printShiloh Jolie-Pitt? Go back to Namibia. Look at the child of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. What an adorable poppet with her shock of black hair and her lovely blue eyes. Truly a gorgeous little girl.
American masses can’t stand a non-conformist. Since I blogged, in “Cruise and the Shamans,” about the actor’s heroic stand against the “The psychiatric peanut gallery,” I learned from Professor Jeffrey A. Schaler that Cruise indeed is a principled devotee of Thomas S. Szasz’s works. What a shame he went and apologized to the silly Brooke Shields for trying to get her to clear her head instead of doping it up.
The photographs of the bonny baby were obviously also in the same vein—an attempt to ward off another Paramount mishap and ensure the Cruise brand remains bankable. Oh well, bully for baby Cruise; she’s one beautiful bundle.
Yes, the baby’s a cute little rascal. But then what baby isn’t. [Pasty fat faces, dribbling mouths, and dumb glares—no, most babies are not nice at all. How many like this one have you seen?–ILANA] (Although I’m told that when my father came home from overseas he took one look at me and wanted to go back to the China Burma India theater and charge the Japanese bare-handed. Alas the war was over and he was stuck with me.) Beyond the fact that these Hollywood beautiful people can turn out beautiful babies, like assembly lines of fecundity, who cares? Most of them are empty-headed fruit loops and, alas, the beautiful babies grow up to be just as loopy.
I’m not much of a fan of either Tom Cruise or Brook Shields, nor have I ever reproduced, but from what women friends have told me and from what I have read, postpartum depression is definitely *real*. The sudden hormone shift, I think, is what underlies it. I have read that fish oil is good for depression in general (essential fatty acids are good for the brain, and are what it’s made of); it affects the cascade of sex hormones; and it seems to be good for pregnant women and their babies in particular (less morning sickness, less likelihood of premature birth, easier birth, babies with better brains, etc.). (And no, I am not making an excuse for Andrea Yates and her ilk!! She deserves punishment for what she did.)
[it’s one of those fashionable diagnoses, like bipolar; the more you ‘educate’ women about it, the more they get it. I had never heard of it when my girl was born, but then again if I had become sad, I’d have treated that as a normal part of life, not as signs of ‘disease.’]Â
Pasty, fat faces? Dribbling mouths and dumb glares? Ilana please.. You’ve gone too far. You can insult Hezbollah and the Republican party all you want. You can slap Superman or Josie Wales if you like. But, when you start calling babies ugly you’re going to have mobs of mamas storming your castle with pitchforks and torches just like an old Frankenstein movie.
Yes, your daughter’s picture is darling. So are mine. I was just being polite to all the rest.
Suri is definitely cute (and so is your daughter), but I have to disagree with Cruise and with you too, Ilana… there are several members of my family who are to some degree “paranoid schizophrenic” and other things. My brother was perhaps autistic (no one seems to know for sure). I have experienced severe depression, though not the postpartum kind. And some women DO get depressed after birth, not merely sad. “Mental illness” may be nebulous and psychiatry/psychology may be soft science, but something is going on with severe depression and other problems… it’s not merely being “sad.” Wherever people’s problems come from, whether they be due to some brain imbalance (inherited or not) or psychological trauma, it’s not merely something that is fashionable.” I agree that drugs are over-prescribed, but if a person feels that life is hardly worth living, maybe sometimes they are helped (by drugs, fish oil, therapy, whatever). There is just so much that is NOT known yet about the way the brain/mind works.
[There are objective reasons for becoming very very sad—even depressed. Or example, most Americans don’t exercise and are obese. Does one need an expert to tell one that anything we do affects are minds, as body and mind are one, and that depression is perfectly logical given such circumstances of obesity, loss of work, lack of rewarding work, or poverty? Of course, most American would rather be told they are “sick,” given a pill and avoid running 4 miles a day. If you re-read the links to the columns provided, “Trading Morality for Medical Mumbo-Jumbo,” and “Broken Brains?”, you’ll see that there is no good science linking so-called chemical imbalances to depression—or brain abnormality to ADHD, for that matter.—ILANA]
Cruise’s kid is not very cute. Her eyes are beautiful.
Drugs should be a last resort to mental problems. I believe that many mental problems can be treated without drugs. But there are also real mental problems that may not stem from a “diseases” per se but a malfunction of “normal” brain functions. I hope that’s not even an issue of debate with you.
[It is an issue of debate as you’d know if you read the links provided. Or apprised yourself of Thomas Szasz’s work. See links provided to Pam Maltzman, above. More in the “Junk Science” archive.]
My wife just went out and bought Vanity Fair just for the pictures. She’s entranced by that mop of raven hair as well and is now waiting for our six-week-old girl’s hair to thicken so she can see what color she’ll have. I just hope she gets to keep her mother’s Polish-blue eyes…
Having had relatives in nutty cults like EST and cult-like groups such as PETA, I can say that most are on balance harmless, though obnoxious. Scientlology may be another matter though. They are known for their tactic of agressively punishing critics through lawsuits.
Yes, a beautiful baby indeed.
Ms. Mercer, one of the side effects of these anti-depression meds is early menopause. This has been hushed-up to ensure that all women will accpet the “depressive” and “bi-polar” tags that keep so many doctors knee-deep in yachts and rolex watches.
Used to be, if a woman cried alot, it meant she was sensitive. They have turned sensitivity into a disease. I applaud Tom Cruise in his efforts to expose the paychiatric establishment for what it is–a old boy’s club that disrespects the fine-tuned temperaments of sensitve women.
Scientology is another matter… I was friends for years with a woman who was a member. Fortunately she only made one attempt to rope me into the cult and most of the time left me alone in that regard. She did, however, call me a neurotic Jew when I finally got tired of some of her obnoxious behavior and ended the friendship.
I’m not going to argue against the fact that psychiatry/psychology has a lot of mumbo-jumbo practitioners in it. As a medical transcriptionist, I type up at least some reports every day for people who are hospitalized for psychiatric problems. They hear voices. They think the TV is sending them messages from the mother ship. They have delusional thinking of various kinds. They want to kill themselves for one reason or another. Some of them might be malingering, but probably not all.
Maybe some depressed persons are obese and inactive, but certainly not all. Not all American problems can be attributed to being overweight, although it is fashionable to ridicule people who are overweight.
And I don’t believe that all people need to do is run four miles per day (for one thing, I have had knee injuries that would mitigate against that, even if I wanted to). If it works for you, fine. If you’ve never been more than “sad,” great for you.
Of course I don’t know all the specifics of every case I’ve ever heard of. But clearly some people have trouble with just making it through the day, and they’re not physically disabled.
[Perhaps I’ve not explained what I mean. I’m also not talking about psychosis, btw. I’ve never said that it’s all about one thing or another, but if one combines various approaches: exercise, talk therapy, friendships and support systems, proper eating, some life affirming goals and interests, then improvements in the human condition are equal to if not better than medication. Americans expect to be happy. Sadness or depression, however, is part of life. It’s a normal response to stresses. Try icing the knees and some good shoes. Power walking is also good. You’re talking to someone who has experienced a great deal of sorrow in life (including living in Africa and Israel, experiencing REAL war, and immigration many times over, which to my mind is worse than all the above.
Take care,
Yours,
Ilana]
Okay… here are a couple of references for the fact that essential fatty acids, meaning fish oil and sometimes the combination of fish oil (EPA and DHA) and evening primrose oil (GLA) frequently does help depression:
Michael Norden, MD: Beyond Prozac. He also mentions Seasonal Affective Disorder, which means that the sufferer is not getting enough sunlight in winter. He also mentions the combination of fish oil and primrose oil. He also mentions various devices for simulating natural sunlight (as an aid to stabilizing sleep/wake cycles), because we also need sunlight.
Michael and Mary Dan Eades, MD: Protein Power (various books).
Barry Sears, PhD: The Omega Rx Zone.
The anti-fat hysteria which has been force-fed to the public by various “authorities” probably has been contributing to the incidence of depression. People are so damned afraid to eat anything resembling fat, especially an animal fat. Well, too much corn, soy, and other vegetable oils in the diet are known to trigger chronic disease, and are far more harmful than animal fats. We need saturated fats. We need good fats for the brain.
It’s true that most Americans have not experienced the things you mention… multiple immigrations, direct experience with war, etc.
Some people live through hell and manage to make it through somehow, with only situational depression which clears after a time.
Some other people, Americans included, who might seem to have fewer “reasons” for “objective” depression, do in fact have long-term depression which might not seem to have a proximate, objective cause.
All I know for sure is that I was pretty badly depressed for several years, and fish oil (sometimes with primrose oil) seemed to help.
[Thanks; your advice is very valuable. I take Omega as well. And we all fight those demons. I’ll be a lot happier when the political landscape isn’t so sick, as I wrote here.]
Another very interesting book, which I need to re-read again, is _Lights Out_. One of the authors is T.S. Wiley (I think that’s her name); another one is a Danish scientist whose name I can’t remember. The tone is too flippant for my taste, but they pull together a lot of interesting information. They advise people to eat real butter, to get enough sleep, and to sleep in the dark. Being out of synch with the earth’s natural light-and-dark cycles is supposedly another contributor to depression and chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.
I’ve heard and read comments (elsewhere) to the effect that we Americans are so relatively comfortable and well-off (compared to much of the rest of the world) that many of us have forgotten what real adversity is (wars, immigration due to dislocation, etc.). Also that Americans have forgotten the need for warriors for our own defense; indeed, it seems that a lot of Americans have forgotten about the need for any kind of self-defense, and assume that people from other countries and cultures are just like us and think like us. I think there is more than a grain of truth in all of the above.
Still, some of us relatively fortunate Americans get depressed for one reason or another. It’s probably true that some of us get that way for reasons you mentioned above.
I personally don’t know enough to speculate about all the reasons why, and I’m not going to pretend that I do. I do read bits and pieces of things, put them together with both my experience and that of friends, and brood on the whole mess.