Throughout time, mental illness has been misunderstood and treated with disregard to the ill person’s mental well being. For a long period, the only treatment option for a person suffering from mental illness was to lock him or her away in a hospital. But recently, changes have been made, and breakthroughs in the cause and treatment of mental illness have been discovered. Unfortunately, these breakthroughs did not come soon enough for some. Luckily, psychologists have learned from the recent mistakes of doctors’ treatments.
One example of improper treatment is in Charlotte Perkins Gilmore’s short story The Yellow Wallpaper. Gilman reflects her own history and battle with depression in The Yellow Wallpaper, with exageration of the characters, Gilman emphasizes on the lack of knowledge and the severity of improper treatment. Slowly, science has evolved in the treatment and prevention of Postpartum Depression and Psychosis. Doctors now know the importance of proper and immediate treatment, but society still attached a nasty stigma to those women who sffer from these disorders.
Women who suffer from postpartum depression feel ashamed and embarrassed, as if they have done something wrong and because of this many women do not seek help and depression leads to psychosis, although according to the National Mental Health Association “about one-tenth of one percent of new mothers” are affected by psychosis (www.nmha.org). Nevertheless, postpartum psychosis is a serious and dangerous disease, and as misunderstood as it was one hundred years ago, it is even more so today by the public. In the defense of doctors from Gilman’s time, science hadn’t evolved yet, so ignorance was a matter of a lack of information. Gilman had been treated by the well-known Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell, Mitchell had developed the “Rest Cure” for women with postpartum psychosis, the treatment being “Live as domestic a life as far as possible”, “have but two hours’ intellectual life a day” and “never to touch a pen, brush, or pencil again” (The Story And Its Writer). Mitchell also prescribed bed rest, without realizing the consequences of someone doing absolutely nothing for a long period of time.
Now it is the public who is ignorant, the difference being, the information is out there, the proof is available to anyone that postpartum psychosis is a real illness. Even so, when psychosis is the cause of a tragedy, the woman is still considered evil. I know a woman who, because she never suffered from the “baby blues” does not believe it’s a real illness. Of course, this is a microscopic view of the situation; my friend is just one woman, but if a woman cannot understand the plight of another woman, then how can a man ever understand? Men who force pre-conceived obligations on their wives, much like the women in The Yellow Wallpaper, are still out there convinced women are here to pro-create and keep house. This state of mind only magnifies the problem, when a spouse will not acknowledge the immediate need for proper treatment. I have witnessed a man who considered his girlfriend lazy, rather that realizing she was severly depressed and slipping over the edge into psychosis. Somehow, he gained control of this woman, whom I had known for years to be a strong willed person, and held her under his thumb, where she remained for 11 years. This man monitored everything she did, she was totally loyal to him, obeying his every word. She had never been like that before, she was a strong person who lived her life as she saw fit, until she became depressed. By the time anyone had got help for her she had hit rock bottom, she suffered visual and auditory hallucinations and paranoia. She was about to give birth by that time. The depression and psychosis persisted on and off. Instead of taking care of her, and helping her with medications, she became pregnant a second and third time. With each pregnancy she had to be admitted into a psychiatric hospital and the psychosis became worse and worse. This man saw her trips to the hospital as mini-vacations and did not take her illness seriously. Thankfully, my friend’s story does not end in tragedy, she slowly recovered with the help of medication, therapy and leaving this man for good. But she will never be the same person I once knew again.
Every time a woman commits a crime, it is not because she is ill, but there are clear cases of mental illness that have resulted in murder, suicide or both. Some women have a history of mental illness and the public refuses to understand the potential for postpartum depression and psychosis is in every woman. Andrea Yates is a good example of a terrible situation. According to www.about.com Yates drowned her five small children one day in June 2001, she then called her husband at work and 911. When the police arrived Andrea explained what she had done and why. Yates claimed that she had to kill her children to punish herself for not being righteous. The public, understandably, was shocked and saddened, how could a mother do such a terrible thing? Andrea Yates has a history of mental illness that became worse with every child her husband and herself had, her Dr’s had warned her not to have any more children. Her husband had convinced her otherwise, and that is when the extreme psychosis set in. Andrea Yates family described Russell Yates as “selfish, controlling, demanding, unemotional, manipulative, superior, insensitive to Andrea’s needs, and unwilling to help with the children” (www.about.com). If what is said is true, then Russell Yates was the type of man who expected his wife to have as many children as he wanted her to and then take care of him, the home and the children’s needs on her own.
Gilman only had one child, but she was of a time when women were expected to do exactly what Andrea Yates was expected to do. The men in these families thought knew what was best for them. I wonder if, after all was said and done, the husbands of Charlotte Perkins Gilmore and Andrea Yates realized that they could have helped, that they where wrong. The outcome of both these situations and many more are tragic. Charlotte Perkins Gilmore eventually committed suicide and, of course we all know, Andrea Yates murdered her five beautifull children and will spend the rest of her life in prison.
It is time for society to realize postpartum depression and psychosis are real and dangerous illnesses, women who suffer from these illnesses are not doing it on purpose. It is not a ploy for attention. These women are desperate and grasping for help, they are drowning in their own psychosis. Too many times people have stood back and watched in shock at the changes of loved ones, only realizing too late that a little help receiving the right treatment and not judging each other for a disease we cannot control can save lives.
“The glory of our race is its power of communication.
We share our strength and knowledge and rise as one; we share our failure and weakness and help each other bear it.” – Charlotte Perkins Gilman http://web.cortland.edu/gilman/
To read Charrlotte Perkins Gilman’s Short Story The Yellow Wallpaper, go to
http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/Charlotte_Perkins_Gilman/
The_Yellow_Wallpaper/The_Yellow_Wallpaper_p1.html
To read about Charlotte Perkins Gilman go to
http://web.cortland.edu/gilman/
Works Cited
www.about.com. Stirof,Sheri and Bob. November 5th 2005. November 13th 2005. http://www.about.com/
Gilman Perkins, Charlotte. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The Story And Its Writer. ED Anne Charters. 6th ed. New York: Bedford ST. Martins, 2003. Pg 306-318 and 878-879.
National Mental Health Association. Novener 13th 2005. http://www.nmha.org
