mental illness & helpful theological ecosytems, loneliness & rebuilding villages, embracing winter & limits, returning to the internet & the freedom of tech despair
Gosh that Erin Loechner piece was 🔥. I have a lot of complicated thoughts about paying for online community/content after a bad experience in an online faith based subscriber-only community (essentially I ended up feeling used - that my lack of IRL community was being used to provide a flexible income opportunity for someone else (maybe that is overly harsh 😂🫢). I was listening to a podcast recently where the host strangely admitted to not having anything more of value to say but was probably going to keep the show going because he relied on the income for his family. !!! It truly left me flabbergasted that someone was comfortable wasting other people’s time bc content is profitable but I wonder how often this becomes the case.
Just here to say that I, too, am so over people who build a huge audience on social media, get what they need from it (email list, whatever), then peace out (totally or mostly) and become wise sages about social media use. OOOOOVER IT. A big popular account on IG has recently done this, and though I appreciate her and her thoughts immensely, I do not appreciate this aspect of it.
(I haven’t read the Erin Loechner piece but I have read all the comments here and I don’t think I need to😁)
I'm really curious what the benefits of synthetic progesterone are over bio-identical progesterone - my natural instinct is to say there aren't any for the patient, only for the the pharmaceutical companies making money off of it. Maybe that's just cynical - maybe they've made it easier to process or something - but I have a hard time believing it's better for our bodies.
And that Loechner piece - I had read it a few weeks ago and honestly found it a bit hard because she made her money and her career happen online *before* getting off the internet. I don't know of any traditional publishing houses that are going to publish non-fiction for someone who has no "following" or only a very small one. So while I agree with a lot of what she said, it felt a bit tough coming from someone whose (career) success did arrive via the online world.
I'm just here to talk about the progesterone piece. :) Thanks, Haley, for posting that link. I'd heard rumors about a PPD pill but hadn't had a chance to investigate it yet.
While I haven't taken progesterone after giving birth, I wanted to share my experience with it. I'm not a medical professional--this is just anecdotal, but hopefully it helps someone. After we suspected my secondary infertility and miscarriage was caused by lack of sufficient progesterone, my midwives helped me find a bio-identical progesterone for my third and fourth pregnancies. I actually used it to as an aid to getting pregnant for my rainbow baby (my last one was a complete surprise as seems to be the case with a lot of third borns, haha).
Thankfully, I was able to carry both of my boys to full-term and they are happy and healthy. I really think the progesterone played a huge role. There were of course some side effects, but maybe fewer than the synthetic form might have caused? (I can't speak to that though as I didn't try the synthetic.) I used it in a coconut-oil base as a topical treatment for my 3rd pregnancy and as a suppository in cocoa butter for my last. I tested my levels periodically with both pregnancies to ensure my progesterone serum levels stayed above the recommended levels for each trimester. I was able to slowly wean off the coconut oil form by 24 weeks as the placenta was producing enough on its own by that point. But when I tried weaning off the suppositories with my last pregnancy, my levels would drop significantly. As I didn't want to risk another miscarriage, I stayed on the suppositories until 34 weeks so that the levels wouldn't interfere with giving birth.
Honestly, if I was doing it again, I would use the suppositories. They did cost a bit more, but the mess was far more contained as the placement of topical form had to be rotated between 6 different places on my body and applied twice a day. It also took forever for it to absorb and resulted in several ruined outfits as I wasn't able to get the oil stains out. Plus, my body started reacting to either the oil or the progesterone making my skin dry out to extreme degrees. It took months for that to resolve. I didn't have any skin issues with the suppositories.
I noticed that my nausea was still strong with my progesterone pregnancies, but the vomiting was nearly non-existent and nothing like the hyperemesis gravidarum I experienced with my first pregnancy. It did make me sleepy for an hour or so after taking it but it wasn't a long-term effect. Also, progesterone can boost libido, so take that as you like. :)
I do wonder if residual levels of progesterone helped me have better post-partum experiences with my last two pregnancies than I had with my first (which was totally horrid and traumatic and took me years to get over before I wanted to try for another baby.) I was advised not to continue the progesterone after my babies were born however if I wanted to breastfeed as higher progesterone levels can impact milk supply apparently. If anyone is considering using progesterone post-birth, but also wants to breastfeed, I'd recommend looking into this further. As with a lot of medications (and herbs! and EOs!), the impact of progesterone on your supply might be highly individual to your body's unique makeup and integration of the compounds involved/natural supply levels. Because of this, I ended up using skullcap tincture (very safe, no issues taking while nursing), which alleviated most of my PPDA (I have more issues with anxiety/anger than depression post-partum).
If you struggle with PPD/A, I'd recommend looking into progesterone in some form to help just be aware of the side effects.
Well, now I’m the next Erin Loechner comment 🫣. But that piece really was spot on. I think it confirms a lot of what I’ve felt lately — Substack feels a little noisy — and as much as I’d like to find some sort of Internet utopia, it doesn’t exist. So if there’s going to be good work written I think more and more it’s going to be a matter of stubbornly digging our heels in, and putting blinders on, and not being a slave to the metrics. Her point about “wait three years” — I’m trying to think through folks I’ve followed in the past, but there’s definitely something to that. It’s very hard for people to maintain consistency over the long term. And of course I don’t mean they don’t grow, but how many people do you follow who are essentially the same person wherever and whenever you encounter them? Not many.
Wow, that Erin Loechner piece... This quote especially got me:
"Can people change their minds? Yes, yes, yes. Should they? Yes, 100%. Every day, we either grow or die. But online, many are dying while scattering their homes with peonies, snapping sunlit photos during magic hour while cropping out the dead soil. By all accounts, they look alive. Some are. Some are not."
Gosh that Erin Loechner piece was 🔥. I have a lot of complicated thoughts about paying for online community/content after a bad experience in an online faith based subscriber-only community (essentially I ended up feeling used - that my lack of IRL community was being used to provide a flexible income opportunity for someone else (maybe that is overly harsh 😂🫢). I was listening to a podcast recently where the host strangely admitted to not having anything more of value to say but was probably going to keep the show going because he relied on the income for his family. !!! It truly left me flabbergasted that someone was comfortable wasting other people’s time bc content is profitable but I wonder how often this becomes the case.
Just here to say that I, too, am so over people who build a huge audience on social media, get what they need from it (email list, whatever), then peace out (totally or mostly) and become wise sages about social media use. OOOOOVER IT. A big popular account on IG has recently done this, and though I appreciate her and her thoughts immensely, I do not appreciate this aspect of it.
(I haven’t read the Erin Loechner piece but I have read all the comments here and I don’t think I need to😁)
I'm really curious what the benefits of synthetic progesterone are over bio-identical progesterone - my natural instinct is to say there aren't any for the patient, only for the the pharmaceutical companies making money off of it. Maybe that's just cynical - maybe they've made it easier to process or something - but I have a hard time believing it's better for our bodies.
And that Loechner piece - I had read it a few weeks ago and honestly found it a bit hard because she made her money and her career happen online *before* getting off the internet. I don't know of any traditional publishing houses that are going to publish non-fiction for someone who has no "following" or only a very small one. So while I agree with a lot of what she said, it felt a bit tough coming from someone whose (career) success did arrive via the online world.
I'm just here to talk about the progesterone piece. :) Thanks, Haley, for posting that link. I'd heard rumors about a PPD pill but hadn't had a chance to investigate it yet.
While I haven't taken progesterone after giving birth, I wanted to share my experience with it. I'm not a medical professional--this is just anecdotal, but hopefully it helps someone. After we suspected my secondary infertility and miscarriage was caused by lack of sufficient progesterone, my midwives helped me find a bio-identical progesterone for my third and fourth pregnancies. I actually used it to as an aid to getting pregnant for my rainbow baby (my last one was a complete surprise as seems to be the case with a lot of third borns, haha).
Thankfully, I was able to carry both of my boys to full-term and they are happy and healthy. I really think the progesterone played a huge role. There were of course some side effects, but maybe fewer than the synthetic form might have caused? (I can't speak to that though as I didn't try the synthetic.) I used it in a coconut-oil base as a topical treatment for my 3rd pregnancy and as a suppository in cocoa butter for my last. I tested my levels periodically with both pregnancies to ensure my progesterone serum levels stayed above the recommended levels for each trimester. I was able to slowly wean off the coconut oil form by 24 weeks as the placenta was producing enough on its own by that point. But when I tried weaning off the suppositories with my last pregnancy, my levels would drop significantly. As I didn't want to risk another miscarriage, I stayed on the suppositories until 34 weeks so that the levels wouldn't interfere with giving birth.
Honestly, if I was doing it again, I would use the suppositories. They did cost a bit more, but the mess was far more contained as the placement of topical form had to be rotated between 6 different places on my body and applied twice a day. It also took forever for it to absorb and resulted in several ruined outfits as I wasn't able to get the oil stains out. Plus, my body started reacting to either the oil or the progesterone making my skin dry out to extreme degrees. It took months for that to resolve. I didn't have any skin issues with the suppositories.
I noticed that my nausea was still strong with my progesterone pregnancies, but the vomiting was nearly non-existent and nothing like the hyperemesis gravidarum I experienced with my first pregnancy. It did make me sleepy for an hour or so after taking it but it wasn't a long-term effect. Also, progesterone can boost libido, so take that as you like. :)
I do wonder if residual levels of progesterone helped me have better post-partum experiences with my last two pregnancies than I had with my first (which was totally horrid and traumatic and took me years to get over before I wanted to try for another baby.) I was advised not to continue the progesterone after my babies were born however if I wanted to breastfeed as higher progesterone levels can impact milk supply apparently. If anyone is considering using progesterone post-birth, but also wants to breastfeed, I'd recommend looking into this further. As with a lot of medications (and herbs! and EOs!), the impact of progesterone on your supply might be highly individual to your body's unique makeup and integration of the compounds involved/natural supply levels. Because of this, I ended up using skullcap tincture (very safe, no issues taking while nursing), which alleviated most of my PPDA (I have more issues with anxiety/anger than depression post-partum).
If you struggle with PPD/A, I'd recommend looking into progesterone in some form to help just be aware of the side effects.
Putting the Masala Chai book on hold at the library now! We love kid food books.
Well, now I’m the next Erin Loechner comment 🫣. But that piece really was spot on. I think it confirms a lot of what I’ve felt lately — Substack feels a little noisy — and as much as I’d like to find some sort of Internet utopia, it doesn’t exist. So if there’s going to be good work written I think more and more it’s going to be a matter of stubbornly digging our heels in, and putting blinders on, and not being a slave to the metrics. Her point about “wait three years” — I’m trying to think through folks I’ve followed in the past, but there’s definitely something to that. It’s very hard for people to maintain consistency over the long term. And of course I don’t mean they don’t grow, but how many people do you follow who are essentially the same person wherever and whenever you encounter them? Not many.
Wow, that Erin Loechner piece... This quote especially got me:
"Can people change their minds? Yes, yes, yes. Should they? Yes, 100%. Every day, we either grow or die. But online, many are dying while scattering their homes with peonies, snapping sunlit photos during magic hour while cropping out the dead soil. By all accounts, they look alive. Some are. Some are not."
Haley, thank you so much for sharing about my book—your review was so, so kind. Thank you 🥹♥️
That cake is so pretty!