Maternal depression and effects on the infant

[Gwyon]

A lot of the threads here focus on personality disorders and other more "acute" mental illnesses in parents.  And these are indeed severely traumatic to children.

I think it's also important to recognize the significance of maternal depression -- particularly how it interferes with secure attachment in infants, which in turn leads to the abandonment issues that so many of us grapple with. 

Here are just a few references:

• http://www.parents.com/baby/health/postpartum-depression/how-depression-affects-your-family/
• https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/maternal-depression-can-undermine-the-development-of-young-children/
• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299844940_Postnatal_Depression_Mother-Infant_Interactions_and_Child_Development
• 
  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014488614002842
• http://www.child-encyclopedia.com/stress-and-pregnancy-prenatal-and-perinatal/according-experts/effects-prenatal-stress-child

Pete Walker attributes the "Freeze/Dissociate" defense as largely attributable to profound abandonment in early childhood: http://pete-walker.com/fourFs_TraumaTypologyComplexPTSD.htm

Kindly.

[woodsgnome]

I'm beginning to realize how some of the analyses per depression might well have played key roles in my own experience. Contributing to the depression might have combined several elements--the parents were older (mid-40's; 2 siblings a decade older). I may have been an unwanted surprise (it was almost implied in a lot of banter from them and/or others), and that's not even considering the rumours that one or the other parents weren't even that.

The m was obviously hugely depressed, albeit less so when sexual abuse was in the offing--indeed those times count as the few occasions on which she ever smiled around me. Abandonment? She never once assisted me when I had nightly asthma attacks (thankfully the f did). .

While the depression angle is interesting, it really doesn't help undo any of the damage. I can only see the plausibility of any explanations through a cavalcade of tears. I'm past the point of wanting to forgive, for whatever reason, but I can appreciate that yes, there may have been reasons around the depression as the prime factor. But...the tears remain my only reality. I've tried...hard...to go over all the reasons, but in the end I only know that it made no sense then, and doesn't now.

It's a new life from here on...and that's the only perspective that I can live with anymore.

[Gwyon]

While the depression angle is interesting, it really doesn't help undo any of the damage. 

Agreed. And it sounds like you've come a long way in processing your past.

For me it was revolutionary when I realized that my first year was so dysfunctional and traumatizing. I finally understood the reasons for my pain and emptyness. I finally got that it wasn't my fault, and I could finally begin to let go of the shame and begin the long process of healing.

[Gwyon]

Clarifying a bit...  For me this was the core injury, yet it was hidden from view. Hopefully this info will be useful to others for whom this is also true.