Thursday, April 17, 2008
Give me a flipping break
Ok, so I occasionally break from my previous pledge to stop reading celebrity gossip. When I saw the headline entitled "Paltrow Suffered Postpartum Depression" I wanted to read it, thinking great, another celebrity is going to openly talk about PPD making it less taboo for "ordinary" women to talk about it. Then I read the column. I don't mean to sound uncharitable or unsupportive, but if the source of Gwyneth Paltrow's PPD after her the birth of her second was that she was unable to indulge herself in the same therapeutic techniques she followed during her first pregnancy, I am so not sympathetic. If everyone got PPD as a result of not having regular acupuncture and massages (yes, you read that correctly), we'd all be in a hell of a lot more trouble.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
10 comments:
you have to be kidding me.
seriously, reading brooke shield's experience with PPD is so real and so honest. This is just...shut up Gwyneth. Seriously. Just say you had a tougher time adjusting to two kids and leave PPD out of it.
And I bet you that Tom Cruise won't be commenting on Gwyneth at all b/c surely scientology supports non-western medicine like acupuncture. I mean I'm all for acupuncture and massage but don't cite not having those things as a reason for getting PPD.
The way the article puts it, it seems like she blames it on a difference in prenatal rather than postnatal care. That is, she's not saying she was depressed b/c she didn't get acupuncture and massages after she gave birth to her second child. Instead, she claims that because she didn't have these *during* her second pregnancy, she suffered from PPD as a result.
Don't get me wrong, I still have no reason to believe there's a medical or scientific connection, and I'm surprised that she never refers to the fact that there are actual hormonal factors at play (did she not read a book or talk to a doctor?). But, I definitely didn't get the sense that she was simply trying to blame it on having two children.
yeah, i mean...I did read it that she didn't do her prenatal routine the same way and that made recovery more difficult.
I was inferring that it's more difficult to recover from a second child.
I'm annoyed that she's saying I felt down and pessimistic and that was "depression". That's just such a far cry from Brooke Shields saying she didn't want to live and she was too far gone to get up off the floor and imagining her child being injuring. Feeling down is not depression.
In fact, this is what annoys me about the whole thing from the tom cruise angle. If PPD (and other forms of depression) were like Gwyneth Paltrow's "feeling down" moment, then no...medication may not be the appropriate treatment. but for someone who has a genuine chemical issue, the symptoms are a little more serious and if we can correct a chemical imbalance pharmacologically, why wouldn't we?
Anyway, I just wanted to clarify that it sounded to me like Gywneth had a harder time than she expected to have following the second child. So I was inferring.
being injured. not injuring. sorry.
I inferred that too, Anastasia. I assumed (perhaps incorrectly) that she was unable to have the same sort of prenatal care (and really, do we count acupuncture and massages as prenatal care? I had several massages while pregnant with Wild Man, and while they were great and did help with back pain and leg pain, I wouldn't count them as part of my prenatal care. They were a luxury, much like I would argue acupuncture is a luxury.) she had during her first pregnancy because she was busy caring for her first child. Again, I inferred this, and I could be wrong.
As for the term depression, I think it is one of the most overused terms in the English language. In fact, I think we use it so much that it is synonymous with sad, blue, or upset. If I'm having a bad day or if I'm feeling sad, I am not depressed. Depression, whether it is a chemical state or not, is not a short term state of mind, but we use the term that way. I have friends that when asked "How are you today?" respond with "I'm feeling depressed today." I think the more accurate response would be "I'm feeling sad today (or another appropriate adjective)." Depression is a feeling sad, hopeless, and unwilling to face life for months at a time. It isn't being "down."
AARGH! I just wrong a huge comment and then it vanished. Let me try this again.
You guys are being really hard on this woman. I don't think we can judge her level of depression by the "tidbit" we get from this random gossip column. This is not the same as a long interview or a whole book, as we have seen from Brooke Shields. And even if it were, it is still unfair to shoot her down based on these words.
Depression is hard for a lot of people to articulate. She says "pessimistic" and "diconnected." Maybe she did feel a sort of vague sadness that seems to be indicated by these words. But maybe she felt something much stronger but can't put it into words. A lot of people say that they don't feel like themselves. Sometimes that means a normal kind of disorientation that comes with adjusting to a life change. But it can also mean a profound sense of loss of identity that interferes with her ability to function in her life. Depression, for some, is despair. For others, it manifests as numbness. I don't think we can adequately diagnose her based on her weak adjectives.
I do agree that for most people acupuncture and massage are luxuries and not something we normally consider part of prenatal care, many others believe strongly in the power of these methods to promote healing and well-being. There is a correlation between prenatal and postnatal care and incidence of depression. I did not interpret Gwenyth's words to mean that she got PPD because she lacked massages. To me, she seemed to be saying that she did not take care of herself as well the second time as she did the first. Perhaps if she had had regular massages, something that she believes contributes significantly to her health, she would have been better able to recover and cope with the physical and psychological toll of childbirth. She doesn't say anything about using or not using antidepressants.
While this story might have the potential to trivialize PPD when presented in such an off-hand way (which is as much MSNBC's fault as Gwenyth's), it also has the potential to initiate dialogue and remove shame from PPD. Some women who are afraid of being judged or mocked by seeking help might feel less afraid when they think that someone as admired as Gwenyth Paltrow felt the same way.
I spelled a bunch of words wrong, too. I'm not even going to list them. Just overlook it--I was frustrated with my computer.
You're right, Sarah. MSNBC's presentation of Paltrow's comments is poor, and perhaps I am being a bit hard on her. That said, I still think the term "depression" is over used, although I would argue that it is probably under-diagnosed, especially in new moms.
Post a Comment