They Told Me My Body Had Failed

Some of the deepest healing I’ve experienced didn’t come from understanding myself better. It came from being witnessed.

My own experience with postpartum anxiety eventually changed not only the way I understood myself, but the way I understood therapy. It showed me the limits of trying to heal entirely on our own and the power of being in relationship with people who can help us see the things we’ve learned to normalize.

Today, that experience influences the way I approach individual and group work, including online therapy in California and the healing circles I offer for women throughout the state. For women searching for group therapy in San Diego or elsewhere in California, I believe there is something uniquely powerful about having a space where healing happens not only within ourselves, but in connection with others.

This is part of the story of how I came to understand that:

I sat in my hospital bed holding my brand new baby. After 18 hours of labor and an emergency c-section, he was finally here and my life as a new mom had just begun. I had just experienced more physical pain than I ever knew was possible. My body was bleeding, I was exhausted, and my abdomen was freshly stitched up, but nevermind all that - I was now responsible for this very tiny human.

Who said I could be in charge of this tiny human?

I didn’t know the first thing about breast feeding, but a nurse came in and showed me how to hold him and get him to latch. She was gruff and not very kind. I could tell that maybe she’d been having a bad day, so I tried not to ask too many questions. I felt desperate to get the whole breast-feeding thing right, so I hung on every word she’d said and tried to commit it all to memory. My brain felt like mush.

She seemed like she was in a hurry, so I didn’t want to take up too much of her time. He had latched and seemed like he was eating fine, but I was so new at this that I felt anxious. How do I know when he’s done? How will I know when he’s hungry again? Do I switch boobs? I had so many questions but I told myself that I’d just figure it out as I went. This nurse was definitely not up for chit-chat.

After he seemed to be done I rolled him carefully onto my chest and she showed me how to burp him. Nothing came out so I just I held him there. He was so small and felt so fragile. I tried to take it in, but I was worried I’d hurt him somehow. The nurse was very adamant that his head needed to be supported. I did my best to hold his tiny little head without touching the soft spot on top. She was also adamant that I needed to be careful not to injure his brain by pushing on it.

I let him sleep on me for a while. The nurse came back in to check on us. She took my vitals, checked my incision, and pushed on my belly. Tears welled in my eyes but I refused to cry because I was afraid of waking the baby and inflicting even more pain into my abdomen.

The nurse looked at me and said, “make sure you don’t hold him too much. He’ll become spoiled if he’s always in your arms.”

I nodded my head slowly as she left the room. I looked down at my baby, worried again that I’d somehow fuck this up. I figured she knew what she was talking about. She was the one wearing the scrubs and taking care of all the new moms on this floor. I’d only been a mom for 6 hours at this point, what did I know?

After that, I’d feed him, burp him, change him, rock him for a little while and then put him in the little clear isolette next to my bed. I’d stare at him and make sure he was still breathing. He seemed to be fine with this arrangement for the reminder of our stay at the hospital.

Once we got home I followed the same routine and placed him in his Momaroo. I stared at him as he was lulled to sleep by the circular rocking motion it made.

On his second night home he started crying and would not stop. Every time I tried feeding him he’d latch for a minute or two and then pull his head off and wail. I felt panicked and worried that something was terribly wrong with him. My partner and I took turns trying to soothe him.

Maybe he wasn't getting enough milk. How could he be getting enough milk? He wasn’t latching long enough.

Why wasn’t he latching??

This continued for hours. I don’t even remember how it finally stopped. I’d only had 8 hours of sleep in the last 3 days, so maybe I blacked out at some point and he finally gave up after deciding I was an unfit mother.

Some version of this scenario continued the next night and the next day my partner drove me to the breast-feeding group hosted by the hospital. There, I sat in a circle of women who were also having trouble with breastfeeding while the nurse walked around and adjusted our positions, handed out nipple shields, and gave tips about ways to improve milk production. The nurse told me that my colostrum was fine and that my real milk should arrive in the next day or so.

It did not.

I bought all the lactation cookies, teas, and tinctures I could get my hands on. The smell of maple syrup came out of my pores from all the fenugreek I ingested. I changed my diet and ate all the things that were said to increase milk production.

I pumped and fed and pumped some more. I slept in 1-hour increments and returned to the breastfeeding support group a couple days later. I felt ashamed that my breasts weren’t engorged with milk. I told the nurse that nothing was coming out when I pumped.

She said, “your body just isn’t going to produce what your baby needs.”

I felt devastated that, once again, my body had failed to do what it was supposed to know how to do naturally.

Or so I was told.

I remember the first time I sat in a room full of women and told them these stories.

They were outraged.

There were parts of me that knew the things I was told weren’t great, but hearing from a group of women who were all intelligent, caring, and supportive allowed me to see that not only were the comments not great - they were actually harmful.

I was in an incredibly vulnerable state and because I was raised to not question authority, I took what those nurses said as fact. This cut me off from my intuition and made me question everything about my body and my ability to care for my baby.

I eventually learned that I had postpartum anxiety and OCD. (I also learned that my son had a lip tie and his inability to latch correctly was actually the cause of my lack of milk production.) I followed the typical medical protocol and got on meds. I went to therapy and I did my best to heal. But healing often reaches a limit when it’s done in isolation.

For the first four years of my healing journey I barely scratched the surface. It wasn’t until I found this beautiful community and was witnessed by other women that the deeper work truly began.

Healing Was Never Meant to Happen in Isolation

My own healing changed the way I think about what it means to help another person heal.

Individual therapy can be incredibly powerful. There is something deeply healing about having another person sit with you, co-regulate with you, help you understand what happened, and reflect back the things you may not yet be able to see for yourself.

But community offers something different.

There is something powerful that happens when we tell the truth in a room full of women and are met not with judgment, advice, or someone trying to fix us—but with recognition.

Sometimes another woman can see what we have normalized for years. She can reflect back the parts of us we learned to question, silence, or abandon. We hear another woman’s story and recognize something of ourselves in it.

And slowly, in the safety of being witnessed, we begin to trust ourselves again.

This is one of the reasons I’ve become so passionate about creating opportunities for women seeking online therapy in California to experience healing in community, too. An online group allows women across California—including women looking for group therapy in San Diego—to gather in an intentional space without geography determining who gets to sit in the circle.

As humans, we are wired for connection. And I think we’ve been siloed for far too long.

An Invitation to Becoming

This is part of what inspired me to create Becoming, an 8-week online healing circle for women in California.

Becoming is for women who are ready to move beyond understanding their patterns intellectually and begin reconnecting with the wisdom of their bodies, their intuition, and the parts of themselves they may have learned long ago not to trust.

We gather not because any one of us has the answers for another woman, but because there is something profoundly healing about remembering ourselves in the presence of one another.

If you’ve been doing your healing alone for a long time, maybe you were never meant to do all of it that way.

Whether you’ve been searching for online therapy in California, group therapy in San Diego, or simply know that you’re longing for a different way of doing your healing work, I invite you to learn more about Becoming.

I’d love to welcome you into the circle.

Learn More About Becoming →

Alicia Taverner, LMFT, is a licensed marriage and family therapist who helps couples heal after infidelity, years of resentment, and the exhaustion of feeling stuck in the same painful patterns.

Her work helps partners begin to understand each other again, rebuild appreciation, and create lasting change with a focused, supportive approach. Alicia uses brain based techniques, including Brainspotting and ketamine assisted psychotherapy, in an intensive format that gives couples more room to heal without the start and stop of weekly sessions.

Learn more about Alicia’s work with affair recovery intensives, relationship therapy, and ketamine therapy, or visit her About page.

Are you suffering in silence?

How long have you spent struggling in your relationship? How many nights have you spent crying alone in the dark, while your partner sleeps next to you, wondering when or how things will ever get better? How many times have you had the same argument and gotten the same results - retreating to your corner, alone, hurt, broken, and feeling helpless? 

My guess is way too many. 

But why do we suffer alone, in silence? 

I’ve heard a lot of interesting opinions about why people choose not to share what’s going on in their marriage. Things like, “we agreed we’d never talk to our family about our marital problems because we didn’t want anyone to have a negative opinion about our partner.” 

I’ve also heard, “It’s not always bad so I’m afraid it will sound like I’m just trashing my partner.” 

Along with other things like: 

“People will judge me.”

“People would be shocked if they knew how bad things are.” 

Our Western society teaches us in so many ways that we should suffer in silence. If you’ve ever been told as a child to go to your room because you were having big emotions, then it’s really easy to internalize the belief that your emotions are too much and that you should not burden others with them. 

Most parents of the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s weren’t equipped with the skills of conscious parenting and were likely so uncomfortable with their own emotions that they couldn’t deal with ours. They weren’t privy to the research we have now that shows that stuffing and suppressing emotions actually leads to higher levels of anxiety and depression.

But one thing that I’ve learned in doing this work, and in my own healing is that suffering alone can only get you so far. And it isn’t very far.

It's difficult to undo those patterns that you’ve learned in your childhood, or push past the myths of talking about problems in your marriage. It’s not easy to reach out and tell someone that you don’t have things under control. It’s humbling, and it’s hard. 

It can feel like no one will ever understand the nuances of your relationship. It's scary to open up and talk about what’s going on because you might be afraid that talking to a therapist might force you to leave or make other life-altering decisions. 

Unless you’re in physical danger, a good therapist will not tell you that you should end your relationship. That’s not our job. 

If you come to couples therapy saying that you want to fix the relationship then a good couples therapist will be focused on helping you do that. 

Talking about the pain you’re feeling in your relationship can make things feel more real, and I know how scary that can be. But once you put it all out there, it can feel so relieving, and when you see a great couples therapist, you will truly understand that you are not alone. 

One of my favorite parts of the therapy process are the first few sessions. I know that couples are uncomfortable sharing what’s really going on behind closed doors. But one of my greatest gifts is instilling hope and letting couples know that they aren’t alone.We’ve seen some really difficult issues in my practice. But my staff and I have helped so many couples weather those difficult storms and create amazing, healthy, connected relationships that surpass what people even think is possible when they first sit down on the couch.

We also have a formula for success that is backed by tons and tons of research! The Gottman Method is one of the most effective tools for helping couples improve their marriages. So you dont just come in and see how things go. 

Our staff take the time to truly understand your relationship and each of you as individuals. We start with a couples session to get a sense of the issues you’re struggling with and also conduct a relationship history - we ask about the significant events that have happened in the relationship. 

After that, we do an individual session with each partner to get a sense of your personal histories and backgrounds. These play an important role in the way you communicate with one another. 

We also send out the Relationship Checkup - an extensive background questionnaire that will measure various aspects of your relationship and communication patterns.

All of these components give us a really good picture of where your strengths are as a couple as well as the areas that can use improvement. 

Once we collect all of the important background information we sit down with each couple and show them all of the components the research tells us are required for a happy, healthy relationship. We show each couple where their strengths are, along with their weaknesses and areas that we will be focusing on going forward. 

Every couple that works with us knows exactly what their sessions will be focused on because they get a print-out of all of their strengths and weaknesses. There’s no guess-work. Our therapists get to work and help couples reach their goals. They focus on the issues and help couples create amazing, joyful, intimate, connected marriages. 

You don’t have to suffer alone. Once you put voice to what's happening the spinning in your head will stop. You can start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

If any of this sounds like you, I want to help. Imagine what it will feel like moving into Fall feeling like you REALLY want to cozy up to your partner.  Imagine starting 2024 with a clear vision for the future of your relationship AND a supportive therapist behind you as you take those scary steps forward. 

Picture how connected you'll be this time next year after pushing past your fears - of failure, of not knowing where to start, of anyone knowing what’s really going on in your marriage - and seeing all of the progress you've made together. 

You'll be so proud of your relationship and you would have spent the last year learning, healing, connecting, and creating an unstoppable, deep, intimate bond and gained communication tools that you will have for the rest of your lives together. 

The things we teach couples take time and practice to implement, but once our couples understand what is under their behaviors, they begin to experience lasting change. They create more intimacy and their love continues to grow even after they graduate from therapy.  

Holding onto hope for your Marriage: How therapy can help

When couples finally reach out and call us for the first time, most of them are hopeless.  

They feel like they’ve tried everything, and they are exhausted from having the same fights over and over. 

Once you’ve decided that you’re going to reach out to a therapist in your area that can also be a confusing task. Many therapists don’t specialize in work with couples or they don’t take your insurance. Couples therapy tends to be a specialized service not covered by some health insurance plans, however working with a couples therapist who truly loves this work and dedicates their career to helping couples makes a HUGE difference in the results you’re going to receive.  

Many times when people call me I hear things like, “this is our last resort, we keep trying but nothing is working and we want to be able to say we’ve tried everything, so if therapy doesn’t work, then I guess it’s time to throw in the towel.” 

It can sometimes seem like giving up and asking for a divorce is the easier thing to do. The task of doing therapy and showing up weekly can feel really daunting when you don’t know what to expect or where to even begin. 

The unknown is scary - I totally get it! But when couples call us for a free 15-minute phone consultation I walk them through our process and answer any questions they might have. 

The greatest gift we give our couples at Rancho Counseling is that our therapists are the holders of hope. 

⭐️ Many times it’s our job to keep being that North Star of truth that says, “you can do this! Just keep going, you’re making progress!”

For me that’s the best part of being a therapist - Holding hope for people when they’ve lost it. 

If you’re losing hope, I want this to be a reminder that you can do this! You can make the changes you need to have the relationship you’ve always dreamed of! 

It’s not always easy, and it does take self reflection and work. But it’s totally possible when you meet the right people who are experts in helping couples create amazing connections with one another! 

Don’t lose hope my friends! We’re here and we are so happy to help 💕 We have a couple different options for working with us including couples therapy and also our upcoming 7 Principles Workshop so check out our offerings!

Mind-Reading in Marriage

Do you expect your partner to know how you feel, what you need, when you need it? 

Couples will sit on my couch in the middle of a conflict, and one will look at me and say something like, “we’ve been together for 20 years, she should know that when I have to deal with work on my day off, I’m going to be upset. She should just anticipate that I’m going to be pissed off that day.”

This actually came from a session I had a couple weeks ago. The couple was upset with one another about how each handled a recent conflict in which PartnerA had to go into work on a day off, and said PartnerB appeared to be completely oblivious to their mood. 

PartnerA exclaimed, “you should have known I was upset and needed a hug!”

PartnerB shot back with, “I was in my own world, I was getting ready for work myself, and I didn’t even look up to see the look on your face when you told me you had to go into work.” 

PartnerA responded with, “I’m ALWAYS pissed when I have to go into work on my day off, YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT! You should've been there for me - you should have given me a hug because you should've known.”

This went on for a while longer, back and forth like a tennis match, until I stopped them. 

The fundamental distortion here was that PartnerA was angry, hurt, and ultimately felt lonely because PartnerB had not anticipated their needs. 

PartnerB was hurt, and saddened that when they returned home later that evening, PartnerA turned away, didn’t give a greeting, and sulked the rest of the evening, to which PartnerA had no idea why. This just prolonged their disconnection and frustration with one another. 

As always, I worked to slow them down in the session, and helped them express how they each felt. 

Then we discussed mind-reading, and how we absolutely can not expect our partner to anticipate our needs and wants all the time. 

If PartnerA had stated, “man I’m so pissed right now, I have to go into work on my day off. I feel stressed, and frustrated. Can I just have a hug?” PartnerB would have totally obliged and likely went out of their way to send cheer throughout the day via text or in some other way. 

When we expect our partner to know what we need, when we need it, we set ourselves up for disappointment, and we set our partner up for failure. 

Think about it - we are complex beings, and we don’t always want the same things. Some days we want affection, and other days we want a listening ear or someone to sit next to and say nothing with. 

This is your reminder to ask  for what you need from your partner. 

If you want to be pet like a cat while you snuggle on the couch after a hard day, ask! If you need some time to decompress and want to take a long hot shower or bath, let your partner know that’s what you’re needing!

Know that if you have been stuck in a pattern of asking your partner to read your mind, it’s not always evident that that’s what you’re doing. This could show up as you feeling disappointed frequently in the relationship, and so if that’s the case it might be time to look a little deeper and work on understanding your own expectations and how you may be setting both you and your partner up for failure.

If you’d like help improving the communication in your relationship, we are here and eager to help! Click here to schedule your free 15-minute phone consultation and get hooked up with one of our amazing therapists who can walk you through improving your relationship.

Why is it so hard to be Quarantined with my Partner?

I just wrapped up my 4th week of seeing clients online, and everyone seems to be settling into their new normal.  For many this includes social distancing, working from home, and trying to figure out how to juggle working and also homeschooling kids from home - it’s a lot! 

Since I specialize in working with couples, relationship issues aren’t a surprise to me. Relationship issues are normal. But what’s not normal is doing all of the tasks that we once did in various locations all in one space, and trying to maintain healthy boundaries. 

To de-stress I used to head to my local yoga studio, take a heated, sweaty class, finish feeling grounded, chat with my friends, and then come home. Now I head to my bedroom to try and do an online class and hope that one of my small children isn’t hot on my heels. In the middle of said class, it’s been a miracle if I’m not joined by my toddler who also wants to try some yoga. The result is usually her becoming upset that I’m hogging MY yoga mat. 

There’s a part of me that loves to see her try to do yoga with me, and then there’s a part of me that is utterly annoyed at the fact that I’m not getting the same results from what used to be my go-to self-care routine. 

For most of us, that separation is not just a luxury, but it was something that was necessary. The commute to work provided a time of separation from home to the staff meeting. Sending kids off to school provided time for many parents to work or get things done around the house, and who we are in our work environments offered separation from who we need to be at home. 

Now the lines are blurred. Everything is happening at the kitchen table - the work, the schoolwork, the meetings, and the meals, and it can create a magnified effect for relationship issues. 

So take some time to create those separations. Have a conversation with your partner about your previous de-stressors, and how you can create that feeling of separateness in order to still partake in them. 

Do you need to create a schedule in order to help uphold those times, and so one of you can keep an eye on the kids so the other can get work done or get some exercise in? If so, then talk to your partner openly about your needs. 

Discuss alone time. Commutes, time out with friends, and chats in the office break room with coworkers allow us to exist separately from our partners. But without those things, it can feel like we need to be together all the time because we are now in the same space 24/7 - but that is not the case. 

Our need for alone time is needed now more than ever before, so talk about it. Talk about what you’d like that to look like in your home, and how you can support one another’s needs. 

Think about having these conversations when things are neutral. Bringing them up in the heat of the moment often leads to blow-ups and misunderstandings. Avoid blaming and criticizing, and discuss the emotion that comes up for you when you aren’t able to do the things you once enjoyed, and make requests - ask for what you need from your partner to feel supported, and offer to reciprocate to help them feel more comfortable during this time. 

If this is something you could use more support with, please reach out! We are accepting new clients online, and are happy to help you improve the communication and connection with your partner!