Puerperal Psychosis

[staycalmandcarryon]

Any one who has experienced this?

I did in September last year, after my LO was born, I am pregnant again, (talk about making life difficult)

I didn't have Puerperal psychosis, but had a first episode of psychosis in december last year.

It came from nowhere and really shocked me and my family. I am struggling now with post psychotic depression.

How are you?

Hey, thank you for taking the time to read and reply to me.

Are you getting help and support? Medication, CPN? Do you have children? If you feel up to it, would you tell me what happened?

I had just given birth to my now 7 month old baby, had to spend a week in hospital due to him being poorly, on day seven we came home, it pretty much started then, became disassociated, vacant, emotional, then started having strange beliefs, started to see things luckily for me the doctors and psychiatric team were called when I became violent towards my partner. I also tried to take my life, which is awful as I love my life, with my children and husband, thank god that it didnt work.

I am pregnant again, 11 weeks and so scared it will happen again, as it is a chemical imbalance which cannot be controlled unless on medication which I will not take whilst pregnant, I am insisting on support through talking etc as dont like the thought of taking anything that would go straight to the baby.

I didnt suffer with post psychotic depression, I have up and down days, which can sometimes be intense but they did mention I have a mood disorder which will be dealt with when the time is right...again I am a great believer in therapy and couldnt recommend it enough.

I really hope you get through this, I hope your not being hard on yourself about what happened to you, I wish you all the love and happiness with your family.

One of my friends who posts on here sometimes had PP with her first but not with her second baby although she struggled badly with anxiety. Will see if she has time to reply.

Hi Staycalm. I had a episode of PP after the birth of my 4th child, was in a mother and baby unit for 6 weeks being treated and then returned home. This happened in late 2010 and I'm just now coming off anti psychotic medication but remaining on an AD for at least another 18 months.
It is a truly horrific experience and one that I'm still trying to process in some ways.
Fingers crossed (tightly) that it won't occur again for you, I don't know what the likelihood is in future births but you can be reassured that your mental health will be very very closely monitored after the birth and IF symptoms start you can then start on medication quickly.
I do understand your fear though, I personally won't be having any more children anyway but the fear of becoming psychotic again is there.
Take good care of yourself and if you'd like to chat about your experience of PP either here or by PM I'm here for you.

Thank you madmouse - I'm guessing your friend is tunise.

Thank you for sharing that with me tunise, I was hospitalised and went home after a week, they let me have weekend leave but I never went back. Shortly after I tried to take my life so I guess I should have stayed but i seemed to feel better, I'd been on the anti psychotics for a while before so I dont think I experienced a full blown episode.

i really feel for you, it must have been so hard having 3 children at home? i'm guessing they took you to mother and baby unit?

I too am still trying to come to terms with what happened, would you mind telling me your experience, i am yet to speak with someone in depth about what there thoughts beliefs were, I guess I'm not wanting to feel like some kind of alien.

I am starting a group soon, for mums who have gone through PND, i'm hoping i might meet someone there but doubt it as I live in a village and I'm the first case my health visitor has come across! talking goldfish in a bowl!

i am another one that has suffered pnp, also after the birth of my 4th child, now 4 yrs later and i have since had another baby, she is 16mths and i had no problems! i did stay on anti depressants at a very low dose in pregnancy and then gradually weaned off them a few months after she was born.

like you mine was a hormonal imbalance and they never found out why i had it, i was fine with my first three, never even had the baby blues, but after no 4 everything went to pieces. it was an awful time, that first year of ds4's life, but i got well and with the support of mh team and gp, midwife etc i had a happy pregnancy with no 5 and no problems after her birth :)

5madthings wow 5 children, i'm happy to hear that you were well during your 5th pregnancy and post birth, did your happen instantly or was it a gradual thing?

Its awful that some of us go through this at what is supposed to be a very happy time, was you hospitalised too? did they allow you to have your DS with you? were your family understanding and supportive?

Arghh I just spent ages typing up a very long post and then it disappeared!! I will try again later x

no it's not Tunise, just realised my friend is away.

it was a gradual thing, the first year after ds4's birth is a blur tbh, but i gradually got well, as i said was still taking anti depressents when i got preg with no 5, she was born when ds4 was 2yrs 9mths old, so i took them at a reduced dose through preg and for a number of months afterwards, there were def wobbly days after having no 5, dd, but she is now 16mths old and i am med free and fine, still have the odd day of tearing my hair out, like all mums!

when i was hospitalised there was no mum and baby unit near me so i had to go to a regular psych unit and couldnt take ds4 :( and yes my family, well my dp and friends and most family were supportive, we have no family locally tho so no help on hand, i had a home start volunteer for a long time who helped out, a cpn i saw regularly and a lovely hv who visited me etc, we also got help from SS< who provided transport to get the elder boys to school when necessary etc.

tunise ok no worries, my internet does that to me sometimes, the connection can a bit temperamental x

madmouse ok, maybe we could start a support thread on here?

5madthings sometimes I do wonder whether i should make myself take meds, I'm not too bad at the moment, i've had consistently good days for 2 weeks now so i'll see how it goes.

I'm so sorry you had to be away from you LO, I really feel for you.

Like you we have no family close by, my husband has bi-polar too so I guess it made it more difficult, he coped with me really well though, he was my rock even though I hated him at the time.

Transport must have helped you a ton...there is alot of help out there and there is alot to be said for the mental health team. I hope you feel proud every day that you got through that, you have 5 beautiful children, you are very strong!

Hi staycalm, I was diagnosed with PP 7days after my first son was born and was admitted to a mother and baby unit. It was the most terrifying experience of my life. I went on to have another son 2 and a half years later against the advice of my then gp. Like you I was terrified of it reoccurring but I made sure I had a plan in place. I went to see the local mental health team so that I could get help if needed straight away and also have prescriptions for sleeping tablets and ads.
For me it was the anxiety and panic and also not being able to sleep which were the major things. I decided not to breastfeed so that I could take these tablets and my husband could do all the nightfeeds, which he did without complaint.
I also had my mum to stay for a week and mil for another week once my son arrived, not ideal but helped a lot with my eldest.
When I got home from hospital I had what I thought was a panic attack but later believe was some sort of come down from the hormones. It was scary at the time but Got through it. Unfortunately Did have pnd with the second but a lot of this I believe was my guilt at falling apart the first time.
Make sure you have a good support network and that your midwives know your history.
Sorry for long ramble but hope this helps.
Good luck

okay 2nd attempt, think I will try posting in sections incase the same thing happens again. I'll try not to ramble on too much.
After the birth of dc4 I was being treated by my GP for PND, over the course of about 6 weeks the dose of AD's I was on tripled and I blame this in part as well as hormones for the onset of PP.

In the week leading up to my admission to the unit I gradually got worse, I couldn't sleep for more than an hour or two at a time, couldn't eat and just walked for miles each day. My mind was racing and I couldn't switch off, at times I felt elated and truly joyful and at others I was rock bottom. I spent most of the nights writing long paranoid and delusional letters to my partner, which I would show him in the mornings and generally freak him out. I was seen by various medical staff during that week or prescribed valium or sleeping tablets but no one picked up that it was heading towards PP.

In terms of thoughts and ideas that were going through my mind I became obsessed with the idea of ancient female power and wisdom, witchcraft,magic,special powers etc. I read stuff like David Icke and other conspiracy stuff that was very out of character for me. I was very against men and my (lovely) partner in particular as I obsessed on the idea of female oppression by men over history and particularly in the field of medicine. I began seeing strange connections everywhere and seeing messages in things(music,adverts etc) I began to believe that I was God and had powers of my own!

Hi whensteaready thank you for your reply, yes it always helps to know that other mums out there have experienced this and your not alone.

You must have felt a sense of relief when your husband did the night feeds for you, sleep deprivation feeds PP like fuel to a fire. My husband has bi- polar so he wont be able to do that, which is fine as like you my step mum will be coming for a week and i'm hoping my MIl will step in too, I does make me feel so inadequate as a mother when I think about it which doesnt help when you need help.

Thank you for reassuring me

Part 2- After seeing the crisis team they arranged for admission to a mother and baby unit, however the only bed available was about 90 miles away so i had to wait for a ambulance transfer to become available. I had moments of being grounded and did realise how ill I was and was able to pack mine and the babies stuff. Moments later I was raging and shouting at my older children,I started to think they were shape shifters and evil and yelled at them to get out of the house I was terrified I would hurt them and the rational part of me wanted to protect them.

In the end I phoned 999 as the ambulance was taking forever and I remember yelling at the operator that "I needed a fucking ambulance now,That I was a danger to myself and my children." Two ambulances and a police car turned up but at least it gave the neighbours something new to talk about.

At the unit I was allowed to keep the baby in my room while I calm and able to look after her but at other times she was removed from me. I realise now it was only done to keep her safe but at the time it seemed like a form of torture to me, esp as I was still breastfeeding and when she was taken away the staff would bottle feed her.

I was angry,delusional and aggressive for several days while they tried to get the right meds into me, often by force, being held down and injected. I was paranoid that the staff were trying to kill me and often smelt a strange gas like smell. I believed that I was dead, everyone was dead and this was literally hell on earth.

Eventually right medication made me stable again and started to process of visits back home. because I was so far away my children were only able to visit at weekends and my partner drove up every couple of days. They were all affected by my illness, my partner had to take several months off work to care for me and my children found it difficult to understand what had happened.

After about a year of taking things day by day and very supportive mental health team I felt able to return to work and life is now more or less back to normal.

I totally get what you were saying about feeling isolated by your experience as it's not something that often happens and when you tell people about it unless they have also experienced something similar I don't think they could understand.

tunise thank you for sharing that with me, I think the spiritual path seems to play a common roll in alot of cases of pp, mine wasnt based around that, I think luckily for me, they put me on psychotics a couple of weeks after my DS was born. My was paranoia, evil spirits in my DS, thought it was a higher "plan" he was going to hurt me, I was obsessed about germs, my own children couldnt touch him, I couldnt look at him without feeling frightened, I started to feel things crawling on me, started seeing black objects scattering on the floor so quickly it would make me question if I did or not, once I was in our bedroom and something came from the hall way and rushed under our bed, I felt like it was going to grab me. The police and doctors were called after an incident where i'd be violent and lashed out at my husband, acting like a wild banchi, I then started to believe that my husband was making me poorly, so he could take the children away from me, I thought his mum had planned this all along, with her (deceased) husband.

I could go on but im not as even writing this I just sound like a mad hatter! I seriously cannot go through this again, ever one of the worst times of my life.

I can totally relate to the older children situation...I carry alot of guilt with that, some days I wouldnt even speak to them. my DSS who had just turned 3 was never spoken to for the whole day because I thought he would contaminate my DS I also thought he was evil and If I went near him he would somehow hurt me. when I was at the height of it all, i was at home with DS and DSS vacant, staring into space feeling like i was in a different world where any noise sounded muffled, we had a big mirror in the lounge, I walked over to it and looked at myself but when I looked it was like I looking at a completely different person a stranger but I could see evil. I then became an absolute gibbering wreck... I held DSS face as I was sobbing and I was stroking his hair just repeatedly saying Im so sorry..I;m so sorry i've let you down and then I walked into the kitchen and took an overdose of my husband lorazipam which he took to help him sleep. I then realised that there is a chance I could die in the house with the children there alone, so I called my husband to come and get them and begged him to just leave me.

I didnt realise how much i've buried this and not dealt with it as its hard to write this but its actually helping me so thank you

Staycalm, have you had any counselling? As you are pregnant you would be treated as a priority and would likely be treated under the NHS.
Please remember none of this is your fault, this is a horrible illness. you are not an inadequate mother if you have someone to help when your baby is born. plenty of people have help who are perfectly healthy.
Please don't beat yourself up, be kind to yourself, you are incredibly brave.
On a practivcal note I filled the freezer with homemade lasagnes, pies etc which was one less thing to think about.

You don't sound like a mad hatter at all, or if you are so am I. I found it hard typing the above but I do think it's good for you to not let things get bottled up, that putting things in black and white can be quite cathartic although painful.

your experience of it sounds terrifying and I can sense from what you've written how much it has scared you, as it would anyone.

I think loosing our minds is the thing that scares us most and not being able to talk about it is isolating and lonely. this thread has been really interesting to read.

I wrote a diary in hospital and I still have it buried away somewhere. It's very odd to read and there's days missing and when I've read it back it doesn't sound like me at all.

The PND group you mentioned sounds like a good thing to do,I wanted to join a local one here but my cpn put me off saying I should focus on looking forward but I do think it would have been helpful.

Im waiting for therapy, I am still being monitored but I moved recently to a different area, HV is great, I have missed app to meet my psychiatric doctor as its far and difficult with children to travel on the train etc they were going to send community nurses from the specialist unit to meet me at home but the doctor would like to see me instead. I have another one booked on the 30th, i'm going to go to that one as although ive been ok for two weeks I can have awful days and randomly feel so low im on the verge of suicidal which I hate!! or I taking on too much and spending money, starting a little business and then forgetting about it a couple of days later.

Good tip I will definitely make sure food is taken care off.

Also I just realised that I haven't said congratulations on the pregnancy, so congratulations! How many children do you have at the moment? Mix of boys/girls?

To echo whenteaready don't be too hard on yourself, keep talking to us if it helps and thank you for being brave and starting the thread

Do take care of yourself, sweet dreams xxx

Thank you I have 3 boys, I am yet to find out the sex of this one, this is the last one too so I secretly am hoping for a girl but of course it goes without saying that i'll be happy whatever we have.

On a brighter note following this PP nightmare, my DS is 7 months old and my goodness his is beautiful, full of smiles and happiness I feel so much overwhelming love when I look at him and i'm thankful everyday for being given something so precious. My DSS well i do feel our relationship is scarred a little but I love him so much, our relationship grows strength to strength each day. My DS1 wasnt really involved in the illness I think I just almost forgot he was there which is awful but our relationship has always been good.

raise a toast to the "good" days

Thank you again, sleep well, your a good person, there arent many of those around xxx

oh yes congratulations on your pregnancy and you are not mad you know, i had all sorts of crazy thoughts, i used to think there were little minature dinosaurs in my house, i would lie awake at night thinking they were going to take the children....... it seems funny now but it was so real and so scary at the time!

boys are fab btw! i have 4 boys and then no 5 was a girl! big suprise! but lovely :)

adn with regards to older children, my eldest are no 12, 9 and 7, ds4 who i got ill with has just turned 4 yrs and none of htem show any adverse affects from my illness, its something we talk about occasionally and i hope it will be something my boys can think about and we can talk more about as they get older so they they are aware if they ever have wives/girlfriends who have babies, that their mh is something to look out for and so they know to be supportive, they have seen how supportive their own dad is and they ahve also seen that you can be ill and get well again, which has to be something positive imo :)

Yes you are right 5madthings, I havent spoken to my older son about it, which come to think of it is quite ignorant really, he must have thoughts and feelings about it but he's never mentioned it. I will try and talk to him about it and see how he feels.

It does seem funny and I know that at the time it was so real to you, its so hard to make sense out of it all.

what a lucky girl you have with 4 older brothers to protect her....she will be surrounded with so much love and comfort. You sound like a very proud mum and you should be.

Sweet dreams, i'm off to bed, its been really good talking to you all

xx