Thank you so much for this. Fellow mental health professional here…who also missed my own diagnosis during pregnancy. I even had specific training in peripartum mood and anxiety disorders! I think the pendulum can swing a bit too far in the field towards non-pathologizing. I had to recognize that “I am not broken” doesn’t necessarily prohibit the fact that something is, in fact, very broken. Sometimes the suffering really is a problem that requires fixing.
Absolutely wonderful article, thanks for writing it. My own experience of pregnancy, although nowhere nearly as difficult, was one of revisiting everything I learnt in medical school about a “normal” pregnancy. Every physical hardship felt so life altering and debilitating - and while otherwise it would at least be taken seriously, it was simply dismissed as being a normal part of pregnancy. I can only imagine the degree to which mental struggles are brushed under the carpet. Thanks for articulating the experience so well.
When I see someone struggling in pregnancy I will share this. And there's a whole other layer being a health professional. I wanted to reach through the screen and give you a huge hug so I'll send a virtual one!
Thank you for this excellent article. Your description of the difficulty of diagnosing your own mental condition in spite of being expert in the field made me think of the similar experience described by Kay Redfield Jamison in her classic memoir of her bipolar disorder/manic depression, where she describes how in spite of being being the author of a textbook on mood disorders, she was unable to identify her own condition for what it was.
The reluctance to diagnose biological depression when it coincides with external conditions making the symptoms appear explicable or “normal” stopped me from getting much-needed pharmacological help for a long time. When the depression begins early in life AND childhood circumstances are difficult the challenge is all the greater.
Thank you so much for this. Fellow mental health professional here…who also missed my own diagnosis during pregnancy. I even had specific training in peripartum mood and anxiety disorders! I think the pendulum can swing a bit too far in the field towards non-pathologizing. I had to recognize that “I am not broken” doesn’t necessarily prohibit the fact that something is, in fact, very broken. Sometimes the suffering really is a problem that requires fixing.
Absolutely wonderful article, thanks for writing it. My own experience of pregnancy, although nowhere nearly as difficult, was one of revisiting everything I learnt in medical school about a “normal” pregnancy. Every physical hardship felt so life altering and debilitating - and while otherwise it would at least be taken seriously, it was simply dismissed as being a normal part of pregnancy. I can only imagine the degree to which mental struggles are brushed under the carpet. Thanks for articulating the experience so well.
When I see someone struggling in pregnancy I will share this. And there's a whole other layer being a health professional. I wanted to reach through the screen and give you a huge hug so I'll send a virtual one!
Thank you for this excellent article. Your description of the difficulty of diagnosing your own mental condition in spite of being expert in the field made me think of the similar experience described by Kay Redfield Jamison in her classic memoir of her bipolar disorder/manic depression, where she describes how in spite of being being the author of a textbook on mood disorders, she was unable to identify her own condition for what it was.
The reluctance to diagnose biological depression when it coincides with external conditions making the symptoms appear explicable or “normal” stopped me from getting much-needed pharmacological help for a long time. When the depression begins early in life AND childhood circumstances are difficult the challenge is all the greater.