What The Valley Reveals about Postpartum Mental Health
Postpartum mental health can look very different from person to person, but many women experience anxiety, identity shifts, body image struggles, and emotional overwhelm after birth. The ongoing scandal on Summer House means fewer people are talking about this season of The Valley, which is unfortunate given how important it has been showing the reality of postpartum life for many women. If you’re not familiar with the show, two different cast members are newly postpartum (I think both are around three months postpartum), one with her first child and the other with her fourth. Even though they are having different experiences, there is certainly some overlap and both are showing the challenges women face after having kids. Let’s break it down.
What Postpartum Anxiety Can Look Like
Kristen Doute (of VPR fame) is a new mom to her daughter and right off the bat shows how much she is struggling in the premiere episode. She is meeting up with Nia Sanchez, her friend and fellow mom of four, for coffee and she appears frazzled when she arrives, saying she is “three blocks from home and we might as well be in a foreign country because that’s how stressful this is.” When she said that, I felt it viscerally in my soul. I remember being postpartum with my son and feeling so overwhelmed about taking him out anywhere by myself. Between making sure the diaper bag had everything he needed, the car seat/stroller situation, and being sleep deprived, I felt like an overwhelmed, chaotic hot mess. At the time, I thought this was normal, but looking back, I see I really struggled with some postpartum anxiety, and watching Kristen be so authentic about her experience was honestly refreshing. On reality TV, women are not always open about how hard it is to be a mom and Kristen is truly putting it all out there. Over the first few episodes of the show she has talked about:
Leaving the house once or twice over the first few months because of how overwhelming it was
Friction between her and her fiancee, Luke, over leaving the house, as Kristen would prefer that Luke stays home with Kristen and her daughter
The lack of sex and intimacy in her relationship because she hates her body and she is constantly shutting down Luke’s advances, which is leaving him feeling frustrated and unwanted
Feeling so attached to her daughter that not being physically in her presence is incredibly distressing, including being apart from her so that she and Luke can have sex
Not wanting to do anything without her daughter because of her FOMO - “what if I miss her first laugh?”
Luke struggling with his own identity postpartum, as he feels like he can’t go out anymore without Kristen being upset
Staring at her closet and crying because of how much her body has changed
As I’ve been watching this unfold, parts of it have felt very relatable to me and many of my postpartum clients have also found Kristen’s experience both validating and sad that it is more common than they realized.
Breastfeeding, Burnout, and Overwhelm
Nia, on the other hand, has four kids under the age of four and feels like a “human milk factory.” She has breastfed four kids and feels totally disconnected from her body. Like Kristen and Luke, Nia’s husband Danny also wants to have more sex and is not understanding why Nia is feeling “burned out, touched out, and overstimulated.” She even brings her mom and baby on a party bus so that she can breastfeed while out with her friends because her daughter isn’t latching to a bottle so she is unable to pump and leave bottles behind. Nia discusses being completely overwhelmed by exclusively breastfeeding her daughter and feeling so burned out by the end of the day because of how much feeding (plus being a mom to three other kids) is taking out of her. Again, a different journey than Kristen but one that many moms can relate to.
Postpartum Friendship and Support for Moms
To me, the best part about watching this play out is their friendship and ability to lean on each other. Every mom I know both personally and professionally has a mom friend that they would text at 3am when feeding their baby, or who they could reach out to asking about poop texture, or starting solids, or how to dose Tylenol for a baby. The friend they could voice note sobbing because of how overwhelmed they feel. That is what Kristen and Nia clearly have with each other, and that bond is incredibly important from a mental health perspective. Looking at both of them, I’d argue they each have their own flavor of postpartum mental health issues, but their relationship with each other is what will serve as a lighthouse during the darker periods of early motherhood.
If you’re struggling with postpartum anxiety or depression and are looking for support, check out my page on EMDR to learn more about how EMDR therapy can help you recover and feel more like yourself again.
