Eat My Words

Johanna Almstea...: Hi, everyone. Just a little note about today's episode. We will be discussing some mental health challenges and postpartum depression and anxiety. If that doesn't feel okay today, then go ahead and skip this one and we'll catch you on the next episode. The inspiration behind this podcast is the amazing dinners I've shared with spectacular women in my life, and the fact that some of the most transformative conversations I've ever had have happened over food and wine with my friends. So as I prepare for each interview, I like to think about what I would feed them if they were coming to my dinner table. For my guest Today, I think I'm going to go with a little theme for the food, inspired by the fact that I know she loves margaritas. We're going to do a little Mexican vibe. I will start with a really good margarita that I make from scratch, no sour mix here, fresh limes, good tequila, a tiny dash of OJ and a really good salt on the rim.
We'll start with some chips and guacamole. I make really good guacamole and maybe like a little shrimp ceviche. Then I think we'll do tacos. We're going to keep it simple, like steak tacos with all the fun toppings, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, cilantro, sour cream, salsa and beans. For music, I think I'll stick with a little Latin-inspired dancey vibes, some Gypsy Kings, maybe Buena Vista Social Club, Celia Cruz and, I hope I can pronounce this right, I love this band, Flor de Toloache. So good. I think we would be so excited to finally sit at a dinner table together, because we've never actually been to dinner together, that this evening would most definitely probably end with some dancing on tables. My guest today is deep and hilarious and honest and great, and I'm so excited for you to hear her story. So, let's dig in.
Hello everyone and welcome to Eat My Words, the podcast. I am super excited for today's conversation with someone I'd call a friend, even though we haven't actually ever been in the same room together. She's an inspiration, a badass, and a truth teller. She's a copywriter and essayist whose work has been featured in Huffington Post, Vogue, and Today among others. She's currently working on a novel, which I can't wait to read, and she's the co-host of her own podcast called Not Your Mommy. She is a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, and I think an important voice for her generation and those that follow. Liz Hammond, welcome to Eat My Words.
Liz Hammond: Oh my God, Jo. That intro, I'm beaming. My hat is like the size of a balloon. I love hearing someone list my accomplishments. Thank you.
Johanna Almstea...: It's good, right? It's a good way to start the day.
Liz Hammond: It feels so good like, "Hello, Friday. Here I am."
Johanna Almstea...: Yeah. You're like, "Hey, I'm Liz Hammond. I did those things."
Liz Hammond: Oh my God. Well, it's such an honor to be here. I love that you have a podcast.
Johanna Almstea...: Thanks. I love it too. I'm excited. I'm so grateful to have you here. Thank you for joining me.
Liz Hammond: Oh my God, of course.
Johanna Almstea...: How's it going on that coast? She's in Vancouver.
Liz Hammond: She's in Vancouver. She's on Pacific Standard time. I'm great. It's sunny. It feels like spring is on the horizon. I'm seeing the cherry blossoms bloom. And my son picked a daffodil for me on the way to daycare this morning, so it's-
Johanna Almstea...: Magic.
Liz Hammond: It's magic-
Johanna Almstea...: Magic is happening. I like it.
Liz Hammond: ... like the light is coming. I just feel like spring is a good time for new projects, creative renewal, all the things.
Johanna Almstea...: Yeah, the deep freeze is going.
Liz Hammond: Yes, exactly. How are you?
Johanna Almstea...: I'm really good.
Liz Hammond: Good.
Johanna Almstea...: I'm super excited to have you. I'm super excited for this conversation because I think it's really going to be a good one and it's super important. I want to give a little background to our listeners. You and I met in a writing class about 2 years ago?
Liz Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Johanna Almstea...: Was that 2 years ago?
Liz Hammond: Crazy but yeah, I think at least.
Johanna Almstea...: Okay. It was an online class where we were given prompts and then we would share our stories with the group, and I was immediately struck by your candor and your rawness with which you spoke and wrote about, your postpartum experience and your sort of whole experience becoming a mother. I was like, "Hallelujah. Finally, someone is talking about this in a brutal and beautiful way." I think that was one of the hardest parts for me when I became a mother was reconciling that brutality and that beauty at the same time. So when I heard your voice and I heard your perspective, it really was so joyful in a way because I was like, "Oh my God, someone's telling their story." It's such an important story, and you're telling it with such grace and such rawness and realness. It really made me happy, even though it was sort of a sad story.
Liz Hammond: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: You ended up publishing a piece in Vogue about it, which was happening while we were in our little writing class and writing group, which made me burst with pride and joy that you were speaking this truth in Vogue, of all places. Coming from the fashion world, I have all kinds of feelings about Vogue, so it was really a divine thing for me. Because part of me becoming a mother was becoming a mother in the fashion world, which at that time was not fashionable to become a mother. And Vogue was sort of always the end-all, be-all, the cathedral of fashion. So when you first published in Vogue, I was like, "Damn. Yes, times are changing."
Liz Hammond: Oh, that's such a good way to put it. I never even thought of that. But yeah, of course. If you think of Vogue in even the early 2000s and late '90s, motherhood is not chic.
Johanna Almstea...: Not chic. I actually had someone, that's so funny you said that-
Liz Hammond: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: ... at one of the brands that I was at. It was a brand that was literally targeted towards women who were in their probably late 20s to early 50s, let's say. Okay?
Liz Hammond: Mm-hmm, okay.
Johanna Almstea...: Super beautiful, super sophisticated, polished, badass women. That was our target customer. We did this beautiful photo shoot with one of the most amazing photographers in the world with one of the most amazing... Guinevere Van Seenus was our model, like gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. We did this shot of her in this gorgeous dress, the dress was backless. And she had her little naked baby up on her shoulders, and so you just saw this little naked butt over this gorgeous thing. We had partners that told us that motherhood wasn't aspirational, and they wouldn't use that image in their market.
Liz Hammond: Oh my God.
Johanna Almstea...: Like motherhood wasn't chic-
Liz Hammond: Isn't that so telling?
Johanna Almstea...: Yeah. I was like, "Jesus."
Liz Hammond: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: Actually, we shot that the day I came back from maternity leave from my second child-
Liz Hammond: Of course.
Johanna Almstea...: ... so I was like lactating actually while that was happening.
Liz Hammond: Yeah. You're like, "Wait, I just need to go pump and-"
Johanna Almstea...: "Hold on. I'm just going to be reminded about how not chic I am in the career that I built for," at that point, "15 years or whatever."
Liz Hammond: Totally.
Johanna Almstea...: Yeah, it's wild. Was Vogue your first one that you published?
Liz Hammond: It was actually Huffington Post-
Johanna Almstea...: Huffington Post, about breastfeeding-
Liz Hammond: ... about breastfeeding. It was published during World Breastfeeding Week. So that was kind of the peg of the story and how everyone has different experiences with breastfeeding, and it brings up different narratives. And then Vogue was a couple of months after that.
Johanna Almstea...: Yeah, wow. That was so exciting. I feel like we were all sort of in it with you when you were getting it published. It was so exciting.
Liz Hammond: Yeah. It was very exciting, yes.
Johanna Almstea...: Can you tell the listeners who have not read the piece in Vogue a little bit about your journey? We're going to get right into it, by the way, today. We're like, "Hi, good morning-"
Liz Hammond: Love it.
Johanna Almstea...: "... let's talk about postpartum depression."
Liz Hammond: Yeah. Let me tell you about my mental health on this journey.
Johanna Almstea...: Yeah, let's talk about mental health.
Liz Hammond: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: We touched on Vogue, but really we're going to dive into this type of stuff. I think partially one of the reasons I wanted to have you on this podcast, other than the fact that I love you and I love your writing, was that I think you have a very, very... I don't know if I can say common because... whatever. But I think there are a lot of women who have gone through similar stories as you have and have never talked about it or have never been able to share it and have been probably traumatized by it. I think it's so, so important for your story to be told, so I want to dive in. If you don't mind giving a little background-
Liz Hammond: Of course.
Johanna Almstea...: ... and tell us a bit of your experience having your child, and what happened during your pregnancy and what happened afterwards and what prompted you to write these pieces about it.
Liz Hammond: Yeah, of course. I had my son, he's actually almost 5. I had him in 2020 in the depths of COVID which, now upon reflecting, I think contributed a lot to my experience. There was a lot of unknown and fear in the world. I had him and I kind of had the initial baby blues that we all are kind of warned about, and I figured this is just, "It's my first baby, it's a pandemic, this will pass." Also, I wrote about it in the Huffington Post piece, I really struggled with breastfeeding, which now that I've written so much about it and it's gone out in the world, I've had emails and DMs from women all over the world being like, "Yes, this is my experience." It was really cute. In the Huffington Post piece, this woman was like, "My son was formula fed and he's starting at Stanford tomorrow," and I'm like, "Fuck, yeah. It doesn't matter."
But the struggle with breastfeeding is feeling like motherhood wasn't coming naturally to me, which is like, "What does that even mean?" And really, just this sort of expectation to be perfect was this perfect storm and I sunk into a really crippling postpartum depression.
Johanna Almstea...: How did that manifest? What were your days like? What did that look like physically and mentally for you?
Liz Hammond: I really struggled to get out of bed in the morning. I think for some people, depression and anxiety can make them insomniacs. And I am, weirdly, the opposite. My body, just all it wants to do is sleep and hide away in bed. I just wasn't really getting out of the house. I just felt like, "I don't know what to do with this baby. What if he cries?" All my confidence had been shattered. Prior to that, I've been a freelance writer for almost 10 years now. I was really confident in who I was and what I could bring to the world. I thought motherhood would feel that way too, and it just did not. It completely rattled me, and I just felt like, "Who am I?" I kind of hid away and sort of denied, denied, denied for a long time and thought it would just pass. Eventually, I was hooked up with a reproductive mental health clinic and a psychiatrist. Really with that and therapy, I was able to move through an initial period of postpartum depression.
Johanna Almstea...: Can we back up for one second there?
Liz Hammond: Yes, of course.
Johanna Almstea...: Before you were connected with the mental health professional, I feel like I remember you had a moment of your rock bottom. Weren't you thinking about driving into the other lane of traffic?
Liz Hammond: That was actually the second time around, which is-
Johanna Almstea...: The second time, okay.
Liz Hammond: The kind of interesting thing about my trajectory, I guess you could say, which I then wrote about in Vogue, is postpartum depression or the postpartum period in medical texts is defined as six weeks after you have a baby-
Johanna Almstea...: Which is fucking stupid.
Liz Hammond: You have that final 6-week appointment, and really all they ask you is like, "How's your baby?", "Feeding and sleeping?" They don't really care about you, and then you're off on your way.
Johanna Almstea...: Also, at least in the US, that's the appointment where they're like, "You're free to have sex," and I was like, "Are you fucking kidding me? No one is going anywhere near that. I can't even sit down."
Liz Hammond: No, exactly. Yeah. It's the same in Canada, except we are a little bit luckier and that we don't have to go back to work-
Johanna Almstea...: 32 seconds later.
Liz Hammond: Exactly.
Johanna Almstea...: Wait, what made you get help for the first time? Did you finally tell someone? Did you break down? What made you get help? Because I think that's a really important thing I want our listeners to think about is how do you take the step to get help, especially if you were sort of hiding away.
Liz Hammond: Yeah. I think the one thing about me that I know about myself is I'm such an open book like, "Hello? I've told the whole world everything I've gone through," so I feel like I was very open from the get go. I think that's what's really hard for a lot of moms that I've talked to is feeling like you kind of need to grin and bear it or have this stoicism and just suck it up and focus on the baby-
Johanna Almstea...: I certainly did, yeah.
Liz Hammond: Yeah. I was being really open with my family and my husband, and I really had to advocate with my doctor for more check ins. After I was discharged, after the 6-week appointment, I'm still not okay. I think this-
Johanna Almstea...: Physically or mentally?
Liz Hammond: Mentally.
Johanna Almstea...: Okay.
Liz Hammond: I think this GP was just sort of like, "Okay, but you're a mom. We need to move on."
Johanna Almstea...: No one has time to not be okay. You're a mom now.
Liz Hammond: No. Again, this is just my thing. I was just like, "No, you need to understand, I am not okay. Every day, I am like, "How am I going to take care of this baby? When is this ever going to get easier?"
Johanna Almstea...: Good for you for advocating for yourself though. I want everyone who's listening to think about that because... I say this all the time, you're younger than me. I was going to say a little bit. You're a lot younger than me and I feel like your generation has, thankfully... It's so inspiring to me because I think you guys have so much better advocates for yourself than we were definitely.
Liz Hammond: Yeah, mm-hmm.
Johanna Almstea...: It's not that big of a difference, but definitely there was no room to advocate. You really did just grin and bear it or not grin. I cried a lot and buried it but-
Liz Hammond: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: There was no room for that conversation of, 'I'm not right. I don't feel good. This is not okay." I'm scared or I'm anxious, or I'm depressed, or I'm suicidal, or I'm any of these things. Right?
Liz Hammond: Yeah, exactly. And I think we are better at advocating for ourselves. But I do think at the time, because it was COVID and we were all just sort of at home, I was really viewing motherhood through my phone a lot, for better or for worse.
Johanna Almstea...: That's a really interesting differentiation.
Liz Hammond: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: Yeah, for worse.
Liz Hammond: There wasn't mom groups really. And I also think that influenced how I saw myself adjusting to motherhood because-
Johanna Almstea...: So you're scrolling through Instagram and seeing how perfect everyone is, and you're like, "This is not the reality here."
Liz Hammond: Exactly. I'm watching an influencer show, "A day in my life with a 2-month-old," and I'm like, "Oh my God. It's 3:00 PM and I'm still in my pajamas, and there's spit up and breast milk all over my shirt." And my husband's going to be home soon and I'm going to have to be like, "Hey, haven't done anything." That I also think really intensified those feelings of just not feeling like I was doing it right, feeling like I was behind in some way. So yeah, I just really pushed with my doctor. And I think something important to highlight about my experience is that I had struggled with anxiety and depression before I had my son, so I was actually already on a medication.
Johanna Almstea...: Did you stay on that medication while you were pregnant?
Liz Hammond: I did.
Johanna Almstea...: Okay, because we're going to talk about that.
Liz Hammond: Yes, which is-
Johanna Almstea...: So you knew yourself enough to know that, "I'm not right here."
Liz Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Johanna Almstea...: You knew your depression and anxiety threshold for yourself.
Liz Hammond: Mm-hmm. Yeah, totally.
Johanna Almstea...: I think that's also really important for people to think about. Right?
Liz Hammond: Yeah. I can imagine if you had never experienced it before, that would also be really scary and just confusing. Because I know for myself, the first time I experienced anxiety and depression, I was like, "Am I dying? What is happening here?" But what I learned in the process is that postpartum shifts you chemically so much that what may have worked before will not work for you anymore. And that's what happened to me.
Johanna Almstea...: Got it. So you were on medication that was working, you got pregnant, stayed on it, had your baby, and then it stopped working after.
Liz Hammond: Yes.
Johanna Almstea...: Because your hormones went off a cliff, everything's haywire and your body's just like, "Yeah. No, this isn't computing anymore."
Liz Hammond: Completely. I was telling my doctor, "I don't understand. I medicated." Not that medication solves everything, but it is supposed to kind of help you have a leg up-
Johanna Almstea...: Have your bottom up, at least.
Liz Hammond: Yeah, so you can cope. It wasn't actually until I was connected with the postpartum psychiatrist that I learned... She was like, "This actually happens a lot. Medications that work before you had a baby, they don't work anymore because the entire makeup and chemistry of your body has changed." And that's where we shifted medication.
Johanna Almstea...: Why the fuck is no one talking about this?
Liz Hammond: Exactly. Why did no one tell me that before?
Johanna Almstea...: This is insanity to me.
Liz Hammond: I know.
Johanna Almstea...: Okay. I want to stop you here because I want to tell you a story really quickly that was mind-boggling to me, that I listened to on another podcast actually.
Liz Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Johanna Almstea...: It was Gwyneth Paltrow talking to Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Gwyneth talks about how she had a postpartum. I think it was with her second child. I can't remember.
Liz Hammond: Okay.
Johanna Almstea...: But anyway, she talks about how she was really deep in it and couldn't tell that she was, which I had a similar experience. I was so deep in it that I didn't even know until I came out of it later, and I was like, "Holy shit, that was dark."
Liz Hammond: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: Finally, her husband at the time, Chris Martin, was like, "Hey, I think you might need to get some help." She went through this whole process and started doing yoga and meditation and eating and all these things, and therapy. And that it was this long process to get her out. Right?
Liz Hammond: Okay.
Johanna Almstea...: And then Julia Louis-Dreyfus says, "Oh," she's like, "On day 5, I was miserable and felt horrible and went to my doctor, and my doctor gave me a shot of progesterone." I guess it's because your progesterone drops so crazily during postpartum.
Liz Hammond: Yes.
Johanna Almstea...: She's like, "He gave me a shot in my butt of progesterone and I was like, 'Oh, the sun's coming out.' I feel great instantly."
Liz Hammond: Isn't that wild?
Johanna Almstea...: First of all, I've never heard that before. I had never heard that in all the conversations that I've had about postpartum and stuff with friends and people, I've never heard that.
Liz Hammond: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: Secondly, why the hell is not every person who gives birth getting a shot of progesterone afterwards?
Liz Hammond: Why is that not part of the checkups after the baby's born? Why are we focusing on what the baby weighs? That's crazy.
Johanna Almstea...: Isn't that crazy? She's like, "Literally, I went from the doldrums of Earth, like hell on earth. I was like, 'I'm going to die and this baby's going to die. And I'm terrified of all of it,' to... 5 minutes later after the progesterone kicked in, it was like, 'Yeah.'" Again, I'm not a doctor. I'm not going to tell people to prescribe themselves things.
Liz Hammond: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: I just think that was something that I was like, "Holy shit, I've never even heard that." And if that worked for somebody, as someone who's going through other hormonal shifts now in life, I can tell you, a little shot of something helps a lot, it's wild to me.
Liz Hammond: Right.
Johanna Almstea...: Anyway, have you ever heard of that? Have you ever heard anyone getting that?
Liz Hammond: No. But that actually makes so much sense. I don't know the number, but I read somewhere that the drop in hormones during postpartum is similar to what happens in menopause and it literally throws your entire equilibrium out of whack.
Johanna Almstea...: Yes. I was having night sweats. I was having a lot of the same symptoms that are menopause symptoms. I was having them postpartum. I would wake up in a pool of sweat in my bed.
Liz Hammond: Oh, me too.
Johanna Almstea...: Disgusting.
Liz Hammond: It's disgusting. You wake up and you're terrified. You're like, "Where am I?" And then your baby's crying, and then you have to wake up and pretend to be so blissed out.
Johanna Almstea...: And your boobs are filling and you're in pain and nothing's healing. Right?
Liz Hammond: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: And your organs are in different places. That's another thing no one talks about.
Liz Hammond: Exactly. I just felt wildly unprepared.
Johanna Almstea...: 100%.
Liz Hammond: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: Okay, let's get back to your journey. She tells you your chemical makeup is totally different than it was 5 days ago before you gave birth, or whatever it was.
Liz Hammond: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: So she puts you on a new medication, and what happens next?
Liz Hammond: Yeah. It was a gradual process of coming off the one, going on the other. And I was seeing a therapist, 2 to 3 times a week. Okay? I was in it.
Johanna Almstea...: Were you still breastfeeding?
Liz Hammond: At that point, I was kind of doing half and half.
Johanna Almstea...: Okay.
Liz Hammond: And I really had come to terms with the fact that the pressure I was putting on myself to breastfeed was contributing to this-
Johanna Almstea...: Amen to that.
Liz Hammond: ... what I was feeling. As soon as I let go and gave into the gift of formula and having other people be able to feed my baby, I felt so much more peace and I could actually enjoy my child. So, that all kind of coincided. It was around at 6 months that I had fully stopped breastfeeding. I was on this new medication, and I felt good.
Johanna Almstea...: Okay.
Liz Hammond: I felt like I had conquered it, that was like, "Check, it's behind me." That was around 6 months. And then when my son was about a year, which was when... I'm a freelance writer, so there was no organized mat leave for me. I wasn't going back to anything, but it just felt like, "Okay. Around a year, I really want to start working more full time. I needed to organize childcare for him." And just that transition of figuring out how to be a writer and a mother-
Johanna Almstea...: A working mom.
Liz Hammond: ... a working mom really threw me into another... It's interesting. It's what I wrote about in the Vogue piece. Some people would not call it postpartum depression because it's not in the 6-week period. But I had to do a lot of research for that piece, and what I found was that the hormonal shifts actually can occur for up to 3 years after you have a baby.
Johanna Almstea...: It's many years.
Liz Hammond: Many.
Johanna Almstea...: Yeah. I've heard even longer than that.
Liz Hammond: Yes. But in the moment when you're struggling mentally, you're not thinking that. I was just thinking, "Why am I not better by now?"
Johanna Almstea...: Right. And society's telling you, you should be better by now. Right?
Liz Hammond: Yeah. Because other people in my life were hiring nannies or talking about having another baby, and I'm like, "Oh my God. I barely got myself back together, and now I'm expected to just go back to life as it was before?"
Johanna Almstea...: This is interesting because you were choosing to go back to work at that time. Right?
Liz Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Johanna Almstea...: It wasn't some pre-decided timeframe like it's a year, I've had a year. Again, everyone's always like, "Your baby's a year." I'm like, "Your baby's a year old. It's still a baby. And you still haven't slept for now a year." Right?
Liz Hammond: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: You still haven't had a minute to yourself, and you probably haven't showered alone in a year.
Liz Hammond: If anything, you're worse off than you were immediately after.
Johanna Almstea...: Right. And your adrenaline is gone, by the way.
Liz Hammond: Yeah, there's no more. It's not shiny anymore. No one's bringing you fruit baskets. No one's telling you you're missing-
Johanna Almstea...: And no one's checking on you.
Liz Hammond: No, because they think you've got it by now.
Johanna Almstea...: Right. So even though you were deciding yourself that you were ready to get back into your creative self, and we are going to talk more about what that is and how to balance being a creative person and a mother, but you felt like, "Okay, I want to go back to work. This is time now," and that still threw you for a loop.
Liz Hammond: Yes.
Johanna Almstea...: How did that manifest with you? What started happening?
Liz Hammond: I think the second time around it was a lot less gradual, and it was just more an immediate descent into that deep, dark, can't get out of bed, so incredibly sad. It was honestly less anxious the second time around and more just truly, truly depressed. And it was the summertime. It was right after my son turned one, and that whole summer was just really dark. I don't know how to explain it other than just I could not pull myself out of this depth of just despair, and I just felt like I don't know how I'm ever going to figure this out. It just felt really defeating because... This reproductive mental health program that I worked with the first time around, they don't offer support to mothers after their child is one-
Johanna Almstea...: Of course, not.
Liz Hammond: ... so, "Hello?"
Johanna Almstea...: They're like, "You're good. You're fine."
Liz Hammond: That makes you feel like, "Okay. Well, what's wrong with me that I still need this-"
Johanna Almstea...: There actually was a deadline for your mental health.
Liz Hammond: There was, and you missed it. Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: You missed it. You're late, and they'll be a late fine.
Liz Hammond: Yeah, exactly. I got to interview these women for the Vogue piece, and they were very... I think it was really confronting for them to hear how that would make a mother feel. Obviously, it's about resourcing and we have a different healthcare system in Canada. It's great, but it also has a lot of flaws. And what I learned through talking to them and doing research is that actually that help should be provided for at least 3 to 5 years, at least. So this time around, I don't love talking about it because it feels so wild that I am who I am today and that I was having these thoughts back then because I can't believe that's the same person. But-
Johanna Almstea...: I think that's really... First of all, thank you for talking about it.
Liz Hammond: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: I think it's so important for people to hear that you can be having these moments that feel kind of out of body or not you. And that there is life after that and that you do get better, you can get better too so-
Liz Hammond: You can. I just remember saying to my husband, "I've just been thinking obsessively about driving into oncoming traffic in my car and just letting go and just this ending. The thought of continuing to exist like this feels just too much." And bless my husband, he knows me so well. Obviously, he was scared by that, but he never made me feel like he was worried because he was like, "I know you and I knew you were going to get through this." He was like, "I just needed you to know that... keep going. We're going to work through this, and it will be okay. I see you, I hear you're having those thoughts, we're going to get through this."
Johanna Almstea...: God bless your husband.
Liz Hammond: God bless Erin. Again, I was hooked up with a different psychiatric clinic. This time, I had to self-refer. It was an intake process over the phone, really scary questions about, "Are you having thoughts of hurting yourself? Are you having thoughts of hurting your baby? Are you hearing voices?"
Johanna Almstea...: And you had to answer those honestly.
Liz Hammond: Yeah, and it makes you feel crazy. And then I'll never forget, the woman on the phone was like, "I'll see the earliest I can get you in," and she goes, "Yeah, I think it's going to be 3 to 4 months." I said to her, "If my leg was broken, would you tell me to come back in 3 to 4 months? I am not doing okay. That's not going to work for me. So can you see what you can do?" She goes, "Can you be here tomorrow at 8:30?", "I'll be there. See you."
Johanna Almstea...: Again, advocating for yourself.
Liz Hammond: Yeah. Again, it was not a pleasant process going to a psychiatric clinic and having people ask you questions about all your deepest, darkest thoughts. But bless this young... she was a resident doctor and she helped me find a new medication combination. It's basically just an ongoing experiment. The chemicals in our brain-
Johanna Almstea...: A neurological science experiment?
Liz Hammond: Yeah. It took some time, but I moved through it again.
Johanna Almstea...: How long did it take until you felt like you could look back on it and be like, "Okay, this is over. I'm through that"?
Liz Hammond: That happened in the summer. And by October/November, I was like, "Okay, I'm okay." And then I started writing, actually writing, when Emmett was about 2. That's when I felt like it was really behind me.
Johanna Almstea...: And you started writing about what happened?
Liz Hammond: Yes.
Johanna Almstea...: Yeah.
Liz Hammond: Because I felt like before then, it was still just too fresh. It wasn't like a healed wound yet. It was a little bit open. You know what I mean?
Johanna Almstea...: A little raw.
Liz Hammond: A little raw. But Vogue piece, the title of it is, Why Does No One Talk About Long-Term Postpartum Depression? It was just really enlightening to see how many women reached out to say, "I had depression when my child was 6 months, 8 months, 2 years, 3 years." It just really blew the lid on this idea of postpartum open about it being 6 months or 6 weeks because it's just not the case.
Johanna Almstea...: I mean, 6 weeks, you're not even-
Liz Hammond: No, you haven't even come up for air yet. Weeks. And I think that so many moms, myself included, can feel like they're missing something or they're not doing it right because they don't feel great at a certain milestone that someone who's told them they should feel it by.
Johanna Almstea...: Mm-hmm.
Liz Hammond: But also, my son's almost 5 and I still sometimes feel like, "What the fuck is happening?"
Johanna Almstea...: I mean, welcome to motherhood.
Liz Hammond: Right?
Johanna Almstea...: Mine are 11 and 9, and I'm like, "Who are these people? What am I doing here?"
Liz Hammond: Yeah. Like, "Oh my God, you're still here. I still have to take care of you. It's still happening."
Johanna Almstea...: "Why can't I sleep in?"
Liz Hammond: I know.
Johanna Almstea...: "What do you mean you need to eat again today?"
Liz Hammond: "What? I have to drive you where?"
Johanna Almstea...: "I have to drive you to school every day for the next fucking 18 years?"
Liz Hammond: I know. So-
Johanna Almstea...: What the fuck?
Liz Hammond: I know.
Johanna Almstea...: Yeah. I think it is really shocking to me when I had children. It's still shocking to me now how ill-prepared we are. You have to do more to get a driver's license than you do to have a child and-
Liz Hammond: Completely.
Johanna Almstea...: I think for me, one of the things that was the most shocking was also there was all this preparedness, all these classes about giving birth, but nothing about afterwards. And I remember, this is so embarrassing to admit, but I'm going to admit to you, I didn't think it was going to hurt afterwards.
Liz Hammond: Oh, yeah. No, me neither.
Johanna Almstea...: I didn't have any idea. I thought it was going to hurt during. And then I thought everything was just going to close back up, and I was going to go home and be okay.
Liz Hammond: Oh, I know. I think that's the thing is there's so much focus on the birth and your baby shower, and all these moments, when really what we need-
Johanna Almstea...: And the fucking Diaper Genie like, "Which diaper pail you're going to have?"
Liz Hammond: Yeah. "Which bugaboo? Did you get the black or the blue?", when it doesn't really, "Why are we not talking more about how are you setting yourself up for success in those first 6 weeks, 6 months, a year?" It's never going to be perfect, but I just feel like there's just so little attention paid to that time. Especially I felt like as a mom, it was all about the mom before the baby comes. And the baby comes and you kind of become an afterthought-
Johanna Almstea...: 100%.
Liz Hammond: ... in everything. It's really jarring when you're like, "Oh, wait. But I actually just went through the biggest medical event of my life."
Johanna Almstea...: Right. If I had gotten in a car accident, someone would come and take care of me and bring me soup and would be worried about me, and no one does. They want to see the baby. They want to congratulate you. But it was so shocking to me that I was like, "I feel like I got in a car accident." I'm bleeding like I got in a car accident. I'm sitting on a donut and going to the bathroom takes 45 minutes because of all the things that need to happen. Yet no one is, number one, even acknowledging that that's fucking crazy. Number two, no one is like, "Hey, can I bring you some soup?"
Liz Hammond: No, I know. In my case, I had my stomach cut open. Okay?
Johanna Almstea...: Right. You had a major surgery.
Liz Hammond: Major surgery, and all we hear is praise for a mother getting out and going for a walk by herself and looking like she's lost all the weight at 2-weeks postpartum. It's wild, and I feel like I look back. Once I had my son and then I went through all this, and I thought about how I showed up for friends who had kids before I did, and I'm just like, "Oh my God. I was so clueless. I had no idea."
Johanna Almstea...: I know, me too. It's so embarrassing. I'm like, "Ugh, I was such an asshole."
Liz Hammond: Like, "I brought you a cardigan for your baby" and just held your baby and didn't offer to clean your house or didn't tell you to go have a shower. I just was like, "Oh my God, a baby." I was not thinking about how their world had just been completely rocked.
Johanna Almstea...: Yeah. I remember I couldn't figure out how to feed myself.
Liz Hammond: Same.
Johanna Almstea...: I remember standing in my kitchen and-
Liz Hammond: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: Actually, my water broke at Whole Foods. I had done this crazy huge shop. I was very stocked up.
Liz Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Johanna Almstea...: I remember looking in and seeing the yogurt and seeing the fruit and seeing the thing of granola, and not being able to figure out how to get it all into a bowl so that I could put it into my body.
Liz Hammond: It's so real, Jo. I remember just feeling like, "How did I ever do anything before this?" Because you're just so focused on this little being and that feels so hard, and it's taking all of your resources and your energy and then, "Oh, wait. But I still am a human that exists," and that's also-
Johanna Almstea...: I'm a human that exists that needs nourishment and is healing from something, let alone I'm a person, but I'm a person who just went through something super traumatic and actually am also trying to keep a person alive with this body. You need food, and you need nourishment, and you need hydration, and you need all these things that become even more difficult to do for yourself. I'm like, how did no one tell me to think about this stuff?
Liz Hammond: Oh, I know. I just remember this nurse saying to me at one of the check appointments after, and I was having troubles with... I didn't have enough supply, milk supply, and she was like, "Are you feeling stressed or tired?" I'm like, "Of course, I am."
Johanna Almstea...: Find me a mom who's not.
Liz Hammond: I haven't slept for two and a half weeks, and I think I maybe ate a granola bar at 6:00 AM, and it's now 2:00 PM, like, "I don't know. What kind of question is that?"
Johanna Almstea...: What kind of question is that? I remember standing in the middle of my kitchen in the middle of the night getting up from the middle of a feeding. Actually, my old boss, this was actually a lovely gift, it was kind of fun, she sent me a birthday cake when Toby was born, and it was really cute. It was like, "Congratulations," or whatever, but it was really sweet, and I was gluten-free. So, at the time, it was like this... I'll never forget it.
It was a banana cake with chocolate frosting and it was gluten-free, and I could eat the whole thing, and it was huge. It was one of those double-layer ones. It was on the island of my kitchen. I remember I would be up in the middle of the night, walking back and forth between my room and the nursery, and I would feed her and I'd be stumbling back. I just literally kept a fork on the cake plate and I would pour myself a giant glass of milk. I don't know why, but I wanted to drink whole milk. I would just stand there and shovel several giant mouthfuls of cake into my mouth and wash it down with milk and stumble into my bed to sleep for another 40 minutes or whatever it was by the time the feeding, and the diaper changing, and the whole thing had happened.
Liz Hammond: No.
Johanna Almstea...: And then, it was strange that I wasn't producing delicious, wonderful breast milk for my child because I was living on cake.
Liz Hammond: Yeah. No, I know. I was the same. I was shoving things into my mouth whenever I thought about it. I had my husband lay out snacks for me in the day. Even going into the cupboard felt like too much.
Johanna Almstea...: Right. It was too confusing.
Liz Hammond: Yeah. I'm like, "It's just too much." Yeah, no wonder we get depleted. Also, it's really hard to feel mentally well when you are not feeding yourself properly, sleeping, all the things.
Johanna Almstea...: I think about when people are training for a marathon.
Liz Hammond: Yes.
Johanna Almstea...: Think about how much people talk about your hydration and your electrolytes, you need to have those protein pouches and whatever else for running a marathon. Motherhood is like marathon times a million.
Liz Hammond: Literally.
Johanna Almstea...: Why is no one saying like, "Make sure you have snacks set up for yourself." I remember I had this... It was my husband's job to do my hydration at night station. I was having trouble breastfeeding. I was having trouble with my supply, so I was drinking one of the breast milk teas. I can't remember. You had to drink the tea at night.
Liz Hammond: Oh, yes, disgusting teas.
Johanna Almstea...: And then, I would have him leave me a carafe of water, and I had to have a glass for the tea and a glass for the water, and I had to finish it all during the night while I was trying to... whatever. That was his job before I went to bed or before he went to bed or whatever. I had to figure that on my own. I think that was my second child too, by the way. I didn't figure that out the first one. I was just a dehydrated mess walking around.
Liz Hammond: Yeah, totally. No, it is-
Johanna Almstea...: I'm so thirsty.
Liz Hammond: Yeah, maybe I just need some water.
Johanna Almstea...: Yeah, but I think those things now... I think that's one thing that... I think social media has been detrimental to motherhood in many ways, but also really empowering to motherhood in other ways because at least people have a place to talk about it and they're sharing things, and people are just living a more sort of, I don't want to say unauthentic because some people are not authentic on social media, but that at least there's conversations happening. Because I was like, "I work in an industry of all women and none of you told me what it was going to be like. You all had babies. Why did no one tell me to do this?"
Liz Hammond: I know. I think the thing is, as I look back, I think some people maybe did hint at it. But especially before your first, I didn't want to hear it. I just wanted to be in the romantic notion of what I thought motherhood would be. That is also something that's very me. I romanticize life. I feel like everything is going to look and feel a certain way, and that also was my motherhood kicked my ass.
Johanna Almstea...: You're like, "This is not pretty."
Liz Hammond: "This is not pretty." I don't care if you have a night nurse and you have all the things, still it is not pretty.
Johanna Almstea...: It's not pretty, and no one can escape it.
Liz Hammond: No.
Johanna Almstea...: That's the other thing. I'm like, "No one escapes this." Even if you have 17 nannies and 47 night nurses, you don't escape pushing a baby out-
Liz Hammond: You have feeling you are going to be tethered to that person for life, and the feelings of guilt never go away.
Johanna Almstea...: They never go away.
Liz Hammond: No.
Johanna Almstea...: Okay. So speaking of guilt, that's actually a good segue.
Liz Hammond: Yes, love it.
Johanna Almstea...: I want to talk to you about what it means to be an artist, what it means to live your life as a writer, to make your living as a writer, to follow your purpose, and then how does that work with being a mother. First of all, did you know you wanted to be a writer your whole life? What did you want to be when you grew up when you were little?
Liz Hammond: I didn't know I wanted to be a writer my whole life, but I always knew that I loved to read books, always. I used to hope that it would rain because that would mean that we'd get an inside day and we could have reading time. I was the kid who wanted to sit inside in the library and cozy up with a stack of books. And then, I went into school thinking I was just going to be a nurse or a doctor because my mom is a nurse, and I just really didn't like it. I did so poorly in all my science classes. And then, I was like, "Wait, I love to read. I'll take English." So, got into English, was an English major, and everyone just always assumed I'd be a teacher. I think that's kind of a common path that...
I was in marketing for a while, doing just the bullshit marketing assistant work for a long time. And then, copywriting, I kind of started doing it in some small ways and I was like, "Okay, this is a way that I can marry my love of words and reading and make money doing it." That's still how I pay my bills, copywriting. And it is an interesting tension when the thing that you love to do and is your passion is also how you pay your bills, if that makes sense.
Johanna Almstea...: Right. It's also your money job.
Liz Hammond: So, it's hard. I do feel lucky that there is commonality between it. I still-
Johanna Almstea...: Right. At least you're not an accountant by day-
Liz Hammond: Exactly, yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: ... writer by night.
Liz Hammond: I get to stay in the world of words, but still it is hard. The way that words are viewed in copywriting is so different in how they're viewed in prose or even essays. In copywriting, it's like, "What's the quickest way we can say something to make someone buy it?" Whereas in our writing classes, we're encouraged to explore and put down all the words, all the page, and it's so different. So, it's really interesting, that tension.
Johanna Almstea...: And how do you change gears between those two in your brain?
Liz Hammond: Oh, my God, TBD. It's really hard. It's really, really hard. You mentioned I'm working on a novel, and I feel lucky that I have the flexibility where I work for myself and I have kind of a open ever-shifting schedule. But yeah, it is really hard to shift gears from like, "This is my pay the bills writing," and, "How do I move back into this world of..." and it really is a world because it's fiction.
Johanna Almstea...: Right. You have to actually immerse yourself back in that world.
Liz Hammond: It's funny. The last couple of weeks, I've become obsessed with watching YouTube videos of famous writers' routines.
Johanna Almstea...: Oh, my God. That was my next question. I was going to ask you about your routines.
Liz Hammond: Okay. Stephen King, for example, not like I'm saying I'm obsessed with his writing, but he's prolific. He wakes up every day, walks for seven miles, comes home, sits down, reads the last two pages he wrote the day before, and then he sits down and writes six pages for the day, kind of immerses himself back in the world.
Johanna Almstea...: Six pages. Only six pages?
Liz Hammond: Only six pages. But now that I'm writing a novel, I know that six pages is actually quite long. It feels long. It's so much-
Johanna Almstea...: It just feels like when you come to the end of a novel, if a novel is like 300 pages, that's a lot of days.
Liz Hammond: That's a lot of days. I'm like, "Oh, God. Okay, maybe I just need to do that." But then I started listening to... Do you know Maggie Smith? She wrote the poem-
Johanna Almstea...: Yes. Oh, my God.
Liz Hammond: Okay. She has a new book called Dear Writer, and you should read it or listen to it. I'm listening to it.
Johanna Almstea...: I love her. I love We Can Make This Place Beautiful, is that what it's called?
Liz Hammond: Yes, exactly. I just listened to a chapter, and it made me feel so much better. She was basically like, "As mothers, we need to be grateful for any moment that we get to spend writing, and we need to give ourselves grace. This might not be the season in your life where you can say, 'Every day, I do this, this, and this, and write at this time.' It's really just about grabbing the moments where you can." It was a sigh of relief for me because I feel like I was trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.
Johanna Almstea...: Do we want to talk about the fact that Stephen King is a white man-
Liz Hammond: Mm-hmm, that could be it.
Johanna Almstea...: ... who has the privilege to walk seven miles?
Liz Hammond: Literally.
Johanna Almstea...: I'm like, "Who has the fucking time to walk seven miles, first of all, and then the time to sit down and do those six pages?" I do think it is interesting, the privilege of not being a mother of what that allows for in time-wise, the luxury.
Liz Hammond: Yeah, with creativity. Exactly. I think, right now, I'm in an ever-evolving process of establishing what that routine looks like. Every day, I'm thinking about writing, some days, I'm putting finger to keyboard, some days, I'm just thinking, but it's all contributing.
Johanna Almstea...: I have two friends who wrote books, and they said some of them wrote them completely in their notes apps on their phone, sitting in... I don't know if your guy is... Well, he just started T-ball, right?
Liz Hammond: Yes.
Johanna Almstea...: But the amount of time that I spend in my car waiting at sports practices to pick people up or whatever... I have a friend who wrote a book and she's like, "Oh, no. I did it sitting in the parking lot waiting for a ballet class to be over," or whatever. Yeah, you got to do what works.
Liz Hammond: Exactly. I think, again, romantic me, I have this vision of sitting at a desk and it is the perfect-
Johanna Almstea...: The tea's steaming up your face.
Liz Hammond: Yeah, and I'm wearing a linen robe and a candle is blowing in the wind, but it's just not my situation right now. Maggie Smith also says that thinking is writing too. Also, life-
Johanna Almstea...: Oh, I love that.
Liz Hammond: ... living is what inspires writing. Sometimes, you just have to live for the words to come too. That's what I'm telling myself at least because the dichotomy of paid writing and passion writing is really hard, and I am hopeful that... Okay, I'm not hopeful. I will, one day, just write and I won't be writing subject lines about linen pants anymore.
Johanna Almstea...: Right. You're going to be writing novels and essays.
Liz Hammond: Yes. But right now, this is the juggle that so many writers find themselves in, and a lot of them are waiters and work at cafes. We all do what we have to do to pay the bills. Yeah, that's kind of where I'm at.
Johanna Almstea...: So, how do you nurture the creative side though? Is there certain things that you need to keep that creative juice flowing, or does it just kind of exist in you?
Liz Hammond: Well, I'm a voracious reader and I am constantly reading something. I think to be a good writer, you have to read, and so I always have a book on the go. I am a big podcast, audio book listener, so I think I just constantly have content.
Johanna Almstea...: You're consuming.
Liz Hammond: I'm consuming. And sleep, rest, it's really important for me. Luckily, I don't know what I did to deserve this. Well, actually, I do because I've had so many other mental health struggles, but I am a good sleeper.
Johanna Almstea...: God bless you.
Liz Hammond: The minute my head hits the pillow, I'm out. I think my brain's just so tired from being so in my head all day that it's just like, "Okay, we can sleep now." So, sleep is key.
Johanna Almstea...: I'm so jealous.
Liz Hammond: I do feel very lucky, knock on wood, watch me fall into insomnia.
Johanna Almstea...: Call me when you're in perimenopause and we'll talk.
Liz Hammond: I've heard. I've heard. My mom's telling me all about it. I think that and just walking, I'm a huge walker. So walking, sometimes listening to something, but also sometimes just not, and really taking in, I don't know, just the world. It sounds cheesy, but that really helps me.
Johanna Almstea...: Do you want to share with our listeners a little snippet of what your novel's about?
Liz Hammond: Yes, I do. Let me just paint the picture because actually someone said something to me and it really hit. I think a way we could sell it right now is that it is White Lotus, but make it postpartum.
Johanna Almstea...: Oh, my God. Yes, done. You're done. You're done.
Liz Hammond: That's it, or Gwyneth and Goop gone bad.
Johanna Almstea...: Okay, done too. I like that.
Liz Hammond: Okay. It's definitely going to be pulling from my own personal experience, which is helpful because I have a well of things to pull from, and it's also going to be a bit of an examination and critique of wellness culture and how, as women, we're taught, if you just buy things or pay a coach, that we can hack wellness or motherhood, which I don't think anyone has actually hacked motherhood yet.
Johanna Almstea...: No, I don't think so.
Liz Hammond: Yeah, so that's what's happening.
Johanna Almstea...: Oh, my God. I want this book out now. I want to read it tomorrow.
Liz Hammond: Okay. I'm working on it for you.
Johanna Almstea...: And you're going to come back on the podcast when it's coming out. We're going to talk about it.
Liz Hammond: Yes. Hell, yes.
Johanna Almstea...: Okay. I have a couple of questions, just sort of philosophical, that I like to ask people, and then we're going to get to my lightning round of silly questions, which are really fun.
Liz Hammond: Oh, can't wait.
Johanna Almstea...: What is something now that you once believed about yourself that you have since outgrown?
Liz Hammond: Okay. I think one thing is that I used to believe that when I got into these states of anxiety or uncertainty, I was stuck there forever. I think that's really common, feeling once you get just into a bad cycle, it's really hard to pull yourself out. And I've proven to myself, more than enough times now, to know that I'll always be okay.
Johanna Almstea...: I love that. That's major.
Liz Hammond: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: That's a huge mindset.
Liz Hammond: Even just saying that out loud, I was like, "Oh, yeah. Liz. Of course, you're fine."
Johanna Almstea...: You can take a breath, right?
Liz Hammond: Yeah. It's okay because, now, I have the proof that it will be okay.
Johanna Almstea...: Can you see that when you're in it, do you think? Can you actually tap into that? You know it now because you're doing great. Do you think if you fell into something again, do you think you'd be able to-
Liz Hammond: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: ... hang on to that?
Liz Hammond: I think so. I think I listened to this podcast with Coco Mellors. She wrote a book called Blue Sisters that I love to read-
Johanna Almstea...: I don't know that one. Okay, I have to take a note.
Liz Hammond: Yeah, but she talks about experience-based faith when it comes to writing. So knowing you have been through an experience so you can have faith, you know that it will work out. I don't have that yet with writing because I've never finished a book. But I know in life and with mental health, I have the experience to know that I can put my faith in the fact that it will be okay.
Johanna Almstea...: Yeah, that's huge. I love that term, experience-based faith.
Liz Hammond: Yeah, me too. I feel like there's so many things it can apply to, and there's such comfort you could take in that.
Johanna Almstea...: It's funny. I think about that a lot with having had the career that I've had, and I feel like I have a million percent faith that I can always go out and get a great job and do something amazing because I've done it. It's not even a thing where I feel like there's other women who are like, "Oh, my God, I'm so scared to go do this." I'm like, "I'm not scared about that. I can do that. That, I know I can do. There's a lot of other stuff I'm scared about, but I can do that."
Liz Hammond: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: Interesting. Yeah, it's experience-based faith.
Liz Hammond: It's a good feeling though, you know, and there's comfort in it.
Johanna Almstea...: Yeah. Is there anything that you've said no to that you wish you had said yes to?
Liz Hammond: Oh. A lot of micro things. I think a big learning for me through motherhood is that I was a huge, huge people pleaser and... Oh, my God, sorry. My son's toy just started randomly honking and playing. That's so weird. Can you hear that?
Johanna Almstea...: I love that. Yeah, I can hear it.
Liz Hammond: Okay. Hopefully, it's going to stop soon.
Johanna Almstea...: Welcome to motherhood.
Liz Hammond: Oh, my God.
Johanna Almstea...: You can't escape it.
Liz Hammond: He's not even here. How did that turn on? Oh, my God. It's like traffic jam in here.
Johanna Almstea...: That's amazing.
Liz Hammond: Yeah. I constantly said yes to everybody, and I'm the kind of person that I have a lot of friends and I have a lot of people in my life, and I think I wish I said no more in that time... I need to go turn this off. One second.
Johanna Almstea...: Yeah, all good.
Liz Hammond: Sorry.
Johanna Almstea...: That's out of some bad motherhood nightmare, that noise, like, "I can't. Make it stop. Make it stop."
Liz Hammond: There's like, "[inaudible 00:49:12]." You know what? This morning, he was telling me it needs new batteries and pulled it out for me to fix it, like, "Oh, yeah. I've got right on that."
Johanna Almstea...: "No problem, Charlie. I'm on it."
Liz Hammond: Yeah. Okay. I said yes to a lot of things and to a lot of people, and I think that starting to say no earlier would've helped me through that transition. I always think about, I can't remember who said it, but when you're saying no to someone else, you're saying yes to yourself. There's been no major like, "Oh, someone offered me this big job and I said no," it's more just the day-to-day little things that I am getting a lot better, but I wish that I learned that sooner because I think that would've saved me a lot of stress.
Johanna Almstea...: I feel like being a people pleaser is going to be a major theme on this podcast because, so far, several of our guests have talked about becoming recovering people pleasers, and I think... Thank God you're doing it much younger than I did. I feel like I've just started figuring out how to have certain boundaries in my late 40s, and my kids are older, and it took me this long to be able to be like, I think it actually... Perimenopause has helped because you just give zero fucks anymore, but it's taken this long for me to be like, "Nope, I'm not into it. Nope, that doesn't serve me. Nope, I'm not into that for my kids. Nope, I don't want to do that. I'm not going to just do that." It's taken me this long, so it makes me happy to hear that you're doing it sooner.
Liz Hammond: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: Are there any major pivotal moments in your life where you think, "Wow, if I hadn't done that, things would've turned out very differently"?
Liz Hammond: I think in both instances with my mental health, really kind of calling it and just saying, "This is-"
Johanna Almstea...: I surrender.
Liz Hammond: Yeah, "I surrender. I can't keep going here," I think that both of those are huge ones, and I think really making the decision that writing was going to be the way that I was going to heal through this. Even though it made me nervous sometimes or I was worried about what people might say, I have no regrets. It's only been good things.
Johanna Almstea...: I feel like I want to go back to this again because it feels to me like you have a very good inner compass of who you are and what you need.
Liz Hammond: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: I wonder if you, number one, are even aware of that and, number two, is it something you cultivated or is it something you were just born with? I think about this a lot. One of the things I think about with my children who are both girls, it's very important for me that they hone their intuition. So, I actually just had this thing with my daughter the other day where me and her sister were talking about something. I can't talk about it on here because it's still a secret sort of in life in our home, so I can't talk about it here, but we were talking about something and my other daughter picked up on it and I kind of downplayed it. I was like, "No, no, no, we're not talking about anything, blah, blah, blah." And then, I had this feeling like, "You know what? She's fucking right."
So later, I said, "Hey, you know what? You know how I told you that thing earlier? You are right. We were talking about something and it did have to do with you, and it's actually a surprise. So I don't want to tell you what it is, but I do want you to know that your gut was right and that little fluttery thing you had..." She kept bringing it up. She'd be like, "I feel like something's going on here and you guys are talking about stuff. I don't know." She was really in tune with something being fishy, and so I didn't want her to think that that was wrong. I was like, "You know what? Actually, that is right and you are right, and it's not anything bad and I promise you it's all in good fun and whatever. But I want you to know that that little tingly is something you should listen to."
I just want to know from your perspective, because it seems to me, in these moments of real trauma for you, you still had enough of that tingling that you knew that you were like, "Wait a minute, I got to push harder. I can't wait three or four months for this admittance to this clinic. I need more help and I need a different medication, and I do need to be a writer." You were able to tap into that, and I just wonder if you could talk a little bit about that.
Liz Hammond: Yeah, it's interesting you should say that. One of my really good friends, she's a nurse practitioner. I've come to her with a lot of questions about my mental health and medication. She always says my greatest gift is my self-awareness and knowing what I need. She's like, "I have so many patients who just... They're so tapped out of what their situation is and what they need to move forward." I would probably chalk it up to the fact that I've always been a very sensitive person and very aware of my feelings and what they mean. I've always been like that. So, I think those feelings talk so loudly in me-
Johanna Almstea...: That you can't ignore them if you try.
Liz Hammond: They have to come out. It's funny, people will say things to me like, "Oh, it's so brave that you just share these feelings so openly," and, for me, it's like, "I don't have a choice." To me, I have to just be forthcoming, and I think that's just how I am. It's funny, sometimes people now they'll have this familiarity with my story. They'll be like, "Oh, well, you understand. You went through this," and I'm like, "How do they know that?" I'm like, "Oh, wait, I literally told Vogue." I forgot.
Johanna Almstea...: There was a lot of subscribers. They read it.
Liz Hammond: Right? So I'm just like, "Okay," but I think it's just, for better or for worse, I'm an open book.
Johanna Almstea...: Because you've written both in class and I think in some of the pieces that were published about your relationship with your dad, just makes my heart burst, but do you think there was something in your family growing up that you were always supported or you were always listened to? Do you think that has anything to do with it, that there was a place for those feelings in your house?
Liz Hammond: Definitely. My mom also struggled with her mental health, and she felt like it didn't really come to a head for her until she was about, I guess, maybe my age or a little bit older, so I would've been eight or nine. I kind of was aware that it was going down, and so the conversation of mental health was around in my house. My dad, I think... It's just really open to talking about it. Even now, sometimes, I'll just be like, "Dad..." spill my guts to him and his line is always like, "It's going to be fine. It's going to be fine." And I think having him and my husband, these two strong men in my life, not to be all the patriarchy, "We need men to tell us we're going to be fine," but for men-
Johanna Almstea...: Sometimes, it's nice.
Liz Hammond: Just for a man to be like, "I'm not worried. You're good. We got you."
Johanna Almstea...: And also, there's no judgment, right?
Liz Hammond: There's no judgment. Yeah, I grew up in a house where it was just very... you could be really open and honest about how you felt. The interesting thing though is that my siblings are not as open as I am, so I think my parents are a little bit like, "Okay, we got Liz. She keeps us busy."
Johanna Almstea...: Do you mean we want to tone those feelings down with the other ones?
Liz Hammond: Yeah, and they're like, "The other two, they kind of just keep under their wraps." Everyone knows this about me, and it's almost like a joke. Sometimes, I'll meet other moms' places and I just immediately feel like I have to spill my guts and be like, "Wait, are we all feeling the same way?" And I think people find it refreshing. Maybe it puts some people off, but I'm just not going to stop.
Johanna Almstea...: Please, don't ever stop.
Liz Hammond: Because I can't.
Johanna Almstea...: Well, you can't, and then you're not being authentic to yourself. Again, full circle back to the beginning of our conversation was just part of what drew me to your writing and to your words were that candor and that sort of authenticity and that realness and coming from a family that was not really converging of that stuff. I think that was really kind of a little bit mind blowing for me. I was like, "Whoa. Hey, we can talk about this in that way?"
I think I told you off the pod that I had a member of my in-law family who said to me... So I had suffered pretty bad postpartum, really anxiety, a lot, anxiety more so than depression, but both I think after my first child, and I had a really, really, really traumatic birth with her. And then with my second child, I had this glorious birth and it was amazing. And I was like, "Oh, wow." In between, when I was pregnant with my second child, I went to a new doctor and the doctor said to me, "Oh, my God. What happened here?" when she was doing the exam. She said, "What happened to you during your first delivery?" And I was like, "What do you mean?" She's like, "Things went wrong here," and I just started sobbing because no one would acknowledge anything that went wrong after I had my first child.
I was sharing that and I remember just feeling so validated and so like, "Oh, my God. This was a place that I could actually say, 'No, things are broken and I was broken, and I don't know what happened and no one would talk to me about what happened.'" And I was sharing this with a relative, and she looked at me and she said, "Yeah, we wondered what was wrong with you."
Liz Hammond: Oh, my God.
Johanna Almstea...: And I was like, on so many levels, "Whoa," like, "So, you saw it. You saw that something was wrong."
Liz Hammond: Didn't say anything.
Johanna Almstea...: Didn't say anything. "You obviously were talking about it behind me, behind my back, about what was wrong with me. No one was offering to come over and hold the baby so I could take a shower. No one was offering to make me some soup." I love that it's always soup that I go to my head.
Liz Hammond: It just feels like soup.
Johanna Almstea...: Oh, my God. I just wanted soup.
Liz Hammond: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: That was the environment that I was raising my babies in. So, when you came out with your story and you were sort of so open about it, I was like, "Holy shit. Yeah. Fuck, yeah."
Liz Hammond: Yeah. Think about it. It's exciting though that you can foster that with your girls.
Johanna Almstea...: I know. It's so cool. I have to say that's one of the coolest things about parenting is I have these moments where I'm like, "Oh, I just broke a generational-"
Liz Hammond: Yeah, "I just broke pattern. We're breaking patterns."
Johanna Almstea...: Right there, just now.
Liz Hammond: Yeah. You can decide, and you can also go back and change things if you're like, "I don't like how I did that."
Johanna Almstea...: Yeah. totally. Yeah, I love that part. That's a very invigorating part. When I'll do it... Sometimes, I'll feel like, "Okay, I'm going to do this. I'm going to say it," and then I say something. And then I'm like, "Fuck, yeah. That was good."
Liz Hammond: That was good.
Johanna Almstea...: Especially with my older one, she and I can really talk stuff now. She's 11, and I'll be like, "Yeah, that's okay, right-"
Liz Hammond: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: "... It's okay. We did this. We just got through this conversation." She's so cute because she'll be like, "I love you, Mommy," and I'm like, "Oh, my God, it worked."
Liz Hammond: "It worked. I'm doing it. It worked."
Johanna Almstea...: I'm sure in a couple of years when she's like, "Fuck you," slamming her door, I'm like, "Oh, maybe I should have just stuck with the old generational trauma situation."
Liz Hammond: And then, you'll be able to repair it when she's 18.
Johanna Almstea...: Yeah, exactly. Hopefully, she'll come back around.
Liz Hammond: She will, yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: Okay. We're going to do my little lightning round of silly questions.
Liz Hammond: Please, yes.
Johanna Almstea...: Okay. Don't overthink it.
Liz Hammond: I won't.
Johanna Almstea...: Just first thing that comes to mind.
Liz Hammond: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: Ultimate comfort food.
Liz Hammond: Cheese.
Johanna Almstea...: Cheese?
Liz Hammond: Cheese, yes.
Johanna Almstea...: Any kind of cheese? All cheese?
Liz Hammond: Just cheese. Actually, specifically, cheese and apple, sliced cheese and apple slices.
Johanna Almstea...: Any kind of cheese though. Is it cheddar or Munster?
Liz Hammond: I like a sharp-aged cheddar.
Johanna Almstea...: White or orange?
Liz Hammond: White.
Johanna Almstea...: Yeah.
Liz Hammond: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: What is something you're really good at?
Liz Hammond: I think I'm good at creating a comfy home, and I think I'm good at being open and honest about my feelings.
Johanna Almstea...: There you go.
What is something you're really bad at?
Liz Hammond: I'm really bad at being kind to myself, and I am really bad at remembering to do things, like renew my insurance and taxes and shit.
Johanna Almstea...: Like administrative?
Liz Hammond: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: Admin.
Liz Hammond: Admin, yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: Favorite word.
Liz Hammond: I don't know why this is coming to mind, but prolific, because I want someone to describe me that way one day, how I describe Stephen King.
Johanna Almstea...: It's so funny when you said it. Yeah. You said it earlier and I was like, "Oh, I love that word."
Liz Hammond: Yeah, prolific.
Johanna Almstea...: Prolific, great word.
Least favorite word.
Liz Hammond: Authentic.
Johanna Almstea...: Ugh.
Liz Hammond: Barf.
Johanna Almstea...: So overused.
Liz Hammond: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: It's such a bummer because it was a good word at one point, don't you think?
Liz Hammond: I know. It just got oversaturated. Now, it means nothing.
Johanna Almstea...: That means nothing except bloggers-
Liz Hammond: Literally.
Johanna Almstea...: ... and influencers.
Liz Hammond: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: Least favorite food, deal breaker, no way, not even letting it cross my lips.
Liz Hammond: I hate mushrooms.
Johanna Almstea...: Any kind of mushrooms? All mushrooms?
Liz Hammond: I hate mushrooms.
Johanna Almstea...: Okay.
Best piece of advice you've ever received?
Liz Hammond: Oh, okay. Well, I actually just heard it, and it's really kind of changed how I viewed a lot of things. Women can do everything, but they shouldn't do everything.
Johanna Almstea...: I like that.
If your personality were a flavor, what would it be?
Liz Hammond: Lavender.
Johanna Almstea...: Oh, she's going herbal.
Liz Hammond: Yeah. A little flowery, kind of just like romantic. It's romantic.
Johanna Almstea...: Yeah, romantic and soothing and-
Liz Hammond: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: I like it.
Okay, last supper. You're leaving this body. You're leaving this earth tomorrow. What are you eating tonight?
Liz Hammond: Okay. Well, we're going to circle back to the cheese. I would do a charcuterie board with olives, crackers, nice cheeses, and an icy cold glass of Prosecco.
Johanna Almstea...: I love that. I too would like a charcuterie board.
Have you ever had a moment in your life when you've had to eat your words, when you've had to go back and be like, "That was..."?
Liz Hammond: Let me think. Definitely, with my husband, I can be a very reactive person and I've definitely had to eat my words in some big life conversations. I can confidently say that I haven't had to eat any words that I've written, which I feel good about.
Johanna Almstea...: That's good.
Liz Hammond: But I mean, who knows? One day.
Johanna Almstea...: Die trying.
Liz Hammond: Die trying, exactly. But, yeah. No, probably just with my husband, to be honest.
Johanna Almstea...: If you had to eat one food for the rest of your life, you had to eat it every single day, what would it be? She's like, "Cheese."
Liz Hammond: Cheese, but also toast with almond butter and banana.
Johanna Almstea...: That's a good one. I feel like that's a very balanced-
Liz Hammond: It's my favorite.
Johanna Almstea...: Okay. Do you put honey on it ever or no?
Liz Hammond: Oh, yeah. I can fuck with some honey.
Johanna Almstea...: Yeah, I can fuck with some honey on my almond butter.
Liz Hammond: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: Where is your happy place?
Liz Hammond: I love being at my in-laws. They live on the Sunshine Coast in Vancouver. I love being at a bookstore, very cliche, but I really do. I feel really excited when I'm in a bookstore. And this is where I sit and work, at my dining room table, and so it's the site of some happy, productive times.
Johanna Almstea...: I love that. I also feel like, I would just like to note, I don't think that many people would have the answer, "I love being at my in-laws."
Liz Hammond: I'm just going to say it's not so much about the people. It's about the place, if that-
Johanna Almstea...: The place.
Liz Hammond: Loves them, but-
Johanna Almstea...: But it's still a lovely answer.
Liz Hammond: Yeah. I wouldn't say the vibes are always exactly perfect, but, no, they live right by the ocean. It's just very peaceful.
Johanna Almstea...: Sounds lovely.
What do you wear when you feel like you need to take on the world?
Liz Hammond: That's a really good question. I'm like a button-down... I would just the coastal grandmother Nancy Meyers, that is kind of like my vibes, a button-down, do my hair, put a little lipstick on. I'm a pretty simple gal when it comes to... I don't really dress up much. I have to be honest with you, I'm wearing sweatpants on the bottom of this outfit because I'm at home and I'm never really not at home. But yeah, I would say just like a button-down and jeans.
Johanna Almstea...: What shoe are you wearing?
Liz Hammond: It's a flat.
Johanna Almstea...: A flat.
Liz Hammond: A flat.
Johanna Almstea...: A flat? A little loafer, a ballet flat?
Liz Hammond: Like a ballet flat, yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: A ballet flat, okay.
What's the most memorable meal you've ever had?
Liz Hammond: My husband and I went to Puglia on our honeymoon, and we stayed at this gorgeous farmhouse, and I just remember having a dinner there with the most amazing red wine and... The pasta, I think it's called like orecchiette.
Johanna Almstea...: Orecchiette?
Liz Hammond: It means little ear. Yeah, that rings true for me. It's like a dreamy one.
Johanna Almstea...: That sounds heavenly. I love Puglia also.
Liz Hammond: Me, too.
Johanna Almstea...: What is your go-to coping mechanism on a bad day?
Liz Hammond: Cancel all plans and sit in my couch and read, get off my phone-
Johanna Almstea...: Yeah, right.
Liz Hammond: ... and go to bed. Go to bed.
Johanna Almstea...: Go to bed. Mine is definitely, I think, go to bed, just shut it down. I always say-
Liz Hammond: Just put an end to it.
Johanna Almstea...: Shut it down. I always think of it as like a switchboard.
Liz Hammond: It's a reset.
Johanna Almstea...: It's a like a breaker. You're just like, "[inaudible 01:05:00]" and it's just like, "[inaudible 01:05:01]".
Liz Hammond: Yeah, we're just going to try this again tomorrow.
Johanna Almstea...: Reboot. Reboot tomorrow.
Liz Hammond: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: What is one thing for sure that you know right now in this moment?
Liz Hammond: That everything will turn out as it's meant to.
Johanna Almstea...: Well, if there were ever a way to end this podcast, that would be it.
Let's talk about where people can find you. What is your Instagram and your podcast, and tell everybody where they can find you.
Liz Hammond: Okay. My Instagram is Lizz, L-I-Z-Z... Even though that's not actually how it's spelled in real life, it's just what I could get. Lizz__hammond-
Johanna Almstea...: Z-Z, double underscore. Okay?
Liz Hammond: ... and my website is lizjhammond.com. My podcast is called Not Your Mommy, and so the Instagram is Not Your Mommy Podcast, it's also a fun... It's kind of more of a uncut version of me over there.
Johanna Almstea...: The unedited version.
Liz Hammond: The unedited, exactly. Stay tuned for more on this book that I'm going to write.
Johanna Almstea...: You're writing it.
Liz Hammond: I am writing it. I'm writing it.
Johanna Almstea...: You're writing it right there from one of your favorite places.
Liz Hammond: Exactly. As Anne Lamott says, "Bird by Bird."
Johanna Almstea...: Bird by Bird.
Liz Hammond: One by one.
Johanna Almstea...: Bird by Bird.
Liz Hammond: Yeah. It doesn't have to be perfect.
Johanna Almstea...: Thank you so much for being here. This has been so fun.
Liz Hammond: Thank so much for having me.
Johanna Almstea...: And I am really, really, really grateful for this conversation, and I'm grateful for you taking a risk on me because no one's heard this yet.
Liz Hammond: Oh, Jo, I would follow you into anything.
Johanna Almstea...: Oh, you're so nice.
Liz Hammond: Yeah, I can't wait. And it's so fun to be a guest because, as a podcast host myself, it's fun.
Johanna Almstea...: That's right. It's like a different-
Liz Hammond: I get to be on the other side.
Johanna Almstea...: Wearing a different hat for the day.
Liz Hammond: Totally, yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: Well, thank you so much, and you have to come back, and I hope I'm one of your first podcasts to come back to announce your book launch date.
Liz Hammond: Of course.
Johanna Almstea...: All right. I adore you.
Liz Hammond: Thank you so much, Jo. You, too. Love you.
Johanna Almstea...: Love you.
Thank you all for joining us today and for listening. If you enjoy this podcast, please share it with your friends. Please like, comment, subscribe to it, so it shows up in your feed. Please follow us on social media, which is eatmywordsthepodcast on Instagram and on TikTok, and drop us a line. Tell us what you're thinking about. Tell us what you want to hear from us. Thanks so much.