Society's Misogyny Causes Depression
Only Country With No Help
Our government gives women zero help with raising children. The United States is the only western developed country that does not offer maternity leave. Only 12 % have this type of leave at their work.
Not rocket science, people, and not surprising that married mothers would be unhappy with this type of help. When we get married and choose to stay home with the kids, no one wants to be financially dependent on another person. We do not think we might have to put up with an abusive marriage to make sure we aren’t homeless or lose our medical insurance. Still, many of us deal with this down the line. Prince Charming is not supposed to develop a personality disorder or closet misogynist.
Putting too much on our plates so that we are too busy and overwhelmed to fight back is another tactic they use to keep us weak and under their control. On the motherhood rollercoaster, you get pulled along the train. Perfectionism in itself often comes with issues of anxiety, depression, and increased suicide risk.
Family Leave, Child Care and Elder Care
The white men who run this country designed workplaces to help married men with wives at home or single men. Legally allowing women to go to work without the other family leave is setting up women to fail. I thought feminism was about giving women more choices but the two extremes we have are not real choices like men have.
My mom gave up her job to take care of my sister and me because she had struggled to find quality childcare, picking me up sunburned at six weeks from a drunk babysitter. She wanted to stay home with us, but she still struggled with needing the outside self-esteem that a job can give you. No kids thank their mom for cleaning the toilet, and my sister and I were no exception.
If pressed on it, most liberal working moms will admit to struggling with both their roles. Conservative mothers have been trained that God wants them to be obedient, submissive, and uncomplaining, so they won’t give an accurate picture of how hard the job is. My conservative aunt worked full-time, raising three boys, never had help with cooking and cleaning. She did not complain one time, even when she had breast cancer twice. It was not until my aunt passed away did my uncle learned how to do the laundry.
The Role of Patriarchy With Therapists
In a 2018 Forbes magazine article, renowned couples’ therapist Terry Real about the damaging effects on relationships. Real said, “Patriarchy does not exist only in men. The force of patriarchy is the water that we all swim in, and we’re the fish. Women can be just as patriarchal as men by holding those same types of values and biases.” It’s hard for therapists to see their own biases, especially if they have been told these biases don’t exist.
I came upon a blog post from a licensed psychologist, Misty Hook, a mom explaining how disappointed she has been in her own professions’ lack of support for mothers. “Therapists know married mothers with children have the highest rates of depression, but our culture doesn’t give us much support (lots of lip service, sure, but minimal support).”
She added, “As a psychologist myself, I eagerly turned toward my field to get assistance only to find that not only had we not been all that useful, but at times we’ve been downright terrible.” Psychologists are often quick to blame mothers for everything, even when they know many of these issues are caused by a lack of societal, community, and partner support.”
When do we have time for adequate rest and self-care when many of us have the sole burden of keeping our kids alive and meeting their medical and emotional needs?
This competitive American culture is not good for women and families. We need to advocate for more family leave. England has two weeks of mandatory leave for fathers. We need to identify the patriarchy when it happens because we can’t get over a problem we can’t see.
Other Biological Causes
Depression is thought to be genetic 70-80% of the time. Environmental events play a role too. Stressful. events can change your structures in your brain which might be another reason why mothers are so depressed.
Symptoms
Depression is a serious medical illness that negatively affects how you feel, the way you think and how you act. Depression causes feelings of sadness and/or a loss of interest in activities you once enjoyed. It can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems and can decrease your ability to function at work and at home. You can changes your eating habits either weight loss or gain. and trouble sleeping or sleeping too much. You might have loss of energy or trouble sitting still, feelings of guilt, and difficulty concentrating or making decisions. Thoughts of suicide are another possible symptom.
Symptoms must last at least two weeks.
TREATMENTS
Medication/CBD( Cannabis)
THERAPY-CBT/DBT
When SSRIs were developed based on things that were known about CBD. Using CBD or anti-depressant medication plus CBT/DBT type therapy have the best resuts in lessening depression symptoms.
Doctors usually start with SSRIs when prescribing medication. These medications have fewer side effects and gradually move on to the SSRNIs, atypical, tricyclic and MAOIs in that order. MAOIs have the most severe side effects more commonly according to the Mayo Clinic. Check the website for information about all the potential available antidepressants.
Ketamine is a new option for depression treatment. It has been used as a pain reliever since the 1970s because it does not slow breathing so patients don’t need to be on a respirator. Patients with depression/anxiety are finding help with Ketamine especially with untreatable depressions failing on other medications.
Some things doctors consider when choosing medication is if anyone in your family takes the medication, other medications you are currently taking, possible side effects and whether you are pregnant or nursing.
According to most studies, CBT is a specific type of talk therapy that can work as well as or better than medication. Most of the time people need a combination of the medication and CBT to feel their best but there.
CBT is not a therapy where you talk about the past or find another reason to blame your mom. You don’t need to spend time looking for why you have depression. It does not matter why you have depression in order to get better. You just get right to work on identifying and challenging your own negative thoughts. I had excellent experience of my own with CBT and was able to sleep and function without medication for 15 years. The combination of the two for me has been the best result.
DBT is a type of CBT that has a Mindfulness component added to it which works great.fi
ECT Electroconvulsive Therapy
(ECT)Electroconvulsive Therapy has been used since the 1940s and is more a mainstream treatment rather than a last resort due to improvements. Usually other treatments like medication and therapy are tried first but changes
rTMS(Transcannial Magnetic Stimulation)
It uses a magnetic field produced by an electric current applied to the temple. This device was approved by treatment-resistant depression.
