When I gave birth to my daughter in 2019 I experienced severe postnatal depression and ended up staying in a Mother and Baby Unit (MBU) for seven weeks. It was a long way from where we lived so I was grateful to be coming home with my baby girl when she was nine weeks old. I had a great couple of months and for a while everything seemed perfectly fine. Recovery was ongoing, but there didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary.

Looking back, however, I can now see what the signs were, but it was hard to recognise them at the time.

For some reason, completely out of the blue, I tried to take my own life. I have no idea why I did it, I don’t know whether it was an impulse or a window of opportunity (I did it when I was alone in the house). I ended up in hospital for 24 hours, saw the crisis team and was sent home.

Soon after, my thinking became really distorted. I kept saying to my husband that perhaps I actually died when I tried to take my life. On reflection, I now believe this was the onset of postpartum psychosis (PP).

There are snapshots of things I remember, like not believing that colours were real. I was questioning the colour of everything – suggesting to my husband that we were seeing different things when we looked at a brown lampshade, for example. I also started believing that my baby daughter had been swapped and the baby I had at home wasn’t mine. And I remember seeing a nursery nurse walk into my neighbour’s house and thinking she was coming to take my baby away.

Strange fears and beliefs from when I was a child started to re-emerge as well. I remember telling my dad that he needed to lock the door before ‘Hammer Man’ came to get me (Hammer Man was a name we made up for someone we were scared of as kids – as you do when your imagination runs wild).

I still didn’t realise that there was anything wrong with me. However, I went to bed one night, feeling perfectly calm, woke up at 5.30am and got myself ready for a night out! I was doing my hair, makeup, putting evening clothes on and I was really high and full of energy.

Because my daughter was about six months old by this point, we weren’t really alert to the risk of any new potential mental health problems as so much time had passed. My husband thought I was unusually quite happy, but he put it down to exhaustion. Plus, he had to take our son to school that day so I was home alone with our baby girl.

I remember feeling really happy, singing and dancing around the house with a photo of my son in one hand and one of my daughter in the other. I couldn’t see that this wasn’t normal behaviour for me at the time.

Luckily, I had an appointment with the perinatal mental health team that day. A nurse came out to see me and she immediately spotted the signs that all was not well. I remember she told me that she had to nip to Morrison’s and she asked me if I wanted anything. Obviously, looking back, I can see that she was going to make some calls and arrange to get me to hospital, but at the time I just went along with it, thinking it was normal to nip out to a supermarket half way through a mental health appointment.

The nurse returned shortly afterwards with the dummies I had asked for, as well as some chocolate for me. She stayed with me and explained that I needed to go to Ward F at our local psychiatric hospital for an assessment.

Strangely, and probably because I was so high, I was over the moon about going to hospital. It didn’t register that it was because I was unwell, and I just felt excited about being able to talk to everyone there.

About a week after I was admitted my mood changed dramatically from being really elated and happy to feeling empty. Unfortunately, after thinking they’d be able to get me a bed back on the MBU I was in a few months earlier when I had PND, they weren’t able to secure me a place. We didn’t have an MBU in Wales which is why I was so far away from home the first time I was hospitalised, but now I couldn’t even get in there. I felt a strong sense of rejection, loss and emptiness at that point. My mania had dropped and depression was hitting me again.

After about four weeks I was thankfully able to go home full time under the care of my perinatal mental health team, who continued to support me throughout.

Hospital environments are very different to being in an MBU, and I really didn’t want my children visiting me on the ward. MBUs have more of a homely, comforting environment, and the facilities are geared up for mums with young babies and visiting families. Hospitals, on the other hand, can feel much more clinical and hectic, with lots of people coming and going – different patients, doctors, nurses and visitors.

This is why I ploughed so much energy into the campaign to get an MBU in Wales, which we now thankfully have at Tonna Hospital in Swansea. It’s called Uned Gobaith – which means Unit of Hope. Whilst the one in Derby that I went to with depression before PP hit was comfortable, it was almost 300 miles from home. I will never forget the three-hour journey there on the minibus. It was dark, and I remember my husband waving me off - I was so anxious and upset to leave him there. It still upsets me now when I think about that night.

But being so far from home also made it really difficult for my husband to visit and, given the fact he was looking after our son, as well as working full time, I only saw him about once a fortnight.

Having your baby with you, regular visitors, toys for your children to play with and your own private room to bond with your child, combined with the specialist facilities that new mums and their babies need, makes a huge difference for those of us who experience PP. It can actually help us to recover more quickly from the devastating symptoms.

Seeing the new MBU open, and seeing the brilliant surroundings and facilities will hopefully mean that other new mums in my position will have a faster and more comfortable recovery from this awful illness. It’s a real step forward.

Sometimes, the worst things in life are the things you don’t expect. For me, unexpectedly suffering from postpartum psychosis and severe depression, and spending almost a whole year in a psychiatric mother and baby unit felt like the worst thing that could ever happen to me. However, in many ways, it has also been the best thing…

After getting married to my dream man, James, I was desperate to have a baby. Sadly, the first time I fell pregnant I had an ectopic pregnancy, which led to me losing one fallopian tube and having a severely damaged left ovary. Thankfully, just a few months later, this trauma was all but forgotten, as I found out I was pregnant with my little girl.

My pregnancy certainly wasn’t a breeze, however. I had problems with my back and hips, and now, looking back, I definitely suffered from antenatal depression and anxiety. I would visit a therapist and wonder why I didn’t have ‘the glow’ or why I felt angry and upset - nobody told me that being pregnant can bring on all sorts of mental health issues. The doctors would speak about gestational diabetes and placenta previa amongst other things, but they never mentioned depression to me. Because of this, I looked forward to my pregnancy being over and welcoming my baby girl into the world – thinking that, then, everything would be fine.

But it wasn’t fine.

When my daughter Elena, now five, came into the world, I became seriously unwell and was unable to bond with her.

Shortly after her birth, I began seeing things and hearing things that weren’t really there.

I would go into the bathroom and see blood pouring out of the tap. Then, as I would return to my bed, I would see thousands of cockroaches crawling out from beneath my bed. Spiders seemed to surround me and climbed up my walls. My world became very dark. Funnily enough, I didn’t really do anything about it. I spoke to a doctor friend, who said I was probably suffering from the ‘baby blues’. Baby blues my backside!

Twelve weeks into being a mum and things were still incredibly difficult. I remember it was 8^th May 2016, a few days before my birthday. I am also sure it was a Sunday, because we went for Sunday lunch with my parents. It was a really normal day. We came home and I put Elena to bed. The next part of what happened is hazy. I came into our living room and removed my watch. I used the metal strap to scratch my arm. I remember my husband being horrified. James began asking what I was doing and things really escalated. Apparently I started throwing wine bottles around our living room, pulling anything and everything out of the drawers. Understandably, James was concerned and called my mother to come and help. When she came I began screaming at her calling her a whore. Please note that this is something I would never, ever do! Before I knew it, James was restraining me and there were police and paramedics surrounding me. I was taken to the Edinburgh Royal Psychiatric Hospital for assessment, where I was told that if I refused hospital treatment, I would be sectioned under the mental health act.

So, at 3 o’clock in the morning of the 9^th May 2016, James drove myself and Elena to St John’s Mother and Baby Unit in Livingston. It was a locked unit for mothers with perinatal mental health disorders. I was diagnosed with postpartum psychosis and told that Elena and I would need to stay there together for a couple of weeks.

A couple of weeks turned into half a year. I believed that I needed to drown Elena and, as a result, I was not allowed to be alone with her. I had to have two people with me at all times. My door was never allowed to be closed and I tried to take my life several times. All very, very dramatic. Following my psychotic episode I went into a deep depression and required multiple sessions of electro convulsive therapy (ECT) to help bring me out of it. I was so depressed that I wouldn’t speak, and my family described me as having very dark eyes and just staring at a wall all day. I was catatonic.

With medication and incredible staff at the MBU, along with my gorgeous husband and super supportive family, I started getting better. Initially, I was too unwell for talking therapy, but slowly, I began to see a psychologist and learn about coping mechanisms such as ‘Decider Skills’ and my world opened up to mindfulness practice and meditation. After half a year, I finally came out of the hell that I was in. Unfortunately, after my second child, I became ill again but it wasn’t psychosis this time. I wouldn’t be where I am today without the incredible staff at St Johns and community support workers. And I don’t believe I’d be here at all if it wasn’t for my husband and loving family. Unfortunately, I only found out about APP and the peer support network after my illness, but I wish I had known about their support back then, because what they do is incredible.

Since my illness I have learnt so much about my wellbeing. Every woman’s experience is different, but for me, wellbeing is not just about health and fitness, something which I believed to be true in my twenties. Wellbeing is so much more; it’s life satisfaction, job satisfaction, having meaningful relationships, taking time for yourself to heal and reflect, having a sense of purpose and a sense of meaning. Whilst, as new mothers, we often hear about how amazing it is to be pregnant and how beautiful it is being a mother, we do not all feel this way all of the time. Unfortunately, not all women have a good start to motherhood – whether that’s because of depression or postpartum psychosis or any other reason. But one thing I really want women going through similar experiences to me to know is that it is TEMPORARY and there is support out there. As a woman, I feel that women supporting women is truly important - especially, when it comes to childbirth and parenting – which is why peer support is key.

My experience of postpartum psychosis literally nearly killed me. But to return to my first paragraph, it has also brought me so many good things too: I live a fuller, more whole and content life. I am resilient and stronger than anyone I know - that might sound cocky, but after everything I’ve been through, it’s true!

I am able to get through literally anything and I am no longer afraid.

One of the most important lessons I learnt is that you either get bitter or you get better. It’s that simple. You either take what has been dealt to you and you let yourself grow and become a better person, or you choose to let it tear you down. We cannot choose whether or not we experience postpartum psychosis, but we CAN choose how to get better with it. The choice doesn’t belong to fate; it belongs to you.

You are not alone. There are people out there. They are called APP. They can help you choose.