Fiona Rogerson - Trauma and Perinatal Counsellor & Birth Educator, Perth

Fiona Rogerson - Trauma and Perinatal Counsellor & Birth Educator, Perth Specialist counselling and EMDR for birth trauma, perinatal trauma, PTSD & cPTSD. Perth + Aus-wide.

Why does it feel like she disappears the moment you need her most?In the thick fog of postpartum, many women find themse...
22/12/2025

Why does it feel like she disappears the moment you need her most?

In the thick fog of postpartum, many women find themselves searching for support from their own mothers, only to be met with silence, absence, or confusion. And that absence stings. Deeply. You wonder why she doesn’t notice how much you’re struggling. Why she isn’t offering help. Why it feels like you’ve been left to figure this all out alone.

It’s a grief layered in shame. Because no one told you that becoming a mother might also mean mourning the mother you didn’t have.

Often, the mother who isn’t showing up for you now is carrying her own legacy of unmet need. She wasn’t shown how to nurture. No one modelled tenderness to her. No one helped her hold the weight of her own matrescence. And so the cycle continues, quietly, painfully, from one generation to the next.

But recognising this is not about blame, or making excuses, or trying to fix it for her. And it's not about forgiveness. It’s about understanding. When we name these inherited wounds, we open the door to healing. We begin to see that the emotional disconnection perhaps wasn’t personal, it was generational. And with that awareness comes a choice. A chance to do something different. A way forward that honours you, and your children, too.

This is something we support many, many of our clients through, especially when early motherhood brings up grief that was never spoken.

You are not alone in this.

If this is you, and you're struggling with how to navigate boundaries, your relationship with her, and how to move on, please reach out. We would love to support you. Save this post to come back to when you're ready to begin healing.

We praise mothers for being “so strong” when what we’re actually seeing is a nervous system in survival mode.After a tra...
18/12/2025

We praise mothers for being “so strong” when what we’re actually seeing is a nervous system in survival mode.

After a traumatic pregnancy/birth/postpartum, many women don’t have the option to fall apart. The body does what it must to keep going: push the feelings down, stay alert, stay organised, stay 'on'. From the outside, that looks like strength. On the inside, it often feels like hypervigilance, numbness, or holding your breath.

When we call that 'strength' without context, we miss what’s really happening.

We subtly communicate to her: keep functioning, keep coping, keep holding it all.

We skip over the fact that this level of 'strong' is only required because something frightening, destabilising, or out of their control has already happened.

From a trauma lens, the wish to collapse isn’t a character flaw.
It’s the body asking for a chance to stop bracing, to feel the impact, to be held rather than holding everything together. Collapse, tears, exhaustion, irritability, these can be signs of a system trying to come out of chronic survival, not evidence of weakness.

Instead of 'you’re so strong', we need more language that notices context:
'This has been a lot.'
'None of this should have been on your shoulders.'
'It makes sense that you’re exhausted.'

Strength should be a resource a mother can choose to draw on, not a constant requirement for getting through preventable trauma.

When a mum says, 'I shouldn’t have to be this strong. I want to collapse, and I want that to be ok', she isn’t rejecting resilience, she’s pointing to the conditions that made extreme resilience necessary in the first place.

THAT'S where our attention needs to go.

If right now, you need a place to be held in your collapse, you’re welcome here. Head to the link in my bio to find out more.

“When are you having another one?” can feel unbearable.It’s not just a question, it’s a reminder of what your body went ...
15/12/2025

“When are you having another one?” can feel unbearable.

It’s not just a question, it’s a reminder of what your body went through, of what wasn’t safe, of what hasn’t yet healed.

It often comes out of nowhere, asked lightly over lunch, or slipped into a festive catch-up like it’s no big deal. But inside, you might feel your chest tighten, your mind freeze, or that quiet urge to disappear into the ground. It can feel like your whole body is saying, 'not this again'.

For anyone who’s experienced a traumatic conception, pregnancy, birth or postnatal journey, this kind of question touches more than people realise. It presses on the fear, the grief, the guilt, the what-ifs, and the pressure to move on or 'just do it again' can feel completely out of step with where you actually are.

Recovery doesn’t follow a timeline. It’s not helped by being pushed or questioned. What’s needed is space, compassion and safety, not opinions or expectations.

That’s why having a response ready can help. It’s not about justifying anything. It’s about giving yourself a bit of ground to stand on when the conversation goes somewhere painful. A sentence or two that helps you hold your boundary and protect your energy. Even something simple can make a difference in a moment that feels hard.

Sit with one that feels doable and practise it ahead of time. No further explanations needed, just that one response on repeat, again and again.

It’s OK to protect your peace. You’re allowed to choose what you share, and when.

Share this with those that might need to hear it.

We’ve normalised a culture where women are expected to prevent their own birth trauma, and then blame themselves when th...
14/12/2025

We’ve normalised a culture where women are expected to prevent their own birth trauma, and then blame themselves when they can’t.

That message doesn’t disappear after the birth.
It follows women into motherhood, shaping how they evaluate every decision, every instinct, every moment they didn’t expect.

When you’re handed responsibility for outcomes you never fully controlled, self-doubt becomes a reflex.
Not because you’re unsure of yourself, but because you were trained to search for the places you 'should have known better'.

A traumatic birth doesn’t just change how you remember that day, it changes how you see yourself.
It influences how you trust your body.
How you interpret stress.
How you react to uncertainty.
How quickly you assume you’re the problem.

And that’s why the conversation about birth trauma has to include more than what happened in the room.

It has to include the expectations you were given, the ones that convinced you it was your job to prevent harm in the first place. The belief that you “went wrong somewhere” didn’t come from your birth. It came from the pressure placed on you long before it.

If this perspective challenges what you were taught, good! These narratives deserve questioning.

Save this to revisit later.
Share it if you want to push this conversation further into the spaces that need it.

Would you add anything to this for a mum to help her get through those impossible days?
14/12/2025

Would you add anything to this for a mum to help her get through those impossible days?

Christmas doesn’t always feel like a celebration. Especially when you’re carrying trauma others can’t see.You might be s...
13/12/2025

Christmas doesn’t always feel like a celebration. Especially when you’re carrying trauma others can’t see.

You might be surrounded by people expecting joy, connection and ease, while inside, your nervous system is bracing, your emotions feel raw, and just getting through the day can take everything you’ve got. The pressure to show up, say yes, and be 'grateful' can feel unbearable when your reality looks nothing like what others assume.

After a traumatic birth, medical trauma or a hard entry into motherhood, boundaries are often the first thing to disappear. Not because you don’t want them (you know you need them), but because grief, guilt and exhaustion make it almost impossible to hold them. You might worry you’ll upset others. Or that you’ll be seen as difficult. Or that you should be stronger by now.

But boundaries aren’t selfish. They are a reclaiming. A way of slowly advocating for what your nervous system, your body and your heart actually need right now.

Maybe that means not attending the big family lunch. Or leaving early. Or not passing the baby around. Or turning off your phone altogether.

The first time you honour what you need, instead of what’s expected, it can feel wrong. But over time, these small choices build something bigger. A life where you feel safer, steadier, and more like yourself again.

I’d love to know, what boundary are you giving yourself permission to hold this Christmas?

When these patterns show up, most women assume it means something is wrong with them.But what they’re really showing me ...
11/12/2025

When these patterns show up, most women assume it means something is wrong with them.

But what they’re really showing me is where safety was missing, and how their nervous system adapted to survive that.

Self-blame? It’s not a personality flaw. It’s often the brain’s attempt to create order in a moment that felt disorganising or unsafe. If you were at fault, then maybe next time you could prevent it... that belief feels more tolerable than accepting how unsupported or powerless you felt.

Emotional disconnection? It’s a common sign that your system had to numb or freeze to get through something overwhelming, and that response got stuck.

Hyper-awareness? Difficulty trusting? Unnameable grief? They’re clues. They tell us where things were too much, too fast, or not enough, and where your system is still trying to regain a sense of safety, even if the birth is long past.

In trauma recovery work, we don’t pathologise these patterns. We follow them. We get curious. We work to update the parts of your system that are still stuck in survival mode, so that trust, presence and self-compassion can slowly return.

You are not too much. You are not failing. You are responding in a way that makes complete sense.

So many mums are carrying far more than anyone realises, and most of it sits in the moments no one else would think twic...
08/12/2025

So many mums are carrying far more than anyone realises, and most of it sits in the moments no one else would think twice about.

Can you relate?

What if the way you’ve been coping isn’t the problem, just a sign of what you’ve had to survive?After a traumatic birth,...
04/12/2025

What if the way you’ve been coping isn’t the problem, just a sign of what you’ve had to survive?

After a traumatic birth, it’s so common to fall into patterns like pushing through, minimising, avoiding, blaming yourself, or wondering why it still affects you months or years later.

These aren’t failures. They’re adaptations. They make sense when we understand what trauma actually is... a survival response, not a mindset.

And when your system starts to feel safer, those same patterns can become the signals that it’s finally time to process what happened.

If you're seeing the signs that it's time to work through what happened to you so that can leave it behind, we can help, so please reach out. It's what we do every single day x

Have you felt that shift too?Many couples feel a change in their relationship after a traumatic or difficult birth. You ...
02/12/2025

Have you felt that shift too?

Many couples feel a change in their relationship after a traumatic or difficult birth. You still love your partner, but something feels off. Conversations feel harder. The closeness has changed. And you don’t know how to get back to each other.

When you’ve been through birth trauma or a hard postnatal experience, your nervous system can stay in survival mode long after it's 'over'... overwhelmed, guarded, shut down. That tension doesn’t just stay inside you. It shows up in the relationship too.

You might feel more irritable or distant. You might not want physical touch, or feel resentment you can't quite explain. He might be spending more time out of the house, zoning out, avoiding hard conversations, or acting like nothing’s changed, when everything has.

It can start to feel like you're carrying all of it. The trauma. The baby. The recovery. And now, the emotional gap between you.

But these behaviours are often nervous system responses, for BOTH of you. If the birth felt frightening or disempowering for either of you, your bodies might still be protecting you in the only ways they know how. Withdrawal, irritability, emotional shutdown. They’re not signs of a failing relationship, they’re signs you haven’t yet felt safe enough to process what happened.

In couples counselling that is both perinatal and trauma-responsive, we work with exactly this. We make sense of what’s shifted, why it happened, and how to find each other again. Not by forcing connection, but by restoring safety.

If any of this resonates send me a DM and I can point you to some resources that will help.

November life…1. A lot of working from home. No complaints!2. My first visit to Newcastle… LOVE!3. Plenary session for t...
02/12/2025

November life…

1. A lot of working from home. No complaints!
2. My first visit to Newcastle… LOVE!
3. Plenary session for the CAPEA Conference (plus hosted a workshop the day before). Despite absolutely sh****ng myself for days before, I had the BEST time!
4. Something super exciting in the works, working with Dr Catherine Bell (author of The Birth Map).
5. This boy *sigh*. Riv’s behaviour is slowly getting worse, namely his reactivity, so we’ve enlisted the help of a dog behaviourist to work with him (and us) 1:1. The joys of rescue pups. It’s exhausting work.
6. And this sweet boy. Lenny has been with us for 2 months now and is still terrified of everything. I wish I knew what life was like for him before we rescued him.
7. Bring Your Child To Work Day of sorts. He was supposed to be unwell but wasn’t really acting like it.
8. My tree is up! Pet barrier in place, with glass ornaments up top. We had to do this for the kids only a few years back! I swear these dogs are like having toddlers at home again 😂
9. Prioritising date nights as the silly season descends ♥️
10. Our first Wildcats game! The boys LOVED it!
11. Weekend getaway with Vinnie (my van). He makes it so so easy to just pack up and go. We need to do it more often.

Bring on EOY!

When you’ve spent months telling yourself “it wasn’t that bad”, it can feel unsettling that your body isn’t convinced.Th...
30/11/2025

When you’ve spent months telling yourself “it wasn’t that bad”, it can feel unsettling that your body isn’t convinced.

This is something we see often here, women caught between what they were told about their birth, and what their nervous system keeps insisting is unresolved.

Trying to move on can feel like the reasonable thing to do. Especially if everyone else seems to think what happened was normal. But when we override our body’s response in order to match the story we think we should believe, we lose access to the part of us that most needs us.

Your nervous system doesn’t work in logic or comparison. It works in sensation, in threat detection, in survival.

And when no one helps you process what your body went through, even if your birth was medically straightforward, it’s common to feel stuck in vigilance, flashbacks, shame, or that nagging sense that something’s off.

This is where EMDR therapy can help. It supports the brain AND body in reprocessing difficult and traumatic experiences so that the nervous system no longer responds as if the event is still happening. It’s not about erasing what happened, but helping your body know it’s over. It’s not your memory that keeps the trauma alive. It’s your system still waiting for resolution.

If your body is telling you that its time to address what happened, shoot me a DM, we'd love to support you.

Address

6/640 Beeliar Drive, Success
Perth, WA
6164

Opening Hours

Monday 8:30am - 5pm
Tuesday 8:30am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

Telephone

+61402017425

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Fiona Rogerson - Trauma and Perinatal Counsellor & Birth Educator, Perth posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Featured

Share

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on LinkedIn
Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share via Email
Share on WhatsApp Share on Instagram Share on Telegram

Category

Who is Fiona Rogerson?

Thank you for being here. My work has developed from a culmination of my own personal experiences of birth and motherhood (which included secondary infertility, IVF, pregnancy loss, instrumental birth, postnatal depression and breastfeeding struggles, but ultimately beautiful positive birth) together with what I witnessed to be similar experiences of other mothers through my initial work as a professional pregnancy and birth photographer which first began in 2009, together with my work as a birth/postnatal doula and antenatal educator. What I found to be a crucial but missing element for the parents I worked with, and for myself as well, was genuine, professional support that could help them navigate perhaps the most intense phase of their life... their perinatal period.

Through my counselling I provide a safe, supportive space for mothers and fathers to feel validated and fully heard, unravel and identify confusing and troubling thoughts and emotions, find clarity among their feelings, and discover strategies and tools to move forward toward achieving fulfillment and happiness. I provide confidential support in all areas of perinatal difficulties for women and men, including birth trauma and debriefing, pre and postnatal anxiety, low-self-esteem, loss of identity, fertility, unplanned pregnancy, and grief and loss.

Dare to walk a different path. I will light your way.