Women who have experienced postpartum depression candidly describe how they feel in the new episode of "Exceptions" • Watching can be difficult, but it is necessary
Very involved interviewer.
Roni Koben in "Exceptions"
Motherhood is considered (mistakenly) an innate trait.
The idea that women should have a maternal instinct as soon as they become mothers has always been the dominant concept in human history.
After all, as soon as your baby emerges into the air of the world, he should press the button that activates all your maternal feelings towards him and love it.
So this is, no.
"Exception" with Roni Koven took one of the most painful and least talked about topics and put it on the table: about 30,000 women a year suffer from postpartum depression, one in six women will experience postpartum depression, "the most muted phenomenon there is," as he defines it. The same Cuban, and rightly so.
Koben enters for the first time a unit of its kind in Israel at Tel Hashomer Hospital, which provides intensive care for women suffering from severe postpartum depression.
He joins the group therapies, meets the patients in face-to-face meetings at the hospital and in their homes and interviews the treatment staff.
For those who have not experienced or do not know people who have experienced depression, watching the episode can be difficult.
Mothers candidly describe their feelings of guilt.
"I love him and I hate him. I'm glad he was born and sad he was born. I work really hard to hide what I'm going through," says one of them.
The fathers also tell what it is like to live next to a depressed woman.
"Some days I'm afraid to go to work and leave her with the baby," one of them confesses.
Coben is a very involved interviewer.
The fact that this is not a studio interview where two people sit across from each other and have a conversation, but rather questions that are asked during therapy, gives Cuban an opportunity to touch the exposed nerves and sneak into situations he was not designed to have, and there ask the hard questions.
"Don't you think that if you kill yourself you will leave an orphaned child?"
Kovan asks a patient during treatment.
"How unfair this question is," she replies, then opens her heart and explains that she "feels dead anyway."
"Exceptions" brings important sounds and sights to the screen.
You will not always feel comfortable with them, and this only sharpens their necessity.
Because society is uncomfortable accepting the phenomenon, many women suffer twice: both depression and avoidance receive appropriate treatment.
Last night's episode clarifies that not all mothers enter the role easily and without problems, and it's okay and natural to open it.
Now all you have to do is accept it.
"Exceptions", here 21:15, 11
