Men's Retreat Part 3

(Readers, you may recognize this as another one of my posts.)

The 3rd influence on women is their health. We can’t get around it, women go through many changes in their body throughout their life. I think that many health experts still don’t understand all there is to know about women’s health, emotions, and hormones. Just when I thought I was done with the roller coaster of the teenage years - then I had to go through the roller coaster of pregnancy and the changes the body goes through after pregnancy. But it isn’t over yet - women whether they have babies or not have to also go through the changes of menopause. I think that some of my hard times that I have been having has to do with hormones - baby blues. So that took me to some research - My research is from the American Psychiatric Association website and the National Institute of Mental Health website. Here are some quotes from their articles.
"Women are approximately two times more likely than men to suffer from major depression and dysthymia."

"Women's risk of depressive symptoms and demoralization is higher among mothers of young children and increases with the number of children in the house."

"Significant loss, a difficult relationship, financial problems, or a major change in life pattern have all been cited as contributors to depressive illness."

"Persons with certain characteristics - pessimistic thinking, low self esteem, a sense of having little control over life events, and a tendency to worry excessively - are more likely to develop depression."

"A variety of factors unique to women's lives are suspected to play a role in developing depression. Research is focused on understanding these, including: reproductive, hormonal, genetic or other biological factors, abuse and oppression; interpersonal factors; and certain psychological and personality characteristics. And yet, specific causes of depression in women remain unclear; many women exposed to these factors do not develop depression."

"Stresses include major responsibilities at home and work, single parenthood, caring for children and aging parents. How these factors may uniquely affect women is not yet fully understood."

"For both women and men, rates of major depression are highest among the separated and divorced, and lowest among the married, while remaining always higher for women than for men. The quality of a marriage, however, may contribute significantly to depression. Lack of an intimate, confiding relationship, as well as overt marital disputes, have been shown to be related to depression in women. In fact, rates of depression were shown to be highest among unhappily married women."

"Researchers have confirmed that hormones have an effect on brain chemistry that controls emotions and mood; a specific biological mechanism explaining hormonal involvement is not known, however."

"In addition, motherhood may be a time of heightened risk for depression because of the stress and demands it imposes."

Now, I don't want to make this research fit how I want it to, but coming from my own personal experiences and experiences of others, I am going to try to make some statements that make sense to me. I never felt like I had the baby blues - the few months after having the baby- but there have been times in my young mother life that I have felt "blue-ish." I mean, why not - hormones, tiredness, worrying, loss of control, financial problems, marital problems. Having children is a huge change in a couple's life whether we like it or not. Then the hormones, being tired after staying up with sick kids or trying to get them to sleep, worrying about the children's safety and health and education, feeling a loss of control when the children don't behave perfectly, saving money on the children's ever changing wardrobes and cutting costs on the groceries, and marital problems! Isn't it a given that among all that chaos there will be some marital problems? Every individual has different issues, they also handle them all differently - but shouldn't we expect that mothers of young children will feel depressed at times. There are so many expectations of mothers and unless a woman has someone to speak with on these issues, why wouldn't she be depressed?

I have a friend. She has three young children. She worries about her children's health often - for good reason. Her husband doesn't work close to home, so he isn't at home every night. She feels like a single parent most of the time. Recently, she has had some health issues as well. Now tell me why she shouldn't feel a little blue at times and that maybe I should be concerned about her well being?

I guess what my thought is, I think that many young mothers may suffer from depression of some sort from time to time. And that made me think of some scripture - "Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers." 1 Peter 3:7 I don’t know if everyone will agree on the way I use this verse, but it speaks so strongly to me - women are influenced by their health - mental and physical.

Men, love your wives as Christ loved the Church.