“I Can’t Do This” - Dr. Becky on New Mom Anxiety and the 4pm Dread

1. 0:00 – 0:01

   Intro

   1. BEDr. Becky0:00

      [gentle music]

2. 0:01 – 1:32

   Why this show exists: healing through honest new-parent stories

   1. BEDr. Becky0:01

      Hi, I'm really glad you're here. This is a brand-new show that we made especially for parents and parents-to-be for those first number of weeks and months around having a baby. Also, for the third trimester, definitely for that foggy newborn stage, and those hard nights. For the stretch when everything feels so new and complicated and close to the surface. I really think there's nothing more healing than stories. As humans, we learn from other stories way more than we learn from advice, and I think especially new parenthood, what helps us most is hearing things that make us say, "Oh my goodness, I'm not the only one. You too. Oh, that's a name for that thing that I experienced." And one of the things I realized is that if in this show I'm going to be talking to parents about some of the most vulnerable moments and thoughts that they've had, I definitely had to ask myself all of these same questions and share part of my new parent story with you. And so that's what we're going to be doing today. I'm gonna be reflecting back to 14 years ago, and I remember a lot of those moments vividly. I haven't talked about them in a while. I've definitely never talked about them publicly, but in the name of sharing stories and learning from other people's stories, I really wanted to share mine with you. [gentle music] Before my first baby arrived, okay, words that come to mind:

3. 1:32 – 3:04

   Pre-baby identity: productivity, planning, and being “on top of things”

   1. BEDr. Becky1:32

      productive, complicated, movement, ahead of things, on top of things, could get a lot of things done. A- and I guess like the prototypical moment or a day that would come to mind before I had kids [laughs] is I always have woken up early, so it's just how my body works. But what that allowed me to always do is, let's say it's a Saturday morning, um, I can go to the gym, I can get in this good workout. Maybe I've planned what class I'm in, and I know the time to sign up a week before, so I got my spot in that class. I go, I come home, I shower, I dry my hair, and then me and a friend or maybe it's me and my husband, we go to brunch, and I've kind of researched this place and I know the line gets really busy at 11, so we get there at 10:30. Um, and then from there, I know this wedding gift I have to pick out for someone, so I find the store near that brunch place. And then I think about visiting a friend that seems really far away, but I've already mapped out that it's actually only a subway transfer away, so we get on the subway, and I'm on top of that. And honestly, I think before kids, I got a lot of both pleasure but maybe identity. Like this is who I am. I'm someone who can plan things out. I like a lot of different things in a day. I like that feeling of, oh my goodness, look how much I accomplished, and I could fit this into one day. Um, and I just kind of prided myself, I think, or maybe just, again, I just thought of myself as someone who could do so many things. I was always on top of things, and I'd end the day feeling really productive from all of that. I think what felt especially

4. 3:04 – 4:06

   The self-efficacy mindset—and how newborn life disrupts it

   1. BEDr. Becky3:04

      solid in my life [laughs] before I had kids was, um, my ability to push through something and solve a problem because so many situations, there was kind of one person involved, me, right? And even if it involved someone else, oh, me and, you know, my now husband we're arguing. Okay, well what's my dynamic and what am I contributing? And let me try this in the next conversation. Oh, I feel really exhausted and okay, well what do I need to change in my nighttime routine to actually get to bed earlier? Okay, I could do that. Um, I felt like I can control certain outcomes if I put forth enough effort and if I take enough personal responsibility. I've always kind of felt like, well, the only person I can change is myself, but I've, I've always felt a power in that. Okay, I'm gonna change something, and then I'm gonna, um, notice kind of an impact from there, and boy did that come crashing down. In

5. 4:06 – 6:07

   Trying to ‘copy-paste’ life with a baby: biscotti, visitors, and the crash

   1. BEDr. Becky4:06

      2011, I became a mom. I think I pictured the f- early weeks and months being a carbon copy of my life before a child, but now with this tiny human there. And truthfully, the first couple weeks, maybe it was just the first week, I tried to replicate that, and let me just tell you, it did not go well. The world came crashing down, but I'll, I'll tell you what happened. So I remember in the first couple days hardly sleeping and still trying to keep up all these other things that really still felt like me. I was like, "I'm gonna cook dinner. I'm gonna bake biscotti," 'cause that really mattered. Um, "I'm gonna have some friends come over at 5:00 PM. They wanna visit." And I was one of the first to have kids, so, of our group of friends, and our friends I feel like really did treat me and my husband like we were the first people ever to have kids. They'd be like, "Oh my goodness, this is amazing." And I was like, "I've always had visitors. I've always had complications." I remember saying to my husband, I think it was day four, "It's crazy. I really can operate on four hours of sleep." [laughs] And he says that was a moment, it was like, oh no. Oh no. Like this, this train is gonna crash. And, and I did. Like I, I really did. I, I can't remember now if it was day eight, day 10, maybe it was day four, day five, um, my body fully gave out. Like I had full-blown like shakes. I, I think my body was probably giving me so many signals before that trying to say, "Slow down. Slow down." And I didn't listen. I didn't even hear it. And so it took something, um, bigger and louder and more dramatic to kind of get my attention. Um, and after that I stopped all the visitors and I definitely stopped the biscotti. And I think what was so obvious is, oh- My life is not all gone, but the idea that it's gonna be a carbon

6. 6:07 – 7:38

   Shame avoidance and the pressure to appear ‘together’

   1. BEDr. Becky6:07

      copy just now with a baby and a lot less sleep, um, and a huge, you know, shift in my physical state, that, that... it was clear that, that that wasn't gonna be the case. But I definitely learned that the hard way. Maybe the thing that felt shameful was how much I couldn't keep up with, like, my pre-child life. Like, when I think back on the first couple days that I was making biscotti, like, that is, like, a psychotic thing to do. I, I... If I saw a friend doing that, I would, like, restrain her. I'd be like, "You are not in wise mind" [laughs] Like, "I'm gonna help you." Like, "Y- this is not where you should be expending any energy." But I was so convinced. Um, and probably part of it for me, if I'm honest, was like, "Well, my friend's coming over, and I am, I am gonna be the parent who had a baby and have fresh biscotti, okay, um, on the table." And, like, maybe that's who I had to be, and probably one of the reasons I pushed myself so hard was probably, like, shame avoidance, you know? So maybe that's one of the ways it played out for me, 'cause someone coming to my house and me being, like, kind of like anyone else, like, I'm half present, half a mess. My, my house, you know, looks awful, and I got there. I got there the hard way, 'cause I was like, "It just is what it is. I can't keep this up. My body's screaming at me." Um, but maybe that was where one of the places shame lived for me, more than a specific thought that I

7. 7:38 – 9:39

   Naming the ‘4pm dread’: darkness outside, heaviness inside

   1. BEDr. Becky7:38

      probably did give myself permission to have. So I remember in the first couple weeks... and I had my first in the fall, and it was now post-daylight savings time. The relevance of that is just that it got darker earlier. And I just remember something I couldn't name until so much later, until I talked to friends about it later, 'cause I didn't know they had it too. I just... It was, like, 4:00 PM dread, okay? So I'm in my bed feeding my baby, and I'm noticing in the windows like, oh, the, the darkness is coming. And, and honestly, that's what it felt like. It, it felt like Game of Thrones, like winter is coming. [laughs] Like, it literally was starting to get dark outside, but it felt... I think it felt even darker inside. And I'm someone who's... Honestly, I think my energy revs high. Like, I just have high energy, and so maybe part of the crash, feeling awful at 4:00 PM, was also my body saying like, "This is not so known to you." Like, "You're usually pretty revved up." And I think the hardest part about talking about it now is I still don't have great words for it. It just was this heavy feeling in my chest. I, I don't know. The words are gonna be so unsophisticated, like, "Oh, no. This is bad. Oh, no. This is bad." Like, and it was dread. It was, like, this nameless but very real and very heavy dread. I, I don't know if I was thinking about being alone in the middle of the night, waking up, and just knowing that was coming, and it was inevitable, and... Um, but I just remember being in my bed at 4:00 PM, and it was like everything felt hard and kind of awful. Um, and every time it happened, even though it always felt a little better in the morning, every time it happened, it felt like that was my forever truth, like this is just what it's always gonna be like. And, um, I never remembered that, like, actually it's a

8. 9:39 – 11:11

   The core thought underneath: “I can’t do this”

   1. BEDr. Becky9:39

      stage and it's okay. I never remembered it. Um, but I just viv- I vividly remember that 4:00 PM dread feeling. Uh, I mean, I'm just processing this in real time, but I think so much of my identity was around self-efficacy. I can work through hard things. I can find... I, I don't think I've ever been a toxically positive person, but I've been someone who says, "Okay, this is really hard, and there's something I can do, and there's something I can learn, and there's a step I can take." And I think the weight of the dread was just, like, oh. I just felt sunk into that feeling. It was, like, around me. It was what I was seeing. And let's say there's a part of me that's like, "I can do it, and I can figure that out." I, I don't remember being able to access that in that hour. [laughs] And that hour felt like forever, felt so long. Um, it was such an unexpected feeling, and it was such a new feeling. I, I didn't... I just m- felt like I didn't know what to make of it. You know, and the 4:00 PM dread felt like such a feeling state for me, more than a thought. But if I think about why it was so hard and why it felt so awful, I think there was this, like, quiet thought like, "I, I can't do this. I can't do this." Who was I before I had kids? Like, what felt most like Becky? It was being someone so grounded in self-efficacy, so grounded. No matter what's happening, I can do this.

9. 11:11 – 12:12

   A small coping experiment: movement, cold air, and getting out of the bubble

   1. BEDr. Becky11:11

      I can step forward. I can figure this out. I will get there. And so that I can't do this thought felt... Maybe that was the thing I had dread for more than anything else. Maybe I dreaded the arrival of that thought. One of the things I did start to do, what was interesting, is my husband would manage a lot of, like, dinner time, right? "Okay, you know, I'll figure out food and w- order in food," or he would do the cooking or something. And I realized that actually in the cold, dark air of, like, the 4:00 to 5:00 PM time, if I went outside, um, and, like, walked to pick up food, even though he was like, "Let's just order for delivery. It's cold," I, I, I needed to move. I needed to get out. I needed to feel the wind on my face. I think I needed something sensory that wasn't just, like, this bubble I was in in my house. Um, it didn't make it all better, but, um- But it helped,

10. 12:12 – 13:43

    The ‘forever’ trap: how one hard moment becomes a lifelong sentence

    1. BEDr. Becky12:12

       and I remember being confused by that myself, and even my husband being like, "Why are you do- adding one more thing to your plate?" But it felt, um... It was like a little proof my body needed that this moment of dread and feeling like this thing was forever wasn't, like, the whole truth of the situation. I think the story I mostly told myself was just like, "This is a forever truth." And, and I can think about so many things about the new baby phase that I did that to myself, and I, and I do think we all do that, so like, "Oh, I'm gonna feel like this forever." Um, I remember, you know, when you're in that stage and you're feeding your baby before they sleep through the night, and you're like, "If they don't eat, they're not gonna, you know, sleep." And then I'd have a feeding where it's like, "Oh, I messed up that feeding," and it didn't feel like, "Oh, okay, that's a moment." No, it was like forever, and they're not gonna sleep tonight, and then they're never gonna sleep, and I'm never gonna figure this out. And i- it's just like this moment, and I think the thing is, if I go to that 4pm moment, i- that moment is so heavy, and probably the reason it feels so heavy is because it feels like it's forever. That's why it felt so heavy. Um, so I think that's the story I maybe even unconsciously told myself, like this is just how it's always gonna be forever. And then I guess the story around that for myself is like a helplessness around that, like this life just happened to me, and, like, I'm just gonna have to be in this muck forever. You know, maybe one of the things that's been protective in my mental health

11. 13:43 – 14:45

    Even with therapy and professional insight, it still took hold

    1. BEDr. Becky13:43

       is I can definitely spiral into this feeling is gonna be forever, which is not good for my mental health, but I've never tended to be that hard on myself around, "I don't think other people feel this way," like something's wrong with me, if I'm honest. I- I've actually learned from a lot of moms especially, that's their primary story. The other thing I wanna say is between talking about feelings as a family, I don't know, decades of personal therapy, becoming a psychologist myself, um, I feel like I had the historical kind of privileges around that, the therapeutic self-awareness privileges, the professional privileges, and still this 4pm dread, this heaviness, this darkness, this foreverness still really, really took hold. I mean, I really did run myself into the ground to the point that my body completely broke down, like completely. Um, like all of that still happened. So maybe I can kind of lift out, zoom out on that moment, um, not actually to get away from it,

12. 14:45 – 17:48

    What she needed then: fewer words, more ‘hug,’ and reassurance it will pass

    1. BEDr. Becky14:45

       but actually just to have a new perspective. Like if I'm here now, Becky, you know, 14 years later and looking at that moment of like the first couple weeks of becoming a mom. You know, I'm a person of a lot of words, but I think so many times the thing I help parents with the most is, like, saying fewer words, showing up in all the kind of non-verbal ways, you know, we all need people to show up for. The reason I'm thinking about that is 'cause if I think about that moment, I'm in bed, it's 4pm, it's getting dark outside and inside, um, I think I didn't even realize that I, like, needed a hug. I, I think I probably needed a hug more than most things, and, and a literal hug. Sometimes words can feel like a hug. Like if I was on my phone and something popped up like, "Hey, this might seem random, but if you feel this 4pm dread feeling, I had that too, and I just wanted to tell you that," I think that would have felt like a magical text message word hug to me at the time. I don't even know if I would have written back like, "What'd you do about it?" I think I'd been like, "Oh, my goodness. That's what this is." I think that would have felt really good, and I guess if I could tell that version of me anything, it just would've been like, "This is so real, and there's an hour in the next 24 hours you won't have this feeling, and there will be a 4pm when you don't feel this way." And probably what I would add on, it's interesting, I'm hearing now my own Dr. Becky-ness that I've said to other people, 'cause I think someone always says to me, "But, but when?" Like, "When will this change?" And the only thing I can ever say honestly to someone is, "It will. It'll take longer than you want it to." [laughs] It's the only thing I've ever known about how long things take psychologically to change, so maybe I would've added that. There will be a 4pm you don't feel this way. I can't tell you the date. It's gonna be a couple days after you want it to. It's gonna be longer than you want it to, and it will come. I think I could have had someone saying that to me on repeat, you know? And I guess the only other thing that I-- that would have helped me, or I would say to that version of me is, at 3pm, "Hey, just, just reminding you the 4pm dread is coming. It's gonna suck. It's gonna feel true. It's gonna feel forever. But I'm just gonna leave this little note inside your brain saying, like, here it is, kind of going according to plan. It's not a fun plan. It's not an enjoyable plan, but it's actually totally predictable." I wonder if when it came, I would've... Again, I don't know if I would have fully accessed it, but something back here. I don't know, it would've been loud enough. I was like, "Oh, there it is," you know, just been a little less surprised

13. 17:48 – 19:19

    Predictability changes everything: lessons from baby #2 and #3

    1. BEDr. Becky17:48

       every single 4pm. My second, I remember it again, but it was totally different. I, I did. I was like, "Here it is. Okay." Like, "Here it is," you know? Um, and I think when something becomes a predictable hard moment, it's just completely different than when it's a perpetually surprising hard moment. [laughs] You know, I'm just laughing 'cause thinking anything that's perpetual, we should be able to predict. But when we don't understand it, it, it always feels surprising. So I, I think I had it, but it had such less a hold on me. I kind of knew what it was. I had a name for it. I had- proof that it's not gonna be like this forever because it, it didn't last forever. And then with my third, if I'm honest, um, it didn't. I had such a different relationship to the, everything that was happening. I was so much more forgiving of myself. I wasn't kind of doing what I did with my first and even a little with my second. Like, "This is the thing I need to get right to be a good mom," and then that thing felt so important. And ironically, I feel like [laughs] it was such a smoother ride. Like, everything about it, even, like, how much breast milk I produced was so much more, 'cause I was like, "Eh, whatever it is, it is." And ironically, maybe my body needed a release of pressure and a release of, like, intense stress cortisol to a little bit more do its thing, and that was kind of true across the board with my third. Um, but I would say first was, first was the worst, second was after that, and third, um, I, I don't remember it as much. After my first baby, the thought

14. 19:19 – 22:23

    Reframing “I can’t do this”: it’s hard because it is hard—and you’re not alone

    1. BEDr. Becky19:19

       I didn't want to admit was, "I can't do this. I can't do this." How do I think about that thought now? [laughs] This is so real and so live that I, I just can't get over that I'm looking at this thing on my mug that says, "This feels hard because it is hard." So how do I think about, "I can't do this"? I guess I look at it and I say, "This feels hard because it is hard, and it feels so hard because you're right. Unlike other things in your life, you don't have an immediate fix. You can't your, work your way out of this." And then if I felt like there was space, I'd probably whisper, "You can do this. It's just very new and has a different playbook." If you've ever had the thought, "I can't do this," you are not the only one. And if you're listening before your baby arrives, you probably will have that thought. And if you're listening and just had that thought now, or you're going into that 4pm moment, it's very likely that thought will pop up for you. And I think the worst part about our hard thoughts is the assumption that we're the only one, is that that thought means something about us. And this is interesting, but I did do it. I got through every hard moment. I got through the labor. I got through the nights. And our body just really struggles to incorporate that data into our self-concept, and when something is really hard and really new, I think the first thought that comes up for a lot of us is, "I can't do this." It doesn't mean you don't love your baby. It doesn't mean you're ungrateful. It doesn't mean you're the wrong parent for your kid. I will tell you directly, you are the right parent for your baby, and we all have moments, clearly me too, where we hear, "I can't do this." If you have a story you'd love to share with other parents, we would love to hear from you. Please email us at podcast@goodinside.com. Let's end the way we always do. Place your feet on the ground, place a hand on your heart, and let's remind ourselves, even as we struggle on the outside, we remain good inside. Looking forward to talking with you next time. [outro music]

Episode duration: 22:25