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Therese Borchard: From maternity ward to psych ward
by Nancy Churnin, Dallas News
Tue, Jan 12, 2010
No one would suspect on meeting Therese Borchard, a married mother of two, that she is a manic depressive who was committed to a psych ward twice, was suicidal for two years and considered electroconvulsive therapy after the first 22 medication combinations failed. Where too many suffer in silence with mental illness, Therese has been bravely upfront about her struggles, blogging a Beyond Blue column for Beliefnet.com, assisting Glenn Close in her BringChange2Mind.com initiative and writing her latest book about her journey (along with survival guide tips) that just came out this month, Beyond Blue: Surviving Depression and Anxiety and Making the Most of Bad Genes (Center Street, January).
The Maternity Ward to the Psych Ward: What Every Mom Should Know
by Therese J. Borchard
"What happened?"
"What was it like?"
I have about 45 responses to those two questions that I've written out ever since I attended a media coaching seminar in November. The presenters encouraged us to map out our stories for our listeners, taking them to the places of action that form our plot.
I have three primary stories. Unfortunately, they all involve my kids.
Here is one:
I was always crying.
Always embarrassed.
Always pretending.
To be a competent mom.
When I was the least thing from it.
What happened?
If you think about it, the early months of motherhood are the perfect storm for mood disorders to develop. You take a woman whose hormones have been rearranged and sold at a garage sale. You give her a kid who doesn't sleep (in my case) for more than three hours for five years in a row. And you lock her in the house alone with this crying thing, so that she sits there in isolation most of her day.
Sleep deprivation and isolation alone, with perfectly balanced hormones, is enough to ship someone off to the psych ward. Dump unto that the Irish-dancing hormones, and you're guaranteed a mess.
My mess fit into a neat diagnosis of Bipolar II, which I like to call the smoother, softer kind of manic depression.
Could I have prevented the mess?
Possibly. Although I believe that my genes are so predisposed to mental illness that anything as minor as a kid spitting up strained carrots on my favorite gray sweater might have triggered an emotional rollercoaster.
But here's the advice I give moms, especially new moms, and most definitely new moms that have family histories with depression and anxiety:
Therese Borchard is the author of Beyond Blue: Surviving Depression and Anxiety and Making the Most of Bad Genes. She writes the Beyond Blue blog at Beliefnet.com. You can also visit her at www.thereseborchard.com
by Nancy Churnin, Dallas News
Tue, Jan 12, 2010
No one would suspect on meeting Therese Borchard, a married mother of two, that she is a manic depressive who was committed to a psych ward twice, was suicidal for two years and considered electroconvulsive therapy after the first 22 medication combinations failed. Where too many suffer in silence with mental illness, Therese has been bravely upfront about her struggles, blogging a Beyond Blue column for Beliefnet.com, assisting Glenn Close in her BringChange2Mind.com initiative and writing her latest book about her journey (along with survival guide tips) that just came out this month, Beyond Blue: Surviving Depression and Anxiety and Making the Most of Bad Genes (Center Street, January).
The Maternity Ward to the Psych Ward: What Every Mom Should Know
by Therese J. Borchard
"What happened?"
"What was it like?"
I have about 45 responses to those two questions that I've written out ever since I attended a media coaching seminar in November. The presenters encouraged us to map out our stories for our listeners, taking them to the places of action that form our plot.
I have three primary stories. Unfortunately, they all involve my kids.
Here is one:
My three-year-old son and I were sitting on his bed playing with toy cars. He was pushing his toy police car down the seams of the quilt, pretending they were roads.
"You're in the back," he said to me.
"Why am I in the back?" I asked.
"Because you're bad."
"Why am I bad?"
"Because you cry so much."
I guess that's what it was like."You're in the back," he said to me.
"Why am I in the back?" I asked.
"Because you're bad."
"Why am I bad?"
"Because you cry so much."
I was always crying.
Always embarrassed.
Always pretending.
To be a competent mom.
When I was the least thing from it.
What happened?
If you think about it, the early months of motherhood are the perfect storm for mood disorders to develop. You take a woman whose hormones have been rearranged and sold at a garage sale. You give her a kid who doesn't sleep (in my case) for more than three hours for five years in a row. And you lock her in the house alone with this crying thing, so that she sits there in isolation most of her day.
Sleep deprivation and isolation alone, with perfectly balanced hormones, is enough to ship someone off to the psych ward. Dump unto that the Irish-dancing hormones, and you're guaranteed a mess.
My mess fit into a neat diagnosis of Bipolar II, which I like to call the smoother, softer kind of manic depression.
Could I have prevented the mess?
Possibly. Although I believe that my genes are so predisposed to mental illness that anything as minor as a kid spitting up strained carrots on my favorite gray sweater might have triggered an emotional rollercoaster.
But here's the advice I give moms, especially new moms, and most definitely new moms that have family histories with depression and anxiety:
- Beg for help. I advise you to get on your knees, to skip all those manners and laws of social grace that keep you from pleading with your in-laws for some help. Barter with them, negotiate, promise to name the next kid after them if they babysit for a night, ANYTHING you possibly can to get some free help because you are going to need it, and the less of it you have, the more risk for developing a serious mood disorder. If your relatives are unable to assist, buy the help. Cash out the retirement funds for this one. Trust me. You'll be glad you did.
- Sleep. Part of the reason I'm so adamant that you get help is because the longer you stay sleep-deprived the better chance you have of winding up like me ... in a psych ward. Brain experts have always made the connection between insanity and insomnia, but new research suggests that chronic sleep disturbances actually cause certain mood disorders. You stay up one too many nights with that crying baby, and you are bait for a mental illness. Not to scare you. But, again, BEG FOR HELP so that you can at least get a few hours of uninterrupted sleep ... consistently. Don't follow in my tracks and get your first night of slumber in a hospital.
- Hang on to you. The second biggest mistake I made as a new mom was throwing my old self into a locked closet until, well, I graduated from the outpatient hospital program, where I learned that motherhood doesn't require chucking my prior existence: my interests, my friends, my career, and so forth. In fact, the nurses there convinced me that if I could recover a little of my old self, I might even be a better mom. So I hired a babysitter for a few hours a week, which allowed me to pursue some writing projects, go on an occasional bike ride, and have coffee with a non-mom friend and talk about something other than poop.
Therese Borchard is the author of Beyond Blue: Surviving Depression and Anxiety and Making the Most of Bad Genes. She writes the Beyond Blue blog at Beliefnet.com. You can also visit her at www.thereseborchard.com
