Postpartum Depression and Psychosis: From The Yellow Wallpaper to Now

September 17, 2007 by
Connie Dillon  
Connie Dillon
Connie Dillon
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Throughout time, mental illness has been misunderstood and treated with disregard to the ill person's mental well being. For a long period, the only treatment option for a person suffering from mental illness was to lock him or her away in a hospital. But recently, changes have been made,
 and breakthroughs in the cause and treatment of mental illness have been discovered. Unfortunately, these breakthroughs did not come soon enough for some. Luckily, psychologists have learned from the recent mistakes of doctors' treatments.

One example of improper treatment is in Charlotte Perkins Gilmore's short story The Yellow Wallpaper. Gilman reflects her own history and battle with depression in The Yellow Wallpaper, with exageration of the characters, Gilman emphasizes on the lack of knowledge and the severity of improper treatment. Slowly, science has evolved in the treatment and prevention of Postpartum Depression and Psychosis. Doctors now know the importance of proper and immediate treatment, but society still attached a nasty stigma to those women who sffer from these disorders.

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This information was very informative. Myself I had postpartum depression and psycosis and I was transferred right away to the hospital to be treated. Thankfully, I am healthy now and was treated with many different medications and till this day I am still on some medication called Serequeol. So girls make sure you know all these helpful tips and stories about PostPartum because honestly it can happen to anyone and PosPartum Depression does not haveto exist in the family for you to get it because this was the first for me and my family to haveto experience.
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Posted on 04/16/2008 at 10:04:04 AM

An important topic. Nice job
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Posted on 09/26/2007 at 12:09:00 PM

Jen,, Thank you for the correction.
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Posted on 09/18/2007 at 12:09:00 PM

Heather, I agree that we cannot blame all problems on mental illness, and that these women suffered before they had children. They where also misdiagnosed and mistreated. They lived in situations where they had little or no control over their treatment. a little compassion please, for those who need it. Someday it may be someone you love. Not every women who commits a horrible crime is mentally ill, that does not mean none of them are. But thank you for commenting on my article, I appreciate everyones opinion.
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Posted on 09/18/2007 at 12:09:00 PM

Heather, I sure hope you never have to suffer from the horrors of mental illness. A little compassion and less judgementalism would go a long way in preventing incidences like this. You say they new before that they had mental health problems. Maybe so, but I guarantee those problems were not as severe before or they were not properly diagnosed. We just don't know enough, especially as lay-people. It took 17 years for my daughter to get a proper diagnosis and that was after the birth of her son caused her condition to deteriorate greatly and she tried to commit suicide. She is now on the right medications and is doing much better but it took the birth of a child to wake the doctors up to what I had been trying to tell them since she was 7. What happened with Andrea Yates was horrible, but I know that what she did helped my daughter because we became aware of the fact that each pregnancy makes the illness worse. Based on that information, she made the decision to have her tub
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Posted on 09/18/2007 at 10:09:00 AM

i think that post partum is not a random illness and this article even states that these women had prior mental health problems so blaming what they did on post partum a wholly murky and unclear disorder is irresponsible. thoe women were unstable before they got pregnant and being a stay at home mother does not drive you insane sorry i think this article is misleading crap.
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Posted on 09/18/2007 at 5:09:00 AM

Correction: Charlotte Perkins Gilmore did not commit suicide as a result of post partum depression as appears to be indicated above ("The outcome of both these situations and many more are tragic. Charlotte Perkins Gilmore eventually committed suicide...") It was not until she was in her late 70's, after being diagnosed with breast cancer that she took her own life.
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Posted on 09/18/2007 at 5:09:00 AM

I found this article very imformative. I suffered from severe postpartum depression. Thankfully, a family member noticed my symptons and despite my argument that I was "fine", I went to a doctor and recieved proper treatment. It is deffinitely an overlooked illness.
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Posted on 09/17/2007 at 8:09:00 PM

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