Cruise and Shields and Postpartum Depression

[pegkerr]

I have been following the news about the tiff between Brooke Shields and Tom Cruise over the treatment of postpartum depression with a great deal of interest. Shields had an op-ed published in the New York Times on this today here.

It's fascinating to take a look at the comments on Shields' book (Down Came the Rain: My Journey Through Postpartum Depression) over on Amazon. It's as if the book is a sort of Rorschach test about Americans' attitudes concerning celebrity, motherhood, choosing parenthood, fertility treatments, mental illness and "authenticity."

I don't think I have ever seen a single movie that Brooke Shields is in, and I have never read her book. But I suffered--quite desperately--through postpartum depression with both my girls. My memories of that time are hazy, but I think it was worse with Delia, both because the burden on me was greater since I already had another child at that point, and because Delia's birth was just so much harder on my body. My god, during my pregnacy, I got hives all over my body, I got sick with a nasty case of bronchitis that I didn't kick for months, I had an internal infection, and I was forced to walk with a cane from the fifth month on.

Like Shields, I distrusted the idea of taking drugs for my mental health. I was a psychology major in college, and yet I had absorbed much of this culture's (and, to be honest, my family of origin's) assumptions about mental health. Just adopt a positive attitude. Think happy thoughts and it will all go away. You have nothing to be sad about. If you are sad, it's because your Christian faith is weak. You're imagining things. If you just try hard enough, you'll feel better. Not quite Cruise's attitude (which seems to be additionally mixed up with his bizarre religion) but close enough. And as a result of these internalized attitudes, I suffered longer than I needed to, which meant my family suffered, too.

Listen, as I said, I don't know Shields or her book, but I have learned this from the whole experience: PPD is real. It is hellish. It won't go away just by wishing it away. It isn't any indication about your readiness/worthiness to be a mother. Drugs can really really help. Sometimes the ones who love you have to force you to get help, because you can get into such an awful state that you can't even reach out for the help yourself.

And it can be an enormous relief to learn that you are not the only woman who has been through this. Many woman commenting on Shield's book have said how grateful they are to read this book and to learn they are not alone. On the other hand, one commenter clucked because he read an article a month after Shields' baby was born, where she said how happy she was, and now it turns out that she had PPD and was miserable, so how could she lie like that? And I say: consider both the attitudes of people like Cruise, and the people who sneer at Shields for daring to admit she was unhappy after having a badly wanted child, and think about it: we put so much pressure on mothers in this culture to be happy and be grateful for this new baby (despite the fact that mothers get so little support, either practical, emotional or financial in American culture today); do you wonder at the fact that she hid the truth? Shields had the kind of life most American women can only dream of, and PPD was powerful enough to make her almost kill herself. And what about all the other women out there who are suffering, who don't have the kinds of resources the admittedly rich and successful Shields did?

Oh, and one other thing I know: Tom Cruise may look pretty good up on the movie screen, but he's full of--well, something unspeakable--on the subject of PPD. As Shields puts it tartly, "I'm going to take a wild guess and say that Mr. Cruise has never suffered from postpartum depression."

Better stick to discussing movies, Tom. At least there you know a little better chance of knowing what the hell it is you're talking about.

Comments

[cornfields.livejournal.com]

Word. The day Tom Cruise magically transforms into a woman is the day he gets to tell us how we feel.

[copperwise.livejournal.com]

Tom Cruise is a Scientologist. He's been speaking out against psychiatry and drugs a lot recently. He needs to STFU.

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

TC is such an @ss. War of the Worlds sounds like an awesome movie (love HG Wells) but we're not watching it because he's so annoying.

[nmalfoy.livejournal.com]

Ditto.

Psych drugs

[markiv1111.livejournal.com]

I'm frightened enough by Scientology that I'm not at all sure I want to do more than the most minimal discussion (for fear of getting jumped on by a Scientologist somewhere in LJ) but I am quite sure that if at least one of my three diagnoses (the big one is "acute clinical depression, agitated variety") had been diagnosed and treated when I was a high school senior, my life would have gone far differently and almost certainly quite a bit better. (I actually got my first med for this 15 years later.) I can't put myself in Ms. Shields' shoes for the same reason Tom Cruise can't, but I would like to think that in a sane world, the use of psych meds would be between a patient and her/his doctor. (Although that can be iffy, too -- I had one doctor who insisted that there was nothing wrong with me except that I'd just gone through the breakup of a relationship. I tried frantically to tell him that the breakup had happened because I was too depressed to cope, not the other way around, but he didn't get it.) In any event, please keep saying sane stuff on LJ -- we need it.

Nate

Re: Psych drugs

[sternel.livejournal.com]

If they jump, jump back. Scientology was started on a dare by a science fiction author. While its adherents may hold to it in good faith, it was most certainly not created in such. They have every right to believe what they wish, but they have no right to deny that same opportunity to any other faith -- or lack thereof, as the case may be.

[nmalfoy.livejournal.com]

My mother had depression and ultimately killed herself, as you likely know. I remember thinking, at the time, why can't she just get out of the fucking bed and deal? She's wallowing.

Then I hit 30 and my mother's deadly legacy surfaced. Yeah, I have depression, too. And there have been times when the black dog is sitting on my chest and he's so heavy that I can't move or get out of the bed. Two things have saved me: my cats (don't laugh; it's the thought of "who would take care of them" that's kept me going) and medications. Tom Cruise, until he's walked in our shoes, is full of it. And it'll be interesting to watch karma kick his ass.

[pixelfish.livejournal.com]

I'm betting this is one of the reasons Nicole broke up with Tom. (One, although likely not the only one.) She reportedly had a miscarriage, and as I'm sure you know, one can suffer PPD after miscarrying as well. If Tom was as supportive of her as he was of Brooke, I can see Nicole going, "Ya know, you just ain't worth this, bucko."

[vass]

What everyone else said so far.

I don't know about motherhood or PPD from personal experience, but I know depression, mental illness and psych meds. And I know about people telling you that there's nothing wrong with you, you're just not trying hard enough, in a tone that suggests they genuinely think they're saying something helpful and reassuring.

And I know that sharing our stories and listening to other people's stories is powerful.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

The problem with "you're not trying hard enough" is that it's orthogonal to the problem, as far as I can tell - not so much a purely wrong answer as an irrelevant one. I haven't been through depression but have seen bipolar from close up. In the manic stage if someone tells you you're not trying, you won't listen to them because you're having too much fun and because you have much better and smarter ideas than they do anyway. In the depressed stage, you won't listen because there's just no point to trying, because it's too hard and everyone is probably better off without you around anyway.

And I can vouch that in that instance, at least, meds made a huge difference. It was frighteningly easy to see how the person in question could have ended up living on the street otherwise, with nothing the rest of us could do about it.

[laurel]

I posted some links about this same story earlier this week. And wrote about why I won't be seeing War of the Worlds.

[aome.livejournal.com]

Two years ago I discovered (ironically just before my agency put out an article on it) that there's something called post-adoptive depression. Not hormonally triggered, obviously, but still real, and made worse because you've worked SO hard and jumped through so many hoops to have this child, and now feel guilty because reality isn't necessarily what you'd dreamed and you have this depression to deal with, too. I know I've had to struggle with both girls, although not to suicidal points.

I always get so frustrated when I read celebrity-moms' comments about how they're just over the moon with their children, and every day is amazing, etc, and I wonder if they're lying or if there's something wrong with me that I'm more bogged down in the challenges than enjoying the positives. I agree that there's tremendous cultural pressure, as you've described, and wouldn't fault Shields at all for putting up a good front; I wonder how many other celeb moms do the same. I'm thankful that she was willing to step forward and admit the toll motherhood took on her. Good on Shields for her remark about TC, too.

[http://users.livejournal.com/anam_cara_/]

I'm sure if any celeb-mom ever indicated anything remotely less than being over the moon (i.e. normal), the media would tear into their personal lives and blow it out of proportion to make them look like a crazed monster without any maternal instinct or on the verge of divorce, or putting career before baby, etc.

[aimeempayne.livejournal.com]

Amen, sister.

I think it shows an extreme lack of class for Tom Cruise to pass judgment on someone else's life. I wonder how he would feel if someone pointed out to him that being a supreme egomaniac, joining a cult, having two marriages go down in flames, and acting like a toddler on a sugar high may not be everybody's idea of a successful life.

[ame-chan.livejournal.com]

PPD is horrible and a destroyer. It nearly destroyed me and my children and the effects lingered for years.

But what do we know? Tom, he KNOWS these things, Peg, he's studied them, he KNOWS. We're just glib. :-P

I think Mr. Cruise needs to shut his yap and go back to drooling over his child bride and promoting his overpriced movies which I'm not planning to see anyway.

[pixelfish.livejournal.com]

Another one of my favourite bloggers, Dooce, had herself committed for a week last year as she battled PPD after the birth of her daughter, Leta. She chronicled her stay in her blog--needless to say, she ain't too happy with Tom either.

You should read her entries--funny and heartbreaking.

http://www.dooce.com/archives/depression/index.html

[jbru.livejournal.com]

I'm a big fan of Dooce as well and was going to make the same pointer. Her struggles were heartbreaking and her on-going victory that much more heartwarming because of it.

Read this book

[amandageist.livejournal.com]

"The Mask of Motherhood" by Susan Maushart. Penny wrote a review of it, which was quite good, on Amazon--you can probably find it if you scroll down.

Every word she writes is true. Society loves pregnant women and supports mothers not at all.

~Amanda (who had PREpartum depression--which is only now coming to be recognized--and idly debated suicide many times. Birth control pills do it to me too. The analogy I give my husband? It's like being chest-deep in the ocean and lifted off your feet by a wave--even if you know what's happening, you can't stop it, you just have to get through it.)

[dreamcoat-mom.livejournal.com]

A-frickin'-men. You go, Brooke. Mr. Cruise's benighted idiotspeak is off the stupidity chart, and that kind of rhetoric only serves to keep women who need it from getting help.PPD is very real and utterly terrifying. Judging from our boy Tom's recent lack of rationality, I'd say he's the last person who should be on a soapbox about behavioral health of any kind.

Amazon book review

[markiv1111.livejournal.com]

I just went through a few links to get to the Amazon reviews of Shield's book, and found one headlined (I think): "Sorry guys, Cruise is right." I found this review also frightening. "Hooked" on psych meds? There is some reason to believe this can happen with Paxil; 90% of the time, though, it's like referring to a diabetic as being hooked on insulin. The simple fact that you may very well need something for the rest of your life doesn't mean it was incorrectly prescribed in the first place. And as far as the occasional hints that the SSRIs may be linked to suicide: *Untreated* depression is *really* linked to suicide -- 1/6 of us eventually succeed. I want to cheer Ms. Shields on (and on and on). The more people are willing to talk about the way things actually do work for us depressives, the saner this society will be, and the less power the Scientologists will have.

Nate

Re: Amazon book review

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

I frequently use the diabetic analogy when talking to people. It's a chemical imbalance you stupid twits. Excuse me. Sorry.

As for 'addiction' Well the most addictive thing in the world is oxygen. One hit and you're hooked for life. Withdrawal is inevitably fatal.

Suicide? The only reason I think suicide is linked to SSRIs is because of the danger period as the depression begins to lift. Some people are immobilized by depression. If people are not under close medical supervision as they begin their SSRI regimen, they can get caught in the place where they're no longer immobilized but still depressed.

Gaaah. I get so angry! I'm becoming incoherent. Will stop now.

MKK

Re: Amazon book review

[http://users.livejournal.com/anam_cara_/]

It also upsets me that the general public (and MEDIA- damn, journalists need some basic bio 101!) don't understand that when a medication comes with a warning that you have to taper off of it (like many psych meds), that does NOT mean you are addicted!! There are meds (psych, cardiac, etc, etc) that work by altering your physiology, causing your body to change/adjust the way it functions WITH the med, so if you take away the med, you send your body into a tailspin, it's no longer functioning in collaboration, but on it's own, it hasn't had the chance to adjust to working by itself. Body functions don't often have on/off switches (a wee bit more complex!), adjustments often take time. And all drugs don't work like aspirin- in fact very few do, that's why you have to take them for a week or a month before seeing/feeling results (the body is adjusting) and are told not to quit just because you feel well. Ergh- I'm with you I need to stop now (because I'm probably preaching to the choir anyway). The diabetic and oxygen analogies are good, I'll have to remember them.

[catmcroy.livejournal.com]

I wholeheartedly agree.

[kokopoko.livejournal.com]

Cruise irritates the hell out of me. I wish he'd shut up and talk about things he actually knows something about.

[lkw18.livejournal.com]

I like what Al Roker said: "[Tom] you're an actor, not a med student"

personally i think it's really dangerous for Tom to be bad-mouthing psychiatrists and drugs, when he is not in a position to do so (even though he claims that he knows the history of psychiatry...*eye roll*)

I didn't know you were a Psychology major! That is what I'm leaning towards. : )

Tom Cruise and Andrea Yates

[(Anonymous)]

If Andrea Yates had known TC's philosophy on just needing vitamins and exercise, would she still have her 5? She is the poster child for Post Partum Depression. No matter how horrified you were when you heard what she had done and why, she brought national attention to PPD. I don't know about you guys, but after i found out she'd been suffering from it through several children i was angry with her husband for not doing more to help. Like a live-in nanny, that would have been nice for her. Or giving her a longer break in between kids. That poor thing, I've had low points with PPD, and I pray that i never hit that point of no return from being so overwhelmed with everything else. My heart goes out to her, and Brooke Shields. Bravo to Brooke for being able to admit it. That's the worst, saying it out loud. Then you're horrified to hear it coming from your mouth. But it's also one of the first steps for help I think.

As for TC, well, he's spent so much time being fake and plastic and a general schmuck for his fans that he hasn't actually had time to be real. I don't think he's capable of anything other than mild indifference for anybody who doesn't fit his smile your way through life attitude. I thought he was a schmuck from Top Gun on. I love seeing him make an @ss of himself on national television and I think we should boycott all Tom Cruise endeavors.