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Tyra Banks focused her show yesterday on postpartum depression. She included a psychiatrist as a guest on the segment, who provided the usual list of things depressed new moms should do for our depression: prioritize, sleep when the baby sleeps, avoid isolating, etc. Looking at the list made me think about the fact that, when you're depressed, you couldn't care less about lists. Lists are for those people who actually want to DO things. You know, like Martha Stewart ... women who get up at 5am ready to tackle the day, do some ashtanga yoga, whip up a pumpkin souffle, give their baby a massage, plant an autumnal container garden and fashion a Christmas tree out of pipe cleaners.
From what I remember, I couldn't really do much of anything. What I really wanted to do when I was depressed was stay in bed and do nothing. It took a monumental effort to get up and do my best to take care of myself and my newborn in between bouts of sobbing. I think someone giving me a list of things to do would have made me feel like I was being crushed under a Buick.
I realize, of course, that people are only trying to help by providing suggestions of things that will help us get through the day positively. But I'm not sure they know that it usually takes a rational person to execute a list. When you're not rational or logical, it becomes very difficult to do rational and logical things. So if you give us a list and we don't do much or any of it, don't give up on us. We'll get there. It takes time. And remember that people don't recover from postpartum depression just because they follow a list, but because they get proper medical care and love and support from the people around them.
I like the perspective of this blogger at Impacted Nurse who says: "My advice is to never take much notice of anyone who purports to be able to improve your life in ten bullet-point steps… unless you know them very well and they are proof writ large of the effectiveness of their list." For a good laugh about list-making, check this out from The Onion.
