depression

Bumblebee on lavender, Green Gulch Organic Farm, near San Fran CA
Copyright (c) 2007 Wendee Holtcamp

I'm listening to the audio version of Brooke Shields' book Down Came the Rain: My journey through postpartum depression. I picked it up at the library the other day, along with 2 other audiobooks and wasn't even sure why. I figured I'd pop it in and if it was boring I'd stop and listen to one of the others. But the truth is, I've been transfixed. It's a good story, and she narrates it herself. I remember watching Brooke Shields in The Blue Lagoon. I was only 10 years old back then when it first came out. I loved that movie. It's funny I did a bit of googling about the movie to refresh my memory and I read that there was "Christian opposition" to it. I didn't grow up in an overtly Christian home so I didn't experience any of that. I never even heard of such a thing - opposition to movies or books or various ideas or anything.

Even though it's now rated R (I don't think movies were rated back then, though) I was allowed to watch it, and saw it as a very natural love story of how something like that perhaps could happen without the cultural rules and mores. And of course people that young definitely did those kinda things back long long ago. (OK I just reread that and I do not mean people today do not have sex at age 14 or 15... obviously. I meant sorta thinking that back in, say, cave people time, there were surely very different cultural norms...)

Anyway, I am more concerned about the effects of kids' exposure to violence and also the type of incessant negativity and criticism and tone of voice that takes place on many sitcoms than I am of sexuality. I think that most of these natural type things can be watched with the appropriate discussions. I don't actually watch actual TV myself, pretty much ever, but do rent TV shows on DVD, the latest being HEROES which I'm loving!

Anyway, I am enjoying the book. It talks about her struggles with depression after a long journey with infertility and In-vitro fertilization. Her baby was born just 3 weeks after her father died, and a couple years after a close friend had committed suicide. Yet she never thought she'd be prone to it, because depression wasn't something she'd ever dealt with in the past.

I never suffered from postpartum depression. But I have had bouts of depression at other times, most notably in high school after the date rape and after my divorce. And the truth is, the last few weeks I've felt very low, and very overwhelmed. It's bodily in nature and also heavy on my soul. There's not any acute reason. It's just a general feeling of overwhelm - my book deadline approaching, deadlines for so many things, financial stress, relationship dealings, life-in-general. But it's really getting me down. It's affecting my motivation. I am doing my best. I'll get through it.