Oh yes, this. She was very honest about making her depression public, I assume to raise consciousness about it.

Particularly since before she had the kid and the subsequent depression she was pretty publicly vocal about how much she wanted children and how great being a mom would be. I imagine it must be pretty tough to not only come to the realization that it's not what you thought it would be and that it's ok to feel that way, but then to go public with your PPD is pretty brave.

I imagine it must be pretty tough to not only come to the realization that it's not what you thought it would be and that it's ok to feel that way, but then to go public with your PPD is pretty brave.

Exactly. I have a friend who was truly almost suicidal. It's an awful, awful thing to look a newborn and think, What the hell do I do with you? How can I make all this stop?

GOD.

I'm giving telephone advice to an engineer about Microsoft Word numbering.

She doesn't want to accept the answer, which is "If Microsoft Word screws up the numbering on your fourth-level heads, you may be doomed." I tried every trick I knew and none of them worked. Sorry, Charlie, that's all I got.

Not to detract from Cruise's scuzzyness in the least, but Brooke's "heartfelt revelation" struck me as rather well-timed (as usual). She's been a master media manipulator her entire career.

Yeah...I agree. Anymore when actors get going on their troubled pasts or something, I cringe some.

"If Microsoft Word screws up the numbering on your fourth-level heads, you may be doomed."

Custom styles . . . no . . . when I did Word support I'd rather do a hundred mail merge lists from bad original data than custom styles. So many places where it refers back to other things, and if there's one setting wrong anyway it just cascades down through . . .

t i dont do that anymore i dont do that anymore i dont do that anymore

Hate those tech support flash backs.

Not to detract from Cruise's scuzzyness in the least, but Brooke's "heartfelt revelation" struck me as rather well-timed (as usual). She's been a master media manipulator her entire career.

Well timed in that she wrote a book about her experience with PPD and she's in the press a lot lately. I enjoyed her interview on Fresh Air. I'm not thinking she's a martyr or anything. She referred to her nanny and I immediately thought, "so many women can't afford that kind of help".

But I'm glad she's out there talking about it. We get the bad side of PPD all the time in the form of the Andrea Yates' of the world. It's about time someone stepped up to the plate and used their celebrity to examine it as a serious issue. It would have been nice if she could have done it without some cocksure, flaky asshole pissing all over it.

Someone, I might add who will NEVER give birth, and who's ex's never gave birth.

It's about time someone stepped up to the plate and used their celebrity to examine it as a serious issue.

Right. Even if Brooke's announcement was self-serving to some degree, I think Cruise's mean-spirited attack is just...well, mean-spirited. He may believe it's true, but it's hard for me to understand how people who *do* believe that medicine is bad can't understand how many dead people there would be without antibiotics and chemo and all the other not!vitamin cures we rely on.

I looked back in the thread and I can't find the original post, Brooke who?

Shields.