Depression

Last night on PBS there was a special about depression. My grandmother was bipolar and I have had some depressed periods in my life so this is a topic of interest to me. The special covered all different reasons for the onset of depression, one of them being postpartum depression. It pained me to see two women in particular talk about how this almost destroyed them just weeks after experiencing "the joys of becoming a new mother." One woman had her husband chronicle her journey on both video and film. It was so heartbreaking-all she wanted to do was love her child but she couldn't. In one clip she was holding her son, and you could see how torn she was. There was another clip that showed moms in a deep depression and their young children-the children were desperate to be comforted by their moms but the moms were in such a state that they could not respond-they could not extend even a hand to touch their child and give them some relief and contact. It brought tears to my eyes.

I remember days when Lucas first came home when I would hold him and sob because I wanted to love him SO MUCH but I was so depressed. I made so many promises to him in those first few days and made so many apologies too. I wanted so much to feel connected to him but it wasn't there.

One of the things that the show mentioned in successful treatments of depression was exercise. I think that if I hadn't been going to physical therapy two times a week and having to do about 20 minutes of exercises at home each day, I might have been worse off.

The program made me want to help new moms even more who suffer from this. One woman said that she just couldn't find resources to help her through this and she knew she needed help-it takes a special person to listen to a new mom talk about how she has thoughts of hurting herself and her new child and not think of them as a monster.

It made me rethink my career path-maybe I should focus on the psychology and start to explore options to help other new moms so they don't feel so helpless-I know first hand you can overcome this.