Tag Archives: depression

Canadian Researcher seeks young moms for research study

Leave a reply

I received the following via email this morning. Passing it along. If you would do the same, I know Dr. Gina Wong-Wylie would be deeply appreciative. Thank you!

SEEKING RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS

April, May, and June 2010

Qualitative Research Study:

“Young Moms Can Soar”

Close to half of women under the age of 19 years who become young mothers are estimated to develop Postpartum Depression (PPD). Researchers with the Centre for Disease Control have indeed confirmed that young mothers are at an elevated risk for developing PPD. Nevertheless, the experience of depression for young moms does not necessitate negative long-term consequence and lifelong disadvantage. In this study, the researcher explores experiences of young moms who moved through PPD to a place of empowerment.

Participants:

  • If you had a baby at, or before, the age of 19 years not more than 15 years ago
  • If you experienced depression following the birth of the baby
  • If you moved or are moving through the depression and are experiencing life more positively
  • And you are willing to speak about the experience of maternal depression as a young mother and share stories of growth from that experience and positive outcome for the purposes of research.

Please Contact Researcher:

Dr. Gina Wong-Wylie, Registered Psychologist

Email: ginaw@athabascau.ca

Toll Free in Canada: 1-866-442-3089

Just Talkin’ Tuesday 03.23.10: How did you find your therapist?

Leave a reply

Original photo: "Everyday Use Items: a couch" by @foka_kytutr @ flickr.com

Congratulations!

You have broken through the fear to make the call for help.

But now what?

Unless you have a therapist tucked away with the burp cloths or shoved in a random diaper bag pocket, chances are you’ll be scrambling to find one after diagnosis with Postpartum Mood Disorder.

There are a lot of questions to be considered when searching for a therapist. Some are financial, some regarding training, and others regarding how experienced the therapist is with your specific diagnosis.

Just as you wouldn’t see an Oncologist for a Pulmonary Embolism, you wouldn’t visit a Substance abuse therapist for a Postpartum Mood Disorder.

But when you are in the throes of Postpartum Mood Disorder, you don’t necessarily have the wherewithal to be going down a checklist of requirements for a Therapist. (That is, unless you get lucky like me and develop Postpartum OCD. Then lists and keeping certain things in a very particular order becomes very very important to you.)

So how can you tell your therapist is going to be a good match or is trained in dealing with Postpartum Mood Disorders?

The first thing you need to know is what degrees to look for when ensuring the therapist you are considering is professionally and properly trained. A therapist will primarily hold a Masters level degree and be either a Licensed Social Worker or Counselor/Therapist depending on your state’s licensing office. A solid counselor should not hesitate to provide evidence of his/her training and current license status if requested. You may also see a Psychologist, who will hold either a Ph.D (research) or a Psy.D (Professional) for therapy.

The second thing to consider is specialized training in Postpartum Mood Disorders. If the therapist is truly focused/familiar with Postpartum Mood Disorder patients, he or she will be aware of Postpartum Support International, Karen Kleiman’s Clinician Training at the Postpartum Stress Center, or Pec Indman’s two day training via Postpartum Support International. If your therapist claims to be intimately involved with treating Postpartum Mood Disorder clients yet has no earthly idea who these people or organizations are, be wary. Ask what specialized training they have completed in the area of Postpartum Mood Disorders (if any) and how long they’ve been treating patients with similar diagnoses to yours.

Third, while your therapist is not meant to be your best friend, you should feel somewhat at ease during the appointment. If you feel uncomfortable or on edge during therapy, you’ll be less likely to disclose as much and therefore hinder your own journey toward wellness. It’s worth the search to find a therapist with philosophies similar to yours.

Do not be afraid to ask what their policy is on admitting to Intrusive thoughts. Many many women worry that if they admit they have thoughts of doing horrible things to their children, the children will be taken away from them. I faced this very same issue and asked my therapist this question before I admitted some pretty dark thoughts to her. Her response was that yes, she was required to report situations which indicated imminent harm to oneself or others but that she understood intrusive thoughts and their involvement in my particular diagnosis. This particular concern goes back to finding out what experience the therapist you are considering has with Postpartum Mood Disorders.

Dr. John Grohol over at PsychCentral has some good advice on how to tell a good therapist from a bad one. I would highly recommend you read it and keep these tips in mind.

Another great link to keep tucked away is “Tips for talking with your doctor” by Karen Kleiman over at the Postpartum Stress Center. She suggests starting with the doctor you feel most at ease with even if it’s your primary care physician. He or she can always refer you to specialists once a consensus is made that further help is indeed needed.

I now hand this post over to you, the reader.

What did you do to find your Postpartum Therapist? Any tips? Suggestions? What to look for? What to avoid?

Let’s get to just talking here!

(Tomorrow we’ll be discussing different types of therapy available for the Postpartum Woman. Stay tuned!)


Kendra Wilkinson and “Post-Pregnancy Sadness”

Leave a reply

A couple of weeks ago, it seemed that every hollywood gossip website began running with a story about Kendra Wilkinson’s struggle with Postpartum Depression.

She didn’t brush her teeth or hair. Didn’t shower. Finally looked in a mirror and was mortified at the reflection. Even remembers stating she “had nothing to live for.”

The media took immediately jumped on the express to Postpartumville. Postpartum Depression hits ex-Playboy Bunny Kendra Wilkinson. See? Even the perfectly beautiful people have drama and struggle! Cha-Ching!

Yet this week, the week her show premieres, Kendra is pushing back at the media.

According to Kendra, she didn’t suffer from Postpartum Depression as she was never officially diagnosed. And she should know as she’s been in and out of therapy her whole life. Kendra admits it was indeed depression but not postpartum.

Kendra?

Sweetie?

If it’s depression and it occurs within the first 12 months after giving birth, it IS Postpartum Depression. And we don’t get to rename it “Post-Pregnancy Sadness.” Sad people don’t think they have nothing to live for but depressed people have a tendency to have these thoughts. Postpartum Depression is real, it’s not your fault, and you will get well.

Playing down comments such as not having anything to live for as simply being “Sadness” is downright dangerous.

According to E! Online, Kendra did receive professional help and returned to working out. She also moved back to L.A.from Indianapolis.

And her husband’s take on this according to the same piece at E! follows:

As for Hank, he says he tried his best to help but it was “hard because there’s nothing you can say, nothing you can do.” Even as he told Kendra how much he loved her and how beautiful she was, she’d shoot back, “‘No, I don’t feel it,'” Hank remembers.

A huge risk factor for developing Postpartum Depression is a history of depression which it sounds like Kendra struggled with according to several sources. And moving away from family, friends and support is another risk. Ensuring a new mom has a strong and stable support system around her as she navigates her way through the new challenges of motherhood.

If anything, let’s learn something from this.

Most importantly, if you’re struggling so much after the birth of your child that you’re not able to perform necessary hygiene tasks and feeling like you have nothing to live for, seek professional help. The label doesn’t matter. What matters is the help, the recovery, and then we’ll deal with the label later. But with more and more women speaking up and writing online about their own experiences regarding Postpartum Depression, it’s becoming less of a taboo and less stigmatized every day.

Kendra, you’ve really missed a huge opportunity to educate your fans about the facts surrounding Postpartum Depression. I’m not surprised but I am saddened.

One reader’s reaction to Crystal’s Video

2 Replies

A close friend of mine, Marcie Ramirez,  a Co-Coordinator with Postpartum Support International in Tennessee, sent me the following piece last night. She wrote it to process her feelings after watching Joseph’s very poignant video about his daughter, Crystal. Marcie used to live in San Diego and was newly recovered from her own journey through postpartum when Crystal’s tragedy occurred. I immediately asked if I could post it as it was beyond fabulous. Sheer power and emotion are captured so magnificently here – I couldn’t let it just sit in my inbox. With no further fuss, here is the piece I received:

Today I was watching a montage that my friend had posted on her blog.  I had read the article which had the basic nuts and bolts…a story of yet another mom who didn’t survive the first year of her child’s life.  A mom, who just like me felt like her family would be better off without her and for whatever reason didn’t feel like she could ask for help.

As I watched the video I not only read the words but I noticed familiarities in the pictures.  It was a landscape common to San Diego, my home until not quite two years ago, where I gave birth to both my children and where I went through the most terrifying experience of my life.  I watched and my suspicions of this woman being from my home town grew when I saw the name of the cemetery.  My heart sank.  I clicked on a link in the blog that took me to the man’s original story and it turned out that he owns a restaurant my husband and I have been to on many occasions.  It was also the restaurant my family and I would go to every Christmas when we would look at the lights on Candy Cane Lane and Christmas Circle.  La Bella’s was one of the few perfect memories of my childhood.

As suspicion turned into reality I realized that I went through my Postpartum hell at the same time she was pregnant and when I was really starting to see a light at the end of my tunnel she saw nothing but darkness.  What if our paths had crossed?  What if I had been able to say something to her that would have allowed her the freedom to ask for help?  I never asked for help.  To this day I am still confident that if I hadn’t have been screened that I would be dead.

San Diego is on the forefront of Postpartum Mood Disorders.  I say this because I know first hand how incredible my access to maternal mental health services was.  I was screened through my pregnancy, before leaving the hospital and again at my six week postpartum checkup.  When I didn’t pass my screening there was a therapist onsite who saw me before I went home.  I saw posters, I had access to a psychiatrist who specialized in maternal mental health.  I wanted to kill myself many times but somehow was able to hold on because I knew if I could just make it to my next appointment that I would have a soft place to fall.  I spent close to two months in a mental hospital when I just couldn’t handle it anymore…but I survived and am thriving.  I am not only a better mom but a better and more empathetic person than I ever thought possible.

Still, when I read the words of this courageous father I was left wondering why she didn’t get the same help?  Was it because she wasn’t screened?  Was it because she developed the PPD after her last screening?  I don’t know and will never know.  What I do know, though is that just as we call our medical professionals to screen new moms we have a responsibility to do our own screening.  We don’t necessarily have to whip out the Edinburgh every week but we can sincerely ask a new mom how she is REALLY doing.  We can learn the signs of PPD and ways that we can help minimize the stress on new moms.   We can offer to bring lunch over and then have a real heart to heart conversation.  We can talk about our own experiences so that the one in seven who are suffering realize that they are not alone.  We can offer to take them to their appointment or watch the baby so they can take an uninterrupted nap.  There are so many things we who have been there can do to make a difference.

Ironically maybe an hour after I read the articles and watched the heart wrenching video, I was at a restaurant with my two boys who are now seven and three.  For some reason my oldest son asked if we could sit at a particular table in a section we had never sat in before.  At the same time a family sat down at the next table.  Mom, dad and a beautiful little girl who was maybe a year old.  The little girl, however screamed over and over and over…and every time she screamed I saw the life draining from her mother’s face.  The mom would bury her head in her hands as if trying to escape.

I was instantly back into my first year postpartum.  I could see, smell, taste and hear the very things that were going on when I was in that place.  My heart sank and I just wanted to walk over, hug her and tell her that she would be able to get through this.  Normally when it’s just a mom and baby I can easily strike up a conversation and casually mention that I had PPD.  This was different, though because dad was there.  He seemed like a wonderful and supportive father from what I could tell from my few minutes watching the family.  He was trying to take over with the daughter so mom could eat in peace.  Eventually he got up to get a drink and I was able to speak briefly with the mom.  I gave her my card which had my contact info for the work I do with Postpartum Support International.

Hopefully this mom was just having a bad day.  But what if she wasn’t?  What if she felt completely hopeless and was ready to escape by any means necessary?  We don’t know.  That is why it is so important for each and every one of us to love new moms and be there for them.  Sometimes a kind word can be the beginning of changing someone’s forever.

The Power of the anniversary

Leave a reply

"A Floating Red Balloon" by jcarlosn @ flickr.com

Put the past behind you.

Move forward.

Be happy about how far you have come since (fill in the blank).

These are all common phrases people love to shoot off when they know someone is struggling to deal with something which happened in the past. While they are certainly lovely sentiments, the one thing people who give voice to these phrases do not know is that memory is very organic. Sure you can do your best to decide to deal with a tragic event in a positive way but then there are the memories which sneak up on us and scare us to death. The anniversary of the birth of my daughters and the anniversary of my time in a mental ward for Postpartum OCD are a few memories which did just that to me.

I am not alone in this experience.

Many women struggle when reaching their child’s first birthday, their hospitalization date, miscarriage date, or the date on which they lost a child. These are all events that leave more than a glancing blow. The fight to return to the “new normal” is an uphill battle. And once the “new normal” arrives and you’ve unpacked the last box, there’s a looming date trouncing your way ever so cheerfully. Sure you can bob and weave but even the best of us may find ourselves down for the count after a few sucker punches.

A fellow PPD warrior mom, Helen Crawford, shared with me that her 1yr anniversary was very traumatic. She could smell/hear the memories of the year before. “My fingers burned. I talked with my therapist. Surviving severe depression is like surviving extreme trauma. I took the finger burning as a reminder to ‘love myself more’ and say thank you to my body.”

Today my three year old daughter found pictures of herself as an infant. Awwwwww, you say. But these particular pictures included a feeding tube taped ever so gingerly to her less than 24 hour old cheek with cute teddy bear gauze tape. Classic symptoms consumed me – heart in throat, check, rapid shallow breathing, check, rapid pulse, check, dizzy, check. Oh.CRAP. She’s been flashing them here and there for the past week and I’ve been ever so nicely sidestepping the issue. But today, today she wanted to know WHAT that was on her cheek and why it was there. Oh boy. And I thought the hard question with kids was supposed to be “Mommy? Where do Babies come from?” (And for the record, I GOT that one today too from her 5 year old sister – what a day!)

Suddenly, there I was again. Curled up in the hospital bed, crying my heart out, aching, hurting, wanting to go back in time to BEFORE the birth, for someone to warn us about the rabbit hole into which we were about to trip. What.the.hell???

She knows about her cleft palate and knows doctors fixed it. She also knows which belly button came from mommy and which one belongs to the doctors. But we have never discussed the tubes. NEVER. As playfully as I could, I explained to her that because her mouth had a hole in it when she was born, she had to eat with a tube which went in through her mouth and went allllll the way down to her stomach. (I can still hear her laughing because I tickled her as I told her this.) Inside, I was dying. I smelled the NICU. I heard the sounds, the crying, saw the tense faces, the reserved mouths as they asked about worst case scenarios. I thought I was going to pass out when she said she wanted these pictures – the tube pictures – up on her bedroom wall. I softly replied that Mommy would have to think about it.

I thought about it all day. ALL day. Once she got home from her 2 hours of special needs pre-k for her speech, we talked. Honestly and age-appropriately. I told her that when she was born while I was very happy to meet her and get to know her, all of the medical stuff surrounding her birth like the tube feedings and surgeries were very difficult for Mommy to handle. And that it was very hard for Mommy to look at pictures of her with tubes and such attached to her. I promised her we would find some different baby pictures to put up on her wall. I also told her that it was ok she had to use a tube – and I was glad the nurses and doctors knew just what to do to help her grow strong so she could become the amazing silly little girl she is today. She was sad but seemed to take it in stride.

To top things off, 12 years ago today, my maternal grandfather passed away suddenly after experiencing congestive heart failure. Yay for anniversaries, right? (And in 19 days, I’ll be marking the anniversary of my paternal grandfather’s death which left me grandparentless. I was a real ball of joy 12 years ago, I tell you what!)

Grief is a tough thing to handle. 12 years ago I dealt with it in a very physical and raw manner. I remember crying, screaming, and punching my then boyfriend until I would literally black out. Healthy, right?

The thing is to give yourself PERMISSION to mourn/remember/accept whatever it is that your anniversary centers around. Celebrate how far you’ve come since said event. Honor the event but also do something to help propel yourself forward. One of the last things my maternal step grandmother said to me (in what I now know was her I know I’m dying soon so I better get this out while I can speech) was to always be the best that I could be no matter what stood in my way. Those words have stuck by me. And even in failure, I’ve always strived to do every single thing that I possibly could before giving up. It’s part of what got me through my PPD. I knew I was better than PPD. I KNEW I had to turn and fight. And every time I have an opportunity to help another mom through her struggles, I am celebrating my anniversary. I am celebrating no longer being alone. I am paying forward the help I received. I am choosing to walk the line between remembering the past yet striving for the future. I AM HERE to do that. And for that, I am grateful.

Remember to celebrate YOU on your child’s birthday too. It’s not just your child’s birthday – it’s YOUR own personal Mother’s Day. Don’t rush around for the kid without stopping to breathe for yourself too. Sure, Hallmark doesn’t make a card for this but that makes it all the more special, right? You’ve earned it. You’re worth it. And doggonnit, we like you. In addition, the more positives you make out of a negative, the less power it holds over you. Darkness cannot win when bathed in light. Choose to regain those reins as you approach your anniversary – whether it’s childbirth, miscarriage, hospitalization, recovery – it’s ok to cry. But it’s totally awesome to party too.