stigma

Postpartum Depression & Stigma: You Don’t Need to Prove That You’re Worthy

By Katherine Stone September 16, 2011

I got an email from a mom this week who, in her story of frustration over the lack of help for postpartum depression, made sure to let me know how successful she is.

She’s smart. She has a great job. She makes good money, she told me. Her words struck me. How many of us, when seeking help for our mental illness, feel we have to make sure people know we are competent individuals?

I know I did. I felt that I had to prove to people that I was still worthy.

Hey doc, I may have postpartum OCD, but I swear I’m a good person. I have a great title at work. I was in the National Honor Society in high school. I was in Who’s Who Among American Universities & Colleges. I’m intelligent. I have a lot of achievements. Please don’t throw me in the trash heap …

[Read more...]

September 16, 2011 12:50 pm Filed Under: Postpartum Depression, Stigma

On Breastfeeding, Stigma, PPD Heroes & the Real Housewives

By Katherine Stone April 12, 2011

I was on vacation last week, so I missed being able to share the latest news and info with you. Better late than never, here are a few of them …

Mammywoo on the radio silence of postpartum depression. Great post!

Babble covers dysphoric milk ejection reflex, or D-MER — when you experience depression right before or during breastfeeding only. This is a very well-written and researched piece by Heather Turgeon.

Here's a picture of me with Maria Aleman, Andrea Festa, and Melissa Gorga and Kathy Wakile of the TV show Real Housewives of New Jersey at the fundraiser last week for Postpartum Progress the nonprofit. I had a great time seeing all the women there and am so grateful to Andrea and Maria and all the women who attended for supporting our work. I can't thank them enough!!

Speaking of Real Housewives, cast member Peggy Tanous of the Real Housewives of OC revealed her experience with postpartum depression recently. Here is a good review of the story as covered by Cafe Mom's The Stir, including the fact that Peggy is against taking prescription meds for PPD.

A study from the Journal of Nervous Mental Diseasewas released on the differences between black women and white women's feeling about the stigma of depressionduring pregnancy.

Diane Sanford of Living Self-Care wrote a lovely piece on her heroes in the PPD fight, in which I'm very honored to be included. She wants to know who your heroes are, so hop on over there and tell her.

April 12, 2011 10:02 am Filed Under: Dysphoric Milk Ejection Reflex

Time Magazine & “Psychotic Nut Job” Mothers

By Katherine Stone January 4, 2011

"Psychotic nut jobs." That's the term used in a recent Time magazine Healthland piece about mothers who kill their newborns.

Time, have we not already been over the issue of mental health stigma and poor reporting with you?

Good grief. I'm appalled.

January 4, 2011 12:04 pm Filed Under: Postpartum Psychosis, Stigma

Words Matter: Fighting the Stigma of Mental Illness

By Katherine Stone November 16, 2010

Words matter. I’m not one to be politically correct. Goodness knows I don’t want to be the word police. I realize that people don’t mean any harm when they say the words “crazy” or “insane”. For pete’s sake, I use those words every now and then. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t. I have made it a policy, though, to try only to use them in reference to a situation rather than a person.

The other day, I was reading the post of a blogger I really like. She was talking about how she has received very threatening and completely inappropriate tweets after she spoke out about Amazon selling a “how to” e-book on pedophilia. A few people on Twitter didn’t like the public position she took that Amazon should remove the book. They felt it was a position of censorship. These few responded by tweeting awful-with-a-capital-A, violent things that I refuse to repeat. (Don’t worry, the book was removed by Amazon after a public outcry.)

A commenter to her blog post about the threatening tweeters wrote this:

Whenever I’m engaged in this kind of controversy this is what I do: I separate the tweets into two categories. Sometimes I call them “crazy” “not crazy.” Sometimes it’s “dangerous” “not dangerous.” Sometimes it’s “needs a straight-jacket” “can ride the subway alone.” You get the idea. The classification has nothing to do with whether or not they agree with me, it just has to do with their level of sanity, if they’re actually talking to me or just shouting at me, and if there’s any small chance of having any kind of rational discussion, even if we’re totally completely on opposite sides of the issue.

I responded to that commenter with this:

While I understand your point, I’m not sure if I agree with making this a mental health issue (“crazy”, “sanity”, “straightjacket”). Plenty of people with mental illness wouldn’t say or do the things that some of these tweeters do. I would say it’s more of a maturity and impulse control issue. Just my 2 cents, as someone who cares a lot about mental health stigma … Hope you don’t mind.

And the commenter replied back with this:

That’s what I do in my own head. It’s not a mental health issue, it’s my own shorthand. I think you’re taking that part of my comment a tad too seriously.

I have to admit I was taken aback. I tried to be very respectful and thoughtful about how I put my comment to her. I would have thought she wouldn’t respond, or that perhaps she’d just say she got where I was coming from. Instead, she seemed annoyed with me. So I started to wonder if maybe I am taking this all too seriously. Maybe I should just keep my thoughts to myself. I’m sure she didn’t mean anything by it. Who am I to say anything?

Then I saw this on The Huffington Post yesterday from actress Glenn Close, who started Bring Change 2 Mind, a national organization to combat stigma of mental illness:

I will not perpetuate or tolerate stigma of any kind and will commit myself to changing the way society views people living with mental illness.

And I changed my mind.

I am someone who knows that women with postpartum depression and related illnesses need help. I am someone who knows that people making fun or light of mental illness, or associating it with violence, have an impact on whether new mothers feel safe in talking openly about what they are going through and reaching out for help. I will continue to speak out, and no one can stop me.

November 16, 2010 10:04 am Filed Under: Postpartum Depression

20 Things I NEVER Want To Hear Or Read Again, Postpartum Depression Edition

By Katherine Stone September 14, 2010

Here are 20 things I don’t ever want to hear or read again about postpartum depression, and every other perinatal mood or anxiety disorder. (I have heard every single one of these, whether directed at me personally or in emails and comments from Postpartum Progress Readers who share their own stories with me.):

20 Things I NEVER Want to Hear or Read Again, Postpartum Depression Edition

1. Just [go for a walk/go out with your friends/have a drink] and you’ll feel all better.

2. If you just buy this book online, even though we don’t tell you what’s in it, you’ll learn the “cure” for postpartum depression.

3. In a news report on infanticide or any other child murder: She must have had postpartum depression.

4. Magazine or online article headline: 10 Easy Steps To Get Over PPD Now! (None of them will mention, of course, that getting over postpartum depression is not easy, and none of them will mention getting medical help.)

5. Women have been having babies for tens of thousands of years, and they got through new motherhood just fine. Toughen up.

6. I just finished my

Six-Word Memoirs of Postpartum Depression & Anxiety

14 Photos

Six Things You Should Avoid

. This must be what postpartum depression feels like.

7. Maybe postpartum depression is God’s way of letting you know you don’t have enough faith. I think you should pray harder.

8. Here’s some information on postpartum depression I’m supposed to give you. You’re probably not going to get it, though, so I wouldn’t pay too much attention to it.

9. Quitting breastfeeding is selfish. The baby’s health is so much more important than yours.

10. I know breastfeeding is really important to you, but you have to quit so you can be treated for PPD.

11. This is the exact medication and dosage I took for my PPD. Just take that and you’ll be OK.

12.I would never take antidepressants. You shouldn’t need that stuff to be a mother.

13. Here’s a prescription.(No mention of side effects. No mention that it may not work. No mention of therapy. No mention of follow up appointments.)

14. You’re just mad the baby is getting all the attention.

15. PPD is just a fad. Only spoiled, Western women get it, and now that it’s “popular” on the blogs, everyone is jumping on the bandwagon.

16. Can’t you see how lucky you are? You have a beautiful baby!

17.This will probably go away on it’s own, so don’t worry about it.

18. I wouldn’t talk about this with anyone. You don’t want them to think you’re crazy.

19. You don’t need to worry about your symptoms unless you’re having thoughts of harming your baby.

20. Postpartum depression isn’t real.

What would you add to this list? Put them in the comments section below!

Photo credit: © Scott Griessel – Fotolia.com

September 14, 2010 8:06 am Filed Under: Breastfeeding, Postpartum Depression, Stigma

Wake Me Up From Discovery Health's "Postpartum Nightmares"

By Katherine Stone March 7, 2010

Somebody please wake me up. I just watched Discovery Health's "Postpartum Nightmares"Baby Week show. I think maybe I was having a bad dream.

First, I'll give you the positives. Might as well start out being nice, right?

What Was Good

I appreciate the courage and honesty of the three women featured on the show: Shelley Ash, Alisa Bowman and Tarah Mathews. Each was very open about what happened to them and presented their experiences in a clear and compelling way. At the end of each of their segments, it was great to see how they had recovered and were enjoying motherhood.

I was also glad the producers reached out to professionals who knew what they were talking about in terms of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, including Shoshanna Bennett and Pec Indman. I'm sure they were probably edited to death, but still did a great job imparting key points and helping people understand that postpartum depression and anxiety are fairly common among new mothers.

Finally, the stories portrayed some of the real risk factors that exist for new moms — the things that increase the likelihood of someone getting PPD or a related illness– including having a baby go to the NICU, having a difficult birth, lack of adequate social support in caring for the baby and breastfeeding problems. I also liked the fact that they showed how different mothers may experience very different symptoms, from rage to trouble sleeping to panic attacks.

What Was NOT Good

Serious problem #1: Oh, Discovery Health. Is it that you have no choice? In order to get viewers, must you attempt to turn something educational into "shock and awe"? I kid you not when I say they used horror movie editing and images. Quick cuts. Dark rooms. Menacing music. The empty rocking chair theme. The one image that set me to shouting at the TV was in the first segment, on Shelley Ash, where they show the actress portraying Shelly cooking in the kitchen and they zoom in, lingering WAY TOO LONG, on the gleaming, sharp, serrated knife she's using to cut vegetables. Really??!!?!?!?! Nice outrageous stereotype.

Serious problem #2: The first segment they do right out of the chute was on postpartum psychosis. That makes sense, of course, since it's the illness most people with perinatal mood and anxiety disorders get. Wait a minute … no it isn't. But it is the most sensational of all the illnesses because of the increased potential for harm, so let's make sure to scare the bejeezus out of every pregnant mother watching. I saw Twitter tweets the following morning with women questioning whether they should ever have children based on what they saw. Is that what we want, or do we want people to know that these illnesses exist and are fully treatable?

Serious problem #3: With several of the segments, it was hard to know from which illness the mother was suffering. Postpartum anxiety? Postpartum depression? Postpartum OCD? Postpartum psychosis? All of the above? Two out of the three women, though, seriously considered harming their baby. I think viewers could have walked away from this thinking every new mother with a perinatal mood or anxiety disorder is potentially murderous. All together now people: They aren't. This doesn't mean these illnesses are not serious, but could we please not overdo it? This just adds to the stigma we are working so hard to eliminate.

I think my husband summed the show up best: the words spoken by the mothers and professionals (calm, informative, balanced, open) did not mesh in any way with the majority of audio and video used (scary, looming, haunting, creepy).

Why am I, sadly, not surprised?

Click here for more stories about PPD in the media, and how it is often stigmatized.

March 7, 2010 10:57 am Filed Under: Postpartum Anxiety, Postpartum Depression, Postpartum Psychosis, PPD in the Media, Stigma

Two Stories of Postpartum Anxiety and A Commentary on Medication for Depression

By Katherine Stone March 1, 2010

I read a lot of stuff. Thanks to the explosion of the blogosphere, it's getting harder and harder to keep up with all the great writing and sharing going on about postpartum depression. So I've missed a few things lately. What's more frustrating, they were things written by virtual friends of mine, people who have always been supportive of women with perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, and people who have contributed to Postpartum Progress.

The first thing I missed was a great piece by Rita Arens of Surrender, Dorothy. Rita was a contributor to last year's Mother's Day Rally for Moms' Mental Health. Her post on BlogHer, entitled "Extreme Anxiety & New Motherhood: The Perfect Storm", is a great decription of what it is like to be a new mom when you suffer from anxiety. You think you've got worries?! Try being someone with PPA! They never end, not the normal "my baby isn't having enough bowel movements" worries and not the over-the-top "my baby is going tobe abducted by aliens" worries. Rita writes:

"In the height of my anxiety, I didn't trust my own instincts at all. I felt crazy most of the time, so how could I possibly know how to solve my parenting problems? I constantly sought the advice of others, read more parenting books — especially sleep books — watched the great new show Supernanny, read parenting magazines and parenting Web sites. I read advice that said if I just let my daughter cry for ten minutes, she'd sleep well for the rest of her life. I read articles that said too much baby fat would lead to a lifetime of obesity. (My girl was an off-the-charts large baby and is a 50th percentile five-year-old.) I read about the mercury in the tuna fish and the lead in the toys and worried about gas leaks and refined sugar and screen time all while letting my daughter eat packaged toddler snacks and watch more Baby Einstein while I sat on the couch trying to calm myself down and not go through once more in my head how quickly I could install the fire rescue ladder in my daughter's window when our house inevitably burned down."

How did Rita read my mind like that?

I also missed a piece by Catherine Connors of Her Bad Mother, who was also a contributor to the 2009 Mother's Day Rally for Moms' Mental Health. Also on BlogHer, and entitled "Depression: There's Still A Pill for That" is a commentary on all the press out lately about how antidepressants don't work. Catherine writes:

"In the parenting community, mothers sometimes resist discussing their use of antidepressants, because they fear stigma and judgment, and the characterization of antidepressants as either a) unnecessary, or b) the fallback of the truly crazy might be just enough to discourage open discussion about post-partum depression and, by extension, perhaps discourage some women from looking into it. If one is afraid of being stigmatized as crazy or sick, then the impulse to self-diagnose one's depression as 'mild blues' and avoid the pills could be strong. It already is. Making light of studies like these doesn't help".

She and I feel the same way about the mischaracterization of research in the media. I wrote about the same exact study and how it was inaccurately reported in my post "Headlines Report Antidpressants No More Effective Than Placebo. Were They Right?". (They weren't, by the way.) Catherine has an enormous reach and influence with her blog, so I'm glad she's taking the media to task. Given the back and forth over antidepressants in the post I wrote last week for BlogHer, this is a timely topic.

Then there's Heather Spohr, at The Spohr's Are Multiplying, who wrote this week about her current experience with postpartum anxiety. I don't know Heather yet, but maybe someday. Heather's daughter Maddie,passed away tragically last year. The combination of her previous experience with postpartum anxiety after having Maddie and her daughter's loss has led to a second bout of PPA after the birth of her new littlebaby Annabel.

"I want to be mentally healthy, mentally present for my Annabel, and I’m working really hard at it. I had massive postpartum anxiety with Madeline so I knew I would be at an increased risk to get it again. I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to suffer through it again. But this time around, with everything that’s happened, it has been inevitable."

Go giveHeather a virtual Warrior Mom hug.

March 1, 2010 10:59 am Filed Under: Warrior Moms

On Attachment, Seeking Help for Postpartum Depression & Potential Addiction

By Katherine Stone February 19, 2010

Here are some links to a bunch of interesting stories that I don't have time to write about in depth, but wanted to share with you:

Dr. Jessica Zucker writing on the Huffington Post about attachment

Chicago Tribune: Few Moms Seek Postpartum Help, Though Many Should(amen!)

MomLogic: New Moms in Rehab(untreated mental health issues postpartum can lead to addiction)

The Depression & Bipolar Support Alliance's results report on attitudes towards mental illness (released January 2010)

February 19, 2010 7:57 am Filed Under: Postpartum Depression

You Have Rocked My World, Delurkers

By Katherine Stone January 26, 2010

Y'all are absolutely killing me with the Delurker Day comments from yesterday and today. There are 50 comments, and only half of them are mine!

I am filled with joy. Lighter than air. Not because of the stories, of course, because I wish there were ZERO stories of suffering from perinatal mental illness. But because ofyour strength andcouragein telling those stories. You areraising your handto say "I have this!" "I've been there." "I'm making it through."

Also because ofyour perseverance. You aren'tquitting on yourself. You are working to get better.

Also because of the survivors here, who could just have easily moved on, never to mention a word about PPD again, but who steadfastly remain in order to lessen others' pain.

I'm almost sick with appreciation for all of you. You just don't understand how many people you help when you say a little something about what you are going through. I should make Delurker Day every day, but then it probably wouldn't work as well, would it?

I hope that those of you who can (and I understand fully that some of you are in situations where you can't) will continue to comment here at Postpartum Progress. If you see mewriting something stupid or misinformed, you had better tell me. That's what friends are for. If you relate to what I've written and want other moms to see that you felt/feel that way too, say so. You make Postpartum Progress better.

January 26, 2010 12:25 pm Filed Under: Postpartum Progress News

If She Tells You She's Depressed, Will You Think Less of Her?

By Katherine Stone January 20, 2010

"I worry that people will read and judge me, that they will think I am weak and incapable of doing my job.

But I refuse to give into those selfish fears.

Those of us who struggle with depression and anxiety need to know we are not alone. We need to know that there are other strong, capable people out there who are also fighting the same battles.

And those who DON’T struggle with mental illness need to know that just because some of us battle it, doesn’t mean we don’t win. It doesn’t mean we are weak. In fact, we are strong. We fight every day.

So, while some who read this may look at me differently now, I need to write anyway."

January 20, 2010 9:18 am Filed Under: Postpartum Depression