I want to spend a little time talking about a serious issue that is somehow still taboo. Mental illness and more specifically depression and postpartum depression.
I wonder why mental illness is something we have to keep locked away in the dark like some secret.
There is nothing wrong with mental illness. It is not something that we choose.
It is however something that we survive or live with. In many ways I think of it more like a physical illness, like cancer. And if cancer can be talked about in the open then why can't mental illnesses.
Carrie Fisher (aka: Princess Leia) has been speaking out against this stigma for years. She states "I am mentally ill. I can say that. I am not ashamed of that. I survived that, I'm still surviving it, but bring it on."
Read the full article here.
I have struggled with depression for a really long time. I remember struggling with it back in the early 2000s while I was still in high school. Back then to be diagnosed with clinical depression one had to experience depressive symptoms 14 consecutive days. I never felt depressed for that long back then. For me my depression was always frequent but short depressive episodes. And so by that definition, I was just merely moody and not "depressed".
I suffered my first major depressive episode within the first year after Number 1 was born. Another after the loss of one of my brothers. Grief was a huge trigger for me. And the latest one around the first birthday of Number 3. Please note that with each major episode of depression especially those triggered by postpartum depression, I never wanted to hurt the baby. During those instances, the baby was the only bright spot in my life.
At the time of that first major depressive episode, it never occurred to me that I was depressed or even that it could be linked with postpartum depression. All I knew was that I was miserable, and as a result several of my personal relationships suffered. It is only now, almost 10 years later, that I am able to look back and realize that I survived a major depressive episode back then and I did so undiagnosed and untreated.
And yes while I may have survived it, at what cost? (Here is the "what if" part of my brain kicking in.) How much happier would I be now? How much faster would I have sought treatment for subsequent episodes had I been able to identify those episodes for what they were. This is where I personally would have benefited had mental illness not been so taboo.
The second major depressive episode was a little easier to identify especially with what triggered it. I was lucky this time as my step-mom after receiving grief counseling herself was able to see some of the signs of depression in me and she encouraged me to seek out treatment. Grief counseling, quickly over the course of just a few sessions was able to help me gain closure and helps pull me out of that episode. The only reason I feel like I sought treatment at all was because I had those around me who were also going through the same grieving process.
The most recent episode I have experienced (still experiencing) was another one triggered by postpartum depression. With me, postpartum depression is not acute and does not manifest within the first two months following the birth of the baby. I have what I have came to call delayed onset of postpartum depression. For me, since I breastfed my children the significant drop in hormones that is thought to trigger the postpartum depression is delayed until I wean the baby (usually around 10-12 months). After the baby was 8 weeks old, I returned to work and that only added stress. About one month before Number 3's first birthday and one month after he had been fully weaned, I was called in by my lead (direct supervisor) at work. They had noticed that my performance while it wasn't particularly bad was less than my standard. It was then that I did a mood check and I realized that I had not been happy in quite a while. Not only had I not been happy for a while, in looking back over the month previous, I came to the realization that I had not had one completely happy day, and days where I could remember having instances of being happy were fewer than four.
While that number in and of itself is pretty sad, I came across another realization on my home from work that evening. On my drive home Dr. Drew's Love Line was being syndicated on the radio station that I usually listen to and one of the callers on that show was talking about depression. It was at that time that Dr. Drew introduced me to the concept of passive suicidal ideation.
We all know that one of the glaring symptoms of depression is active suicidal thoughts or ideation. Passive suicidal ideation is the desire of the individual to die but without having to take action (ie: dying in one's sleep, or a car wreck).
This one episode of Dr. Drew with this introduction of passive suicidal ideation was what pushed me to take a leave of absence from work and seek active treatment.
According to an article on Current Psychiatry: "Passive ideation is active".
The article continues:
Suicidal ideation, active or passive, contains a dynamic mix of ambivalent thoughts and feelings along a continuum of severity.
The Scale for Suicide Ideation, and the later version, Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation,rates passive suicidal ideation on a 3-point Likerttype scale as:
0 “would take precautions to save life”
1 “would leave life/death to chance (eg, carelessly crossing a busy street)”
2 “would avoid steps necessary to save or maintain life (eg, diabetic ceasing to take insulin).”
(You can read the fascinating article in its entirety here.)
At the time I learned about passive suicidal ideation, I would have ranked in between the 1 and the 2. I would not have actively pursued death but neither would I have fought it. There were many nights on my drive home from work where my mind would run through "what if" scenarios involving car accidents. The concept of passive suicidal ideation being included as a sign of major depression was a real wake up call for me.
Since I have "came out" about my depression I have received a lot of backlash. I have been told that it was just "Baby Blues" and now everything is all in my head (which it is, but they insinuate that I am making it all up). I have also been met with skepticism where for me the postpartum depression occurred almost a year after the birth of the baby.
MedicalTerms.info has summed this up in a neat little infographic.
I have also been told that I am just selfish. Below is an excerpt from as post that showed up on my Facebook Wall.
"It absolutely blows my mind how selfish, stubborn, & inconsiderate some people can be all in the name of their self-induced depression. YOU'RE NOT DEPRESSED. YOU'RE SELFISH! Depression is something that exists in people’s minds."
Granted, I will spare you the entire lengthy post but there are a few more examples that I will pull from it.
"Doctors see depression as a chemical imbalance in the brain that causes negative thoughts, but that's not actually the case. There are chemical imbalances, yes, but there caused by negative thoughts, not the other way around. Doctors will prescribe you medication to correct the chemical imbalances, thinking it will therefore correct your thoughts. What you actually need is to correct your thoughts, and you will in turn correct your chemical imbalances. Think positive and you will feel positive.
If you’re depressed my advice to you is to stop thinking about what YOU want, what YOU don’t have or what others have. Focus on something greater than yourself, be happy for what you have and what you are and cherish it. Remove the word ‘I’ from your vocabulary and you will find a happiness that you haven’t felt since you were a child"
Lastly they ended their long rant with the following:
"Your depression was all in your head. It wasn’t real. You were never actually depressed. You were just being selfish. And if you refuse to admit that you were simply being selfish, then you still are."
*Yeah that will work*
My husband after seeing me upset by this post on my Facebook wall and reading it himself equated to another scenario.
He said,
"That's stupid. That's like telling someone with a broken leg to just walk it off."
I guess the main reason that post bothered me is because it made me feel like I chose this.
Like I would willingly choose to be miserable without any particular reason. Like I don't want to be happy. And for me that could not be further from the truth. I do feel as though it is small-minded views such as that, that is the reason why mental illness is still stigmatized the way it is.
I know this post is a lot longer than my others, but it is also one that means a lot to me.
Basically, my goal is to do my part to bring mental illness out of the dark and to let others who suffered as I did know that they are not alone and to encourage them to seek treatment.
Since starting my treatment, I have found a new enjoyment in my family. I have basically gotten a new lease on my life.
Find out more about depression including the different types, causes and treatments here.
www.nimh.nih.gov
If you are having any suicidal thoughts either active or passive, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1 (800) 273-8255
or
visit their website at
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