How a call helped an Aboriginal mum find connection

When her youngest child was nearly six, a phone call changed Rebecca Sogal's experience of motherhood. The Wiradjuri woman had left her family and community in Brisbane when her first baby was three weeks old, following her husband after he was posted by the army to the NSW Hunter Valley region. "We didn't know anyone or anything and we were just these young, fresh new parents who were just given this house 10 hours from family with this brand new baby," Ms Sogal told AAP. "That's where my mothering journey started but it's also where a lot of my anxiety symptoms started to show, not having anyone around to check in on me, not having family nearby. And with my husband in the army, he would go away a lot as well. "It was a lot of solo riding with this little thing who suddenly depended on me for everything." Ms Sogal felt isolated and disconnected from culture. "I missed out on so much of my family connection that I had when I was younger," she said. "My grandmother's house was a hub, it was always buzzing, there was always someone there and you were always welcome. "If I had my baby around that I could go to my mother or my grandmothers or aunties ... but I didn't have access to that." Ms Sogal was experiencing perinatal anxiety, but it wasn't until her third - and youngest - child was six that she reached out for help, calling the Perinatal Anxiety and Depression Australia (PANDA) helpline which provides counselling and information to parents, families and healthcare providers. "The good thing about PANDA is it's a phone call just like I made and someone on the other end saying 'maybe you're experiencing this, if the majority of the time you're not feeling great, but that's not how you have to live'," she said. "I just wish I wasn't such a hero ... trying to carry it all and then one day it was just too much and I couldn't carry it any more." There has been a three per cent rise in calls from First Nations people to PANDA's helpline since June 2022. Aboriginal and Torres Islander people account for five per cent of the calls made to the service. PANDA chief executive Julie Borninkhof said there are a range of reasons for the increase, including more awareness of perinatal mental health. "We know there aren't enough services to go around and support people," she said. "We also know that since COVID, people have been accessing services in different ways. "We know that First Nations communities have become more comfortable in accessing digital supports." Ms Borninkhof said she was proud to be able to assist parents like Ms Sogal through the helpline, digital resources and community education efforts aimed at raising awareness of perinatal mental health. "We've been doing this work for many years but we know that getting the message into communities, and for communities to be able to trust and share their experience with services like ours, is really important," she said. Ms Sogal is now a "community champion" for PANDA, and hopes sharing her experience can help other parents seek out help when they need it most. She said the service can help provide a connection for people who don't have "a village", don't feel safe to go to a medical service or may not feel comfortable to speak about what they're going through with family. "For so many years I was thinking this is all I wanted in my life, to have children, and I didn't like it - it was so stressful, but it's not supposed to be like that," Ms Sogal said. "You're supposed to have a village behind you, and as soon as I incorporated that into my life I started to really enjoy being a mother. "I just wish it didn't take me so long, but hopefully for other people, maybe they'll reach out sooner than I did." 13YARN 13 92 76 Lifeline 13 11 14