Lizzy’s story: My postpartum psychosis made me re-live my birth trauma

After a smooth pregnancy I experienced a long and traumatic labour. My baby was back-to-back which put pressure on my nerves, and I didn’t sleep once throughout the labour which lasted for days. When postpartum psychosis hit, those traumatic birthing experiences came flooding back…

Before postpartum psychosis I’d never suffered any mental health problems. There were things that I was naturally anxious about relating to the birth – because you read so much about what can go wrong – but generally the pregnancy went smoothly.

The labour, however, was incredibly difficult. Because my baby, Patrick, was born back-to-back (i.e. he was facing the wrong way) he was pushing on my nerves which gave me the sensation to push when my body wasn’t ready to. My waters were also broken by the midwife with no prior warning, which made me think for a split second that I’d haemorrhaged. So my labour lasted a long time and I didn’t get any sleep. In fact, I think I only managed about two to three hours in four or five days.

Patrick was delivered by forceps and I had a Grade 3 tear that needed stitches. He was also mistakenly taken for blood tests because they thought his kidneys weren’t working (a nurse had failed to record when he’d had a wee.) At one point in the postpartum ward I noticed Patrick choking on mucus next to me but I was unable to get to him because of the epidural. I rang the buzzer and shouted but it took ages for someone to respond. Combined with the sleep deprivation, all of this was making me feel extremely anxious.

It was around then that I started to become suspicious that the midwives were talking about me being a first-time neurotic mum and I discharged myself at 4am- an incredibly out of character move.

When my husband was driving us home, I started shouting at him to be careful of the runners in the road. This was my first hallucination – there were no runners in the road.

At first, we kind of laughed it off and put it down to sleep deprivation and the tramadol I was taking. We didn’t realise it was a sign of what was to come.

When we got home, I was convinced that the house was on fire because I could see smoke. Again, we put it down to lack of sleep and painkillers, but my mum moved in to help us out anyway as everyone was starting to get worried about me.

The first evening I spent at home I remember being in agony because of the tear that I had suffered. I was terrified that the stitches were going to burst. That’s when I ran to our car with no shoes on wearing only maternity knickers and a shirt, begging Adam to take me back to hospital. I was seen in triage and sadly none of the professionals who saw me noticed the red flags of psychosis that were quickly developing. My physical health was checked and I was sent home.

I reverted to very childlike and vulnerable behaviour. I also began speaking very quickly and not making much sense. I kept forgetting Patrick’s name.  A midwife visited me for the two-day check-up and I remember thinking I wished our regular midwife could be there because I knew I wasn’t myself and she would have noticed that.

At that point I was still wearing my hospital band and I hadn’t showered or brushed my hair in days. I felt like a voice in my head was almost screaming please get me help to those around me but I couldn’t actually say it out loud. My mum actually did ask the midwife for mental health support but the midwife said there was no need – she said I just needed a good night’s sleep and a walk around the block.

But my increasingly strange behaviour continued. I was rubbing my stomach a lot despite Patrick not being in there anymore. I was constantly pacing, and my mum described me as doing everything and nothing. Patrick was crying and I was zoned out and couldn’t even hear him. My mum would say maybe he needs his nappy changed but I couldn’t work out how to do it – I couldn’t even make a cup of tea. I was so confused.

I didn’t eat. I kept saying I was going for a shower but not going. I was flitting through lots of thoughts and feelings - one minute feeling positive, the next teary. That’s when I started using my notes app on my phone to keep track of my thoughts.

I could not sleep. No matter how hard I tried or how tired I felt.

My brain was wired, my thoughts going at 100mph. I was googling about postpartum insomnia, trying to understand why I couldn’t sleep.

On the morning that I was sectioned, things get hazy. I still hadn’t slept or eaten. I remember feeling a primal urge to scream. My mum tells me that I ran and attempted to throw myself at the window. I thought I had died in childbirth and I started screaming that I was in hell and reeling off goodbyes to people. Then I started believing my mum had died, and that Patrick had died. At one point I was terrified that I had killed Patrick myself. I have little to no memories of this episode, it was an out of body experience.

My mum then shouted Adam to call 999 as she thought I might have psychosis. She spent her career in social care so was vaguely familiar with it. She’d also watched Stacey’s story in EastEnders and recognised what may be happening. Meanwhile I lay on the floor in the living room, shouting and screaming. Eventually the police and an ambulance came and I was taken to hospital, terrified. When I got to A&E I was covered in my own urine because part of my psychotic episode involved pushing, as if I was still giving birth, and I thought the urine was me haemorrhaging. I was also having terrible hallucinations of Patrick choking because of my experience in the postpartum ward.

Eventually, I was sectioned and transported to Derby Mother and Baby Unit (MBU) as there was no room in the Leeds MBU nearby.

When I got there I was immediately given olanzapine. I was still psychotic for a while, eventually convincing myself I was pregnant with twins and thinking I still had to give birth to one baby (this stems from my husband being a twin). During one episode I even burst my stitches too. I couldn’t feel pain - it was an out of body experience.

Eventually, after a few days, the antipsychotics started to kick in and I very quickly returned to myself. I remember feeling really embarrassed then. I asked my parents to show the MBU staff photos of me on my wedding day and to tell them I’m a teacher because I couldn’t believe what they saw me doing.

But after all that time thinking that I was in hell, I started to realise that I was in a good place. The MBU wasn’t hell, it was more like heaven. It saved me.

I was so relieved to be over the psychosis, but then depression hit me like a ton of bricks. I adored Patrick but couldn’t show it and I struggled to be near him. I withdrew from everyone and didn’t want to leave my room. I wouldn’t wish depression like that on my worst enemy. The doctors upped my sertraline and things gradually did get better but it took a while and a lot of care from the staff.

I left the MBU at the end of January having been there since the end of November. My mum and dad got an Airbnb close by to help settle me back in and the good days started outweighing the bad. Patrick becoming more smiley and interactive healed me a lot and I started going to baby groups and opening up to people about what I’d been through.

My mum found APP. She was supported by a grandmother peer supporter, and found great comfort in this. I then reached out and met Ellie, one of the peer supporters, in York. It helped me so much speaking to someone else who has been through what I had. When you’re coming to terms with what happened to you, you think to yourself, surely that’s a unique experience. But actually there’s a huge community of people with a lot in common.

Now I’m determined to spread awareness.

I’d never had any mental health issues in the past, so postpartum psychosis hit me completely out of the blue. It really can happen to anybody, so I want to be open with people about my experience.

I would say to anyone going through postpartum psychosis that, as scary as it feels, there is a community of people waiting for you when you’re better. You feel so alone when you’re in the midst of it, but you are not, I promise. And you can, and will, recover.