Overcoming Depression

Over at the Momversation this week, Heather Armstrong of Dooce.com is leading a candid talk about depression. She has been extremely open over the years about the postpartum emotional crash that led her to a psychiatric hospital. Her fellow bloggers on the video — Alice Bradley, of finslippy.com, Mindy Roberts of themommyblog.net and Danny Evans of DadGoneMad.com — have been somewhat less public about their suffering, and their conversation about what Bradley calls “being filled with crushing despair” is a moving one.

Everything is harder when you are depressed, they say, although Bradley suggests that parenting can help a depressed person get through the day.

“Being a parent and being depressed, it’s much, much harder,” she says. “You can’t lie in bed for days at a time, you can’t function at 30 percent, you have to be there for your child, so in a way having children has done more for my mental health than anything else because I have someone I am beholden to.”

Does that fit with your experiences with depression? Is parenting the life preserver, or the anchor that drags you down?

If this all sounds too familiar, you might want to visit Beyond Blue….