Part 1

Behind the Smile: My Journey Out of Postpartum Depression
by Marie Osmond, Marcia Wilkie, Judith Moore, M.D.

From this angle, you can see right up my skirt.

I learned at an early age how a young woman protects her image. If she's “sitting like a lady,” no one can see up her skirt.

I'm not “sitting like a lady” now. I'm collapsed in a pile of shoes on my closet floor. Around and above me hangs my clothing, which is all I can see as I lean against the back wall of the closet. I can see straight up one of my skirts on a hanger right over my head. It looks like a long, dark tunnel with the exit sealed off. It looks like my life right now.

The skirt goes with one of my favorite suits. I've worn it to several happy occasions. I can recall the events, but I have no memory of what it feels like to be happy.

I sit with my knees pulled up to my chest. I barely move. It's not that I want to be still. I am numb. I can tell I'm crying, but it's not like tears I've shed before. My eyes feel as though they have moved deep into the back of my head. There is only hollow space in front of them. Dark, hollow.space. I am as empty as the clothing hanging above me. Despite my outward appearance, I feel like a lifeless form.

I can hear the breathing of my sleeping newborn son in his bassinet next to the bed. My ten-year-old daughter, Rachael, opens the bedroom door and whispers, “Mom?” into the room, trying not to wake the baby. Not seeing me, she leaves. She doesn't even consider looking in the closet on the floor. Her mother would never be there.

She's right. This person sitting on the closet floor is nothing like her mother. I can't believe I'm here myself. I'm convinced that I'm losing my mind. This is not me.

I feel like I'm playing hide-and-seek from my own life, except that I just want to hide and never be found. I want to escape my body. I don't recognize it anymore. I have lost any resemblance to my former self. I can't laugh, enjoy food, sleep, concentrate on work, or even carry on a conversation. I don't know how to go on feeling like this: the emptiness, the endless loneliness. Who am I? I can't go on.

But I do. I have a house full of people who depend on me. I have a baby to take care of, children who need me, a husband, friends, and family who all expect me to get back to my regular life and obligations.

Somehow, I find myself standing up again. I pull something out of the closet to wear. I run a washcloth under the cold-water faucet and press it to my face. I manage mascara and some lipstick. My mother always said, “No matter what, always put on lipstick.” I do. I change the baby and wrap him in a blanket. I feel exhausted just doing these simple things.

I go downstairs to my world, which feels like a prison. My oldest son, Stephen, is shooting baskets in the driveway with his cousin. My eight-year-old, Michael, has a new piece of artwork he wants me to tape on my bedroom door, next to the fourteen other drawings. My one-year-old daughter, Brianna, grabs me enthusiastically around the knees. There is a woman standing in the living room. Rachael introduces her as our new next-door neighbor who has stopped over with a plate of goodies as a welcome gift. I have fifteen messages on the answering machine saying, “Congratulations on the new baby,” “When can you come to the office?” “Can we set up a photo shoot?” There is a pile of bills, business mail, and FedEx packages waiting for my attention on the dining room table. My two-year-old knocks over a basket of laundry, and it rolls down the stairs. The baby cries. He wants to be fed.

That's when the “Marie Osmond” persona kicks in. I smile. I was trained in my entertainment upbringing to smile constantly when I'm around other people, and now it's as natural to me as breathing. Rule number one: I am here to make sure that everyone else is happy. It's my job.

I smile at my little artist. I smile at my new neighbor and my daughter. I smile at my toddler. I smile about the phone calls, the overflowing mail, and the laundry scattered on the steps. I lift the baby over my shoulder, pat his back, and I smile.

My smile stays on my face even though my eyes feel like they sink farther back in my head. My body aches from my forehead to my feet. It is sabotaged with fatigue. My throat tightens to choke off unwanted emotions. I have no idea what to do next. I am a stranger in my own life. But I'm still smiling, which lets everyone know that I'm fine. “Marie Osmond” is always “fine.”

No one guesses the truth. They can't see that I'm in a constant spiral, spinning into gloom. I feel it's inevitable that I will hit bottom. I thought I had been there before, but this feels so much lower. Right now, all my thoughts and feelings are locked away. I wish I could toss away the key and it would all be over. But it's not so easy. My smile is like a two-way mirror. I can see out, but no one can see in. No one sees what is going on behind the smile.

Copyright © 2001 by Marie Osmond

About the Author

MARIE OSMOND, co-host of the successful Donny and Marie Show.

MARCIA WILKIE lives in Los Angeles, where she writes for television.

JUDITH MOORE, D.O., is a doctor of osteopathic medicine with a family practice in Provo, Utah. She is a proponent of integrative medicine, the practice of utilizing both standard and alternative care, and is a founder of the Foundation for the Advancement of Integrative Medicine (FAIM).