30 | Why IBCLCs Need Therapy

Leah: Let's dive in. Hey Annie.

Annie: Hey, Leah. How are you?

Leah: I am doing well. How about you?

Annie: I am great. I am super excited about our new deeper dive series. If you haven't heard about these yet, we're doing these one hour zoom calls once a month on a different topic, something we've covered in the podcast where if you join live, you can possibly be brought on screen with me and Leah to talk through a challenge that you're specifically having, but we're also recording the calls and making them available to you afterwards so you don't have to be there live because I know timing can be difficult and schedules and all of that, and you're always going to have that last minute client that's going to make it impossible for you to come. So Leah and I love making these podcasts. It's so much fun. We love interacting with you. We know a lot of you are listening because we see our download stats give us some imposter syndrome like, Oh my gosh, a lot of people are listening and you're also talking to us and giving us feedback and helping us make the show better, which is ... we love it. We love this two-way conversation we get to have with you guys.

Leah: It's definitely a huge value. You know, just to have one hour to get on a call with other people in the trenches with you talking about these topics that really impact our day-to-day business. We’re going to be delving into charting and how to do doctor's reports and dealing with money and self-care and just so many amazing topics. Selfishly I'm so excited we're doing these because I want to talk about this stuff with my peeps too. You know, I want to talk shop with the people that are in the trenches with me.

Annie: And we want to keep doing this for as long as we have things to say about private practice, which so far our list of topics that we want to talk about is ridiculously long. So there's so much.

Leah: It just goes on and on. Every time we have a podcast and I'm like we talk more about that one piece of the thing that we just talked about. It's just like it builds on itself, and so we're really excited to bring this deeper dive to you.

Annie: We appreciate you so much and we hope to be appreciating a lot more of you, so thanks.

Leah: Definitely.

Annie: Before we dive into the content of our episode today, which is why IBCLCs need therapy, Leah, what's your motivation for today?

Leah: Yes. So my motivation today is to take a minute, or not a minute, but more than a minute, but to really think about your support team, who's around you supporting you. I think this is a concept we really talk about with our postpartum families and I think we need it just as much. We need to have people on our side that they are go-tos when things get tough, and sometimes it's really helpful to think about it so that you know in the moment, here's my 9-1-1 person. Here's my paid person that I'm going to go to when things are really tough. I think it's so helpful to think through it. So my motivation tip for you today is to take a minute and write down the five people that are going to be supporting you, that are on your support team, so that when you do need some extra help, you do need to talk through something that's overwhelming you, that you have those people on your list to go to right away. So I want to have everyone make a list of five people that are going to have your back, that are going to be there to support you that way when you're in a bad place or just having a really rough day, you know exactly who you're going to call.

Annie: That's great. I mean, I hope I can list five people, but I'm going to do it, and if I can't list five people, I'm going to try to think about why? Who's on the fence? I want you to be one of my five people, but you're not. What's going on there?

Leah: And it could be somebody that you're paying. It could be a therapist or a life coach, it could be your partner, it could be your mom, could be your colleagues, a mentor

Annie: You can have a different person for the different facets of the things you're struggling with because we're going to talk about - this leads us into what our topic today is about, which is why IBCLCs need therapy, and Leah and I actually went back and forth about the title. Should we put "therapy" in quotes? Should it just be therapy? Should we even say therapy at all? Because we first of all don't want to make light of needing therapy. Therapy is great, and I know I will say this sometimes to my clients. If you feel like you might want therapy, just get therapy. There's no harm in getting it and even having the feeling that it might be helpful to you is probably a sign that it will be. But we also know that there are things that we're struggling with that aren't at the level that require a therapist, actual therapy but require different kinds of support. So Leah, why is this work so hard?

Leah: I think we have so many layers of challenges in the work that we do. We have the clinical layer. There's a lot of pressure on us to have such a vast array of clinical knowledge. I feel like that's a huge burden on us and everything's always changing. I feel like, Oh my gosh, I haven't read that article. I haven't read that study. Oh, I got to get caught up on who's doing what, when, where, or the new classes I need to take. I just think there's this really huge burden to stay ahead of the game, to be on top of the game. To be a sought after IBCLC, you have got to stay up the times. So there's that layer. There's the layer of the really tough, hard things that we're doing in consults. We're working with people that are very vulnerable. They might have been through traumatic experiences that could be triggering to us or it could just be really heavy and that's weighing us down. We're also giving, giving, giving the whole consult. I feel like sometimes I have to be so ON, just giving my energy, giving my energy.

Annie: And it's not like you have an unlimited well of energy to give. You and I both talked about those days when you just come home and your family asks how was work, honey and you just need to crawl into bed for a thousand years and not think about what we all just went through at that house.

Leah: Definitely. And then I think we tend to carry a lot of burden of our client's situations. Even though we say we're going to have boundaries and we're not going to do that and we're going to let it go. We're going to walk out of the house. We gave our referrals, we did our thing, but I think as an IBCLC, most of us come from a place of being just a very compassionate person. That's what let us do the work that we do, and that compassion kind of makes things linger with you. The 2:00 AM and you wake up and you're wondering if the mom is in pain at home, trying to get that latch that you guys got, or is that baby getting supplemented enough or is that mom really getting the extra additional support she needs. You know, it's all those clients that wake you up at 2:00 AM or you're in the middle of washing your hair in the shower and you're like, Oh my gosh, are they okay? I hope they're okay. It's that burden that we carry with us all the time I think really weighs us down and I know we've talked about that a lot - compassion fatigue, lack of self-care, impostor syndrome. Impostor syndrome is a big one. We just did a call on that in January. It was our deeper dive call and it's huge for us and I think it really comes from all these huge demands we have on the work that we do. I mean, we're kind of booby fairies and it seems like there's a lot of work and demand behind that.

Annie: It's so true. That demand and the isolation that comes with it where you need to be confident for your families. They need to be able to trust you and you need to be able to stand by your recommendations to the family and to their healthcare team, especially when you know that there's a chance that the health care team, the care providers for the parent and the baby are going to completely dismiss everything you've said. And then you're like, okay, well do what they said and let me know how that works out for you, and it's hard not to feel like that makes me feel angry and I'm not angry at my client and angry at the care provider, but I have nowhere to put that anger. I have nothing I can do with it. I just kind of have to hang onto it. And the same thing where you hear somebody sharing how much something hurts or they'll tell you more about their birth story than you needed to hear, or they'll start to try to get you to be their therapist for their birth trauma or their marital problems, and I am not trained for this.

Leah: You can't take that on.

Annie: But you just gave it to me. You just handed it to me, and I hope that I'm doing a good job referring them out to the appropriate professional, but the reality is we get these things

Leah: Yes, it's still in your mind. You can't dismiss it. It's going to sit there because now you've heard it, you can't unhear it. There's so many things like that that you're like I am now going to have that in my brain. That is now there. Can't take it back, won't be able to erase that one, and then that builds up and builds up and then like you said, we have this additional layer on top of all that of everybody else that kind of makes our job a little bit harder. Whether it's the parents getting contradictory information from family members or their best friend who did 12 weeks to 12 hours of sleep thing, or the paediatrician who feels like no, they don't think the restricted frenulum is going to make a difference. There's so many layers that then kind of build on us when it comes to just the in-and-out daily work that we're doing.

Annie: And the fact that we have a job that's weird.

Leah: It's so unusual to most every other job out there.

Annie: I mean, you go to the dentist and you have a new hygienist and they're making small talk. What do you do for a living? I'm a lactation consultant and now they're in there with the instruments in your mouth telling you why breastfeeding didn't work out for them and you just literally came here to get my teeth cleaned. I didn't come here to help you process your breastfeeding grief.

Leah: It's like lactation therapy or something. It's like you become the vessel for everyone's poor lactation outcomes or their great lactation outcomes. Either way, it's like you just become the vessel that gets to take all that in everywhere you go.

Annie: Everywhere.

Leah: I'll be at a Christmas party for my husband's work and they are like, what do you do? I'm a lactation consultant. Oh man, I tried to breastfeed but this happened and this happened and on day one, blah… blah, and then on day two ....and I'm like, Oh my gosh, your kid is four. How long is this going to take?

Annie: It's like we are working and suddenly we're taking a history or you'll get this story where somebody will be like, Oh yeah, I breastfed my child for 8 months and in your mind, you're like, Oh yeah, a happy story. And then ... it was awful. Why did you do that to me? For a second, I thought it was going to be really nice talking to you, and now I'm sorry that... I mean I am sorry. I don't want somebody to have to do something for 18 months that they found awful, but I am not the person for this.

Leah: We get this layer upon layer on us, and it just kind of builds and builds and builds, and we need to stick a hole in the bottom of that bucket so it can start draining out the other side. And I think that's where our coping mechanisms can really come in to help us manage that. So it's like we are buckets all full of all this mud and we're going to poke a hole in the bottom of it. So how are you poking holes in your bucket of mud?

Annie: Gosh! I definitely lean on my primary support system, which is for me is my husband is the main person who gets to hear all of my struggles. But there are some things that I struggle with that he can't understand and that I just don't feel like explaining to him.

Leah: Yeah, this will take 10 extra hours.

Annie: I just want a hug. You don't need the context. I just want the support. So he's not really always my person where I'm going to sit down and let me go into why this was specifically so hard. I mean, he loves to hear me complain about the paediatricians who push sleep training even when the babies are falling off the growth chart at two months and they're like, Oh yeah, okay, sorry to hear your baby's not gaining weight, but guess what? You can now sleep through the night for 12 hours. Just let your baby cry. It'll be awesome. He's great for that, the rally the troops kind of thing, but when it comes to the nitty-gritty, it's you and it's my friend Jen Deshaies up in Syracuse. You guys are the ones that get the Marco Polos for me. Oh my God, I cannot believe this just happened, without giving any details about the clients. I am even with my closest people protecting privacy, but you can share without sharing anything that's going to be too much. I need that and I know I get them from you two, and it's nice having that two-way street, unlike a therapist or a life coach. I have a business coach that I've been working with now for over a year where I call her, I tell her my business problems, she gives me solutions and I don't even have to say, how are you doing? I don't have to ask her anything about what's going on with her.

Leah: Or take on any of her stuff, right?

Annie: Exactly. And so I guess that's four of my five people and then I have a good friend who's a business owner. She makes curtains and she's the one I can call up and say Julie, my boss is the worst boss. She doesn't give me any time off. She did let me have a lunch break today. I've been holding my pee for four hours because my boss is so awful. And then she'll be like, I think your boss is pretty great. Does your boss and your employee want to have a drink tonight? It's good because she and I can make fun of each other for working too hard but also support each other because sometimes you have to work hard and you can't always take a break.

Leah: Yeah, and I think that's where just remembering our self-care because taking on all this stuff and the different layers of stress that our work gives us, stress builds in the body and then results in you feeling worse and worse because your body's not functioning at peak level. So yeah, there are going to be times where you have to pay the rent so the people have to be seen, and we're not going to be able to just take off a week because we're stressed, but that's where taking care of ourselves, even in little tiny peak moments. I love just some counted breathing just sitting in my car and five minutes I'll just set a timer and I'm just going to breathe. Just big belly breaths. Just breathe. Take all this level of stress down. Even for five minutes, your body will thank you. I mean, certainly staying hydrated and eating good and all those things we know so well, and that's where sometimes having somebody that can hold you accountable for that kind of thing, I think like a life coach is a great person for that. They again are paid so that you're not going to be taking on any of their stuff, and they might be able to hold you accountable for some of that self-care that you are skipping on because you are so overwhelmed.

Annie: Definitely. And you know, back to what we were saying at the top of the episode, therapists are great at what they do. So you should number one, know who the therapists are in your area that you can refer families to for perinatal mood disorders because I'm telling you, when somebody starts to unload something, it's going to be too much for you because you're not trained to deal with it because we're not mental health professionals - unless you are - in which case you're super cool.

Leah: So cool.

Annie: But it can feel really good to be able to say to a client, wow, that sounds really stressful. I'm not trained to help you with that, but I know some great therapists who are and I would love for you to be able to talk to somebody. They're really great at helping you work through those difficult circumstances, and thank you for sharing that with me. I'm going to make sure you get that list. I would love for you to call someone today. And then it's not your problem anymore. They told you their problem and you said here's what to do with it. But then for yourself, I know for a lot of people who are running their own businesses and we've already said time is a big factor and making time for anything is hard. For me I think about, Oh my gosh, I cannot get physically get anywhere. That's just so daunting, and especially here in New York City, you start out finding somebody in network who can help you and then geographically close, there is nobody like that I can walk to that is a therapist. So then I just give up. I'm like, yeah, I'll be fine and it's been fine, but I was reminded recently that a lot of therapists are doing tele-medicine virtual consults, which I know a lot of you are doing with your clients for breastfeeding and that's so easy. You don't have to go anywhere and your insurance can cover it if you're in the US so you might be getting emails from your insurance company saying, hey, do you know about online therapy?

Leah: I know ours has been promoting it big time. Yeah, definitely. I think it's such a wonderful solution for so many busy professionals that there's a way that we can. It's like we're taking away the barriers to getting the help that we all need.

Annie: Because if we're not getting the help we need, we're not helpful to our clients. And so if anything, getting therapy is a smart business decision.

Leah: Definitely. I totally agree with that. Well, I think this has been a great conversation because I know this is one we probably need to have every couple of months because I feel like we need these reminders. I know we've talked about it several times over the last year, but I feel like every time we talk about it I'm like, Oh my gosh, I do need to do a better job of reaching out to my support people and taking care of myself in this so that I don't burn out because I really under all of it, love the work we do, but we are at such a high risk for burnout. So we all got to take care of ourselves - please, please, please, please - so that we can keep doing this amazing work. We're changing the world with the work we do and we need you and the troops.

Annie: We need all of you.

Leah: All of you, each and every one of you. So as we wrap up today, Annie I know you have an amazing tech tip that will make our lives less stressful. Tell us please.

Annie: For sure. So I get a lot of questions about taking photos during consults. How do you take a photo during a consult? So obviously, a lot of you are just having the clients take photos themselves on their own phones so they can have that for reference, but then thinking how do I get that into the client's chart? Or I want to take photos during the consult, but I'm scared that they're going to end up on my phone and that group chat that Grandma started is going to be spammed with bleeding nipples, which I think you should really be careful about what ends up on your phone. So my tech tip for you today is you don't need to use your phone because once upon a time before we all had phones, there was this thing called a camera and a camera, it took pictures and then there was a little cable …

Leah: That's it? Like it only took pictures?

Annie: It only took pictures.

Leah: You couldn't even make a phone call on it?

Annie: You could not make a phone call. You couldn't text anyone. I can't play two dots on it. Just stick a little cable into your computer, transfer all those photos over and what you could do is you could take photos during the consult. I think it's still good idea to have the family take their own photos on their phone just cause then they have them. It's really easy for them. But take that same photo, stand behind them with your camera. Take that picture or take all those clinical pictures you want. Take a photo of the client's name, even just take a picture of their chart, either on your clipboard or on your device with their name. Take all your pictures and then when you get to the next client, take a picture of their name, take all their pictures and then once a week, once a month, once a quarter, whenever you get around to doing it, connect your camera to your computer, import all those photos, put them into the client's chart. Erase the SD card and you have bypassed all of the cloud related issues.

Leah: I love this tech tip because we totally forget that there's even such a thing as the camera that's not connected to the interwebs that needs a cable to go to your computer.

Annie: Exactly!

Leah: So crazy that we forget about that.

Annie: And I would recommend too that before you do that import - this is a little secondary tech tip to go along with that one - is you can turn off iCloud photo sharing while you do that import so that you can just do a local import and then delete the photos from iPhoto. This is for all of you Mac users, trash them and then turn iCloud sharing back on. You could even, if you wanted to be super safe, disconnect your computer from Wi-Fi while you do that import, and that's going to prevent you from even accidentally sharing them. Just turn off the Wi-Fi, import the photos, put them where they need to go in a folder and then delete them out of anything that could be shared, and then you're good to go.

Leah: Awesome. That is a great tech tip. Thank you so much, Annie. You always have the best tech tips. All right, well this has been a great episode, such wonderful reminders for all of us and I look forward to our next episode, Annie.

Annie: Definitely and as always, thank you for listening.

Leah: Bye.