And by the household disorganization, I think they might mean to the extreme. With my ppd, I was barely able to clean the children properly, let alone the house. Stuff piled around me, things started to smell, etc. Stuff that even in previous depressed states that would have bothered me didn’t do a thing.

It took my family took push me back from the edge of no return. I would have never called without their help. I can’t imagine not having someone around when it all goes bad.

I worked with chronically mentally ill adults of the psychotic variety in my early 20s and even those folks could utilize reason quite frequently to stop themselves from harming others.

I do not get it.

And I agree with you, Andrea, if “household disorganization” is a sign of mental illness, then I think we’re ALL more ‘off’ than we realized.

My PPD definitely was hormonal, coupled with sleep deprivation (and I had a super-preemie who didn’t sleep for 2 years, had reflux and came home on a heart monitor, so I can relate). Fortunately, I had great doctors who agreed that the sleep deprivation with both of my kids was a major factor. In fact, the first one wouldn’t treat me until I got my sleep under control.

I still don’t believe that you go from “normal” before kids and wind up killing or harming your kids just because you’re tired, or don’t have family. I had neither and never considered harming my children. I wonder how many have severe psychosis BEFORE they have kids, and if so, there has to be some personal responsibility there. You have to wonder if they were ever lucid enough to know that having more kids was a bad idea and how their families didn’t recognize it.