Complementary therapies I take in addition to my
medication:
GNC Triple
Strength Fish Oil
$19.99
Serving Size: 1 Softgel Servings Per Container: 60
Calories: 15 Total Fat: 1.5g
EPA: 647mg DHA: 253mg
GNC Mega Men Sport Multi-Vitamins
(Bonus Size)
$34.99
Other Cool Stuff:
Tablet/Pill Splitter
$5.99
GoFit Yoga Mat
$24.99
Homedics LCD Digital Scale $39.99
Attention:
This
website is probably more suitable for people whom are 18
years of age or older. I use vulgarity from time to time,
and I sometimes talk about things that are generally
inappropriate. Sorry you 1st graders. Beat it.
Brooke Shields sits down with Oprah to talk about her
postpartum depression she suffered through after giving birth to her
child.
Two years ago the world was charmed by this beautiful new movie-star
mother and her newborn baby daughter. But behind closed doors,
Brooke Shields was falling apart, descending into a downward spiral
of misery and despair--a depression so strong, she says, she even
considered taking her own life.
Brooke is talking for the first time about her mental collapse, the
disturbing voices she heard in her head and how she managed to
survive the darkest period of her life. Her new book is called
Down Came The Rain.
Brooke and her husband Chris had tried very hard to conceive a
child, going through many different types of in vitro fertilization
treatments. Their first pregnancy resulted in an extremely painful
miscarriage in the third month.
"I had to mourn it but I also didn't want to waste any time, and I
had this tunnel vision with regards to getting pregnant; have a
baby," Brooke says. "I thought, 'God, if it happened once, it can
happen again.' And I just didn't look back."
When Brooke became pregnant with Rowan, she says the pregnancy was
perfect.
"I actually felt strong. I felt good. Easy," she says. "I didn't
have morning sickness. I was fine. Was able to do yoga and
everything was picture perfect. And it was what I always thought it
would be, you know?"
Looking back, Brooke says she put too much focus on doing things
perfectly.
"I made the stakes so high in my own mind and thought that
everything would come into focus in my life. Every area that was
void or empty would be filled. My insecurities would go away. It was
the pressure that I even put on this child mentally myself—even
before she was born."
Brooke says the delivery was far from ideal. She was induced and
after 24 hours, she had an emergency Caesarean section. The
umbilical cord had become wrapped around the baby's neck, body and
leg. In her book, Brooke compares the C-section to being gutted like
a fish on a crucifix.
"And what had happened was my uterus, during the 24 hours of labor,
had herniated," Brooke explains. "So they literally took it out and
put it on this tray with force like I have never imagined in my
life. And I see people--I say it's like pile driving, you know,
wrestlers sort of pile driving --over my stomach...You see them over
the curtain, and they're using all their weight, and they get her
out and she gets taken away. I don't see her at first. I didn't stop
bleeding. And so the baby got taken away, given to her father, and
the doctor sort of comes around to me and says, 'We may have to do a
hysterectomy.'
"And I'm thinking, 'No, no, no. You can't take my uterus away from
me now.' And he said, 'Well, I want to watch you for 24 hours and
see if you will stop bleeding.' And thank God he put all the pieces
back in the places where they needed to be and sewed me up and
eventually my uterus did stop bleeding and he did not have to do an
emergency hysterectomy."
Brooke said she first felt the rage in the delivery room when she
saw Chris holding Rowan in his arms.
"In one instant I looked at him and I thought, 'Well, fine. I've
done all of this, I'm sitting here with nothing that I came in
[with] attached to me any longer, people are all around, this baby
gets born and she's fine, she's in his arms, and he's having a
moment.' You know? He's having this glorious moment," Brooke
recalls.
"[It was the] moment I wanted--that I felt like I deserved and
earned and had worked so hard for," Brooke says. "And [Chris] just
got to come in and it all got directed to that. And I thought I was
jealous of his association with her. I was so angry that he was
happy and everybody else was happy and I was possibly--I thought I
was going to die because I kept losing so much blood that they were
going to do a transfusion. And in one split second, my world had
turned completely upside down and...I didn't want to be happy for him
and the baby."
Brooke said she thought angels would sing the day she gave birth,
but her high expectations were crushed. "Everybody says it's the
most amazing moment in your life," Brooke says. "I don't know how
many people are really telling the truth because I think it
becomes amazing--you have to grow into it. It was so dramatic and
it was not glorious."
Returning home from the hospital, Brooke's feelings began to darken
and she found herself completely unable to bond with her baby. She
found herself crying hysterically and overwhelmed with feelings of
rage and self-hatred. "I had no desire," Brooke remembers, "to even
pretend to care about her. And it absolutely terrified me."
Oprah: In your case you're not just talking about what we've
heard called the typical "baby blues." We're talking about serious
mental trauma. Right?
Brooke: This gripped my heart to such an extent that I didn't
even have the desire to try to overcome it. I mean, I was flattened
by it. I was devastated by it. And it wasn't the "baby blues." And I
was told it was the "baby blues" at first. And so then, what was
wrong with me was even worse. I thought, "Well then I must epitomize
failure if I can't even get past this."
Oprah: And I can see how it would be compounded because
you've lived this sort of perfect life. Or what appeared to be the
perfect life.
Brooke: And then we also have this image of motherhood, you
know, the breast feeding and hair cascading down and connection with
the infant instantly.
Brooke's husband Chris was stunned by his wife's reaction to their
baby. "You expect this happy moment of joyful hugging and stuff like
that...and it's just a little quieter, much more intense--and things
are just not quite right."
About a week after the baby was born, Chris broke down. "He went out
to get a changing table," Brooke says, "and he came back much sooner
than I thought. And he sat down and burst into tears. ... He said,
'What is wrong with you? You don't sing to the baby. You don't even
look at the baby.' He said, 'I was in the store and there were women
who are happy to hold their children.' ... He just couldn't
handle seeing them and knowing what he had waiting for him at home.
Brooke continued to think she was having an intense version of the
"baby blues" until friends suggested that she was suffering from
postpartum depression. She spoke with her doctor and he prescribed
antidepressants. "I thought," Brooke remembers, "absolutely not.
... I
was really insulted and I was very embarrassed. And my husband said,
'Please, there's nothing wrong with it. Just try.'"
Brooke agreed to try, and gradually, she began to feel better. "Very
slowly," Brooke says, "I desired to be around her a bit more...I
started to like her a little bit more."
ZacharyOdette.com
Name:Zachary Adam Odette Birthdate:06-06-1985 Location:Swartz Creek, Michigan USA Diagnosis: schizoaffective Medications Taken Daily: 40mg of
Abilify at night, 300mg of Wellbutrin in the morning, 600mg of Trileptal at
night, 50mg of Revia at night Complementary Therapies: talk-therapy
once every two weeks, 4g of omega-3 EPA fish oils taken daily, 1000 I.U. vitamin E taken daily,
1000mg of VItamin C taken daily, Mega Men Sport multi-vitamins taken daily,
Magma Plus Green Foods supplement taken daily, animal-assisted therapy (dogs), go running and
exercise daily,
taking two classes at local college, no street drugs taken since year 2005, and
I'm tryin' to give up cheap booze...
