Oprah: And what did it feel like?

Marie: Well, it's very difficult to explain. I know that in some cases, it's like your eyes are in the back of your head and you just want to close them and never open them. You're so incredibly tired. Not only do you have a new baby to take care of, but I have six other children as well. One of the first times I noticed it was everybody said, `Oh, leave her alone. Give her a few minutes to herself.' I went downstairs to get something to eat. There was nothing that I could eat offhand except a jar of peanut butter. I opened up this peanut butter and I sat on the floor and I started eating it and I just started sobbing.

Oprah: OK. And so you ate the jar of peanut butter and felt what?

Marie: Just incredibly depressed. To make a long, long story short, what happened was is I was moving into a new house, I had the new show, I had to be back to work in three and a half weeks after I gave birth. Just that whole stress of starting the new show and having to go out and do the promotion and being with the baby. And what happened was you just--you start sobbing uncontrollably. You question your mother skills. You don't want your children to see you.

So the analytical side of me said, you know, `This is not your personality. This is a very difficult place to be.' I basically gave the baby to my baby-sitter. I wrote out of a couple checks and I said, `My husband will be here tonight.' I've got to leave and figure out what's going on.' I got in the car and I drove up the coast, and I just kept driving.

Turning Point for Marie:
When my mom called me up on the phone, and she said, `I'm going to tell you something I've never told anybody. Thirty-seven years ago, I was so overwhelmed. I had my last child.' She said, `I gave the baby to your father, and I got in the car, and I drove up the coast.' She said, `I just fell apart. And it's OK. It's really OK to fall apart because, you know, you're not alone.' And when I thought, `Good grief, if my mother could go through it and come out, there is hope.' But I'm telling you, at that point, there wasn't even a light at the end of this dark tunnel, it was so dark. You just think `I don't know how I'm going to get through it.' But you just take it a day at a time and you spend a lot of time on your knees and you say a lot of prayers.

From Marie Osmond - Lost In Motherhood,
   October 25, 1999

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