's mommy time, it's wine time, and it's horrible. It's a terrible-- But the alcohol industry is pushing women to drink more.

Dr. Dimarco: Yes, I write about this in the book.

Margaret: As I say this is a great--

Brigid: Margaret raised so many interesting things there, Dr. Dimarco, in terms of both the anxiety that she felt because of some of the alcohol use, but also this idea of the relationship between mothers and mother figures and older children during the pandemic, and the type of behaviors that they witnessed, that they foster and that we collectively engage in, I'm wondering what your reaction is to some of what she raised.

Dr. Dimarco: It's interesting that she mentioned the memes about moms and drinking because I talk about this in the book. Maybe I'll focus on that piece of it, but I think everything she said makes a lot of sense. I think, in general, a lot of us during the pandemic moms or no turn to alcohol with this idea that this is a short-term way to get through a really scary situation. Then, of course, it ended up being far longer term than we expected.

Obviously, using alcohol as a coping strategy is a problem across the board. I'll say for moms, in particular, this idea of moms, you see all these boozy mom memes on the internet. Look at The Real Housewives, I talk about this in the book. They're like always chucking wine in each other's faces like, "What is that about?" I think what's so difficult about all those memes and whatnot is the assumption that moms can't cope with motherhood without alcohol which is really, really problematic because it's not true and it does encourage alcohol use as a coping strategy and it's a real issue.

I talked to moms about this a lot. I'm very discouraging, needless to say, of the use of alcohol to cope. I also talk to moms too about the pressure that I think a lot of them actually feel to go out and do these like boozy moms night out which, of course, stopped during the pandemic, but are back now, so interesting with the warmer weather. Some of my patients are telling me now that this is happening again and that there's a lot of pressure around this idea that you need to go out and booze it up with other moms to have fun and to relieve your stress.

I talk often about the problems with this. My hope that the types of coping strategies that we talk about in CBT will be what my mom patients use, and not use alcohol. It's absolutely true about sleep by the way, it really messes with your sleep. It's a common misconception that you drink to sleep better, absolutely not true.

Brigid: Let's take one more caller. Michelle in Goshen, New York, welcome to WNYC.

Michelle: Hi, thank you for taking my call. I'm actually an adopted aunt, I don't have kids of my own. I was just curious about when you had mentioned that mom brain is something that scientifically and literally happens to your brain as if it's an evolutionary type of happening, does that then also happen if you're an adoptive mom or if you are just surrounded by a lot of children on a daily basis? Does that have an actual physical change in your brain?

Dr. Dimarco: There is really cool research being done right now on this. I'll tell you that has emerged since I finished writing the book because they're doing studies too of fathers as well. There's a couple of groups that are doing really, really interesting work and it seems to be suggesting that, yes. As I said, I think that the science is very new. I think what that points too is something, generally speaking, that I think is an issue where I don't think we as a society have paid enough attention to what happens when we become a parent and all of the changes that happen.

I would say look out for the research on this, because it's being done now and it's coming out now. It does seem to suggest that, yes, you do not necessarily have to be a mother by birth, or a caregiver via giving birth to experience some of this. It's really, really fascinating stuff. Like I said, I'm excited there's a number of people now who I've connected with just doing work on this book who are writing.

I know someone who's writing a whole book on this now. Stay tuned for that because it should be coming relatively soon. I think it's really, really interesting. Again, I think it points to just how profoundly our lives change when kids enter into it whether by birth, whether by adoption, whether by fostering, whether if you're an auntie or an uncle. It really can make such profound changes.

Brigid: Dr. Dimarco, I have one final question for you. Your book is for moms, about mums, what they can do to cope when they're feeling spread too thin and stressed. For those who aren't moms, is there a way that they can help too?

Dr. Dimarco: You're saying there are ways that the non-moms can help the moms in their lives. Is that what you're asking?

Brigid: Exactly. You got it.

Dr. Dimarco: Yes, absolutely. I think the first piece of this is to offer to help. I will caveat that by saying that one of the things that I say in the book repeatedly is that if moms need help, they can't assume that people in their lives are going to know and just jump in to help them. I'm very vocal about moms needing to be assertive and ask very specifically for what it is that they need when they need things. Putting that aside, yes. If you've got a mom in your life, try to reach out if you can and ask is there anything specific she needs help with? Basically reaching out and saying, "Oh my gosh, things seem so stressful for you. Let me know if I can help." That will do nothing.

What will do something is if you reach out to her and say, "Hey, can I bring food over tonight?" "Hey, can I watch so-and-so for a couple hours in the park so you can get away." The more specific the offer of help, the better because those general offers of help don't really mean much, but if you can very specifically reach out and offer to help, I think that that could go a really, really long way.

Some of it too is listening and offering to be a supportive ear. One of the main missions that I had with this book like I was saying before is to give moms the opportunity to talk about all of the emotions of motherhood because they're varied and they're complicated and all of that. I think when they perceive that they have a supportive ear, somebody who will really listen and talk them through some of these emotions, I think that too can go a really, really long way.

It's not just about, "Hey, you're my friends and family, all you want from me are these adorable pictures of my kids." Instead, it's about, "Hey, you're here for me. If I need to talk through the disastrous bomb that seems to go off at bedtime every night." I could use an ear for that to make yourself available for those kinds of conversations, I think it's invaluable for moms.

Brigid: Well, we have to leave it there for today. My guest has been Ilyse Dobrow Dimarco psychologist and the author of Mom Brain: Proven Strategies to Fight the Anxiety, Guilt, and Overwhelming Emotions of Motherhood and relax into your new self. Thanks so much for coming on today.

Dobrow: Thank you so much for having me. It's been great.

 

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