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There needs to be a NEW, BOLDER AND BETTER WAY TOWARD PREVENTION of suicides and family tragedy; of lost bonding; broken lives;
splintered families; and continued societal misunderstandings as a result of twenty lost research years and medical student
education.
PAROLE 4 PREVENTION!
RESEARCHERS in the prenatal/postpartum field should be working side by side with those women still striving to find all
the missing pieces to their particular "mother maze".
At the end of the legislative hearing to pass the bill, "The Melanie Blocker Stokes Postpartum Research and Care
Act", one legislator, who used to be an Obstetrician said, "After hearing from everyone today, I can't help but
think that there is still something missing." That "something" missing is to be found in the woman's past experiences
when psyche split from reality into a fantasy world of unconscious cover-up. Existing to exist instead of living to live.
Please, "DO NOT TURN AWAY" from embracing a new, bolder idea toward prevention. PLEASE let one of my gals at Dwight
team up with a Researcher in a "home" setting where nothing distracts the psyche from healing and helping the cause
toward future prevention of suicide/infanticide for other unsuspecting new mothers.
THE USE OF INAPPROPRIATE TERMINOLOGY OR LACK THEREOF HAS BEEN SOCIETY'S DOWNFALL IN UNDERSTANDING THE CAUSE AND EFFECT
OF MEDICAL NEGLECT.
In The DICTIONARY OF MEDICAL SYNDROMES, by LIPPINCOTT-RAVEN, PHILADELPHIA, 1997, 4th Ed., pages 646-647 - discuss and
recognize three phases of postpartum: Baby blues, Postpartum Depression/PPD and Postpartum Psychosis as Post Partum Blues
Syndrome.
Women go to their doctors with signs and symptoms of depression, anxiety, compulsiveness, panic, and some do have psychotic
overtones, but are often told "give it time" or "get some more sleep" - in other words, women are not
taken seriously regarding what their inner-most, gut feeling is telling them: "something is wrong, I can feel it".
Women, as new mothers, do not purposely plan to have their life go awry via "depression with postpartum onset"
and/or "Psychosis with postpartum onset" anymore than I could avoid getting breast cancer in 2003.
The gals at Dwight Correctional Facility in Illinois, have more than paid their debt to society. When is society going
to pay their debt to other women whose future generations will befall the insidious malady of PPD and Psychotic Depression
if continually looking the other way? These women are still in prison after 10, 15 and yes, for some its meant 20+ years
of waiting for society to get it right. where they could have become part of the answers to the mother maze.
The subconscious mind will not release the knowledge of trauma/abuse until such time as "it" feels the victim,
women/new mothers, are strong enough to deal with what happened to them; most stay in the abusive life-style and are never
ready to accept having been victimized and therefore are prime candidates for depression with psychotic overtones.
These are beautifully spirited, God-fearing women that I have had the pleasure of being pen pals with for the past five
years. I made it my mission to educate them on the past whys and wherefores regarding why society failed them.
Today these women are looking forward to being on my team toward prevention! I am so proud of their progress toward wholeness
and wellness. They will live with what they did and were accused of the rest of their earthly life, but what good are they
locked away when they could be working with a researcher to solve the mystery of why?
The malformed psyche, formed during childhood, cannot grasp what is happening and struggles to make sense of the senseless.
Day by day, the new mother (for first and subsequent children) slips further and further away from reality.
The Clemency Board must ask themselves: How does staying in prison help to find out what we so desperately need to know
- "cause and effect" for "future prevention"?
It would only take one courageous governor to focus attention on postpartum prevention research rather than on
societal outcry as a result of lack of Research, Education, Awareness for Prevention (My unofficial, future offical R.E.A.P.
Foundation's goal!
A governor's role as "educator" should be about educating and as such has an obligation to fill the educational
void society has failed to learn regarding what is known surrounding what constitutes the prevention of women ending up where
my gals at Dwight find themselves: without a chance to give back through being part of the solution through offering their
stories to a researcher who just may unlock the right door to a medical phenomenon that goes back to Hippocrates.
The mission, should the Illinois governor accept it, is to release ONE of "our" women at Dwight as an experiment
to do research to bring about postpartum prevention. This would be a very different kind of release program; one where all
of society would benefit.
The release program would connect the parolee with a professional postpartum researcher (Postpartum Support International,
PSI could recommend one) who would be assigned to meet with the parolee as warranted by the Parole Board. Both researcher
and participant would work to go back in time - connecting negative experiences with past abuse and traumatic events (from
childhood and/or adulthood); that just may have contributed toward the woman's imprisonment.
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