203: I Lied About My Birth Experience. Writing Helped Me Work Out My Sh*t and Get to the Truth.

Allison Langer  0:00  
Hi, I'm Allison Langer. 

Andrea Askowitz  0:05  
I'm Andrea askowitz, and this is writing class radio. You'll hear true personal stories and learn how to write your own stories. Together, we produce this podcast, which is equal parts heart and art. By heart, we mean the truth in a story. By art, we mean the craft of writing. No matter what's going on in our lives, writing classes where we tell the truth, it's where we work out our shame. There's no place in the world like writing class, and we want to bring you in. 

Allison Langer  0:37  
You know who's going to hate that is Marjorie. She hates when we do that. And now we made it like a 10 minute thing out of the shit.

Andrea Askowitz  0:43  
Some people hate it. Some people hate our shit. I don't care. I like

Allison Langer  0:47  
anyway, today on our show, we bring you a story by Rachel Perse. In this episode, we're going to talk about what we just said. Rachel used writing to get to the truth and to work out her she we're doing something new, however, because you may have heard an extra shit, and we hope it's awesome, Rachel's actually here in the studio, and we're going to record for the podcast as usual, but you can also watch us on Youtube. So we're not even sure if they're going to be like, if our audio guys all Matt is going to edit, edit us and post. So if you're seeing a bunch of this, take two, take three, we're really sorry, but this is how the shit goes down. Yeah.

Andrea Askowitz  1:28  
All right, this is our first Youtube effort. So, so we

Allison Langer  1:33  
want a following. All right, Rachel will be back live after the break,

we're back. I'm Allison Langer, and this is writing class radio. Up next is Rachel purse reading her story called The lies I told about motherhood.

Rachel Perse  1:56  
The day we brought my baby, Teddy home from the hospital was the worst day of my life. That is really hard for me to admit. When he turned two months old, I posted on Instagram best two months ever, but that was a lie, and that is also really hard for me to admit. When I got pregnant at 28 I felt ready. I'm the oldest of three girls, a textbook type, a personality, a perfectionist and proud of my organizational skills and work ethic, I always excelled in school and work. Even though I'm the first of my friends and sisters to have a baby, I believed I could figure out pregnancy and motherhood the same way I have approached new challenges all my life. During pregnancy, I struggled with nausea, back pain and other not so pleasant symptoms, but it was manageable. Delivery had its hard moments, but it wasn't as bad as I imagined. After, though I hardly slept, My heart raced. I couldn't stand up without feeling like I was going to pass out. The hospital kept me an extra day and gave me a CAT scan and EKG to check for blood clots and other complications, because no one was sure what was wrong with me, my test came back clear. So on the fourth day of my baby's life, I was sent home. Our first night home, I didn't sleep. It had nothing to do with Teddy. I didn't hold him, Feed him, or change his diaper. I don't even remember where he slept that first night. Instead, I paced. My heart pounded. I was more exhausted than I have been in my entire life, yet completely unable to fall asleep. I vomited multiple times. My mind would not shut off. I felt like everything around me was moving too fast, too loud, too chaotic. Once I realized I couldn't sleep, my thoughts turned to I'll never sleep again. I'm going to lose my mind. How can I be a mom for my baby if I'm in a psychiatric hospital? It was an unbreakable cycle. At midnight, my husband called my mom, who lives a few miles away, and she rushed over. I came out of my room and tried to explain what was going on. My mom said, It's okay that you can't sleep. Lie on the couch next to me. You don't need to explain. I needed my mom the next day, my doctor prescribed medication that helped me sleep. From there, the first few weeks were a blur. I slept better, but hardly ate. I remember a revolving door of visitors, all so excited to meet Teddy everyone told me to enjoy every moment and that the time would fly by so fast, yet I hardly felt any moments of joy, and time had never moved so slowly. When my husband went back to work two weeks postpartum, I sobbed. Being alone was overwhelming. My godfather asked, isn't this the happiest you've ever been? I smiled and lied. I. I loved Teddy, but genuinely wondered if I had made a mistake. I had dreamed of being a mother almost my whole life, ever since my younger sister was born, but here I was a mother, and I couldn't handle it. What if I wasn't meant for this? I looked around and saw everyone getting so much joy from Teddy I'd never seen my parents or sisters happier. I was so envious. It hurt when Teddy was around two months old, I experienced pain worse than labor when I called my doctor, the nurse told me I was probably just getting my period. My mom insisted on getting examined, and it's a good thing she did an ultrasound reveals leftover tissue in my uterus, which had hardened and would require a surgical procedure to remove. It felt so unfair, yet I secretly looked forward to the surgery. It meant I could take a few days to rest and not have to worry about Teddy. When Teddy was three months old, I decided to stop taking my sleep medication, because it was causing me to feel foggy and not like myself. This was a terrible decision. I quickly spiraled into multiple weeks of not eating, not sleeping, vomiting and awful, relentless anxiety. Again. I felt completely unable to control my thoughts as they spun wildly. We had to hire someone to help us part time because I could not even hold Teddy between my Husband, Parents in laws and the babysitter, Teddy was well cared for, just not by me. The guilt was and still is overwhelming. My husband took the night shift on his own for multiple weeks while working full time, my parents canceled a trip to help and my best friend flew in to support me. I failed everyone, especially Teddy finally, I was prescribed a new medication to help with long term anxiety management. One day a few weeks later, I felt hungry that night, I was able to sleep. Eventually, I was able to take care of Teddy. Again, on my own, I am doing better than ever. Now that my mental health is stable, I feel deeply connected to Teddy. He brings me immense, all encompassing joy, and now I understand what my friends and family were talking about I made it out alive. I struggled with the memories of those first few months and fear this could happen again. I know now that what I experienced in the hospital and my first nights at home were panic attacks. I was diagnosed with both postpartum anxiety and depression. My doctor told me that when women give birth, we experience the largest and most sudden drop in hormones any person can experience. This sounded unbelievable, so I did some research. I found an article from Biological Psychiatry journal called estrogen withdrawal increases postpartum anxiety, and learn that estrogen levels increased by 100 to 1000 times during the third trimester and then rapidly dropped to below pre pregnancy levels post birth. This dramatic change in hormones can contribute to postpartum depression and anxiety. According to the CDC, one in eight women experience symptoms of postpartum depression, which often include anxiety, loss of appetite, insomnia, panic attacks and ruminative thoughts. It is mind blowing what a woman who gives birth goes through physically and mentally while needing to take care of a newborn. I know it wasn't my fault, and yet I still feel guilty. This stems from impossible expectations from society and the even harsher ones I placed on myself. People tell me I look great for just having had a baby. I cringe every time I want to tell them it's because I didn't eat for weeks due to severe mental illness. Instead, I just say, thank you. I don't want to lie anymore. I lied when people asked me how I was doing. I lied on social media. I lied to myself. I need to tell the truth so my friends and my sisters, who might eventually be mothers, know that my experience wasn't perfect. It still isn't. I need to tell the truth to myself so I can accept what happened and move forward in the height of my postpartum struggles, my mom gave me a letter she wrote to me when I was three months old, as she was about to return to work, she wrote that she cried on Mother's Day because she thought she was not a good mother to me. She wrote, I know that even if I am not always perfect, I am the only mother you've got. Nobody can ever have the special relationship we do. I read this letter for the first time when I was 18, but mostly forgot about it. Now I keep the letter in my nightstand, and I've been reading it often. It reminds me that even the best mothers like mine face moments of doubt and. Guilt and fear of failure, like my mom and so many others, I continue on, imperfect, but determined to be the mom my baby deserves, because nobody can ever have the special relationship we do.

Andrea Askowitz  10:22  
I'm crying.

Allison Langer  10:24  
Yeah, just get prepared, because you'll be fighting with this shit your whole life, trying to be the perfect mom, yeah, oh my god. I'm in love with Lisa. I'm in love with this narrator's mom. Like, oh my god. She crawls onto the couch with her, and she writes her this amazing letter. I don't know it's this whole thing is so so good.

Andrea Askowitz  10:44  
I know I love it. I just want to clarify that Lisa is Rachel's mom, and we do know her. Because, you know, maybe I want to just right now, reveal that Rachel purse is formerly known as Rachel askowitz, because Rachel is my brother's daughter. So Rachel is my niece. Apart from that, Rachel is an amazing, fucking amazing writer, and this is her first story. Am I right? It is. So let us talk about, let's talk about this story and why it's so amazing.

Allison Langer  11:22  
I think this narrator laid the groundwork so well. She sets it up that she's, like, this totally capable person, and never imagined that this would happen to her. And I get it 100% I used to say, like, I look around and all these other people are moms, like, How can I not? I have no problem, and it's a problem parenthood. Motherhood is really, really hard, and it's full of the unexpected. And so that's what I think, is here we see like this, NARRATOR did not expect this, and then we see how she handles it, and she's sad, and we see all the symptoms, like she is so good with details and description, I felt like I was going through this with her, and the whole time I was like, Oh, my God, did that happen to me? Oh, wait, I had one. No, I didn't have it all. Okay. So I'm trying to imagine like myself in that position. But even if I've never been in that position, she did such a good job that I was I felt like I knew exactly what she was going through, because she really takes us in.

Andrea Askowitz  12:24  
Well, did you have post partum anxiety? No, but I my last

Allison Langer  12:27  
pregnancy, I had, like, the heart palpitations, but it was like some weird I think it's just a hormonal I think when she described the estrogen thing, I think it probably has more to do with that, which, by the way, I love the statistics. I love the research that gets us right back and we see like, oh my god, she's becoming herself again, you know, because it's kind of like, that's her personality. She goes and she does that. But I love the question like, What if I wasn't meant for this? Oh, my God. How many times is a parent ask themselves that? I don't know, even the ones I look at that, I think, oh, that person is the most amazing parent. I'm sure they've had the same

Rachel Perse  13:03  
questions. I was

Allison Langer  13:06  
really annoyed that her husband only got two weeks of time off. I was like, that's not enough. Why are they making the mom have to deal with this all day long, like, her emotions, her physicality of giving birth, and like, I was really pissed at that, and I did not like that at all. I don't want to rag on his company, but I just think in general, society is not rag

Andrea Askowitz  13:33  
come on America. Let's do better.

Allison Langer  13:35  
I think we need to do better, because we're trying to promote family. Isn't that the value that we have here? How does that promote family? This poor guy comes home and now he's got to do double duty, and then the mom is suffering. So I just I was really annoyed, and then she has a surgery. I was like, Holy shit, but she's looking forward to it, and we really get that she is drowning. And I just thought that was such an interesting thing to throw in. So I love that detail. And then we see her stop the meds, and we're like, no, but you know, people will have you be on sleep meds for the rest of your life, unless you try to get off them. So I admired her for trying to get off and just to see, but it sent her whole body back into that whole spiral again.

Andrea Askowitz  14:22  
I thought the getting off of the meds was one of those moments that people might relate to, because I have heard that happen often, where you think you're okay again, like prematurely, and then you go back on the meds. So, I mean, you go off the meds, and then you spiral again. Yeah, that was the one part I love that that was included for that reason. Yeah, same people probably get it. How,

Allison Langer  14:45  
like, much in love with, like the helpers who came, like the parents canceled their trip, like the husband does double duty, and now her friends are flying in to help. Like, I was like, this girl is loved. I thought that was really, really. Good and the loveless

Andrea Askowitz  15:01  
baby is loved too.

Allison Langer  15:02  
Yeah, yeah, I

Andrea Askowitz  15:04  
love Well, what about that line that so well taken care of, just not by me? Yeah, that's that line hit me hard, yeah? Yeah. I feel like there are two themes in this story, and we talk about this on writing class, radio and classes all the time, like you usually, try to boil your story down to just one theme, but these two themes worked together in tandem. And the first is, here is a narrator who feels like she is failing herself and society in terms of motherhood. And so the theme of like motherhood expectation is woven throughout this story, and we get that like Allison said, like, here's an overachiever who's stepping into motherhood, and of course, she's going to excel at it, because she excels at everything. And then all of a sudden she's like, Oh, fucking hell. What if I'm in a what if I'm in a mental hospital? Like she goes, it's not that she's just not doing the best ever. It's that she feels like she's doing the worst ever. So the stakes are really high for this narrator, in terms of who she thinks she is, and in terms of the mother well, maybe there's like three themes here, because there's the high achiever, there's the mothering expectation, and then there is the lies. And this is the part of the story that I am like so moved by because, and I want to talk to Rachel about this, it's the reason, I think, or one of the reasons, and I want to ask her that she even set out to write this story. So she tells us at the beginning that she writes on her two months in, best two months ever, total lie. Like, oh my god, terrible two months, worst two months of her life, best two months of my life, I mean, and then later in the story, Godfather says something to her, something else, like, is is this? The Is this the best time of your life? I can't now, I can't remember exactly, and she lies and then at the and then she lies again, when people are telling her that she looks great. And we talk about that too, like throwing something in three times. That is just a very good writing technique. So we see this, this lot, these lies happen three times, and we get it as readers, we are convinced she's lying, and then she says she doesn't want to lie anymore. And obviously she's not lying anymore. She's telling us right now that she had anxiety after birth and that she felt like a shit. Mom, so proud of her for writing this, and I'm so proud of her for telling the truth. And that's what writing class is, and that's what writing is. I would love to know the impetus for lying like was there a pressure? Where did that come from? Asking Rachel? 

Rachel Perse  17:55  
I think that I just wanted that to be the truth so badly I wanted it to be the best two months of my life. I wanted that to be how I felt, but also how it was portrayed to the world, because that's what I was told it would be. I was told it would be the best two months of my life, that my life was going to change in all the best ways beyond, you know, not sleeping and needing to recover, but that it was all going to be so worth it. And so I think I was just trying to convince myself that that was the truth. I

Andrea Askowitz  18:31  
never I didn't have this question until just a second, because I know this narrator, but I just want to ask it out loud, like, have you ever lied before, like, like, in this way, like, have you ever lied to yourself, like, created a whole story? Like, lied publicly?

Rachel Perse  18:50  
I think that I have lied in the sense that I'm always the person who has my shit together. I think that in times where I haven't felt that way, I've still put on that face as the person who's always had my stuff together. This is sort of similar, but to a much larger degree, I'm

Andrea Askowitz  19:09  
writing this down for your next story. Liar, on occasion,

Allison Langer  19:15  
I don't feel like that's a lie, though, because, like, if somebody's like, how was your day? And, like, it was a struggle. You You know, sometimes you're just like, it's good, because you don't want everyone to know that you're really, like, kind of struggling with stuff. Like, you don't want to be that person, the downer. And also, it's sort of like, it encourages me when I'm when I say stuff like that, like, I want to focus on the good parts of the day. So I think part of us do that as a just a mechanism to get through life and not be down all the time. The traffic sucked, and this sucked, and this woman wrote me off, and this lady can't take a left turn, and, you know, like on and on. So I think that doesn't feel like a

Andrea Askowitz  19:57  
maybe, maybe, but if you maybe, but if you're. Posturing as someone who always has their shit together and really wants to not have to play that role at all times. Then that's that's why I think that would be a good story. Does

Allison Langer  20:11  
this narrator have trouble asking for help? I'd be more interested in that. Yeah. So she would kill herself before she would ask anybody for help. Okay?

Andrea Askowitz  20:20  
And actually, in this story, what's interesting is that her husband asked for the help. Her husband called her mom. Yeah, I do want to talk for a second about how the hero in the story is Lisa askowitz, who came over and knew instinctively, I think, just how to say the right thing to our narrator, you know, like you don't have to explain, like, it's okay that you can't sleep. Like, that was kind of a trick. It's okay that, like, it's okay that you can't sleep. Just lie here. Did you fall asleep in that moment? No, but, oh,

Rachel Perse  20:56  
but I do think that it was still what I needed, because she didn't indulge me in the just going on and on about, you know, just in this cycle, she She ended the cycle not in a way that allowed me to sleep, but at least gave me some peace.

Andrea Askowitz  21:14  
She didn't try to solve the problem. She just tried to be there for you. Yeah, that's a good lesson to all of us. Wow, that is good. She did try to solve the problem when the pain was so bad and doctors were like, you're just getting your period. No, no. Mama Bear was like, No, you insist there is something wrong in there. And she was right. And then when she reminded you again of her own feelings of failure or not not failure, but maybe her own feelings of not being the best mom ever when she went back to work and wrote you that letter again. Like there's three examples of great momness In this story. That's really good writing. Good job. Lisa. Okay, one other thing I want to ask, or maybe to I don't know, this came up for me right now when I was listening at the very beginning of the story, the narrator, Rachel, said, now I can just talk to you. I guess, different than what we usually do is just talk about the story. But here you are. But okay, so you said it was the worst day of my life. It's hard to admit it was the best I wrote, The best two months in my life ever that was a lie that's hard to admit. Is the lie the hard part to admit, or is the truth that it was the worst the hard part to admit? That's

Rachel Perse  22:31  
a good question. I do think it's the latter. I think, yeah, it's hard to admit, not necessarily, not necessarily that I lied.

Andrea Askowitz  22:41  
You're fine admitting that you're a liar. You already admitted that a few times.

Rachel Perse  22:46  
Yeah, like Allison said, you know, we all sort of do it in some ways, but yeah, admitting that that was the truth was really hard. So

Andrea Askowitz  22:55  
here's another question I'm really wondering about you. Okay, so when we were at this, this happened. This was such a cool moment for me. We're at Hanukkah, and Rachel and I were working together on this story. And like, you know, I don't know, whispers went out, and some people knew that Rachel had written a story about her experience. I don't know who knew how bad the experience had been so far, but so one of your sisters, Danielle, came up to us and said, why are you writing this story? Like, what is this story for? What was your answer? It's for me. So Rachel said, This is the story is just for me. Like, right now, of course, in my mind, I'm like, this is going on the podcast. This is going to the New York Times Well section. If they don't take it, they're watching the post. Will take and if they don't, you know, like, I'm like, getting it published in front of millions of people. But Rachel didn't have that aspiration at first. And so why? Like, what was it about for you? What were you trying to

Rachel Perse  23:53  
do at first? I didn't know what it was. I just felt this compulsion to write down my experience. I wasn't sure why, but I just felt like I needed to. I talked to my therapist about it, I talked to you about it, and both of you said, Just do it. Just just write it down. And so I did without really any goal in mind, without needing it to be the perfect story, without needing the grammar to to be perfect, I just let it flow out. It turns out that what I wrote originally, just in my notes app, sort of really well matches what I just said out loud. It didn't change too much. I think that upon reflection, I just I needed it. I needed to let it out. I needed to sort of release it and have it not just be in my own head. I needed it out in the universe, whether it was just for me to look back and read on or read it to my husband or now read it on the podcast, I just needed it out there to just reflect on my experience. It makes it more real, but it also allows me to set it free. Yeah,

Allison Langer  25:00  
I love that, because this was written with perspective. I mean, not a TON TON, because the baby's only eight months, right, but a little bit of perspective, like the narrator came out on the other side, and so she's able to look it back and say, Oh, I got through it. And I do think sometimes writing, even when you're in the middle of it, by writing it. It will help people get to the other side. It helps the person writing it get to the set it free. Ah, so cool. Just to understand and to sort of lay out a plan and to see, to visualize what's going on and to get to the other side.

Andrea Askowitz  25:38  
It's the whole reason we started the podcast. It's the whole reason. It's because of your story about your about losing a child and writing it and that set you free.

Allison Langer  25:48  
Yeah. I mean, I do think because we are capable people, and sometimes we feel like we're never going to get through that. And I mean, when you tell people you're Rachel, your experience, some people like, Oh, my God, I could never get through that if that happened to me well, and people say that to me all the time, I could never handle I could never get through losing a child. And I'm like, we don't really have a choice. So what are you gonna do? Like, curl, open a ball and die you. You have to deal with it. And so when you see it on the page, like, Shit, I fucking got through that, it's like, okay, I can handle anything. And it's huge. You know, what you went through, you know may go through again. So you have to be prepared for it. I was wondering, how does it feel knowing it'll go out, you know, and friends and family will hear it.

Rachel Perse  26:34  
I definitely have some anxiety about that. I think that even the people closest to me, minus a few people who, even though I talked to them a lot during this time period, they saw me, they might be completely shocked to hear most of this, and that's scary. I'm lucky to have really supportive people in my life, so I'm not worried that the reaction, I think, will be positive, but it is a scary thing to share like this. When I didn't really share much of this part of me, when I was going through it,

Allison Langer  27:09  
I'll be so anxious to hear like, what people think. But I think people are going to barge bombard you with like, oh my god, this happened to me. This happened to me, and they'll they're going to want to share all their secrets with you, and it's going to bring

Rachel Perse  27:21  
people closer. I hope so. Yeah,

Andrea Askowitz  27:24  
okay, so primary reason is set yourself free, but it does say in the story that you're sort of talking to your younger sisters and friends behind you. So is there a motive for telling other people so that it doesn't just so that they know that this could happen

Rachel Perse  27:44  
for sure, it doesn't really benefit anyone to hide my experience. I think that with a lot of things like going through postpartum depression and anxiety, losing a child, a miscarriage, things like that, by keeping that to yourself and not really talking about it. It doesn't really help other people who might go through it, or might be currently going through it. I hope that it might help my sisters feel more comfortable that they might go through this and that's okay, and that they won't be alone and same with my my friends or anyone else maybe that I don't know, I It's pretty common. One in eight people go through postpartum depression, but often go through it in silence, and so they might not know that. You know, other people have felt the same way that they do

Andrea Askowitz  28:37  
this also felt like this is also anxiety. So not that postpartum depression is like commonplace. It's not talked about enough at all. But this was something that was actually slightly different. I hadn't heard about anxiety to this degree. Allison mentioned this about this statistic like estrogen goes up 100 to 1000 times, and then, like, the next day, baby comes out, and you're back to normal. That's a body mind fuckery, right there. And we all go through it when we have our babies, and so so many women, that's that messes us up. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for saying, saying the story out loud, and for writing it, and for being so cool and for just you are so great to work with everything. I'm in love with this story. I think it's beautiful.

Allison Langer  29:32  
In my mind, the narrator is even more perfect and strong and even stronger. Yeah, so I'm I love her even more.

Andrea Askowitz  29:42  
Thank you both. I love you both, and also I feel like she's even a better mother. 100% She's real. Teddy is a lucky baby, lucky boy, and what a cutie. I love him. You. Thank you for listening and thank you Rachel purse for sharing your story. Rachel Pearse is my niece. She's also a stay at home mom to her eight month old son and two dogs. She's a proud older sister to Danielle asag and Natalie askowitz, alumna of Emory and University of Miami, former dean and public health educator and now writer. Ready class. She's a good job. All right. Ready close, right. She's gonna have to come to our, our first draft. Oh, you know what? I think I'm gonna start another second draft class. And Rachel, Rachel be in there. All right, if anyone wants to take a class with me, email me Andrea at writing class radio.com. Okay. Writing class radio is hosted by me, Andrea aspic, oh and me. Alison Langer, audio production by Matt Kendall, Evan Servin Aidan glassy, at the sound off media company. Theme music is by Justina Chandler. There's more writing class on our website, including stories we study, editing resources, video classes, writing retreats and live online classes. If you want to write with us every week, or if you're a business owner, community activist group that needs healing, or entrepreneur and you want to help your team write better, check out all our classes on writing class. Radio.com Join the community that comes together for instruction, an excuse to write, and support from other writers to learn more. Go to our website

Allison Langer  31:30  
or email us directly. Yeah, they can. They can go to our website to learn more, and then they can just email us directly. Andrea

Andrea Askowitz  31:36  
or Allison at writing class radio.com a new episode will drop the first Wednesday

Allison Langer  31:44  
of the month. There's no better way to understand ourselves and each other than by writing and sharing our stories. Everyone has a story. What's yours? Produced and distributed by the sound off media company i.