Former First Lady still fighting for mental health awareness
A sign in the principal's office at Gregory Elementary School in West Orange says, "Life isn't about waiting for storms to pass. It's about learning to dance in the rain."
Michele Thompson, the principal, said no words could better sum up Mary Jo Codey, who is retiring this week after four decades of teaching.
"She has always been wonderful, warm and nurturing to her students," said Thompson. "She takes them under her wing. She works with them on her own time and in the summer. She's like a mother to them."
Mothering didn't always come easy to Mary Jo Codey, and her story has been well documented. As the wife of former New Jersey Senate President and Gov. Richard Codey, she was able to draw attention to the crippling impact of postpartum depression and other mental illnesses.
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In 2012, the couple began The Codey Fund for Mental Health, to erase the stigmas of mental illness and increase care, and she continues to be one of the nation's most sought-after speakers on the subject of postpartum depression.
"She absolutely helped break the stigma of perinatal mental health," said Carrie Cristello, the communications director of Robert Wood Johnson Barnabas Health. "She opened the conversation."
On May 4, one of the hospitals in the network opened the state's first center specifically for postpartum depression.
Codey spoke at the ribbon-cutting for the Center for Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders at Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch, just as she has spoken across the country about her own experiences and the frustrating lack of education about severe post-birth depression.
For instance, in 2011, she was at Massachusetts General Hospital, invited by the chief of obstetrics and gynecology there and a Harvard professor of gynecology, to speak to medical students, interns and faculty at the teaching hospital.
"Many of them had never even learned anything about postpartum depression in medical school," she said.
The conversation, as Cristello said, was started by Mary Jo Codey while her husband was Senate president.
During an interview at the Gregory School last week, Codey remembered making the decision to open up about her experience following the birth of her son Kevin, now 32.
"I knew what happened to me was a mental disease," she said. "I knew I had to help other women because it wasn't right not to help.
"I was nervous. I said to (her husband) Richie, 'What's going to happen? Am I going to be able to teach? Will people not want their kids in my class? Are people going to tease our kids?' "
She first spoke publicly of her postpartum depression for a 1989 article in The Star-Ledger. When her husband became governor in 2004, she increased her assault on the ignorance of the condition.
The most courageous aspect of her desire to enlighten people was admitting to her "intrusive thoughts": Dropping the baby. Drowning the baby. Putting the baby in the microwave. The thoughts made her think she lost her grip.
"I have always loved kids," she said. "I love kids. I was so ready to be a mother. It took three years for me to get pregnant. I used to pray to St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes. I promised God that if he gave me a baby, I would be the best mother ever."
Then it happened.
"When I went into labor, I was so happy," she said. "I was in a great mood. I couldn't wait to hold my baby.
"But something happened (after the birth). I went right down. I was dead inside. They asked me if I wanted to hold the baby and I said, 'No, I want a 7-Up with a lot of ice.'"
She spiraled downward and checked into a psychiatric facility.
"On the way down, I told Richie, 'I'm never coming out,'" she said.
They put her into support groups with drug addicts and alcoholics.
"They had no idea what I was going through," she said. "The head psychiatric nurse said to me, 'Well, you're used to having freedom,' as if that was the reason I was dead inside."
Shock treatments followed, 22 in all. Then recovery. The worst of the storm had passed, but she decided to dance in what was left of the rain. She went public, and the public embraced her.
All the fears of public ridicule were unfounded, except for one imbecilic comment from a talk radio guy. Mary Jo Codey's story will not be derogated here by even mentioning his name.
"Everywhere I went, women told me their own stories," she said. "They said, 'I thought no one else understood.'"
All along, she kept teaching, being the 8-to-3 mother to two generations of children.
"I love teaching," she said. "When Richie became governor, he said I might have to give up teaching because I was going to be first lady. I told him, 'Find a substitute first lady.'"
Now, as irony would have it, she is retiring from teaching because she's going to be a grandmother. Her son, Kevin -- the baby she wanted so badly but could not embrace at first because of her mental disorder -- is having a child of his own. This week will be her last in the classroom but it will give her more time to devote to the Codey Fund and continue her work on the mental health front.
"It's time to move over and give young teachers a chance," she said. "It's going to make me sad.
"When those kids get off the bus, you get a lot of free hugs. The kids are so loving. I'm going to really miss it."
Mark Di Ionno may be reached at mdiionno@starledger.com. Follow The Star-Ledger on Twitter @StarLedger and find us on Facebook.
