Post partum depression is a disease that continues to extremely affect at least 15% of all women. When Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote her short story titled The Yellow Wallpaper in 1892, mental health was a taboo topic, especially when it involved women. In The Yellow Wallpaper, Gilman uses this story as a personal narrative to open up about her own struggles with what is now known as postpartum depression as well as the ill treatment that she received for so long by her husband.  Merriam-Webster’s dictionary describes postpartum depression as “depression suffered by a mother following childbirth, typically arising from the combination of hormonal changes, psychological adjustment to motherhood, and fatigue”.  The descriptions of this disease and the accounts that Gillman uses as examples in her struggles with post partum depression are so realistic that today, this text is being used in medical schools across the country to help students better understand psychosis. Gillman uses her short story The Yellow Wallpaper to discuss her struggles with postpartum depression, and through a close reading of this text, the reader is able to better understand the anxiety, hallucination, and lack of mother-child connection that Gilman experiences. 

Postpartum depression includes many symptoms that are experienced when struggling with normal depression as well. In 2006 however, the Journal of Community Health Nursing and Wichita State University completed a study involving specifically postpartum depression and the symptoms that occur with this disease. These tests that were run in the study showed a detailed analysis of the symptoms through statistics of repetition, and the data they collected regarding the patients they tested who were screened for postpartum depression. One of the most reoccurring symptoms that were observed in these tests was anxiety. Comparing these tests to Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story, she talks about the “nervous feelings”(302) that she keeps having while her husband, John is away. She explains how difficult this is by saying “ These nervous troubles are dreadfully depressing. John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him. Of course it is only nervousness. It does weigh in on me so not do my duty in any way!”(301). These fits of nervousness and the way Gilman describes them are actually intense feelings of anxiety. However, in the 1800s no one really acknowledged or talked about what these symptoms were or why people were feeling this way so it was understandable as to why she simply laughed it off when her husband would tell her otherwise.  

A second symptom that is demonstrated in The Yellow Wallpaper that contributes to the reader’s diagnoses of Gilman as a patient with postpartum depression is hallucination. Gilman shares with us what she sees when she looks at the yellow wallpaper covering her house by saying, “This paper looks to me as if it knew what a vicious influence it had! There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down”(302). This “person” that taunts Gilman drives her crazy, as she is bedridden in the house all day, thus constantly forced to stare at this wallpaper. When her husband John does not understand why she is so entranced by this wallpaper, Gilman explains this and the person she sees in further detail by saying “There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will…And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern. I don’t like it a bit. I wonder-I begin to think-I wish John would take me away from here”(305). Even through her hallucinations, Gilman desperately wants to end them and knows they are not right, however, no one will do anything to help her. 

Even in the modern day world as the stigma towards mental illness has greatly decreased, the concept of hating motherhood still stirs controversy. Gilman addresses this topic by talking about how she cannot bear to be with her baby. She worries about him but cannot be with him alone. This symptom is one of the most extreme signs of postpartum depression, and one in today’s world that would require desperate measures immediately. Gilman acknowledges her own problem with this when she says, “It is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby. Such a dear baby! And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous”(301). Motherhood is perceivably the most amazing time of your life. There are so many testimonies out there about women who say that once that baby is placed on their chest, their lives are changed forever. That is most definitely not the case for Gilman. This concept of being too nervous to be around your baby is definitely a struggle that was caused through her anxiety and other symptoms that she experiences. However, many women feel like this today and feel scorned or disgraceful to admit it, because of the fact that it is going against what society believes should happen when a woman has a child. 

Hayden Panettiere and Brookes Shields are two influential women in society who have taken their fame and used it to discuss openly their experiences with postpartum depression. Both Panettiere and Shields required treatment for this disease and they are extremely open in discussing with society their every day struggles despite the fact that it is going against the stereotypical motherhood ideals. Although postpartum depression is still a controversial topic to discuss, surprising statistics are being supported annually with an increase in this disorder. Every mother has a crazy, abnormal hormonal imbalance following childbirth, however, the women who have the most severe cases of postpartum depression are the women whose hormones never truly balance back out. This hormonal imbalance in addition to the extreme exhaustion and emotional roller coaster of becoming a mother, contribute to the feelings of anxiety, nervousness, and depression. Gilman most definitely suffered from this disease, and because of the braveness she demonstrated by writing about her illness, although she did not truly understand what she was coping with, has helped generations of women and doctors better understand this disease and its effects on society.  
