After a Mother’s Day weekend, where I appreciated my mother more than ever before, I have been reflecting on all that I learned at last week’s viewing of a film about postpartum depression. Here is a re-cap of the night and some of my own reflections.
~Crystal~
Last Friday night, after a long week, I thoroughly enjoyed myself at The Smiling Mask showing at The Broadway Theatre, our community-owned theatre here in Saskatoon. Its full title is The Smiling Mask: Truths about Postpartum Depression and Parenthood, which tells the story of three families and their individual struggles with postpartum depression.
Did you know that 1 in 5 women in Saskatchewan experience depression during or after pregnancy?
The film walked the viewers through three interviews with two couples and one single woman. They started out telling the story of the three families and how they came to be. It then went on to tell their individual stories of getting pregnant, having their baby, and what happened after. Each of these cases were different – two of the women had postpartum psychosis and one woman had postpartum depression. The film finished by telling how the families got through the rough time following the birth of their children and how each of them came through their darkness, with much support from their friends, families, and health care professionals.
The beauty of this documentary are the raw emotions and realness that was evident throughout. It made me really feel what they were feeling, except for the visions of psychosis of course. The part that really moved me was the reasoning behind the name of the film and the project. Like so many women and people in our society who suffer from mental illness, they have to “put on a smiling face when inside you’re dying.” This is a sentiment shared on the film. As a doula, I take this very seriously. If there is any person that a woman can be real with, it’s with her doula.
After the film, there was a great question and answer period with all of the people from the film, who all came to Saskatoon from Regina and area. I especially appreciated the husbands’ perspectives as support people. Both of the men featured in the film struggled a lot with supporting their partner, but they both said that they feel stronger because of the experience. I guess that’s what hardship is all about. I very much appreciated one husband’s comment about our health care system being based around crisis, instead of prevention. This is why this project was formed and why they have made their resources available at their website and at Saskatchewan Maternal Mental Health website.
Another great part of the film and project is that these are “regular” women, who happen to be part of a statistic. They are mothers, partners, care providers, and people. They want to bring a message of awareness to everyone about postpartum depression and I think they succeeded. We have a copy of the book and the DVD in our library, which is available to be lent out.
