I get so many comments and questions from women who want to know how to get over postpartum depression without taking medication. I'm NOT judging them or questioning their reluctance one bit, because truthfully I didn't want to take medication for PPD either. But all these concerns have led me to wonder what our reluctance really is. As I said in an email to one of these women earlier today, if I was diagnosed with diabetes I wouldn't think twice about taking medication prescribed to me. If I was told by my doctor that I had high cholesterol or high blood pressure, I'd take the medication prescribed to me. Sure, I'd need to change my lifestyle as well to address the underlying problems causing the high blood pressure or cholesterol — I'd exercise more, I'd eat better, I'd develop better coping mechanisms for stress — but I'd also take the medication to address the current crisis until my other activities kicked in and my blood levels were safe enough that I could discontinue the meds.

Isn't it the SAME THING with postpartum mood disorders? Aren't meds ok to help resolve the immediate crisis, while at the same time we can use exercise and/or talk therapy and support gropups and whatever else works to resolve any contributing underlying factors and to recover and get back to our old selves? And when we do recover, we can reduce them until it's okay to stop taking them altogether.

It seems to me that psychiatric medication, where appropriate and prescribed by an experienced professional, is simply addressing a physical medical crisis. Our bodies don't differentiate between psychiatric illnesses and other physical illnesses. Only society does. It's society, and the damn insurance companies, that make us feel like psychiatric illnesses are some how different and highly questionable. Who the hell is some insurance person to tell me how many damn doctor visits I'm allowed to have to get better from postpartum depression? Are you kidding? … sorry … it just incenses me that we're given hard limits on what treatment we can have to get better as if (wink, wink) we're probably not really sick in the first place, now are we??

Anyway, I'm sure there are people who have recovered from postpartum mood disorders without taking medication. And I say more power to them, seriously. Potentially, through continued research into various hormones and brain chemicals and genes and levels of various things in our blood we may get to a point where there is a more direct treatment for these illnesses which may or may not involve medication. Until then, I can only tell you that I, myself, would not have recovered without the medication I took. As Oprah says, that's one thing I know for sure.

P.S. On the same topic, click here to go over to The Perinatal Project blog to read about some recommended changes in the way mental illnesses are covered by insurance.