The Things We’re Not Supposed to Say

When I heard that Hayden Panettiere had died, I immediately thought about postpartum depression.

Not because I knew her, or because I had followed her career particularly closely, but because I had my own experience with it. And because suddenly a story I had filed away years ago: an actress talking publicly about postpartum depression is now gone.

Panettiere had been a Neutrogena spokesperson for a decade. Earlier this year, she spoke about what happened after she mentioned her postpartum depression during a television interview. She said the company wanted to fire her because of it, and although her representative intervened, the relationship ultimately ended. She described being particularly hurt that after ten years with the company, she didn't even receive a goodbye.

The thing that struck me wasn't just the absurdity of a skincare company apparently deciding that postpartum depression deemed her unfit to sell a beauty product. It was the old, familiar message underneath it:

You can be a woman. You can be a mother. You can even struggle. Just don't make us look at it.

I had postpartum depression, too. Many of you probably know this story, but for those who don't: the Instagram account that became Noihsaf Bazaar was started on a brutal February day while I was holding my eight-month-old baby girl. I was in the throes of PPD, stuck at home, taking inventory of everything I wanted to sell.

At some point I thought: Why isn't anyone using this thing called Instagram to sell stuff?

Fourteen years later, here we are.

I promised myself while I built this business—or whatever it was going to become—that I wouldn't shut up about how I got here. I had been completely blindsided by postpartum depression, something that was vaguely talked about in my friend groups and at doctor's appointments, but never in a way that prepared me for what it actually felt like.

And I kept wondering: Why weren't more mothers with platforms talking about their experiences?

Why weren't we saying out loud that motherhood can be wonderful and completely fucking destabilizing at the same time? Why was there still so much shame around something that affects so many women?

Panettiere did talk about it.

And apparently, that was a problem.

This isn't really about Neutrogena, though.

It's about the strange bargain women are still asked to make with the world: You can have your pain, but please keep it private. You can recover, but don't let us see the recovery. You can be complicated, but only after you've made yourself palatable again.

We love authenticity right up until it becomes inconvenient.

And I think that's what has stayed with me about Panettiere's story. Her death should not be reduced to postpartum depression, and I don't think we should turn her life into a cautionary tale about mental illness. She spoke publicly about addiction, trauma, depression, motherhood, and other deeply difficult experiences. She was a whole person, not a collection of the things she struggled with.

But I do think we should pay attention to the story that resurfaced alongside her death.

A young mother said something true about what was happening to her.

And a company selling products to women apparently found that truth uncomfortable.

I think about that eight-month-old baby I was holding when I started Noihsaf. I had no idea what I was building. I certainly didn't know I'd still be doing it fourteen years later.

But I knew one thing: I didn't want to pretend I had arrived here through some perfectly curated entrepreneurial journey. I wanted to tell the truth about the messy parts, too.

The depression. The isolation. The weirdness of starting a business because you were stuck at home and needed something to do with your brain. The fact that sometimes the thing you build while you're trying to survive one chapter of your life ends up becoming the thing that carries you into the next one.

I've never regretted talking about PPD.

If anything, this has been a reminder to keep talking about it. Because somewhere out there is another new mother sitting on the floor, convinced that everyone else has figured out something she hasn't. She's scrolling through Instagram and seeing women who look happy, productive, beautiful, grateful. She's wondering why she feels so profoundly unlike herself.

Maybe she needs to hear someone say: This happened to me, too.

Not as a brand statement. Not as an inspirational story. Not because it makes for good content.

Just because it's true.

And if saying the true thing makes us less marketable, less polished, or a little harder to package, maybe that's a trade worth making.

Love from Minnesota,

xxxKate

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