Summary
One day when her daughter was 1 month old, Nanna Balslev took the elevator to the top floor of one of the tallest buildings in Copenhagen. It was the darkest day of her life.
Warning: this episode contains references to suicide and depression. If you or someone you know is strugglign with suicidal thoughts, call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 998 in the U.S.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to strangers from KCW and Radiotopia. I'm Leah Tao. |
| 0:07.0 | And this past Sunday was Mother's Day. And today's story is not your typical sweet, celebratory Mother's Day story. |
| 0:16.0 | It is about being a mother, and it's an important one, I think, and I promise it is not without sweetness |
| 0:21.9 | or things to celebrate, but it has some hard moments. You'll be able to glean the subject matter |
| 0:28.9 | pretty quickly, and if it hits too close to home for you this moment, you can skip this one. |
| 0:34.2 | But otherwise, do take a listen, although not with your kids around. |
| 0:38.3 | Here's Nana Belslow from Copenhagen, Denmark. |
| 0:45.3 | This is from the Psychiatric Award. |
| 0:49.3 | Here it says this is about a 29-year-old woman. And that's you? That's me with anxiety and depression. |
| 0:57.8 | She's pregnant in week 24. And it says that I don't have a specific wish about killing myself. |
| 1:06.0 | No, it actually says that I deny any suicidal thoughts. Was that true? |
| 1:12.4 | No, that wasn't true. |
| 1:18.0 | I had suicidal thoughts, but I was afraid what would happen if I told the doctors about them. |
| 1:19.6 | Here's what happened. |
| 1:22.1 | Nena and her husband decided to have a baby. |
| 1:26.9 | She'd had two previous bouts with depression, so she was on antidepressants. |
| 1:28.5 | But when she got pregnant, |
| 1:33.7 | her medication was phased out. That standard procedure, but it comes with the risk that your depressive symptoms can return. The other thing that happened is that Nana got laid off from her |
| 1:39.1 | job when she was 10 weeks pregnant, which was anxiety-inducing, as it would be for most of us. |
| 1:45.8 | I felt like, how can I be, like, the most important, or one of the most important persons for a |
| 1:51.9 | baby? I don't even have, like, a pension yet. And I had this sick voice in my head saying, |
| 1:59.6 | like, this will turn out bad. You're already doing it wrong now. |
... |
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