In the spotlight

Postpartum depression nearly killed Mary Jo Codey. Nearly two decades later, however, she doesn’t feel like someone who’s out of the woods.

Rather, the former first lady of New Jersey considers herself “lucky.” She’s lucky to have two grown, healthy sons. She’s lucky to have a house with a loving family.

She’s lucky to be alive. And she’s lucky to have a husband, Richard J. Codey, now the New Jersey Senate president, who’s one of the country’s most celebrated political advocates for mental health causes.

“I could have been in one of those hospitals,” said Codey. “He had empathy for it. I lucked out. He could have dumped me. He happened to love me.”

Codey, 53, has followed her husband’s lead and inserted herself into the role of advocate. She appears before groups to speak about how she managed to survive a lifetime of depression and a double mastectomy after breast cancer was discovered in 2002.

Codey also helped inspire her husband, when he served as acting governor from 2004 to 2006, to recommend spending $200 million for affordable housing for those with mental illness, among other pledges.

“It was a pact I made with God,” Codey said. “I didn’t want it to happen to other women.”

Codey’s struggles made national headlines three years ago, after two New Jersey disc jockeys mocked her history of battling postpartum depression, taking medication, and undergoing shock therapy. Rather than shy away from the publicity, she used it as a springboard to inspire others. She remembers suffering from postpartum depression and not being able find a book that could help her.

“I found myself in such a hole,” Codey said. “I just promised that I would never allow others to go through the same thing.”

(This article was first published in Esperanza magazine in its spring 2009 issue)