'So you're crazy?': the cultural barriers that make postnatal depression worse

Postnatal depression can be a life-threatening illness. But what if your husband tells you to pray instead of seeing a psychologist?

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Not everyone can find the words to describe the searing and hollow depths of depression and anxiety. Furthermore, not everyone has a platform to share their experience – should it help others. But I did. As a journalist and mother of two, publishing my battle with postnatal depression (PND) – was a privilege but one with that came with an unforeseen responsibility.

During that dark time, grief pounded me in waves that left me gasping – it was akin to a vacuum-sealed emptiness. But added to this, was a cultural and intergenerational struggle. My parents, who escaped civil war in Lebanon, bore trauma and struggled in physical ways that I felt denied me the right to battle mental demons.

I lost my voice, my jaw was moving on its own. I tried to speak but I couldn’t, and I would only cry and cry and cry.

Related: Motherhood floors most women. So why do so many suffer in silence? | Emma Svanberg

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Continue reading... April 28, 2018 at 01:30AM