Aimee’s story: I wish I could have spoken to someone else like me when I was in hospital

In the years  since I gave birth I felt completely overwhelmed by shame and guilt – until I met someone else who had experienced postpartum psychosis (PP). Getting that peer support from APP helped me come to terms with what I had been through - and marked the first time I felt any degree of normality since giving birth.

I had been in hospital for almost a year after becoming unwell with PP. There were times when I honestly didn’t think I would get better. In fact, I think if I could have spoken to someone else who had been through it when I was in hospital I might have found hope and recovery sooner. But today, me and my son George have the absolute best bond, I’m back at work and I’m even managing George’s junior rugby team. There was a time when I never could have imagined this life.

My pregnancy was generally fine – up until the point that I was induced, got sepsis and had to have an emergency C-section. I was in hospital for about five days and I didn’t get much sleep. As a single mum, I lived with my mum at the time and, when I first brought George home, she noticed something was really wrong with how I was behaving. It was as though I went completely round the twist – believing that the girl from The Exorcist was living in my wardrobe and thinking that I was going to die or George was going to die. I also stopped my mum from touching George because I believed she was poisonous and that the poison would seep out of her blood and get into him. I wasn’t sleeping and I was excessively cleaning and panic buying things. I was also talking manically and was very hyperactive.

It was a strange situation because I didn’t think there was anything wrong with me, it was everyone around me, all my family members, who noticed that there was something very wrong.

I agreed to go back to the maternity unit for a check up and was assessed in hospital by psychiatrists. I was incredibly manic at the time and becoming really out of control. They gave me a lot of sedatives and put a section on me, which they then lifted. That was when I was admitted to a Mother and Baby Unit (MBU).

A couple of hours later the sedatives wore off and I completely flipped out. I was restrained and injected and, from that point on, I barely remember a thing. It was like I woke up in hospital and it was next year.

During that period I was moved between the MBU, a psychiatric intensive care unit and two other psychiatric hospitals. I wasn’t responding to medication, so it took a few months to find the right one and come round from the psychosis. But for some time I was basically like a zombie in a chair - dribbling, non-verbal, unkempt and putting on a lot of weight. During this time my mum looked after George but she also looked after me – advocating on my behalf at the hospital and asking for more support.

Being in hospital was traumatic. At one point I was on a mixed ward and I was punched in the face and sexually assaulted by a couple of the male patients there. In December of last year I started having really distressing nightmares about my experience there.

Luckily, the all-women hospital I was moved to was where things started to improve. The clozapine was working and the environment was much better – the staff were lovely and being among all women patients and having more homely areas and activities to take part in really helped. I started to get snapshots of memory back. They let me have more visitors as well, and at one point I was able to go home for a night at a time. They also used to help me shower and help me do my hair and make-up, bringing a degree of normality back into my life.

Saying that, my recovery has been quite slow. I was on clozapine for two and a half years after being discharged and my follow-up care wasn’t great – possibly because it was during the pandemic. I was never offered any therapy and I had put on ten stone while in hospital, so I was physically unfit as well.

I eventually came off the clozapine in 2022 and was put on antidepressants but I wasn’t sleeping and kept waking up with night terrors. Eventually, I found a private therapist who was fantastic and helped me talk through my trauma and work on my self esteem.

She helped me come to terms with what had happened and helped me to understand that it was an illness – it was nothing that I had done wrong.

It was around that time I found APP, too. I got in touch with Ellie from the peer support team and took part in my first zoom café group. I was then matched with Krystal as my one-to-one peer supporter who was also really great. It was the first time I had met anyone else who had experienced PP and who had been through a similar trauma. Talking to others who have been there really gives you hope and helps you feel less ashamed and alone.

I have since been diagnosed with bipolar but it hasn’t stopped me living my life. Speaking with others who can relate was a big turning point. And my mum has been a wonderful support and the therapy really helped me too. I think it’s important to reach out for that help because locking it away is the worst thing you can do. You need to process it and you need to find hope to help you recover more quickly.

I feel so lucky that me and George have such a great bond now – he’s such a mummy’s boy.

I was worried it might never happen because we were separated for such a long time and it took a little while but we got there.

I just want others to know that you can be in the absolute worst place ever, but it does get better. It’s hard work and it takes time but you can do it. You just need to learn to reach out and ask for help. If you feel like your meds aren’t right - say so. If you feel any warning signs creeping back in - go and get help. Plodding along and saying that everything’s OK when it isn’t is the worst thing to do. I never had that hope which is why I struggled so much and for so long. I genuinely believe that if I spoke to someone like me when I was at my worst it would have made a huge difference. Everyone needs to be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel.