feedback for "Parental Advisory: Dark Days"

1. ATEOMR might think about going to her OB/GYN.  I struggled with PPD and a partner who just didn't get it.  When I started getting treatment from my OB, my husband finally started to see that my issue was a medical one related to pregnancy.  PPD truly is a MEDICAL issue just as much as pregnancy is.  If ATEOMR is seeking treatment from a medical doctor perhaps this would help to change her husband's perception of what the problem is.

   posted by : anon on 7/1/2009 at 9:37 AM Flag For Abuse

2. A really good answer for a very real problem.  I completely agree with your response.  In the end, it is her life, not her husband's.  If a doctor told her she needed surgery, and her husband disagreed, what then?  I can appreciate both sides, but he needs to respect her beliefs and the path she chooses.  It's kinda disturbing that a husband and father of her kids would disregard her feelings like that.  Sounds like HE's the one that needs help & THEY might need marriage counseling!
   

   posted by : mon on 7/1/2009 at 2:34 PM Flag For Abuse

3. Why on earth do you need your husband's approval to treat your depression? Marriage is a partnership between two adults.
   
   There are many approaches to wellbeing that reasonable people may disagree on - exercise, mediation, yoga, diet, therapy, support groups, medication, religion, online support, nutritional supplements, the list goes on. These are extremely personal decisions, not couple decisions. You did not give up the right to seek help for your mental health just because you got married.
   
   Please don't wait until your husband "understands." Seek the help you need now, you owe it to yourself and your children. Just tell your husband you understand his point of view, and you respect it, and ask him to please respect yours.

   posted by : Michi on 7/1/2009 at 7:23 PM Flag For Abuse

4. Easy to say go ahead and not wait for the husband to be on board, but if she needs his help and support (say looking after the kids) in order to go to therapy then she's stuck. She's going to need help to figure things out.
   

   posted by : Me on 7/1/2009 at 7:47 PM Flag For Abuse

5. Depression is very real, whether her husband wants to hear it or not.  The reason she can't wait for him to be on board with getting treatment, is that it can worsen.  Depression is not just feeling sad or blue, or being lazy.  It can have very tragic results.  His lack of support and "just get over it" attitude is the kind of thing that can accelerate such tragic results.  I agree with their advice.  Get help, talk to someone other than the husband.  Try clergy if you're comfortable with that, try group, definately try your doctor.  Maybe she does need his help, but he's not willing to give it, so she must seek it elsewhere.  It is too bad he does not understand the meaning of partner.  Perhaps when things have calmed down a bit, she can work on his understanding and they can get counseling of some kind together.  Only someone who has not experienced and perhaps lacks empathy can say to a depressed person that they are just lazy.  It is a crushing prison where you feel as if a 75 year lifespan is a cruel torment with whatever time you have left stretching out before you gray and joyless and this feeling can last...not moments, but weeks, months, even years.  Where even those you love best can barely affect you and you think that they would be so much happier without your miserable or playacting happy presence in their lives....or that if you have to playact happy for one more minute you're going to start screaming or crying or throw yourself under a bus.  Yeah, I've been there, and it is not a pull yourself up by your bootstraps situation.
   

   posted by : Marj on 7/4/2009 at 1:46 PM Flag For Abuse

6. Reading between the lines, the husband sounds like a Scientologist.
   

   posted by : forlornpanda on 7/5/2009 at 9:02 PM Flag For Abuse