Dads get PND apparently

[Cabinfever10]

am watching a BBC news article right now claiming that he had PND 🤬 hes set up a charity for men with PND.
I'm disgusted with them what else will they try to steal from us

Thank you for the reading recommendation @CuriousaboutSamphire

I agree that toxic masculinity affects men and women can’t fix that,
But to my mind, having a special name for depression triggered by childbirth is an example of misogyny differentiating female womb caused depression from higher more serious male depression...similar to the jokes about man flu.

A fantastic book I’d like to recommend to you about the misogyny in the medical profession towards women regarding mental illness is “The Female Malady” by Elaine Showalter.

“In this informative, timely and often harrowing study, Elaine Showalter demonstrates how cultural ideas about 'proper' feminine behaviour have shaped the definition and treatment of female insanity for 150 years, and given mental disorder in women specifically sexual connotations. Along with vivid portraits of the men who dominated psychiatry, and descriptions of the therapeutic practices that were used to bring women 'to their senses', she draws on diaries and narratives by inmates, and fiction from Mary Wollstonecraft to Doris Lessing, to supply a cultural perspective usually missing from studies of mental illness.”

also “Mad, Bad and Sad” by Lisa Appiganesi
“Mad, bad and sad. From the depression suffered by Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath to the mental anguish and addictions of iconic beauties Zelda Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe. From Freud and Jung and the radical breakthroughs of psychoanalysis to Lacan's construction of a modern movement and the new women-centred therapies. This is the story of how we have understood mental disorders and extreme states of mind in women over the last two hundred years and how we conceive of them today, when more and more of our inner life and emotions have become a matter for medics and therapists.”

I’ve read about men who are actively involved in infant care having a significant and permanent drop-off in testosterone (makes sense). As a female person affected by the vagaries of my hormones, I can imagine that being a shock to a chap’s system. Not sure it’s a good idea to muddle the MH labels though.

@LittlePearl

I think the tone of some posts here is unhelpful.

Ok, it was a mistake to call it PND but the experience they are describing is real and worthy of attention.

It's no good calling men out for not being involved in their children's lives and then railing at them for describing the emotional shockwaves that may come with that involvement.

Totally agree there

This is not new news and yes they can.

Not read the whole thread.

This has come up before.

Raising this as an issue for men is great.

Give it a different name though please. See also, male menopause.

I agree it needs a different name but the dismissive, vitriolic reaction to men's experience is odd. Like it's all a competition.

isn't that women are blocking men from accessing help, it is eons of toxic masculinity, the other face of patriarchy, that does that.

Not that this should be a reason to self censure but I don't think we can really say that with some of the comments on this thread. Clearly any new dad complaining of depression following the birth of their child will be seen as malingering and attention seeking by some.

Presuming here that most if not all on the thread are women.

I think the thing is that women have fought to get these things recognised for years, and still don't get proper treatment.

So if it's accepted that men go though menopause/ get PND then what women have fought for, and is still substandard, gets shared across with men.

They need to raise awareness etc as women did, as a specific male issue.

When it's really not the same thing.

They need to raise awareness etc as women did, as a specific male issue

The op says that a man has set up a charity for this so they're doing exactly what you asked aren't they?

They need to raise awareness etc as women did, as a specific male issue

Were they demanding their own special branch of the current charities serving women or were they setting up a charity offering support to men? I thought it was the latter but this makes me think I must be wrong.

@botchpotch

They need to raise awareness etc as women did, as a specific male issue

Were they demanding their own special branch of the current charities serving women or were they setting up a charity offering support to men? I thought it was the latter but this makes me think I must be wrong.

Well this is what op said

hes set up a charity for men with PND.

So that says he set up a charity for men

women have fought to get these things recognised for years, and still don't get proper treatment.

Not really. Galen and Herodotus (Ancient Greek physicians) first recognised PND in women, they just called it hysteria. And it had that name for the next two thousand years.

I think men saying they get PND and menopause is wrong.

These are related to female biological processes.

Why don't they choose a different name rather than co-opting something that is about women.

And yes if it's accepted that men get PND and menopause the same as women I can easily imagine resources being diverted or shared, and also conversations on TV, pieces in the paper etc starting to include male view on these issues and watering the focus on women down.

It's not the same thing and deserves its own name and discussions.

I recently had this with a friend. I thought she was joking at first when she asked if men could get it. It seemed pretty obvious to me. I explained they didn’t go through the natal in order to have anything post-natal.