Healing the Tigress

For Father's Day and Men's Mental Health Month, we wanted to get another AAPI dad on the show to talk about their experience in fatherhood in relationship to mental health. Joining us for this episode is Dr. Matt Dinh, PharmD, who is a Vietnamese American father of two and a pharmacist by trade. Matt talks to us about how his wife did not experience any postpartum mental health disorders, but he himself started experiencing some mild depression when his eldest child was in some challenging toddler years.When some of these feelings of self-doubt and questions about his worth started affecting the relationships with people that he loved, Matt realized he needed to look for help. We talk about Matt's experience with therapy and what things have helped him improve his mental health over time. Matt tells us how by sharing his experience, no matter how brief, he was also able to inspire other family members to potentially look into therapy too. It's likely underreported, but 1 in 10 dads actually can experience postpartum depression too. We discuss how entering fatherhood really was the catalyst for Matt to truly see the importance of addressing mental health. In AAPI communities, mental health is already a hard enough topic to bring up, but especially for AAPI males and dads, being able to admit needing help seems to be even more difficult. It also seems this generation of AAPI males and dads are starting to take charge of their mental health more. Matt's conversation goes over how parenting forces everyone to start looking closely at themselves and how we want and need to show up for our kids. We hope that this episode helps others see that men also are affected during the postpartum period and perhaps start conversations for others to check in with their dad friends and offer support too.Find Matt at Instagram: @maddenstylesResources:Free PSI Dad Support Group: https://www.postpartum.net/group/dad-support-group/Note: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speakers' own. This podcast is not a replacement for therapy or professional/medical advice. If you need more support or advice, please reach out to your own medical professional who can answer your questions with your individual medical history and background in context.Please RATE and REVIEW our show if you enjoy the episodes we bring to you! It helps others to find our show when you do. Thanks so much!Support the show

Infertility impacts one in six people of reproductive age and nearly one in four female physicians who are trying to have a baby face infertility issues. This statistic is no mystery to our guest, Dr. Joyce Park, who many of you may know as @TeaWithMD on social media. Joyce's journey with IVF began when her firstborn was just 18 months old, after trying for a second child for quite some time, doctors determined she had infertility. Her and her husband decided they would pursue IVF while also trying to move from the Bay Area California to Seattle, Washington.Joyce opens up with us in this episode about how lonely the journey of IVF can be, how it can take its toll on one's marriage, but how finding ways to include your partner as well as relying on her faith helped her push through to the end. Now, on the other side with beautiful Mei Mei, Joyce is hoping that sharing her story will allow other mothers going through IVF know they are not alone. Dr. Joyce Park is a board-certified dermatologist based in Washington, founder of SkinRefinery, a teledermatology clinic, and creator of Tea With MD. She is a second generation Taiwanese American and attended college and medical school at Stanford University, while completing her dermatology residency at NYU. She has a background in medical journalism, having worked at NBC News and ABC News in their medical units. For more of Joyce's personal IVF journey story, ⁠watch here on Youtube⁠Instagram: @TeaWithMDPodcast: Spilling the Tea with Dr. JoyceResources mentioned:Dr. Lora ShahineDr. Natalie CrawfordSpecial Thanks: Today’s episode was brought to you by the editing support of Dr. Tony Huynh, PharmD. Thank you again, Tony, for lending your editing expertise and prowess to today’s episode! While Tony is a pharmacist and dad by day, he’s actually a DJ extraordinaire by night! You can check out his work at @toneymixes on Instagram.Note: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speakers' own. This podcast is not a replacement for therapy or professional/medical advice. If you need more support or advice, please reach out to your own medical professional who can answer your questions with your individual medical history and background in context.Please RATE and REVIEW our show if you enjoy the episodes we bring to you! It helps others to find our show when you do. Thanks so much!Support the show

Bipolar disorder affects 2-3% of the general population, and about half of the women with bipolar disorder are first diagnosed in the postpartum period. In today's episode, we talk with a mother with lived experience of bipolar 1 disorder and how it affected her journey to and through motherhood.Michelle Yang is third generation ethnic Chinese born in South Korea, and she immigrated to the U.S. when she was 9. She is a mental health advocate and writer whose writings on the intersection of Asian American identity, body image, and mental health have been featured in NBC News, CNN, InStyle, Shondaland, Reader’s Digest, HuffPost, and more. She was a former editor at InStyle and Shape. Her memoir, PHOENIX GIRL: HOW A FAT ASIAN WITH BIPOLAR FOUND LOVE is forthcoming from Fifth Avenue Press in January 2025.In our episode today, Michelle tells us the story of how she was first diagnosed with Bipolar 1 Disorder at the age of 20. We discussed how Michelle had always wanted to be a mom, but she had to grapple with her diagnosis and what that meant. She decided her bipolar disorder was not going to limit her in her ability to live her life the way she wanted to, especially once she was in a loving marriage, financially secure, and mentally well for a prolonged period of time.Michelle walks us through her process of therapy and assembling the right medical team before becoming pregnant, highlighting the challenges along the way--including some insensitive providers who told her she should just not have biological children. We talk about her medications and what it was like during pregnancy leading up to a traumatic birth. Then we talk about how she managed in postpartum when her symptoms came back, particularly with depression and guilt over not breastfeeding because she had to take care of her mental health.This is a deeply moving and thought-provoking conversation about how mental health can be both stigmatized and dramatized, but at the end of the day, people living with mental health disorders also need to know that they can still thrive with their conditions. We hope you will tune in to this beautiful discussion of triumph over stigmas.Find more of Michelle: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michelleyangwriter/ Website: https://www.livingwellhappily.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michelleyangwriterNote: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speakers' own. This podcast is not a replacement for therapy or professional/medical advice. If you need more support or advice, please reach out to your own medical professional who can answer your questions with your individual medical history and background in context.Please RATE and REVIEW our show if you enjoy the episodes we bring to you! It helps others to find our show when you do. Thanks so much!Support the show

For Maternal Mental Health Month, we knew we wanted to have a discussion on medications in the perinatal period. Because as much as AAPI folks can be reluctant to do therapy, they can also be just as wary about taking medications. But sometimes medications can play an important role in recovery, just like therapy can. So we wanted to talk with an expert on the psychiatric medications used during the perinatal period to dispel myths and empower our community to learn and ask about medications with their providers.Joining us on today's episode is Dr. Niya Dhand, MD--a double fellowship-trained, double board-certified reproductive psychiatrist. Dr. Dhand went to medical school at Ohio State University and went on to complete her psychiatry residency at Cleveland Clinic. Then she did an addiction Psychiatry fellowship at Yale, where she focused specifically on treatment of addiction in women.After a tragic second trimester pregnancy loss followed by a painful battle with infertility, Dr. Dhand went back and completed a Perinatal and Reproductive Psychiatry fellowship at Northwestern University, where she received in depth education and clinical experience in treating psychiatric conditions during pre-menses, infertility and loss, pregnancy, postpartum and perimenopause.In this episode, Dr. Dhand helps us clarify information on safety of medications like SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) antidepressant/antianxiety medications in breastfeeding, during pregnancy, and in postpartum. We talk about the risk of untreated illness versus the risk that medications could bring. People often don't realize that untreated illness also carries a risk of harm to the fetus. For example, there is a small risk of miscarriage with untreated depression, but that risk is not present when you are taking an SSRI antidepressant.Dr. Dhand also talks about the two real main concerns of SSRIs during pregnancy--neonatal adaptation syndrome and persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn. She breaks down what these things mean and what the real risk actually is in numbers. (Spoiler: it's pretty small!) We talk about how and when someone might consider starting medications, whether or not SSRIs are "addicting," if Zoloft is really "the best choice" of antidepressants to start for pregnant and postpartum women. Dr. Dhand gives us a few examples of alternative therapy that have been proven to show some benefit and she gives us some resources she recommends moms can use over Google.This episode goes in depth about the data, risks, and benefits of the most common psychiatric medications we think of during the perinatal period, but it by no means covers everything. Much of this information is shared transparently not to scare, but hopefully having some knowledge of what is truly important to look out for will empower our moms in their discussions with a provider to find a good fit if medications are in the picture.Resources mentioned: Mother to Baby: https://mothertobaby.org/ LactMed: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK501922/Find Dr. Niya Dhand at: Instagram: www.instagram.com/drniyadhand PSI Provider Directory Listing: https://psidirectory.com/listing/dr-niya-dhand-meridian-psychiatric.html Dr. Dhand's Practice at Meridian Psychiatric Partners: https://meridianpsychiatricpartners.com/providers/Note: The views, thoughts, andSupport the show

Many of you have heard or read about Dr. Jasmine's postpartum depression story and know that insomnia was a huge piece of the story. While "postpartum insomnia" is not a true technical diagnosis, many moms have reached out to her about feeling so lost, confused, and unseen in their insomnia struggles after having a baby too -- especially after Jasmine's recent appearance on Rachael's (@heysleepybaby) podcast No One Told Us.So to kick off Maternal Mental Health Month, on today's episode, Peggy will be interviewing Jasmine to dive deeper into Jasmine's insomnia story that she hasn't shared before. We go over the scary 48-hour period where Jasmine couldn't fall asleep, the medications she tried, and the treatment modalities that helped Jasmine get better, including EMDR. We also discuss other options like CBT-I and how that can be helpful for those suffering with insomnia.We hope this episode helps those moms who have felt unseen in their insomnia struggles and perhaps highlight some potential treatment options. Maybe sharing this episode with a friend can also help explain what you're going through right now too. Each person's journey will be unique, but we get it--sleep is so important and can be so hard to come by. But there is hope and you can get well again!Resources: EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) EMDR Therapist Directory CBT-I (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy - Insomnia) CBT-I Provider Directory Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker, PhD No One Told Us podcast episode that Jasmine was a guest forFor those who don't know about Jasmine:Dr. Jasmine is a mom of one and a clinical pharmacist with a doctorate in Pharmacy as well as a perinatal mental health certification (PMH-C). She is a survivor of severe postpartum depression, anxiety, and insomnia and a past Peer Mentor volunteer for Postpartum Support International (PSI). As a fierce maternal mental health advocate and a second-generation Taiwanese American, she also co-hosts a podcast called Healing the Tigress, which features conversations around Asian American Pacific Islanders (AAPI) maternal mental health. She writes on her Pearls of Jasmine newsletter, blog, and Instagram about motherhood topics, mental health de-stigmatization, and gentle parenting. Some of her writing has been featured in places like Mother.ly and Psyched Mommy, and she was interviewed for a PPD story in Women's Health magazine last fall.If you enjoy our podcast and our mission to shine light on conversations and stories of AAPI mothers, please take a moment to leave us a review! Reviews help us become more visible and we really want this podcast to reach more AAPI parents who may need it. You may also follow us @healingthetigress on Instagram and TikTok. Thank you for tuning in!Note: TSupport the show

We are thrilled to have Allison Livingston on our podcast for today's episode to talk about her lived experience with perinatal obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and postpartum depression (PPD). Allison is a Korean-American adoptee and a mom of two. She has a B.A. in International Business and a M.A. in Early Childhood Education. Allison was a teacher for 5 years and then things shifted after she had her daughter.In this episode, we talk about Allison's journey of diagnosing her postpartum OCD. Perinatal OCD is the most misunderstood and misdiagnosed of the perinatal mental health disorders. It can affect as many as 3-5% of mothers and perinatal women have up to 2x greater risk of OCD than the general population. Many women also have comorbid depression, and Allison's OCD was not initially recognized in addition to her PPD. We talk about how Allison finally got the right diagnosis, some of the obsessions and compulsions she had, and most importantly how she recovered. Allison openly talks about taking medications for OCD and the Exposure and Response Prevention therapy she did. We talk about the difference between intrusive thoughts versus psychosis. And even though it was not an easy journey, Allison provides optimism for recovery--even going on to have a second child, which she was much more prepared for.Through learning more about her own condition and recovering, Allison is now a fierce advocate for maternal mental health. She co-facilitates the Perinatal OCD Support Group for Parents at Postpartum Support International (PSI), and she is also PSI's International Coordinator Manager. With her lived experience, she was also asked to be on the International OCD Foundation's Public Awareness subcommittee of the Perinatal OCD Task Force.We hope this episode will help others (including providers!) understand perinatal OCD more and normalize medications and therapy for treating OCD. We also want this episode to provide hope for those out there suffering with perinatal OCD; there is treatment and you can be well again!Find more of Allison here: LinkedIn Blog: https://atwoq.blogspot.com/Resources: PSI Perinatal OCD Support Group for Parents PSI Perinatal OCD Support Groups for Moms U.S. Dept of Human & Health Services Talking PPD Campaign--Allison's Video NOCD: https://www.treatmyocd.com/ International OCD Foundation: https://iocdf.org/If you enjoy our podcast and our mission to shine light on conversations and stories of AAPI mothers, please take a moment to leave us a review! Reviews help us become more visible and we really want this podcast to reach more AAPI parents who may need it. You may also follow us @healingthetigress on Instagram and TikTok. Thank you for tuning in!Note: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speakers' own. This podcast is not a replacement for therapy or professional/medical advice. If you need more support or advice, please reach out to your own medical professional who can answer your questions with your individual medical history and background in context.Support the show

TW: Topics of miscarriage and suicide are briefly discussed in this episode.You may recognize our next guest from a New York Times story featuring real-life women's stories on postpartum depression last summer. In this episode, we talk with Shivani Hiralal about her experiences with miscarriages, an ectopic pregnancy, a traumatic birth, and then postpartum depression.Amidst the roller coaster of emotions on her road to becoming a mother, Shivani describes moving to a new state while pregnant during the pandemic and then having to perform CPR on her husband unexpectedly while she was 35 weeks along and enduring an ICU stay for him. Through listening to her story, it highlights that there are so many things that can contribute to perinatal anxiety and mood disorders, starting from the conceiving journey. Shivani describes how being a woman of color felt like another disadvantage in getting the help she desperately sought out in the healthcare system.Additionally, you may remember in Episode 2 of Healing the Tigress, we talked with Nima Bhakta's sister, Priya Bhakta, about Nima's postpartum depression story leading to a devastating suicide ending. Shivani’s husband was a close childhood friend of Nima’s. We hear about when Shivani first met Nima and then how Nima’s story further fueled Shivani’s desire to be a fierce advocate for perinatal mental health by continuing to share her story.Shivani shares some exciting work happening at PSI soon and about the power of support groups. It can be hard as AAPI folks to consider support groups and openly share our hard moments in motherhood, but Shivani also helps destigmatize support groups and highlight how they can help.Shivani Hiralal is a South Asian mother with a background as a trained yoga and mindfulness guide. She has worked with pregnant and postpartum patients on their journeys to parenthood. Her commitment and passion for advocating for perinatal mental health led her to join Postpartum Support International (PSI) as their Marketing Strategist. Additionally, she facilitates the South Asian Support Group at PSI and is currently on track to receive her PMH-C. She hopes to continue to live her life's mission of de-stigmatizing mental health, specifically, perinatal mental health in South Asian communities and around the world.Find more of Shivani at: Instagram: www.instagram.com/shiralal25 NYT Article feature: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/27/well/mind/postpartum-depression-mental-health.html PSI South Asian Support Group will be linked when it is upAnd if you or someone you know is having thoughts of self-harm, please call or text:1. National Crisis and Suicide Hotline: 9882. National Maternal Mental Health Hotline: 1-833-852-6262 (1-833-TLC-MAMA)3. Postpartum Support International Hotline: 1-800-944-4773Note: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speakers' own. This podcast is not a replacement for therapy or professional/medical advice. If you are in need of more support or advice, please reach out to your own medical professional who can answer your questions with your individual medical history and background in context.Support the show

Recently we had an episode on the decision to have just one child, but there is another side to “one and done” families who may not be this way by choice. We offer a Trigger Warning before you listen that this episode does talk about miscarriage.For this episode, we sit down with Val from @thewabisabimama to talk about her motherhood story. Val is a fourth-generation Japanese American mother, who shares the beauty of imperfections and impermanence in motherhood—the meaning behind the Japanese phrase “wabi sabi.” She also shares on her Instagram account the ways she is trying to keep her family’s cultural heritage alive and how she is creating her own family traditions with her son.In this episode, we talk with Val about how she may be one and done, but not exactly by choice. During the first half of the episode, we hear about Val’s experience with her son’s colic and her experience with postpartum depression. In the second half of the episode, we dive into the feelings of grief over a miscarriage Val had a couple years ago and is still perhaps not done grieving.The topic over this miscarriage is more complex in Val’s situation because she had actually mentally prepared to be done having kids, but then she got pregnant again and had a glimmer of hope for a brief window. After the miscarriage, Val ran more tests and then learned that secondary fertility was in the picture. Val shared with us that even though she is grateful for her son, it’s hard to be in the “one and done” group especially when she does wish to have another child. But she is trying to find and come to the peace of having a single child family. We talk about the grief and gratitude around this and about normalizing the invisible grief over miscarriages in general. We hope this conversation might be helpful for anyone who is still grieving a miscarriage or hoping to expand their family know that they are not alone in these feelings.Find more of Val at:Instagram: www.instagram.com/thewabisabimamaOther resources:Jasmine's Substack Newsletter on being "One and Won"If you enjoy our podcast and our mission to shine light on conversations and stories of AAPI mothers, please take a moment to leave us a review! Reviews help us become more visible and we really want this podcast to reach more AAPI parents who may need it. You may also follow us @healingthetigress on Instagram and TikTok. Thank you for tuning in!Note: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speakers' own. This podcast is not a replacement for therapy or professional/medical advice. If you need more support or advice, please reach out to your own medical professional who can answer your questions with your individual medical history and background in context.Support the show

The episode today is rich with a wide range of topics from public policy, to race and racism, to PPD/PPA/PPOCD. A heartwarming message we also get to highlight is how it’s never too late to change your career and chase your dreams. Divya Kumar, LICSW, ScM, PMH-C is a South Asian-American psychotherapist with a public health background who specializes in perinatal mental health, trauma, and the life transitions related to pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting. She is a mom of two teenagers and especially passionate about holding space for folks of color and folks who identify as first- and second-generation immigrants as they navigate the transition to parenthood and explore how race, racial identity, and culture intersect with parenting. Before becoming a therapist, Divya's work focused on connecting clinical services with public health by addressing unmet needs in direct perinatal mental healthcare and the structure and delivery of perinatal support services. Currently, she participates in initiatives to improve perinatal mental health services and systems of care at both the state and national levels. Divya is a Co-Founder of the Perinatal Mental Health Alliance for People of Color (the Alliance), Board Member of Postpartum Support International (PSI) of Massachusetts, and a Commissioner on the Ellen Story Commission for Postpartum Depression.In this conversation, we talk about how Divya was inspired to co-found the Alliance with Jabina Coleman and Desiree Israel after a fateful PSI conference, as a way to invite more providers and mothers of color to the resources that PSI had to offer. Divya also shares about her own personal postpartum journey that was rife with PMADs (PPD, PPA, PPOCD) she never got diagnosed with and finally understood years later.Divya also returned to school after realizing the work she was doing with postpartum women after becoming a mother herself was inspiring a calling to become a therapist who could work particularly with women of color. As someone who is raising multiracial, multicultural children, Divya is also highly aware of the privilege and also the racism that her kids will have to grapple with. She talks about parenting in a new generation, often “bushwhacking” or carving out our own paths because we were never shown how to value feelings and mental health as AAPI children. This is one of the most fiery and passionate conversations we’ve had, and we hope you will enjoy it too!Find more of Divya on Instagram: www.instagram.com/bothbrownandtherapist Resources mentioned:AsAm news article: Better Luck YesterdayIf you enjoy our podcast and our mission to shine light on conversations and stories of AAPI mothers, please take a moment to leave us a review! Reviews help us become more visible and we really want this podcast to reach more AAPI parents who may need it. You may also follow us @healingthetigress on Instagram and TikTok. Thank you for tuning in!Note: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speakers' own. This podcast is not a replacement for therapy or professional/medical advice. If you need more support or advice, please reach out to your own medical professional who can answer your questions with your individual medical history and background in context.Support the show

TW: Miscarriages are briefly discussed in this episode.If you asked Shannon Eng when she was younger how many kids she wanted, she might have told you ten! She thought she wanted a lot of children, despite being an only child herself. And then she became a mother right before the world shut down for a global pandemic. The idea of having more children soon changed after Shannon went through postpartum during a time where she did not have a village for support and her mental health was often not well. Now she has decided that for her mental health's sake, one child is exactly what she wants and needs.Some of you may also know Shannon as a popular fitness nutrition specialist and Pilates instructor on social media as @caligirlgetsfit. She uses her platform now not only to share about health and wellness, but to highlight her motherhood journey and how she is an only child who is choosing to raise an only child. Shannon also recently started a newer account on Instagram called @onlynotlonelykids to focus more on single children topics.In this episode, we discuss how Shannon had 2 miscarriages before having her son, and that began to set the stage for the mental health toll motherhood would have on her. We talk about how some people don't view mental health as a "real" reason not to have more children. We talk about the mislabeled stereotypes people give to only children and some of the reasons and history behind how these unfounded assumptions came to be. Shannon is a third and fourth generation Chinese American, but despite her family being in the U.S. for awhile, she feels they still hold onto a lot of Asian values--one of which is the cultural expectation to have many children so someone will care for the elderly. We talk about how people often think only children will be "lonely," and Shannon also gives a great analogy to the argument for "double or nothing" when it comes to having children.We hope this conversation will help normalize the choice to be one and done as well as for society to stop mislabeling only children with stereotypes that have been disproven before they really get to know them. We realize that having a choice is a privilege, but also want to acknowledge that there is no perfect family size. The best one is the one that works for your family--physically and mentally.Find more of Shannon at:Instagram:1. www.instagram.com/caligirlgetsfit2. www.instagram.com/onlynotlonelykidsIf you enjoy our podcast and our mission to shine light on conversations and stories of AAPI mothers, please take a moment to leave us a review! Reviews help us become more visible and we really want this podcast to reach more AAPI parents who may need it. You may also follow us @healingthetigress on Instagram and TikTok. Thank you for tuning in!Note: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speakers' own. This podcast is not a replacement for therapy or professional/medical advice. If you need more support or advice, please reach out to your own medical professional who can answer your questions with your individual medical history and background in context.Support the show