Bad Mom

From all the case studies we have done, the one that most caught my attention was the one of Andrea Yates. I was strongly disturbed, but I tried not to focus so much on the incident. I tried to figure out her motive and how it all escalated. After watching that case in class, I went home and talked to her about it. Surprisingly, she told me how she was also a victim of postpartum psychosis depression, the depression women go through after birth. She told me how she felt, she mentioned that while she was in bed trying to recover from her C-section, she said the world as a sad place with a dark sky. That she looked at my sisters and I, and she kept telling herself she wasn't good enough as a person or mother. Those thoughts kept replaying over and over. She also added how one of her friend had gone through the same depression. Her friend had really bad depression that she wanted/had a desire to kill her new and first baby. When I heard in the documentary that 10-15% of women had that mental illness after their child birth, I believed it wasn't that common. Although, I began to have second thoughts when my mom shared her own experience. It opened my eyes and made me realized that postpartum psychosis depression is more common than it seems, perhaps it's because it had increased through the years. It's hard for someone to completely understand and say, "I totally feel you" because not everyone knows what it's like.