I have known quite a few women that have gone though postpartum depression but none of them directed their anger or depression at the white male patriarchy. Maybe there are two topics here to discuss?
Scrolling through old photos today for a project, I saw myself with my young babies and was shocked by how decent I looked. Not that I'm Gisele Bundchen, but I thought *at the time* that I was a hideous husk of the woman I was before. Now I've reached a point of motherhood that includes such self-care practices as painting my nails and thinking about one day possibly joining the Y.
I've heard a lot of mothers complain about lack of sleep or lack of time. Is this not a problem that could be solved with money, i.e., hire a nanny/night nanny, or spend a few nights in a hotel to catch up on sleep?
I understand that not everyone has that much money, and some people might feel obligated to stay with the baby at night to breastfeed. But am I being naive to think that if you have money and are not wedded to only breastfeeding, this would be less of a problem?
Thanks for writing this. My girlfriend worries deeply about the experience of birthing a child, I worry deeply for what her mental health and her outlook would be after the fact (and y’know, while being pregnant too). I think she may appreciate your perspective.
I do think there is a stigma to PPD. Which seems weird because yes it is a very commonly discussed issue, but also it feels sometimes like unless it is incredibly severe, it’s not quite regarded as a real mental health issue in the way other depressions are. There’s sort of the idea that it’s something that privileged women spend their time navel gazing about and underprivileged women just deal with. Sort of like a midlife crisis. Or maybe I only felt that way because of some of the feelings of undeservingness you discuss in your piece. At any rate, PPD with my oldest daughter was one of the pivotal crises of my life. The depths of mental deterioration I sunk to are something I dislike thinking about now, but for how bad it was I recovered very quickly when I got help. For me it was therapy, medication, and a change in circumstances that were making life unbearable for me. In that sense I do think modern life and lack of close social relationships can exacerbate or make more common a disorder that most definitely also has physiological origins.
In hindsight (more than a decade and a half later), I was probably dealing with postpartum depression and anxiety, but it just didn't feel like a relapse soul-crushing depression I was used to, there were all kinds of situational things I could use to excuse it (no financial cushion because I'd ended up with an expensive high-risk pregnancy, weeks bed rest, and a lot of income loss, as I wasn't able to work a full 40 a week, etc.), and I could explain away the anxiety, after all.
This: "What I want from life but don’t have is salient, not what’s objectively going well. The parent-acquaintances who prefer one another to me I think about, not the ones who’ve asked for my contact info so we can meet up for coffee. I become immature, caring a way I had not thought I was capable of, past age 12, what people I don’t particularly like think about me. I am an unpopular middle schooler but one who is well into her 30s"
That is painfully, painfully familiar. I was emotionally fragile and petty, and, I will shamefully admit, I'm still bitter about the tiny slights and my ignored awkward efforts at asking for company or help, where my desire to not be a burden or a bother probably made them invisible efforts to the people outside my head. I loved my baby (and still love my now-teen), she was the absolute best, but man, I spent too much of her babyhood feeling like an isolated, pathetic failure with no social skills.
Guest post about how deeply sad 'Keeping Up Appearances' is please! (On watching it for the last time properly a few months back, I found the stuff with the Major genuinely disturbing - I have near endless pity for Hyacinth, she's kind of the British Peggy Hill!)
Hatred of the patriarchy ... I'm constantly beside-myself that people can engage in racial hatred, yet somehow delude themselves that they're not in-fact racists, despite practicing racism. Would it be unracist to hate Chinese people if we coined the term Sinoarchy?
Goes to show you, the easiest people to delude is ourselves.
Thank you for sharing this. I’m glad you found an antidepressant that helps and that you’re seeking a more effective dose.
I hope anyone with similar experiences or concerns will consider seeing a reproductive psychiatrist. Regular doctors and psychiatrists often don’t know what they’re doing when it comes to pregnancy.
For years, doctors told women to go off their psych meds for pregnancy and breastfeeding. The guidance was to suck it up for 9 months because medication might harm the baby.
Now we know this is wrong. There are many psych meds that carry minimal risk to the baby, and going off meds is often a terrible idea for the mother AND the baby. Unhealthy choices aren’t good for the baby. High stress hormones aren’t good for the baby. It’s a myth that suffering for 9 months is the best thing you can do for your child.
I tell everyone, if your doctor says to stop taking your psych meds for pregnancy, see a reproductive psychiatrist. They will tell you the latest research on every medication and explore alternatives if necessary, but they won’t just say “stop everything.”
My original psychiatrist told me to go off *Zoloft.* One of the safest psych meds for pregnancy. Fortunately, my spouse is a psychiatrist so she told me “Yeah that’s wrong. See a reproductive psychiatrist.” And it made a huge difference for me. I kept my anxiety under control throughout pregnancy and the stressful newborn months (when I was terrified of SIDS).
This was fucking spectacular. It speaks to the postpartum depression I experienced (and, likewise, had been sort of unsure about whether it "counted" as such) much more than anything else I've ever read. Perhaps it's cliche to say, but good lord, I feel relieved that I'm not the only one.
I have known quite a few women that have gone though postpartum depression but none of them directed their anger or depression at the white male patriarchy. Maybe there are two topics here to discuss?
Phoebe is a guest columnist here; that means she is a guest, here in my place. So treat her like one. Criticize if you'd like, but do it respectfully.
i'm going to do the thing that mr deBoer asked us not to and type something peripheral but certainly off-topic.
i adore Maltz Bovy's writing and Rosenfield's as well.
that is all.
Scrolling through old photos today for a project, I saw myself with my young babies and was shocked by how decent I looked. Not that I'm Gisele Bundchen, but I thought *at the time* that I was a hideous husk of the woman I was before. Now I've reached a point of motherhood that includes such self-care practices as painting my nails and thinking about one day possibly joining the Y.
I've heard a lot of mothers complain about lack of sleep or lack of time. Is this not a problem that could be solved with money, i.e., hire a nanny/night nanny, or spend a few nights in a hotel to catch up on sleep?
I understand that not everyone has that much money, and some people might feel obligated to stay with the baby at night to breastfeed. But am I being naive to think that if you have money and are not wedded to only breastfeeding, this would be less of a problem?
Thanks for writing this. My girlfriend worries deeply about the experience of birthing a child, I worry deeply for what her mental health and her outlook would be after the fact (and y’know, while being pregnant too). I think she may appreciate your perspective.
I do think there is a stigma to PPD. Which seems weird because yes it is a very commonly discussed issue, but also it feels sometimes like unless it is incredibly severe, it’s not quite regarded as a real mental health issue in the way other depressions are. There’s sort of the idea that it’s something that privileged women spend their time navel gazing about and underprivileged women just deal with. Sort of like a midlife crisis. Or maybe I only felt that way because of some of the feelings of undeservingness you discuss in your piece. At any rate, PPD with my oldest daughter was one of the pivotal crises of my life. The depths of mental deterioration I sunk to are something I dislike thinking about now, but for how bad it was I recovered very quickly when I got help. For me it was therapy, medication, and a change in circumstances that were making life unbearable for me. In that sense I do think modern life and lack of close social relationships can exacerbate or make more common a disorder that most definitely also has physiological origins.
'Twitter was for the people who were in the game, who counted."
This is the for sale baby shoes never worn of the 21st century.
In hindsight (more than a decade and a half later), I was probably dealing with postpartum depression and anxiety, but it just didn't feel like a relapse soul-crushing depression I was used to, there were all kinds of situational things I could use to excuse it (no financial cushion because I'd ended up with an expensive high-risk pregnancy, weeks bed rest, and a lot of income loss, as I wasn't able to work a full 40 a week, etc.), and I could explain away the anxiety, after all.
This: "What I want from life but don’t have is salient, not what’s objectively going well. The parent-acquaintances who prefer one another to me I think about, not the ones who’ve asked for my contact info so we can meet up for coffee. I become immature, caring a way I had not thought I was capable of, past age 12, what people I don’t particularly like think about me. I am an unpopular middle schooler but one who is well into her 30s"
That is painfully, painfully familiar. I was emotionally fragile and petty, and, I will shamefully admit, I'm still bitter about the tiny slights and my ignored awkward efforts at asking for company or help, where my desire to not be a burden or a bother probably made them invisible efforts to the people outside my head. I loved my baby (and still love my now-teen), she was the absolute best, but man, I spent too much of her babyhood feeling like an isolated, pathetic failure with no social skills.
Guest post about how deeply sad 'Keeping Up Appearances' is please! (On watching it for the last time properly a few months back, I found the stuff with the Major genuinely disturbing - I have near endless pity for Hyacinth, she's kind of the British Peggy Hill!)
Hatred of the patriarchy ... I'm constantly beside-myself that people can engage in racial hatred, yet somehow delude themselves that they're not in-fact racists, despite practicing racism. Would it be unracist to hate Chinese people if we coined the term Sinoarchy?
Goes to show you, the easiest people to delude is ourselves.
Thank you for sharing this. I’m glad you found an antidepressant that helps and that you’re seeking a more effective dose.
I hope anyone with similar experiences or concerns will consider seeing a reproductive psychiatrist. Regular doctors and psychiatrists often don’t know what they’re doing when it comes to pregnancy.
For years, doctors told women to go off their psych meds for pregnancy and breastfeeding. The guidance was to suck it up for 9 months because medication might harm the baby.
Now we know this is wrong. There are many psych meds that carry minimal risk to the baby, and going off meds is often a terrible idea for the mother AND the baby. Unhealthy choices aren’t good for the baby. High stress hormones aren’t good for the baby. It’s a myth that suffering for 9 months is the best thing you can do for your child.
I tell everyone, if your doctor says to stop taking your psych meds for pregnancy, see a reproductive psychiatrist. They will tell you the latest research on every medication and explore alternatives if necessary, but they won’t just say “stop everything.”
My original psychiatrist told me to go off *Zoloft.* One of the safest psych meds for pregnancy. Fortunately, my spouse is a psychiatrist so she told me “Yeah that’s wrong. See a reproductive psychiatrist.” And it made a huge difference for me. I kept my anxiety under control throughout pregnancy and the stressful newborn months (when I was terrified of SIDS).
Hang in there Phoebe.
This was fucking spectacular. It speaks to the postpartum depression I experienced (and, likewise, had been sort of unsure about whether it "counted" as such) much more than anything else I've ever read. Perhaps it's cliche to say, but good lord, I feel relieved that I'm not the only one.