‘Breaking cover’ in book helped heal PND sufferer
● “I could feel the judgment burning into my forehead like a scarlet letter D as I lapped the hospital corridors … I had no cast, no crutches, nor IV stand.
“And yet I was ill … it was a daily fight against disease.”
Happily married to lawyer Warren and mother of three young children, Durban freelance journalist and author Lauren Shapiro, 36, said hospitalisation became her only choice after she was stricken with perinatal distress (PND) in 2012 while pregnant with her third child.
She “went public” with her story and last week, her book, Through the Window: How I beat PND, came off the printing press.
“While I was pregnant, my therapist suggested that I write a book. But it took me two years to start opening my diaries and journals and get into that head space. It was very, very hard but very therapeutic,” she said. “The real motivation was to help others by sharing my story.”
In her book she writes: “PND is a subject most people don’t understand and speak about enough. But it is a recognisable medical illness and many women suffer from it in silence.”
She had researched the illness for magazine articles but never considered that she would fall victim to it.
As her stress spiralled she felt herself slipping out of control, she said. “As I trudged on about my business, there was just silence. Dark, scary silence.”
Many people still believe that mental illnesses like PND are “all in your head”, Shapiro said. “So it was hard for me not to think that way even though I knew in my bones it was blatantly untrue. The drugs helped, as did the psychotherapy, but it was a daily fight.”
Shapiro said she knew that in order to begin healing, she had to “blow her cover”.
The support she got was “surprising”, with many women admitting that they, too, had experienced a similar struggle.