When I was about nine years old, the grandchildren of some elderly neighbours died. My neighbours who were probably in their 60s at the time, although they looked really old to my nine year old self, were devastated. What was more devastating was that their daughter in law, had killed her children and done so having suffered severe post-partum depression. The children were very young, I can remember the eldest being about three years old and the other child a baby. I can still see the little boy running around on his grandparents front lawn. The front lawn was the best lawn in our street; it was like a bowling green, so smooth and even. The case went to court and she was found not guilty, thank goodness, it was clear that this lady had been suffering terribly. Devastating for everyone. So lately the case involving Lindsay Clancy in the USA, which is currently underway, has brought this memory back for me. We also had another case happen only a month ago close to where I live in Australia.
This is troubling to me because what is very clear is that we are failing mothers. I feel terrible for these mothers who have not received adequate care and support from the health system that is supporting them. I know post-partum psychosis is rare but what I also know is that many women have a pretty tricky time during this life transition. Many of us who have had children find there is a big hole in the mental health care and adjacent services that new mums receive. I also see this mirrored in the midlife time when women go through menopause.
I also think to myself, what is going on with us as a community, as employers, who have people who are very vulnerable working for them during these transitions? I question whether we are looking out for people enough and where and with whom is the line for responsibility and care? These are tricky questions and issues of change often fall apart in the space between.
This is one of the big reasons why I choose to work with Life Transitions because I have seen over the years both in my corporate life, and now private practice, that people are grossly under-supported in these huge changes. But more than that, they are expected to come back to work and be the same old person they have always been. Not only is it delusional and dismissive, it is extremely toxic for families. This socially constructed myth of life being a solitary journey and having to manage, medicate or white knuckle major life transitions of parenthood, midlife, menopause and ageing is toxic. The felt sense of navigating a massive life transition in isolation sees the body automatically go into hyper-vigilance, bracing, and feelings of overwhelm, before we even start. I have been at times furious with the fear mongering I have seen propagated by medical doctors on social media regarding menopause, who are telling women if they don’t take HRT they will get very sick.
Our human bodies are wired for connection; we are not meant to do life on our own. There is a reason people used to live in tribes. The female nervous system in particular is predisposed to a fawning response, or a tend and befriend response, over fight or flight because oxytocin is a neuromodulator of the female nervous system. This was brought by Shelly Taylor's research in 2000 that showed that female nervous systems heavily utilise oestrogen and oxytocin pathways under stress to ‘tend and befriend’ the threat in order to protect themselves and their children. Her work brought this tend and befriend response to our attention. There is a little nuance to this though. Her research found that oxytocin requires a safe and supportive container to be produced and absorbed. When the female nervous system faces these big life transitions without that safe and supportive circle, the oxytocin pathways get blocked and what is left is a body stuck in a high cortisol state.
These big rites of passage are when our body needs a circle of support the most. Historically our ancestors held these rites of passage as collective experiences and we were held in the transition space by our community. I will say in Australia we have this thing called the Mothers Group, where new mothers are randomly assigned to a group of new mothers soon after birth. They are gatherings initially facilitated by the community health nurse organiser and then we branch off on our own to self-organise. Some people have very strong life long friendships that come out of these groups. We need these groups because the raw un-armoured nervous system of a new mother needs community support for co-regulation so her body can drop out of threat detection when it needs to. Women navigating Menopause need support because it is not just a hormonal shift; their brain is re-wiring as is their nervous system. Hello Brain Fog. The reduction in estrogen that happens in menopause tends to drop away any fawning, people pleasing tendencies we have, creating a fierce need for a supportive, authentic, non-judgemental community. We have all heard midlife women say one of their greatest joys is they don’t care anymore!! In our elderhood transition, stepping into wisdom means we need to be held by a community that can receive, hold and honour that wisdom; otherwise ageing feels like we are disappearing.
Why is it so hard to build these supportive circles? Well the individualist culture is one reason, but I also believe sisterhood wounding is a very big issue for many women. Women can be very mean to other women when they are competing for limited resources, approval or safety. Then there is the whole mean-girl dynamics many experience in early teen years, which is both developmental and somatic. These wounds often happen in early teens and they can leave big imprints on our nervous system. They make us compete with each other and frankly it's not very nice and it causes relational trauma that makes women shy away from female only spaces. When women experience betrayal, micro-aggressions, exclusion and conditional warmth in these spaces, their nervous systems maps other women as a threat rather than a resource. The irony is most women crave a circle of support during these life transitions but their nervous system and adaptive armour fears it. That creates self-dialogue of an inner critic whispering, Do I belong here? Am I enough? Are they judging me?
What is the answer? Micro-dosing relational safety.
You don’t have to jump into a twenty person retreat. Start with health practitioners like a coach or therapist, or body workers who you can work on your transition with. Put yourself in the centre of your own circle. If you can work with practitioners who you feel safe with, who can hold space for you without judgement, help you complete adaptive stress responses that are still operating underneath, and learn to feel safe being held and witnessed by others (other women in particular), you will slowly start to build the capacity to sit in these held spaces. You want someone who can work slowly with you, pace yourself. The nervous system likes slow.
If you are forming a circle container I want to caution you that it is not just a social event. There is anatomy to a circle space, it needs supportive connection. I am not talking about having lots of people who agree with you; I am talking about creating an ecosystem of people with different relational capacities. Often these groups need people who can naturally take up “implicit roles” like the person who is a grounding presence, whose steady nervous system can help you settle when you are activated. Or the mirror/truth teller, the person who can gently call you out when you are using your adaptive strategies without shaming you. Or maybe you need a strong co-regulator who can witness your grief, rage and joy without having to fix, dismiss or intellectualise what is going on. We need people with these skills and capacities in our lives.
Circles of support are not just a social calendar event when they are well held. When they are well held by skilled facilitators they become a nervous system container, a co-regulation resource and an antidote to isolation and self abandonment.
And for the men reading this, yes, you need circles of support during your life transitions. Men also move through profound rites of passage too and we were never meant to navigate life on our own.