Depression actually doesn’t have a look. Wanting to no longer be on this earth doesn’t have a look. I still worked and traveled. I still cooked and cleaned and played with my kids and went out to dinner and celebrated birthdays.
What other choice was there? And what does that say about mothers? What does that say about how mothers are treated?
We aren’t allowed to stop. We aren’t allowed to “go crazy.” We aren’t allowed to drop a ball. Because who will be there? What will they say about us? Can’t you hear the whispers now?
“This is the 3rd soccer game she’s missed”, “I saw her kids in the same outfit for the 4th time this week”, and/or “She’s really let herself go.”
Women struggling isn’t welcomed, it’s judged. It’s looked down upon.
And look how right we are fearing to speak up and tell someone what’s really going on inside our head. It’s used against us. Look at the judgment and the misunderstanding. The calls to lock women up experiencing PPD and PPP. To take their children away. To get protective orders against them. To take away more of their rights.
The past 3 months have shown us exactly why women suffer in silence. Why we lie at our postpartum checkups. Why we don’t tell anyone how we’re truly feeling. That we’re scared of our own thoughts. That we’re drowning and that sadness couldn’t possibly accurately describe the feeling in our bones.
So when you hear someone say “does this look like a woman who was depressed?” Remember how society treats women who show their depression. If she looks depressed and like she isn’t holding everything together, the situation is actually far worse than it looks and as a mom to mom whose suffered, reach out, she will appreciate it.
Leave a Reply