




In my AP psychology class during my senior year of high school, we had a mock simulation treating different types of mental disorders. The disorder that I had to treat was postpartum depression. Prior to the simulation, I didn’t even know that postpartum depression existed, nevertheless was a mental disorder. I was required to do extensive research on the disorder and decide what the best possible medical treatment would be for the patient. This research allowed me to understand the importance of getting treatment for this disorder, because without the help, it can be detrimental to the bond a mother has with her child. However, the treatment of the mother with postpartum depression is important for her recovery. In the Yellow Wallpaper written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, postpartum depression is what the narrator suffers from. In this short story, the treatment for the disorder prescribed to the narrator is solitude. This is not advisable for someone with postpartum depression, and this can be seen throughout the story as the narrator becomes worse mentally. Combining the disorder with seclusion is not an advisable treatment plan because it will create more issues beside the initial problem (depression), especially with a person’s emotional state. Loneliness is the emotion that drives many people to madness in mental institutions, and this can be seen in Gilman’s story. Because postpartum depression is a problem associated with mental health, proper treatment is necessary, and treating mothers like the insane by locking them away only makes them “crazier” because of loneliness. 

Postpartum depression is a serious condition that affects mothers after they give birth to their child. It is common for new mothers to develop this disorder, and it should not be taken lightly if symptoms arise. Symptoms may include; “depression, feelings of guilt, and loosing interesting in the baby,” (Harvard Health). The scary part about postpartum depression is that there is not much that can be done to prevent the disorder. If mothers are worried about developing this disorder, they should seek out help before the baby arrives. Also, trying to prevent sleep deprivation is vital to staying connected with the baby, which is typically, for mothers, the worst side effect of postpartum depression. If mothers don’t feel connected with their child when it’s born, it is difficult to feel close to the baby as it grows older. What makes postpartum depression “better” than other disorders are that there are treatment plans that can be used to help mothers feel more connected to the baby and to stop the feelings of guilt and depression. The easiest treatment plan is a prescription for antidepressants for the patient. However, combining cognitive behavioral therapy and antidepressants make for a better overall treatment plan. A cognitive behavioral therapist tries to adjust the way the mother feels about her depression and finds ways to relieve stress and make her feel less depressed. (Harvard Health). It should be noted that nowhere in the article does it state that isolation should be a form of treatment. Isolation and solitude creates a facade that the mother is mentally crazy. Although postpartum depression is a disorder, the mother should not be treated like a patient in an insane asylum. This is precisely what happened in The Yellow Wallpaper.

Since medication like Thorazine, an antipsychotic drug, were finally introduced into the medical field, insane asylums became outdated (E. Torrey). However, when this story was written, medical professionals thought that the rest cure was the best way to treat patients. Antipsychotic medication did not exist during this time period, so isolation seemed like the only suitable option for the mothers with postpartum depression. Doctors thought that if they prescribed mothers alone time as a form of relaxation, they would be treated. However, this was not the case. Seclusion is what was used for patients in insane asylums as well. Treating mothers like patients in an asylum is not an advisable route to take if the mother wants to eventually get better. There is proof that patients who stay for prolonged periods in these rooms only get worse. The reason why patients get worse is because of loneliness. This emotion is what stems a lot of issues regarding mental illness in general (Kim Leland). If a patient has a mental illness and then is forced to be in a room alone, it creates an ambience of loneliness and thus makes the patient long for human contact. When this happens, patients may sometimes create a “person” to talk to because they are so alone. 

The short story The Yellow Wallpaper tells the narrative about a woman who suffers from postpartum depression. The main issue regarding the main character is that she was prescribed the “rest cure” which is basically just making someone stay in a room isolated from everyone and everything. This is what the narrator is told to do by her brother and husband who are both doctors. It is ironic because the doctors prescribed her to stay in the room with the yellow wallpaper to get better, but when she became isolated in the room, she became more mentally unstable in comparison to when she only had postpartum depression. It is not advisable to prescribe somebody to live in isolation because they may develop something like cabin fever. Cabin fever is when somebody cannot stand being in a room alone any longer and they go crazy. The driving force behind the cabin fever is lack of contact with the outside world. This can be seen with the narrator in the short story because she starts talking to the “woman” in the wall. There is obviously not a woman in the wall, however the narrator believes that she is stuck in there and it is her duty to break her out. This act of talking to the woman in the wall proves that she is not getting better, but getting worse. She is so lonely in this room that she creates this woman who is stuck in the wall, and because she is not mentally stable, she starts to believe this imaginary woman is in fact trapped. Opposed to getting actual treatment for postpartum depression, she gets locked in a room that over time deteriorates her brain.The woman trapped is also a coping mechanism for her being trapped in this room all day. Since she has to free this woman in the wall, maybe somebody will eventually free her. 

Obviously, the treatment of women in the 19th century is not something to rave about. What makes matters worse is that when women are institutionalized or prescribed the rest cure like the narrator in the story, the reason why they are locked away is simply because they are women. Many strides have been made regarding this issue, however it doesn’t mean postpartum depression should be dismissed as a mental disorder. It still requires treatment by a medical professional and should be treated with the same seriousness as any other condition. Professionals now know that the rest cure was not a good option for these women, and now doctors can prescribe medication specifically for postpartum depression. It is also important that experts know that the rest cure doesn’t work because if they continued to lock women up in these conditions, many women would be getting worse because of loneliness. Seclusion is scary, especially if someone already feels insane because of what “the experts” tell them about their condition. It makes disorders worse than they already are. But because brave people like Gilman experienced living in these conditions, the doctors now know that the rest cure does not work.





