So, babies are taken from their mothers because they get temporarily insane and it`s not the mother`s fault. This is the thing: they shouldn`t feel ashamed. They didn`t cause this. It is not something they did to themselves.

You know, you don`t work 30 something years in this business without knowing how to push yourself. So, I just kept pushing myself and pushing myself. The other thing that happens is when your hormones get out of whack your emotions come up.

Now I`m REALLY depressed! (to a fan who recognized her as the voice of "Rose Petal," at a signing-party for her autobiography)

You are in the back of your head somewhere and you want to close your eyes and go away.

I did a book signing when we were in New York the day before yesterday. A lady came through and she was just weeping, and said, `I wish this would have been brought out sooner, my sister is in prison for suffocating her child.`

I found for me that my safe place was work. I could control my environment. I became very fastidious and detailed, and wanted things a certain way.

If you`re going to be able to look back on something and laugh about it, you might as well laugh about it now.

We know well and we know chronically ill, but there is a whole bunch of gray in between where I think we can heal people before they become chronically sick. I believe our thoughts make us sick.

They can tie emotion into certain aspects of the body in Chinese medicine. There are a lot of things we can look at.It`s been one heck of a journey.

The good Lord made us all out of iron. Then he turns up the heat to forge some of us into steel.

Little things in my past that I really thought were over and done with were still elements of the puzzle that weren`t pieced together, and so she helped me do that.

I didn`t know my mother had it. I think a lot of women don`t know their mothers had it; that`s the sad thing about depression. You know, you don`t function anymore. You shut down. You feel like you are in a void.

In my case, my progesterone levels didn`t even register. I was at zero. And by the time I actually got help five months later they were still at zero.

I think a lot of women do hide it out of shame. It is supposed to be the happiest time in your life after giving birth to a child, you know.

This is a physical thing that is fixable. I know, I`m a survivor. Believe me, there was no way I thought I could survive. There are answers out there that need to be found.

The other thing is that doctors test only the most common estrogen level. There are three kinds of estrogen in a woman but they don`t test the other two because they are so rare; mine was the third kind of estrogen.

What basically happens is your hormones get out of whack. Because of the stress in your life your body says, `I need more hormones.` So, your hormones are trying to produce and produce and produce, and it`s even more stressful and it is this wicked cycle.

This is a serious, serious condition that is also called postpartum psychosis. And that`s where, literally, you get so bad that you end up either hurting the baby or killing yourself.

It`s a no win situation. I had food allergies. My body had basically shut down and decided it was going to die - and I`m a tough broad.

There are some great questions to ask your doctor. If he says `no,` then you find yourself a different doctor. There really has to be a change in how we medically look at women at this time. I mean, this is not just baby gloom.

You just need to be honest with how you`re feeling. But, a lot of women are afraid of it because they think, `Oh, they are going to take my baby away. They`re gonna call me incompetent. I`m going to lose my job. I`ve got to be tough, it`s a man`s world.`

When you have a baby, love is automatic, when you get married, love is earned.

I lost boundaries as a child that I didn`t even realize it and it wasn`t talked about back then. You know, it was something you just buried and dealt with, and moved forward. What could you do about it?