I have talked to many healthcare professionals — pediatricians, nurses, OBs — who have experienced postpartum depression themselves. Many of them felt particularly surprised at how helpless they felt. Some were very versed in PPD but couldn't recognize it in themselves. They had experience educating patients on what to do if one has the symptoms of a perinatal mood and anxiety disorder, yet now they couldn't even follow the advice they had given countless others.

This happens all the time.

I thought I'd share"Destigmatizing Depression"from Science magazine, which focuseson what it's like for healthcare pros and medical school students who experience depression. The article features Alice Flaherty, a neurology prof at Harvard Medical School, who had postpartum depression.

"Flaherty herself followed the advice of a trusted mentor, who reached out to her when she was in the throes of depression and advised her to seek professional care. Now she runs a busy neurology laboratory at Harvard and is director of the movement disorders fellowship program at Massachusetts General Hospital. She is raising healthy twin girls and treats patients, many of them medical professionals. She has no regrets about going public with her bout of mental illness, which is now controlled with medication. She even partly credits her job in the psychiatry department at Harvard to her vocal advocacy of psychiatric treatment. 'Only good things came to me because I talked about it,' she says."

For any clinicians or medical students reading Postpartum Progress who are currently suffering, I hope you will find this helpful.