TL;DR: I have a history of severe bipolar and I'm worried pregnancy/motherhood will make me crazy again. What's your experience?
Would love to hear any stories from bipolar mums.
I have bipolar and I'm preparing for TTC. Really excited (and a bit nervous) to start a family. My DH and I are planning to start in a few months if everything is still stable. So I'm starting to eat better, exercise a bit more, quit vaping, monitor my cycle, etc. And as per my username, read all the things about TTC!
I've been pretty much stable for about a year, but I have been stable for this long before and relapsed. I'm especially worried because I had a really rough time with bipolar 2015-2018. My mania isn't so bad (mainly I just work obsessively and get quite creative, once I thought God spoke to me), but my depression can be severe with paranoia and delusions. I'll spare you the details, but I was hospitalised for months 4 times with depressive/psychotic episodes, sectioned once, ECT 3 times (ECT works like a miracle, but memory loss is an issue)... my episodes are long, like 3-6 months.
So my doc says I'm at high risk of postpartum depression/psychosis. They seem to have a good perinatal psychiatric team here, and I had an initial appointment with them. I'm still on medication and in "monitoring" private therapy. Luckily, they said I don't have to change my meds (lamotrigine and sertraline) for TTC.
But I'm still so worried about relapse in pregnancy or after. I couldn't handle anything back when I was severely depressed or psychotic, and I can only imagine how bad it would be if I had an episode as a new mum (or as a mum at any time, really)! There are mother and baby units here if it gets bad, but no idea what they're like. A psych ward seems like no place for a baby - they're awful. And if I had ECT again, it should work quickly so I could get out of hospital and live reasonably normally again for a while, but I might forget some of my DC childhood! :(
Can you relate? If you have bipolar (or know someone), did you relapse after/during pregnancy or stay well? What happened? Any tips for avoiding relapse?