WHITTIER, Calif. — Nadya Suleman’s shroud of secrecy was lifted Thursday with the release of public documents showing that the 33-year-old mother of octuplets struggled with depression for years until she finally began to realize her childhood dream of having a huge family.
Suleman, who now has 14 children, told doctors she battled with depression for years after she was injured in a riot in 1999 at the state mental hospital where she worked.
The doctors’ reports were included in more than 300 pages of documents released to The Associated Press by the state Division of Workers’ Compensation on the same day NBC released excerpts of Suleman’s first interview since giving birth last month. Among other things, the documents reveal that Suleman collected more than $165,000 in disability payments between 2002 and 2008 for an injury she said left her in near-constant pain and helped end her marriage.
Meanwhile, Suleman told NBC what her mother and others have said since the octuplets were born: that she always wanted a huge family to make up for the isolation she felt as an only child.
“That was always a dream of mine, to have a large family, a huge family,” she said. “I just longed for certain connections and attachments with another person that . . . I really lacked, I believe, growing up.”
In the interview — scheduled to air on the “Today” show Monday and again Tuesday on “Dateline” — Suleman calls her childhood “pretty dysfunctional.”
In the state report, however, doctors indicate she had a happy childhood. She told them she was an above-average high school student, enjoyed being a cheerleader, had many friends and stayed out of trouble. She said her parents were loving and supportive.
As an adult, however, she said she often battled depression.
Suleman said all her children have been born through in vitro fertilization, with sperm donated from a friend. The first six range in age from 2 to 7.
The octuplets are doing fine, said officials at Kaiser Permanente’s Bellflower Medical Center, where they were born Jan. 26.
She attributed her work injury and resulting depression in part to the breakup of her marriage to Marcos Gutierrez, whom she had wed in 1996. The couple split in 2000 and divorced last year.
