Two stories have dragged the subject of postpartum depression into the center of the national conversation this week.

First was the death of actress Hayden Panettiere at the age of 36, not long after speaking openly about her struggle with postpartum depression following the birth of her daughter. Second was the trial of Lindsay Clancy in Massachusetts for the horrific killing of her three young children, with her defense claiming that she had been suffering from severe postpartum psychosis.

And inevitably, social media has responded in the way social media always does: Everyone is suddenly an expert feverishly searching for their pound of flesh.

Taking a break from tweeting about the wokeness of the WNBA or the price of burritos, influencers and commentators quickly moved on from questioning whether mental illness can ever be an excuse for violence (and whether such a conclusion could have disastrous consequences) to mindlessly sounding off on whether postpartum depression is even real and whether mothers who struggle with it are just selfish.

Make no mistake: Postpartum depression is real. I don't know if Clancy had postpartum depression. Neither do you. But postpartum depression itself is undeniably real.

It doesn't mean just being tired, overwhelmed or sad because having a newborn is difficult. It actually refers to a mood disorder that can produce profound sadness, anxiety, exhaustion, hopelessness, guilt, difficulty bonding with a baby and even thoughts of death or self-harm.

Basically, it's not just a bad case of the so-called "baby blues."

Then there's postpartum psychosis — which is, thankfully, rare — that can involve hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, mania and confusion, and is considered a psychiatric emergency requiring immediate treatment.

None of this is to cast any judgment on the Clancy case. After all, that's what the jury is for. Instead, it's a reminder that this is far more than the latest Netflix true crime drama. Beyond the walls of social media, where everyone is engaged in an endless death match for attention, lies a world full of real people.

That includes real people who are struggling with the same issues being dismissed as mere selfishness.

Somewhere in the world right now, a new mother is sitting awake at 3 a.m. wondering why she doesn't feel the way she was promised she would feel. She loves her baby, but she is miserable. She might feel detached, or terrified by intrusive thoughts or think that admitting these feelings means that others will judge her. Worst of all, she may think that these feelings make her a bad mother.

Imagine that this mother, seeking connection and empathy and sympathy, unlocks her phone and takes a look at social media, finding millions of total strangers who are turning postpartum into their latest circus of attention-mongering nonsense, reveling in pseudo-diagnoses as a form of bizarre entertainment.

I was under the impression that the right-wing influencer class respected women. After all, wasn't that the entire basis for the justified crusade against radical transgenderism? If that is, indeed, the case, then perhaps it's time to extend this same care for women who are suffering on the sidelines, and treat a verified mental illness as more than just an opportunity for sensationalized, eye-catching garbage.

Maybe, just maybe, we can remember that we are surrounded by real people, and our rage-inducing attention-seeking has consequences that go far beyond the thrill of a viral tweet.

Ian Haworth is a syndicated columnist. You can find his work on Substack and follow him on X (@ighaworth). To find out more about Ian Haworth and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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