I happened upon this great post from a blogger at Scienceblogs.com whowrote about the stigmaaround taking antidepressant medication, a stigma that doesn't exist for most other medications.

"Great Caesar's Ghost!" as my grandmother wouldexclaim … Ihear the samestuff this blogger hears all the time and it drives me CRAZY!!!… wait … where's my antidepressant? 😉

As Mark Chu-Carroll explains in part of his piece:

"Out of the dozens of people who've heard about my stomach problem, and know about the drugs I take for it, how many have lectured me about how I shouldn't take those nasty drugs? Zero. No one has ever even made a comment about how I shouldn't be taking medications for something that's just uncomfortable. Even knowing that some of the stuff I take for it is addictive, no one, not one single person has ever told me that I didn't need my medication. No one would even consider it.

But depression? It's a very different story."

I'm sure many of you who have taken meds as part of your treatment for postpartum depression or any other perinatal mood or anxiety disorder have come up against this. It's okay to take antibiotics or statins or insulin or whatever else you're prescribed for other ailments, but whoa baby, NOT THE ANTIDEPRESSAAAAAAANTS!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!! (meant to simulate screaming sound)

After he concludes his post, you'll find a long andinvolved andamazing discussion — comment after comment from people who have had the same experience, or people who understand how real depression is and that for some it requires treatment with medication, as well as from people who disagree with the use of psychiatric medication but do so with intelligence and kindness, not raving and misstatement of fact.

Antidepressants are not the end all, be all. They aren't perfect. They're not always necessary. They don't work for everybody. They can even be dangerous to some, as can most other medications. But they're also the only thing that works for some. The thing that saves many women's lives.It's not an EITHER/OR situation.

I refuse to be stigmatized about my treatment choices. I refuse to be stigmatized about having a mental illness.

I refuse to be stigmatized.

For more stories from Postpartum Progress on medication and postpartum depression, click the link.

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