I think the stigma about mental health treatment in this country is a serious detriment to the treatment of postpartum depression. We're so conditioned to believe that we are always fully in control of how we feel at all times. So many women suffering from it feel as if they're somehow personally to blame, as if it is an indicator that they are horrible people for even having these thoughts. The fact is, though, that giving birth results in an incredible hormonal shift, and it's therefore not surprising in the least that one's brain chemistry might be thrown out of whack by the whole experience. I know people are all hung up on that we treat all psychological problems as simple chemical issues which can be quickly fixed by drugs, but in the case of postpartum depression, it's hard to deny that chemistry is the primary culprit here. I mean, if someone took a big hit of heroin, for example, no one would say that his change in behavior was all mental, and that if he really wanted to, he could act normally even under the influence of the drug. And yet, the process of giving birth results in huge surges of certain hormones and huge drops in others, and yet we attribute the resulting changes to be all mental, all completely unrelated to biology. `