It was deja vu, when Marie Osmond discovered her own mother had suffered postpartum depression.
"I was 3 years old when my mother took her own drive up the coast," Osmond said in a phone interview, referring to her own drive up California's Pacific Coast Highway when she knew she was falling apart inside.
"I wonder if somewhere in the very core of my brain I saw her run that way, and that's why I did it myself."
On that day four years ago, Osmond put her baby in her nanny's arms and said, "I can't stay. There is something wrong, really wrong with me, and I have to leave until I figure it out."
Osmond chronicles her battle with postpartum depression in "Behind the Smile: My Journey out of Postpartum Depression," published Wednesday by Warner Books.
After Good Housekeeping magazine's May issue previewed Osmond's book, her physician, Dr. Judith Moore, "was inundated with calls (from) all across the country, predominantly from men who were asking for help for their wives and daughters," Osmond said.
"Women are so good at denying their own feelings. I think the guilt that comes with postpartum depression is what has to be removed. Since 60 percent of all mothers work now, stress is a very high contributing factor to depression. Our society does it to us."
It was a comfort for Osmond to learn her mother had the same ailment.
"Yet I suffered from it for five months before asking for help! What was that all about? It starts with a hormone imbalance, and it turns into biological warfare inside your body. It immobilizes you. You're more likely to have it if your mother did, if you have thyroid problems, a lot of trauma during childbirth, or if you had sexual problems as a child — these are some factors."
Osmond has revealed that she suffered sexual abuse as a young girl, from "people with very temporary access to my life, people I didn't know well. The abuse was a contributing factor to my depression."
She chooses not to elaborate.
During her depression, she was doing a successful TV talk show with her brother Donny and about to co-host the Miss America Pageant from Atlantic City, boosting her workload considerably. She remembers the pageant as "a blur."
"I truly love my job, and I truly love people, but I was using my work as a sense of structure to my life. I had become a workaholic. We women take comfort in our structure instead of going down deep inside ourselves. I call it 'the little girl inside of us.'"
Osmond hopes readers of her book will be awakened to the reality of postpartum depression and act on it. "When I did 'Oprah' I got thousands of e-mails from women thanking me for giving what is bothering them a name," she said. She also takes comfort in the intuitive powers she believes are endemic to women. "I know my children — even those that are adopted — are mine. We get in this men's world and we rob ourselves of our intuitive selves. When I was depressed, I couldn't even ask for help. Femininity is a gift from God, just as being intuitive is a gift."
At 41, Osmond is seeing a shift in her life. She is trying to spend time on what matters most.
"My son is 18 and wants to go on an LDS mission, so my intuitive heart says, 'I want to be with my son.' I stayed up 'til 3 a.m. the other night just talking to him. I just turned down a whole bunch of things so I can be with him more this year. I've joined a women's softball team, so my daughters can laugh at me.
"And we're moving into a new house in Orem," she said. "Don't try to find me!"
E-mail: dennis@desnews.com