The Therapy Edit - THROWBACK One Thing on not feeling alone with Sarra Hoy

Episode Date: September 20, 2024

In this THROWBACK episode of One Thing, Anna chats with Sarra Hoy about how no mother is ever alone in their emotions or experience, even though it may feel that way.Sarra Hoy is the wife of Gold Medal Olympic cyclist, Chris Hoy and following their shared experience of becoming parents to a premature baby, Sarra became an ambassador for Bliss, the UKs largest neonatal charity.You can follow Sarra on Instagram at @sarra.hoy and you learn more about the work of Bliss at www.bliss.org.ukBliss exists to give every baby born premature or sick in the UK the best chance of survival and quality of life.

Hello and welcome to the Therapy Edit podcast with me, psychotherapist Anna Martha. I love bringing bite-sized thoughts and conversations to support your well-being in your busy lives. Behind the scenes, we are working on bringing you a whole new series, but in the meantime, we have delved into the archives and will be sharing some of our most loved nuggets, lightbulb moments and powerful chats. I hope you enjoy them. Hi everyone. Welcome to today's episode of the Therapy Edit and today is a guest episode and I have with me, Sarah Hoy. Sara is a proud ambassador for Bliss, which if you haven't heard of it, is a charity supporting those who are affected by babies born early or unwell. And this came after her own experience of having her son Callum at 29 weeks and being plunged into that world of, you know, what it means to have a mature baby, which I'm sure we'll hear a little bit more about Sarah is, her passion is about raising awareness and bringing people together who've had that shared experience, but also

giving those who haven't had that experience and may know someone who has some, some words and some insight and some knowledge so that they might know how better to support them. She often does public speaking, so she shares her experience and her and her passion through media and radio as well. So hi, it's so good to have you today. How are you? Oh, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. I listen to this all the time. So it's amazing that you have had me on. So yeah, I'm really well. Thank you. Well, no, it's great. And I think we really value hearing different people's experiences. I haven't experienced having a premature baby. And it is a really, you know, it can be incredibly traumatic. And I think it's one of those things that you can't prepare yourself for. So knowing that there are people like you sharing your story so that, We can get the insight and, yeah, really important. So, Sarah, if you could share one thing with all the mums, what would that one thing be for you? So I think it's so easy to feel isolated and that you're the only one going through something.

So my one thing is you are not so unique or extraordinary that you are alone in feeling the way you do. however excruciating I can guarantee that someone else feels or has felt the same you know the content of our stories might differ but I really believe it's the process that binds us and that we can all recognise those similar traits in each other and I think a lot of that has been born from my neonatal experience and the difficulties and challenges surrounding that but ultimately what I've learned through that time is that if you can be really honest and sincere to yourself really not just to others not just saying yeah I say it how it is but actually really honest when you look into yourself and reflect on how you're feeling and if you can

manage to find the courage to share that and say share some of those darkest deepest thoughts you have with somebody you will be so surprised and the feeling that you get when somebody says to you, I felt the same. And suddenly, the feeling of isolation is completely changed. And you realize, I'm not alone in feeling this way. And I think that's such a powerful thing. Absolutely. And I think you're so right. Sometimes we do feel like our situation is that only, is that is the only one that anyone has ever been through like it. And even if I guess someone's situation isn't exactly, you know, word for word like yours, it doesn't mean. mean that they haven't experienced some of those feelings that go alongside it?

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, coming back to that neonatal experience, it's really focused in on that because you have got such different stories and outcomes for babies, different gestations. You've also got full-term babies who come to neonatal. So those, you know, on the face of it, when you're going through that, you think, oh, I can't possibly compare myself. You know, a mum with a full-term baby who ends up in neonatal where you've got a really healthy, sized-looking baby who's really sick compared to the most fragile tiny baby next to them.

These two moms are faced with this conflict of thinking, I can't be as upset as she is because she's going through something worse. But actually, when you distill it down, the actual facts might be different and the context might be different. But the feelings that you go through, whether your baby was born, you know, 29 weeks like I was or even earlier, or all the way up, to full term. When you have those open, frank discussions with somebody, it's really bonding and less isolating for them to say, I was angry, I was sad, I was just absolutely overwhelmed. And you realize that you are all in a club. And I think motherhood, no matter what your story binds us all in

some club, doesn't it? You know, those familiar channels that we all kind of understand. And, you know, I think learning to be a mum is hard at the best of times with a full term and healthy baby doing it and navigating your journey through a neonatal one is very difficult. And I have no qualms about saying this because I know that there will be at least one person who listens to it who says, yes, I agree. But it was that the horribleness and the stress adds this layer of complexity that you have to try and find your way through. and it does feel very, very lonely. And I think you've got to try and find what bonds you with others to try and remove that loneliness. So it's kind of, it's seeing that comparison

that we so often jump to, don't we have? Actually, my baby, you know, seems healthier than that. The situation that that family are in next door in the room next to me or the bed next to us, I don't have as much right to this fear or this grief or this, you know, this trauma. And actually, if you can just nudge that aside, acknowledge that that's there, but nudge it aside and think, actually, there will be an emotional connection. There will be, there is a way that I can connect outside of that.

And I think we often do that, don't we, to invalidate our own feelings when actually those are the things that can connect us together. And when we invalidate our own feelings, it kind of then just drives us. this further apart, doesn't it, and has this feeling alone. We need connection. That's absolutely right. And even now, you know, seven years on, when I talk about my experience, I've learned so many, so much more, and I've heard so many stories from other families, that there's times where I feel very fraudulent standing up to talk about it, because I'm always aware people have had such a harder time. And, you know, I have to try and remember and remind myself, actually, it was hard

and it was hard and it was hard for me just as much as it was hard for somebody else who was going through something slightly differently. And, you know, I've had the community. I think that mums are a lovely community and the neonatal community is such a supportive one. And actually, all the times when I speak to and chat to other mums who I kind of perceive inwardly oh my goodness they have had this so much harder and I feel like an idiot

for even suggesting that I might kind of be able to identify with any of the things that they feel. They've all come back and they're all equally as supportive to me and just as much as when I speak to somebody whose baby was only in for a couple of weeks I say only for in neonatal.

and they're saying oh I only had this I didn't have the months that you had and you know I don't view that as anything different what I understand is gosh in that case you you know that feeling don't you and there's a connection there's you know there's this eye contact where you just you see each other across a room and you just you just know we both know what what we felt and that the other felt it too and I think it's it's really important to remind people not to invalidate their own feelings of fear and what that experience was like because also as time goes on your mind does funny things with your memories doesn't it and you get you get past these things to some extent but it's still there and it's very quickly very easy to allow yourself to try and brush under the

carpet and say and and say oh mine didn't really count it's not like that when actually you kind of know it was and you put those feelings to one side. But I think if we bring them out in the open and just understand, you can have really different experiences. I remember one of my most telling moments was with one of my friends who has had a really, really difficult time with one of her children, completely different circumstances than a neonatal birth. But they have been, you know, fighting and still do, you know,

fight survival every day pretty much. and fought for the life of her child. And now, you know, my little boy's grown up and those parental challenges, those motherhood challenges where you absolutely lose your rag with them. And it's this really difficult conflict having come from a neonatal background where I prayed and begged for my baby to live

and I will do anything. I will be the best mom. I will not please just let him come home. and here he is and when I get really angry and lose my temper I find the conflict with that really difficult

because it takes me straight back to how could you ever ever be angry with your baby who is this miracle who you prayed and begged for and here he is and that's really difficult

and one day I found the courage to say to a friend do you ever find it really difficult when they're really naughty and she just sort of smiled and you know she has been through such a trauma with her baby with her child and and she just said oh yeah sometimes i want to kill them but that's okay she's still a miracle and i'm still just a mum and that's okay and it was so uplifting and liberating um because it was i felt it was a

difficult conversation to try to say to somebody sometimes i really lose my temper and i'm really angry with my little boy. How could I be angry? And when we when we had that conversation with somebody who could identify and understand what it was to pray and beg for the life of your child, it was so liberating to know, oh my goodness, that makes me feel so much better. Yeah, I'm just a mum and that's okay. Almost as if that experience means that you shouldn't be allowed to have human responses to momentary circumstances. You know, well, I went through that, therefore, I should never feel angry again. I should never feel, you know, shouty or lose my rag because of what we went through.

And love, love is never going to be enough to stop you from feeling that huge spectrum of human emotion in response to what's going on in front of you. So that, oh, what a helpful conversation to have with your friend. And that, you know, that comes out of that vulnerability of you saying, do you ever feel like this? And that must have felt like a vulnerable moment because she could well have turned around and gone, Sarah, no. And you knew that you could feel safe doing that. And it just shows, isn't it?

Often amazing connection comes out of the vulnerability of communicating that emotion. You're right. It's making yourself vulnerable. It's also being sincere and not feeling that you have to conform to this idea that we need. know at all, we can do it all, everything comes naturally. And I think there is, you know, a lot of pressure on women to be able to do this. It's some, it's like an episode of extreme multitasking, do everything, and also make everything come naturally and just know the answer straight away,

because that's what you should do, that that's who you should be. And actually just allowing yourself the space to say, I don't know the answers to this. And I, you know, I don't know why I feel this way and I don't really know what to do next and that that's okay and I think this this sort of this this this ranking idea that other people's pain might be higher or greater than yours and that you shouldn't be feeling this way those that that should we should try to get rid of that although it is hard you know I still have that you know some babies don't come home from neonatal and so the idea that I can sit in a podcast and complain that my little boy's naughty. It feels really awkward and wrong.

But it's again just understanding that, well, this is my situation and this is where I find myself. And again, coming back to what I said at the beginning, I'm not the only, I cannot be the only one who feels this. If I feel it, somebody else does too. And they'll know what you might want to ask. They'll know what you might need to hear. Yeah.

you so much thank you for your empowering affirming confidence giving validating yeah insightful words and for giving me also a bit of an insight into some of the emotions around what you know what it means to have a premature baby so sarah to get to know you a little bit better we finish off with some quick fire questions so what is a motherhood high for you i think um on the back of our neonatal experience, a motherhood high now are birthdays. Other people who've been through a journey of maybe a premature baby or a traumatic birth will know those first few years. It's an anniversary for yourself. It's really hard to find a reason to celebrate the day that it was terrible and almost took your child and everything that followed. But what I've

discovered recently, you know, it becomes about your child and the pain recedes or you get used to it and suddenly the birthday becomes the day for your child. You know, I can say my child was born on his birthday, which is quite a powerful thing when actually the last thing you wanted was for your child to be born on that day. And now it's all about him. And recently Callum said, I wish I was born sooner because I can't wait for my birthday and I just you know a few years ago that that would have really been painful for me and hard and would have given me a gulp and it didn't I just was completely immersed in his joy for his birthday is all about him and that's been a real revelation that that his birthday can be his birthday and nothing to do with me that's beautiful

thank you and what's the motherhood low for you um I think stand out for the neonatal journey breastfeeding which deserves a whole podcast in itself crying more tears than milk that you've produced is hard but I think coming into the present day

just saying the word just I say it all the time I've just got to send this email I've just got to do this I'll be with you a minute I've just got to finish this. I've just, and I hear myself say it to my children and just not, you know,

allowing them the time that they're wanting and the attention. And I hate the word just. So I keep trying to get around it and making sure that I'm not just doing anything. I'm just going to immerse myself in whatever I'm doing. I'm particularly in my children when they're asking for it rather than trying to juggle all the time. Yeah. It's life, isn't it? Oh, it is.

And that will resonate with. so many calling us to be a little bit more conscious where we can. And Sarah, what's one thing that makes you feel really good? My main thing, I think, I do barcore, which is a kind of exercise mixed with Pilates, yoga, and ballet moves. My friend Kat runs a studio near where we live, and it's just the most lovely place to be. It's really challenging. So when you're immersed in it, you can't think of anything else.

You have to concentrate. And what I really love about it is she gives you permission to breathe. So during the exercises, she reminds you to breathe and tells you how important it is. When else do you get a moment where somebody says, just breathe? And it's really, really lovely. That's my happy place. Brilliant, brilliant. And how would you describe motherhood in three words?

The simplest question of them all. Oh, trial and error. Oh, I love that. I think none of us are born with a handbook. There's no right answers. There's no solution. Just keep trying. I often think, look at what we say to our kids, you know,

oh, it's okay, you're only learning. You've just started, it doesn't matter if you make a mistake. And I think, right, we should counsel ourselves in that same way. it's okay we don't know we are you know we take such good care of a newborn baby equally the mums have just been born too we're just learning and and I actually I kind of loved that element when Callum first came home from hospital we found that really quite you know hilarious at times this idea of do you know what you're doing no okay let's give it a go and that was actually moments of moments of fun in amongst the

moments of horror. Trial and error, just give it a go. Liberating to be able to admit that, actually, you don't know. I haven't got a map for this. I wasn't trained for this. I'm just trying to do my best along the way. Well, thank you so much for sharing with this. Your warm and wise words.

And I will share links to the Bliss Charity within the show notes as well and different pages and things so that people can find those. But thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for having me. Really appreciate it. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Grab a copy of my new book, The Uncomfortable Truth.

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