Part 2

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

(Page 2 of 2)

The Osmonds began performing as a family in the early 1960s, years before my brother Donny and I were even school age. My father managed my four older brothers, Alan, Wayne, Merrill, and Jay, who toured as a singing quartet. This often left my mother home alone with Virl and Tom, my two oldest brothers, who are hearing impaired, Donny and me, who were preschoolers, and baby Jimmy.

At that time there were advertisements for a product called Compoz. Appropriately named, it was a pill marketed to frazzled homemakers and mothers. I don't know what the main ingredient was, but the commercials were catchy enough to make any woman looking for a little peace of mind want to rush off to the drugstore and stockpile it.

Donny and I were rambunctious playmates who never gave our mother a moment of rest. We couldn't possibly sit quietly with a book or a board game. We never spent an hour together without devising a major plan of action. It wasn't fun or worth our time unless there was physical activity involving digging, stringing something up, flooding, capsizing, leaping, leveling, or capturing. If we were awake, then som-thing was always shaking and moving. My poor mother had to deal with our energy and imaginations. She'd find her shoes full of peanut butter, her best blankets being used as pirate ships in the mud, and her necklaces and bracelets buried in the yard as the pirate “loot.” Unfortunately, we once lost the loot when our marker blew away, and the family spent the entire day digging up a freshly tilled half acre of land looking for Mother's jewelry box. Captain Marie and First Mate Donny didn't have imaginary parrots sitting on our shoulders anymore. We had our very real father breathing down our necks.

You've heard the expression “What goes around, comes around,” and it sure came back around for me with my own two toddlers, Brandon and Brianna, who are only a year apart in age. I call them Pete and RePete. They are pressed from the exact same mold Donny and I were. Brandon is full of energy and daring feats, and Brianna is outspoken and can slyly maneuver her brother to do anything she wants. Hmm... I wonder where she learned that technique? My mother offers no suggestions. She just smiles. I'm pretty sure she's enjoying the payback. (By the way, Mother, remember the fire that started in the field next to our house that hot summer day? It wasn't the heat.)

One afternoon, when I was three and Donny was five, my mother left us unattended, for what I'm sure was only a total of three minutes, to step outside to the clothesline and take down the six dozen pairs of socks and three loads of T-shirts we went through every week. I don't remember the crime Donny and I committed that particular day; I just remember her being very angry when she came to check on us, so it must have been a household felony. We probably did some type of structural damage to the house. Believe me, the two of us could compete with any natural disaster.

Donny and I knew we would be in trouble, so we hid by crawling up on the stools under the kitchen table. We lay silently across two or three stools, holding our breath, hoping not to be found. I remember watching my mother's legs walk into the kitchen and hearing her raised voice: “Donny! Marie! Where are you?” My mother tells me all she heard was my tiny three-year-old voice coming from under the kitchen table as I whispered to Donny, “She needs some Compoz.”

She laughs about it now, but I wonder how often she felt overwhelmed by all of her responsibilities. Did she ever take time for herself, or did her role as “Mother” absorb every minute of her life? It was a badge of honor then for a woman to remain composed, like the name of the product, in any situation. Few women would actually speak of the difficulties of being a female or a mother. Perfection for women in the sixties was a wrinkle-free skirt and blouse, a string of June Cleaver pearls, hair styled and sprayed not to move, high heels, a spotless home, clean-cut kids with good manners, and a happy, well-fed husband.

My mother was surrounded by men and boys. She never talked about what she went through as a woman, either physically or emotionally. I'm sure no one ever asked. She always appeared to be “fine.” Hmm.… I wonder where I learned that technique?

I'm in awe when I think about her life-giving birth to and raising nine children. (My mother washed cloth diapers for over twenty years!) I always saw my parents as two pillars holding up the family as well as the business. My mother was a complete partner with my father in holding the reins on their team of children. They helped to teach us to have a belief in God and encouraged us to seek out answers to our questions about religion. As a young girl, I had read the fundamentals of many religions and chose my belief, not because it was my parents' religion, but because it answered my questions. It has always been a source of strength and comfort for me. My parents guided each of us with intelligence, discipline, and devoted love safely into our adult years. My mother has always been my role model, and I believe my survival in the entertainment business is in large part due to my desire to be a strong woman like my mother. She is my hero.

I can vividly recall what it felt like to be alone and in a crumpled heap on the closet floor. I remember thinking that my mother would never have fallen apart like that. I was sure no one would understand what I was going through. I could have managed the pain. It was the shame that was destroying me.

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).