My Tormented Journey Into Post-Partum Psychosis

When childbirth takes you down a dark and deadly path

I stared at my dinner, my twisted imaginings making my skin crawl. As with virtually every meal since the nightmare began, I was “what-iffing” about how horrible it would be to have masses of fat little black bugs crawling all over my food. I wasn’t hallucinating; I knew this wasn’t happening, but with my vivid imagination, I could easily envision this disgusting picture to the point that I pushed away my plate, unable to eat. Again. And again. And again.

I was 18 years old and had recently given birth to my first baby, a daughter. I’d been coerced into an unhealthy marriage at 17, the result of an abusive upbringing that taught me that I was responsible for the happiness of others. I didn’t want to go through with the wedding but believed I had no right to my own feelings. From my earliest memories, my mother had made certain I knew I was unimportant, unwanted, and worthy of shame simply because I existed.

With such a toxic, unstable foundation, it was no wonder I was coming unhinged. I clung to my new role, caring for my daughter daily as though my life depended on it — because it did. To say that I was ill-prepared for the mental and emotional stresses and challenges of marriage and motherhood was a gross understatement.

No, it’s not enough. Not yet. I scrubbed harder and a little harder still. I added even more soap and continued scrubbing until my fingers were raw. Finally, after another full minute, the rinse. The water was good and hot. That ought to do it. God forbid there should be one rogue germ that dared remain. I turned off the tap and dried my cracked, red hands. As if Calgary’s arid climate didn’t already do enough damage to my skin…

But it wasn’t long, and I was scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing again, adding extra soap, and scrubbing once more.

I pulled a clean bowl from the cupboard and gave it a good squirt of dishwashing liquid. You never knew if a tiny spider might have wandered across the bowl or perhaps a random speck of dust had wafted into it. I lathered and scrubbed thoroughly before giving it a steaming hot water rinse. Then, more scrubbing, more rinsing, more scrubbing, more rinsing, and finally, it was fit to be used.

I prepared a salad, ensuring that there was not even the tiniest brown spot or slightly shriveled bit or blemish on any part of the vegetables. Each one was scrubbed thoroughly with plenty of water before cutting into them. Everything had to be extremely fresh and free from germs, bacteria, anything that might mean the slightest hint of decay. If not, I was unhinged at the idea that it would make me vomit.

After cutting up the vegetables, I scrubbed my hands again. Scrubbing and lathering. The hot water rinse. More scrubbing, more rinsing, countless times every day until my skin became so cracked and red that it bled.

“Does this smell weird to you?” I asked my husband, holding a newly-opened can of plums for him to inspect.

“No, it doesn’t,” he replied without giving it so much as a look.

“You haven’t even checked!” I was distraught. I couldn’t eat it if it smelled “off”; maybe it had been improperly canned and would make me sick.

He rolled his eyes and sighed. “We go through this every single time you open a package, a bottle, a jar, or a can. Jesus! There’s nothing wrong with the damned food!”

Certain that the plums were tainted, I emptied the tin into a container and put it in the fridge for my husband to eat later, as I did with almost everything I opened. And I grew a little thinner every day.

Every day was a nightmare. It was terrifying. Relentless. Agonising.

I was rapidly losing my grip on reality, sliding into a dark and disturbing place. The line between sane and insane was becoming ever more blurred. The worst part was that I knew it. And I had no idea how to make it stop.

Irrational fears and frightening delusions tormented me day and night, but no one seemed particularly concerned. My husband or parents had no compassion; instead, they were irritated and impatient. And in an awkward conversation with my GP about the bizarre goings-on in my brain, it was clear that he was out of his depth. Having no clue what to say and even less of an idea of how to help me, he washed his hands of my troubles by referring me to a psychiatrist.

I wouldn’t know it for several years, but I was in the midst of an alarming and potentially life-threatening medical emergency. One that my doctors should have recognised — and didn’t.

I was suffering from a rare disorder known as post-partum psychosis (PPP). It was the same critical condition that in 2001 would cause Andrea Yates to murder her five small children. A severe form of post-partum depression (PPD), according to the National Library of Medicine:

“…[post-partum psychosis] can develop rapidly and place the life of mother and infant in danger related to its symptoms which may include delusions, hallucinations, severe mood symptoms, and cognitive symptoms…Although rare, it is considered a psychiatric emergency that warrants immediate medical and psychiatric attention and hospitalization if the risk of suicide or filicide exists.”

The psychiatrist I saw must have missed that day at school. He crammed plenty of antidepressants and tranquilisers down my throat (which only made things worse) but never offered a diagnosis — or even a kind word. However, he offered plenty of insults and snide comments, belittling me and making me feel worse about myself than I already did. He was a quiet, tightly controlled British version of my mother. And a deeply hateful man.

I endured a 37-hour labour, a difficult delivery bringing my daughter into the world, and a massive, life-threatening post-partum hemorrhage two weeks later, leaving me severely weakened physically, mentally, and emotionally. It was in this vulnerable state that, within days, the bizarre fears and delusions began.

Already having a major fear of vomiting (likely due to the damage and scars from my experiences with an alcoholic father), suddenly, I had become extremely phobic about it (emetophobia). I would have literally rather been dead than ever vomit again.

Along with this sudden phobia — or perhaps because of it — I was terrified of food being “off” or something being “wrong” with it. I feared it would make me sick.

Weirdly, I felt safe with a small bowl of cream of wheat in the morning, but every other meal became an unbearable ordeal that sent my constant anxiety into overdrive. I was a slave to my delusions, tormented by bizarre beliefs and fear that held me hostage.

My husband and I visited friends we hadn’t seen since our daughter was born six months earlier. Beverley opened the door, and her smile instantly changed to a look of horror. “Oh, my God! You look awful!” she said.

“Oh, thanks!” I said, feigning hurt and smiling at her.

“You’re so skinny! There’s nothing left of you!” she said, obviously distressed as she looked me up and down. “And you’re so pale!”

“I’ve always been skinny.”

“Yeah, but not like this! I can see your hip bones and your collarbones sticking out of your clothes!”

Her husband, Bill, came up behind her and wholeheartedly agreed with her. They were right. But at the time, I couldn’t see it.

I weighed 45 lbs. less than in the photo below, which was taken 20 years later.

Aside from the psychotic food issues and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), there was over-the-top generalised anxiety, common in post-partum depression. Sometimes, it erupted into sheer panic. It was always worse at night. With my stomach in knots, my head would spin with ridiculous “what ifs” that I just couldn’t silence.

So I paced, restless and trembling. Up and down the length of our house, pacing, pacing, pacing, clutching my stomach, taking deep breaths, and trying to calm down.

If I wasn’t pacing, I was startled awake most nights. Adrenalin flooded through my veins. Certain I heard a noise, I believed someone was breaking into the house. My heart pounded in my ears as I listened, straining to hear. Was it the front door? The back? One of the windows? My hand trembled as I reached over to wake my husband but thought better of it. I knew he would be furious because night after night, I disturbed his sleep, yet there was never an intruder.

“Just the bloody furnace or the house creaking,” he’d snarl.

I wasn’t so sure.

Paralyzed by fear, I couldn’t move. Many nights I lay awake for hours, waiting for some horrible masked murderer to sneak into our bedroom and slaughter us.

Unsurprisingly, my marriage could not stand the strain of my mental state. When my daughter was ten months old, I left my husband and moved into my parents’ basement, trading in one kind of crazy for another. I hated being back in that house. But at least it was familiar. I readied myself for the onslaught of abuse and alcoholism that had driven me out when I was 16 and prayed that maybe this time, I’d handle it better.

That was probably the most ridiculous delusion of all.

***

Lying in my bed in the basement early one morning, I thought I was going to die. I couldn’t move. I was being pulled into the deepest, darkest hole like quicksand. Convinced that my heart was simply going to stop, I was certain I would die that day. And that worked just fine for me.

For hours, I lay there waiting for it, almost willing myself to do it, when suddenly, I imagined my daughter’s sweet face, her big, beautiful blue eyes, and a radiant smile that could light up the city. That perfect image of my precious girl swallowed me in love, guilt, and shame. I wept when I realised that I wanted to die as much as she needed me to live. My love for her was all that allowed me to put her needs ahead of my own, and somehow, I dragged my sorry ass out of bed, got my baby out of her crib, and willed myself to make it through another day.

But when I was driving just a few nights later while my daughter was at home with my parents, I would have sworn someone was pressing my right foot to the floor, making me step hard on the accelerator. I smiled as my mother’s car lurched forward, going faster and faster as I sped toward a cement wall. Oh, sweet freedom! Blessed relief!

The closer I got to the wall, the more exhilarating it was. I was about to die, yet I’d never felt so alive. I didn’t know whose hand was on my foot, but I was so grateful for it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for giving me peace!

My daughter’s bright, sunny face appeared before me once again and without thinking, my foot slammed hard on the brake, tires screeching, the car swerving before coming to a halt just in time. I was not dead. And it was my sweet daughter who had saved me.

My relief was brief. And didn’t stop the death wish. Or my attempts to crash into something to end my suffering before my daughter’s face stopped me.

I knew I was in trouble. And I didn’t know what to do. I had to tell someone. But there was no one to tell. No one, that is, but my mother.

At the very thought of it, my palms began to sweat. She never liked me from the moment she and my father adopted me. My heart pounded in my chest. Oh, God help me! How am I going to tell her this? But I had to, for my daughter. For her sake, I could muster the courage for just about anything. With great trepidation, I went upstairs to the back porch and saw my mother standing in the kitchen. She was busy rinsing a rag, swishing it around in a little bucket that she was filling at the sink.

I stood on the top step, my heart coming through my chest. Come on, then. Get on with it! My mouth was drier than the Sahara.

“Um…Mum?” My legs were trembling.

“Mm?” was her response, without turning away from her bucket-filling and rag-rinsing.

“I, uh…I need to talk to you.” There was no turning back.

“What is it?” Swish, swish. Rinse, rinse.

Now what? Which words? My chest was tight. I felt faint.

“I’ve been — I’m kind of — um — ” Oh, heaven help me!

“What?” she snapped, frowning at me with angry impatience before turning back to her rinsing.

Please! I might shatter!

Big breath now. “I’ve been feeling like — like I want to, uh, do myself in.”

There. I’d said it. I waited, the seconds hanging like days, my words swirling like toxic sludge between my mother and me.

If ever there was a time I needed a hug, it was then. If ever there was a time I needed someone to say, “You are loved” or “You are not alone,” it was in that horrible, desperate moment.

My mother stopped swishing, rinsing, and filling. It seemed an eternity before she turned toward me, glaring in complete and utter disgust.

“Oh, don’t be so stupid!” With an exasperated sigh, she shook her head. Muttering something under her breath, she picked up her bucket and rag and disappeared down the hall to clean her perfect house.

And I retreated back downstairs to Hell.

***

Desperate to escape my suffocating life and find happiness, I took my daughter 600 miles away to stay with my grandfather on his farm. In my earlier years, it had been the only place I was ever happy. It was the only place I’d ever felt safe, back when my grandmother was alive, and my cousins and I rode the horse, built forts out of hay bales, climbed trees, and enjoyed the long and easy days of summer.

Maybe it would provide a respite, a chance to heal and figure out my next steps.

Fresh country air, the silence, happy memories in that rickety old house … they worked their magic. And it did me a world of good to be away from the unreasonable pressures and toxic environments of my marriage and my parents. I could catch my breath. I could relax in the woods, sitting on the soft earth and leaning against trees. I could wander in the wide-open prairies of Saskatchewan and inhale the peace and freedom I craved.

The delusions of bugs and tainted food disappeared. The depression began to lift, but I was a long way from well and still desperately fragile. In some respects, the worst was yet to come. Unbeknownst to me, my issues with food were quietly morphing into full-blown anorexia, which would take years to resolve. And I was left with other issues that would get much worse before ever getting better.

But after 14 months, the terrifying delusions of post-partum psychosis had finally disappeared. No thanks to the idiot doctors who couldn’t be bothered to figure out what was wrong and who treated me with disdain. No thanks to my husband or parents. Instead of understanding — or caring — that I was terribly sick, they ridiculed me and acted like I was nothing more than a nuisance who was just plain nuts.

I had intended to stay on the farm a lot longer than a couple of months. However, after a few shocking experiences of my grandfather being sexually inappropriate with me, I had no choice but to return to my parents’ bloody basement once again.

I was determined to fight my way to a happier life for my daughter and me, come hell or high water. Whatever it took, I would figure it out. I couldn’t have begun to imagine what lay ahead — thank heaven for small mercies.

Somehow, I’d made it that far. I was still a train wreck, but I refused to give up. Something deep inside me knew there had to be a better way to live. And by God, I was bloody well going to find it.

Read how this illness morphed into a decade of another kind of hell…

Feeling stuck? Need guidance or a numerology reading to help you with clarity? Visit my shop for self-help tools to improve your life

As a Spiritual Arts Mentor and Master Teacher, I will guide you in discovering who you are, why you’re here, and how to follow that path.

Liberty ForrestApril 11, 2024