35 | Ariane

postpartum psychosisdepressionpsychiatryMBU

27 May

“I really, really, really, really tried to keep it together as long as I could. And it wasn’t actually until I wasn’t able to keep it together anymore in front of him that I think was the trigger point for me to get help, because I think up until that point I had been able to fake it and just go through the motions. And then one day I started to cry and I just couldn’t stop crying...”

— Ariane

When Ariane became a mother, it wasn’t just the sudden onset of delusions, hallucinations, and severe depression that haunted her early days of parenting. From body image triggers, the pervasive grip of perfectionism, the reluctance to seek help, and the fear of her son being forcibly removed, it was also Ariane’s complex history as a ballet dancer, case worker and registered psychologist that cast a long, dark shadow over her mental health in pregnancy and postpartum.

In this episode, I am joined by none other than Ariane Beeston, author of the newly released memoir Because I’m not Myself, You See, who so vulnerably revisits the ghosts of her past with me and who shares, with incredible insight, the realities of mental ill health as both a patient, former practitioner, and advocate.

This is part one of Ariane’s harrowing, albeit profound, story, that explores her formative years and early motherhood, up until the moment she realised she had to release the control she sought over her past and present in order to welcome recovery in the future.

Please note, this episode discusses suicidal ideation, and briefly mentions suicide and infanticide. Go gently.

It’s almost impossible to condense Ariane’s story to the time period between pregnancy and the immediate postpartum. To do so would be to do a disservice to the earlier years that so clearly informed her experience with maternal mental ill health, and also to the life-changing years that have followed. To do Ariane’s story justice, we have to go back to the very beginning…

“So my background is: I'm a registered psychologist and I began my career for the Department of Community Services or DOCS, which is now known as DCJ. And I began working on the child protection helpline and then worked out in the field and then as a psychologist. So, yeah, that was my background before I became a mum and became unwell.”

“My job or my career began at the Child Protection Helpline here in New South and that role was basically taking calls from members of the public, but also police, health, education about children at risk of neglect and abuse. And we would triage the calls and then the calls then go out to the local DOCS office. And so I did that for a little while.”

“I actually found the shift work particularly difficult, which is also an interesting point because of what pieces of the puzzle that fell into place on my journey. And that was a very early one around not being able to cope particularly well with sleep deprivation or just interruptions to my sleep cycle. And so I very much noticed that my moods were very much, I think, affected by the shifts that I was doing there. But also the nature of the work, it was a really, really tough job, particularly as a new graduate.”

“So then I moved out into the field and that was the frontline child protection case worker role. So that was taking the reports that we got from the helpline and then actually going out and doing those assessments. And so that would mean going into people's homes. It would mean, yeah, doing those interviews and assessments with families. And sometimes that meant also bringing children into care - so what we would call removing children or an assumption into care.”

“And so as a young woman, I wasn't a mother, obviously, at that stage, I was in my early 20s. And it was an incredibly intense job, carrying a lot of risk, that vicarious trauma. And really not having the space, I think, to debrief or to really talk about what was happening, the things that we were seeing and the actions we were taking.”

“So yeah, in a short period of time, I had in my care a number of babies. And then, yeah, bringing those cases through in the court process and working with the families and in some cases doing early intervention work. But a lot of the time it was making really difficult decisions and holding a lot of risks. But it definitely informs my, I think, early views around parenting, what motherhood would potentially look like. And not an easy start to a career.”

“After I left field work, I got a job as a provisional psychologist at one of the community services centres and finished my training through that process. So when I had my son, I was a fully registered psychologist. I've been working in that role. That was the career path that I was on and had been working towards. And then I had my son and became disastrously unwell.”

“I think the challenge for me is - we talk a lot about, and you talk so often and so beautifully on this podcast, but also on social media - about stigma and the stigma of maternal mental illness. And so when I explain to people what it was like for me, I had that double stigma, the stigma of having a mental illness as a mother, but also the stigma of having a mental illness as a mental health professional and a mental health professional who was early on in my career.”

“And I was really, really concerned about what would happen if I spoke up, if I was too honest about how unwell I was and some of the things that I was experiencing. What would that mean for me as a clinician for my career? And what would my colleagues think of me? What would potential clients or patients think of me. And so all of that was swirling around my head, along with the stigma and the guilt and the shame of just, I say that in inverted commas, of just being a mum with a mental illness as well.”

“It definitely played a part in my inability to feel I could speak honestly about how bad things were.”

“I became convinced that somehow the department would know that he had this nappy rash. And not only would they know that he had this nappy rash, but they would then deem that I was an unfit mother and that they would come and take him.”

“As I said, I had removed babies. I'd taken children into care where there were situations that were deemed too risky for children to remain in the home. And that was oftentimes a result of a number of factors… There were always a multitude of factors that we would have to take into consideration!”

“But there are a few cases where a child would come into care and they would be in the office and we'd have to change them. And there are a couple that, for whatever reason, just planted themselves in my brain. And one particular one where this baby had a nappy rash and wasn't at all the reason why they were in care and certainly not neglect. It was just babies get nappy rash.”

“So fast forward to a couple of days postpartum and I noticed my son has a bit of a nappy rash. Babies get nappy rash, we can say that now. But that for me was the moment where I think the delusion started and I became convinced that somehow the department would know that he had this nappy rash. And not only would they know that he had this nappy rash, but they would then deem that I was an unfit mother and that they would come and take him into care. And that would happen because I had done that and I had brought children into care.”

“And so that delusion started to set in. So that was the first of the symptoms. I became just really, really scared that DOCS was going to come and remove him, that they would somehow know. And I would keep him quite hidden.”

“When I went outside, I would keep the hood of the pram down, so I’d cover him. And I remember being at home and hearing a knock on the door and lying straight flat on the floor under the window with the curtains closed, thinking that the social workers were there to take him away. Things that seem completely crazy, but made complete sense at the time when I was in that state.”

“Everyone around you is so excited about the baby and there’s all this anticipation and baby showers and there’s work celebrations and everyone’s texting. There’s just so much joy and you just feel so removed from it all...”

“I wasn't screened. So not just for anxiety and depression, but yes, certainly those risk factors. And I think you've talked about, and you talk about later on in the book as well, so generously, about how you were screened with the antenatal risk questionnaire and how important that is, because it does pick up risk factors that perhaps could have changed some of the course of my journey. I say that, though, but I also want to caveat that with the fact that: would I have been honest about those things?”

“And I think it's something we can all, many of us can relate to, when we're filling out these bigger screening tools as well, that they're only as good as, I guess, how we talk about them being self-report, right? Which means that you have to be honest. And if you're not, or if you know how to work the system or how to answer so that the score comes up favourably, then you won't be referred to those treatments and supports and so on.”

“So no, I wasn't screened, but would me, 13 years ago, have been honest? If I was, I'm not sure I would have been.”

“I can very much, in hindsight, go back and say that I was antenatally depressed and certainly had quite severe antenatal anxiety. I think the anxiety was certainly more severe than the depression. I know you shared a section of the book from memory on your podcast about that feeling during pregnancy of just almost like the absence of feeling, which was so different to the depression postpartum. But the antenatal, yeah, it was just that... Yeah, all of your emotion being just being completely stripped of colour and just that feeling of just numb and just not feeling anything.”

“It's particularly disconcerting, I think, when everyone around you is so excited about the baby and there's all this anticipation and baby showers and there's work celebrations and everyone's texting. There's just so much joy and you just felt so removed from it all.”

“I think I put down the absence of feeling to just, I think I'm just scared. I'm just scared, and once this passes, everything will be okay, which, again, I know resonates for you. Once we get past that point, I will feel differently.”

“But yeah, the antenatal anxiety was certainly more severe and obvious on the page when you read in hindsight that that was what was going on. But yeah, I didn't recognise or have the language to perhaps name it as that at the time.”

“Anxiety is draining. It just zaps the life and the joy and the colour as well. And we know, too, that if you've had antenatal anxiety or antenatal depression, then your risk of having it postpartum is also high.”

“I feel passionate about women having the information so that they can act during pregnancy, so that they can potentially have a different or better postpartum experience, or that things can be put in place so that it's all there.”

“Writing the book and revisiting that, I just think, gosh, what would it have been like if I had got support early on? And how might that have changed the course of my journey? And I have to give myself grace. You only know what you at the time. But I do definitely feel very passionate about women speaking up early, if they can, and getting that support in place during pregnancy, because I really think that it can change. It can change your experience of motherhood and just put some joy back in it, in what can be a really stressful and worrying time as well.”

“I had to work really hard at not falling into previous habits around restricting or over-exercising or all of those things that I had relied on to keep small for ballet.”

“I started dancing when I was three, and it was just, I suppose, the first love of my life. I loved it and still love it. And yeah, very quickly was training for a career in ballet. And so my adolescence was spent at the bar in front of a mirror at a time where spending a lot of time in leotard and tights in front of a mirror as an adolescent isn't particularly fun or conducive to good body image.”

“Long story short, I wanted to be a dancer. And then when I hit about 15, I just stopped growing similar to you… But also my body type was quite muscular and at the time the fashion was very much the taller, very slim dancers. And that just wasn't me. And so I came to the decision that I wasn't going to keep trying to force myself into this mould that I never felt that I was going to be able to be, that I didn't have the perfect ballet body and I wasn't going to sign myself up to a career and just not feeling good enough.”

“But I think how it comes up, and it's definitely a thread throughout the book, is the perfectionism, which isn't obviously just related to ballet, but certainly ballet and perfectionism often go hand in hand as does motherhood and perfectionism as well.”

“But also what came up for me was pregnancy and how similar that was to being a young dancer and having your body scrutinised and not feeling like you were quite right. Well, just, yeah, feeling like everybody had the right to comment on your size and your shape and your weight.”

“My obstetrician was someone who weighed me every visit. And that seems to be variable. I know I've spoken to women who weren't weighed at all or perhaps weighed the first appointment and not weighed again, and others who similarly were weighed each time. And I found that really triggering because, again, each time that weight was recorded and there was a clear, ‘this is the weight you should be when you go into the delivery room.’”

“And to me, it just really dredged up a lot of those feelings that I had around my body and my body not being good enough or just feeling like people had the right to comment on it or have opinions about it. It was ‘you're measuring too small’ or, ‘oh my God, your boobs are so huge. I've never seen you with boobs.’ Or, ‘oh, wow, your face is really round.’ Or, ‘Wow, you're so tiny, you're going to bounce back straight away.’”

“I hadn't felt so scrutinised about my body and the way that it was supposed to fit into this rigid standard of what was the ideal. I really did find that quite difficult. And I found that I had to work really hard at not falling into previous habits around restricting or over-exercising or all of those things that I had relied on to keep small for ballet. You can't do that when you're pregnant. It's dangerous. So I found that really, really, really difficult.”

“And again, it's not something that I had ever heard anyone really talk about. I think there's still quite a bit of shame about talking about your feelings the way that your body changes during pregnancy and then obviously postpartum as well. And we've done some research through COPE as well. A couple of years ago when we were doing the National Awareness campaign, I was just amazed at how many women anonymously came forward to say, ‘oh, I'm so triggered when I stand on the scales and I had to ask my obstetrician to cover their numbers because it makes me feel awful’ or women struggling with binge eating during pregnancy or struggling with a relapse of previous behaviours that they hadn't experienced since they were a teenager.”

“We know that it's a time where women can either develop an eating disorder or experience a relapse of a previous eating disorder. And it's still taboo. It's one of those things that's so taboo. I think I talk about in the book, I was working at Fairfax and I'd written so many articles about my mental health. I was happy to talk about my mental health. I wrote one article about how I found pregnancy was quite triggering in terms of those prior behaviours. And I just could never press publish on it. And I never did. And it just sat there in my drafts because I felt like it just wasn't something that I could give to the world just yet.”

“And I think the conversation is moving along. But I also think it's moving along because we're starting to see women suffer more. And I think that's partly to do with social media as well. There's so much pressure on social media to have the perfect baby bump and that aesthetic and then postpartum to be straight back in your active wear and look like you haven't ever given birth. And so I think, yeah, it is something that we're starting to hear more about because women are feeling that pressure.”

“I feel like it's still something that's not easy to talk about because there is a weird taboo around it. But I think with my own story, it's that clear retriggering of behaviours that I had learned in those formative years that then resurface during a time of extreme stress.”

“And then for me, breastfeeding just absolutely stripped the weight from me and also severe depression as well. And a lot of women say that, that I've never been this skinny, but I look awful because I'm just so drained. My body just can't keep up with the breastfeeding.’ So our bodies do all respond very differently to being pregnant and that postpartum period as well. I think we just need to be really mindful of that, of what's happening for somebody else and their own history and what they bring to that period as well.”

“It felt like walking through mud, that sense of everything being like you were living behind a pane of glass and everything was happening around you, that you were just completely disconnected from everyone and everything, just feeling completely untethered from the world, having no pleasure or joy in anything...”

In addition to the delusions, Ariane very quickly began experiencing severe depression early on in postpartum.

“We talk about women experiencing the baby blues. It's common, happens day three. And I don't remember that being a huge aspect of my own experience. I think it just went straight to really bad. So, yeah, it was around the same time the delusions started.”

“And it was just a really... That feeling of just your body just feeling so heavy. I remember it being so physical, your limbs just feeling heavy, not being able to sleep, having no appetite. Everything slowed down. Everything was really slow. So walking anywhere, it felt like walking through mud, that sense of everything being like you were living behind a pane of glass and everything was happening around you, that you were just completely disconnected from everyone and everything, just feeling completely untethered from the world, having no pleasure or joy in anything.”

“I was amazed at how physical it was. I know we talk about mental illness and the emotional mental aspects of it. But yeah, I was really shocked at just how physical it was, how exhausting it was. And it’s really difficult to care for a baby when you're feeling that as well, you go into survival mode and you do what you need to do to look after the baby.”

“So everything else becomes, yeah, secondary. And that self-care is just non-existent. And so you're running on nothing. I mean, it was no sleep, not eating, and just you're wading through treacle. It was, yeah, really, really intensely awful experience.”

“I think what stands out for me, and this was one of the delusions, was that I actually thought that I had died. So I thought that I was dead and that if I was dead, that it wouldn't actually matter if I took my own life because I was already dead. I got stuck on this loop and I would end up just ruminating on that thought pattern, which, as you can imagine, is very... I mean, that's really dangerous.”

“But yeah, it was just this sense of just of hopelessness and feeling like I was a burden to everybody, that the boys, I say the boys, but Rob and Henry, would be better off without me, that I was just... Yeah, and there's this is just an enormous sense of guilt… just not really feeling like there was anything to live for anymore, which is just, looking back is just, I mean, I love my life. I love everything. I feel I'm so lucky and I'm someone who experiences so much joy and pleasure. And so to look back on that and feel like that poor version of me didn't feel as she had anything to live for is just so sad.”

“It's so heart-breaking when I think about it. But I think it just shows how dangerous, when we talk about depression and clinical severe depression, it's just so dangerous. And it's something that If you can't get off and get out of those terrible rumination cycles, you're feeling like there's no way out. That's when we do hear these tragic outcomes that we're really working, that all of us in this space are really working to prevent, I think, when it comes down to it.”

“I feel really grateful that I wasn't a statistic. And I think that's part of why I feel that I have been doing the work that I'm doing around the advocacy, but also just working with the screening and training and the resources and the research, because we know that suicide is one of the leading causes of maternal death… And that's not good enough. It's devastating.”

“I really, really, really, really tried to keep it together as long as I could. And it wasn’t actually until I wasn’t able to keep it together anymore in front of him, I think was the trigger point for me to get help, because I think up until that point I had been able to fake it and just go through the motions. And then one day I started to cry and I just couldn’t stop crying...”

With the depression and delusions, Ariane felt that she struggled to bond or form an attachment with her son, Henry.

“I didn't feel that love at first sight that we hear about very occasionally. I think it's not quite as common as people might necessarily admit to or certainly what the research says. Yes, I think the one big impact for me was just that it really delayed that bonding and attachment. For me, it took months to develop.”

“And that was really tough, quite shameful, I think, to admit that. You feel like you're on autopilot a bit and you are in survival mode and you are doing all the things that you need to do. But yeah, just not feeling any real connection.”

“And I think going back to that thread of the dance and performance, I think a lot of what I was able to do was to perform. I was able to perform the ‘Good Mother’. I was able to be on, perhaps I think, for him. And then when he would sleep, which was rare, or when I was by myself, was when I was able to really crash and fall back in on myself.”

“But I think one thing that I was able to do really, really well was to perform, to be on for him when I needed to be.”

“I think his experience of mothering him, of being mothered, I think he really, I mean, he got as much of me and the best of me as I could muster. And I think I really, really, really, really tried to keep it together as long as I could. And it wasn't actually until I wasn't able to keep it together anymore in front of him. And I think was the trigger point for me to get help, because I think up until that point I had been able to fake it and just go through the motions.”

“And then one day I started to cry and I just couldn't stop crying. And I think I just cried for days, three days. My husband was away and I called him wherever he was and he said, ‘I think you need to go and see someone’. And so that was the moment where I did go and see my GP.”

“But It was purely because that was it. I was not actually able to function. I wasn't able to mother. I wasn't able to stop crying. And that to me was the point where I was like, ‘well, I can't hide how bad I'm feeling in front of my baby’. Then that's... I need help. I can't walk out of the house and function. That's the point where things are bad enough that I can't hide this anymore. And that's when I went to the GP and then eventually was referred to the MBU when Henry was about nine months old.”

“It's a long time. It was a really long time. And it's something that... It's one of my biggest regrets. It's one of the reasons why I feel so passionate about having written this book and also working in this space, because I shouldn't have waited so long. And we know the sooner you get help, the sooner you get better.”

“I did myself a massive disservice by waiting for so long because it actually it took me so long to feel well. I mean, that's the six-month mark when I actually got help to really feeling healthy and well and back to a version of myself, because you'll never be exactly the same again, I’d say it probably took me three years. I think it took me three years. And I mean, you just... Hindsight is a beautiful thing! And had I gotten help early, would it have changed things? I don't know. And I can't be too hard on myself and think, ‘what if?’ But yeah, it was a long time to suffer and feel miserable and so unwell.”

“I didn’t actually know that it was an option to be co-admitted. And it was incredibly shameful. I think that was the moment where I thought, wow, I really failed at this, haven’t I? I’ve really, really. It felt like my rock bottom. It wasn’t. There was more rock bottom to come, but it felt that way...”

After seeing the GP, Ariane was put on medication and was referred to a psychiatrist, although neither helped.

“I'm very sensitive to medication side effects. So it took me a lot of trial and error to eventually get to the cocktail that worked. But yes, so medication, initially seeing a psychiatrist who was just completely the wrong fit as well. I think he was a very good clinician, just not the right clinician for me.”

“It's actually important because finding the right doctor in this period, as you know, it's not just any doctor, it's not just being referred to as psychiatrist or a psychologist. And so much of what we know about psychotherapy is it's that fit between the patient and their therapist. So I think that just wasn't the right fit for me.”

“And by that point, I was increasingly suicidal. The medication just wasn't doing enough, wasn't working. And my GP just felt that I needed more care than I was able to get at home in the community. And yes, I made the referral for the MBU.”

“It was so shameful. Gosh, I didn't even know that a mother and baby unit existed. Again, this was 13 years ago, so it was the only mother and baby unit as well in New South Wales… But yes, I didn't actually know that it was an option to be co-admitted. And it was incredibly shameful. I think that was the moment where I thought, wow, I really failed at this, haven't I? I've really, really. It felt like my rock bottom. It wasn't. There was more rock bottom to come, but it felt that way.”

“I had to do a lot of mental gymnastics to even get to the point where I felt I was able to pack my bag and get ready to be admitted. Incredibly shameful, and not to harp on about it, but again, not just as a mum, but I'm a mental health professional who is now being admitted to a psychiatric facility! It was a lot to come to terms with at that time.”

“She saw me when I needed to be seen...”

“The psychotic aspects hadn't been picked up. Again, this isn't uncommon in cases that aren't really obvious. You would know from having spoken to women as well that in some situations, the psychosis is really obvious and it's florid and it's clear that there's something not right.”

“But then there are situations and there are cases, I think, more similar to mine. And that also mirror some of the tragic cases and the cases that we read about where it's not as obvious, it's harder to detect, it goes undetected for longer. And it can have really incredibly tragic, devastating outcomes.”

“I think part of why I felt I needed to write this book was that it's not always obvious, it's not always clear. And sometimes it's just that a woman is behaving a bit strange, a bit odd.”

“I spoke to Professor Anne Buist in the book, and she's one of the leading perinatal psychiatrists in Australia. Big player. She was saying that, yeah, sometimes if a woman is acting strange or if she's doing something that's odd, then for her it was always ‘this postpartum psychosis until proven otherwise’. That really landed and that's something that I really resonated because I think, yeah, sometimes it is just behaviour that's a little bit odd, a bit different. Someone's just not quite themselves. They're just behaving in a bit of a strange way.”

“And that was me. That was the delusions. I mean, people didn't see me necessarily lying on the floor when I was hiding from the social workers. But the other thing, and I don't think we've mentioned this yet, but I was hallucinating. Occasionally my son would turn into a dragon and I would hallucinate. But I didn't tell anyone that. And no one really asked or if they did, I don't recall and I wasn't honest.”

“But it was relatively easy to keep hidden until it wasn't, I guess.”

“It wasn't until I was referred to a perinatal psychiatrist who is Dr. Q in the book… I went to see her not long after I was discharged from hospital, and I went to see her with the goal of going back to work. I wanted to go back to work. And so presented myself really well. I had a new audience! I was fresh. I was good to go. She had nothing apart from the clinical notes that had been given to her. And she, bless her, just saw a straight through me.”

“And it was because she... I mean, she's a really skilled clinician and clinical experience. But how she describes it is there was so much that just didn't add up in terms of the professionals that I'd seen, their notes, their assessment. And there was still something that she just felt there was something more going on. Yeah, and she was the one who put the pieces together.”

“She presented in a way that was really tentative. And we’ve laughed about that since... She wasn't being definitive. It was like, ‘This is what I think. This is just a theory, a working hypothesis.’ And she said, ‘I was really worried about what you would say or what you would do when you read that’. She said, ‘I thought you might not come back.’”

“I think what it did, though, was it put this whole language in this whole frame around why I had felt so bad and why all of the different medication or treatments and doctors and so on, why nothing really felt like it had been working.”

“She saw me, I guess. She saw me when I needed to be seen. And, yeah, we're still together… I was really lucky to have found her and She made me work hard. She still makes me work hard, but yeah, with just this incredible ability to see exactly what was going on, even when I wasn't being completely honest and forthcoming.”

“As Dr. Q said, I was still trying to orchestrate my own care and manage everything. And she said, ‘you have to let me just steer the ship. You have to just sit back and let me steer the ship and just take it from here because you just, yeah, you’re just not going to get better.’”

A big part of Ariane’s experience, before being able to recover, was having to be honest and to let go of the need to perform.

“I think he was 15 months, actually. I had I guess what was a relapse or I hadn't fully recovered, however you want to describe it, and went back into hospital. And this was just a general psychiatric unit, which was such a different experience [to the MBU] and I didn't last very long. I found it quite stressful. It was you're in a ward with men and women, and I didn't feel comfortable with that as well. It was a very different experience to being just with mums and babies.”

“ And I went in there for a brief reprieve. I was again, very sleep deprived. I needed a medication review. Yeah, and I think coming out of hospital the second time, I had also tried to go back to work and had failed at that. I tried to go back to my work as a psychologist at DOCS, and it was just too much too soon. And that then made me feel even worse because I wasn't competent at something that I used to be very competent at.”

“I think it was at that point, I think I had been really still trying to orchestrate, as Dr. Q said, I was still trying to orchestrate my own care and manage everything. And she said, ‘you have to let me just steer the ship. You have to just sit back and let me steer the ship and just take it from here because you just, yeah, you're just not going to get better.’”

“So I handed over the keys and said, ‘You can drive’. And yeah, but it was tough. It was really tough to just put my trust in someone and for her to say, ‘I've got this. Let's just do this together and let me drive’. But it was definitely tough. It was definitely tough and it definitely took a second hospital admission and trying to go back to work and just realising I was nowhere near recovered and that it was going to take longer if I kept, yeah, trying to do it on my own, I think. And realising I didn't have to do it on my own I didn't have to. I wasn't trying to prove. I didn't have to prove myself to anyone anymore. I had someone who was able to guide me on that process and was willing to as well.”

“I just had to let go.”

“I had to trust this person and that she knew what she was doing and that she would get me better.”

“There’s something about being unwell during the perinatal period, where as a patient, you feel like you are the only patient who is never going to get better. You are the one person, you are that patient who is beyond help and is never going to get better. No matter what people tell you, you are that one person who’s never, ever, ever, ever going to get well...”

“There's something about being unwell during the perinatal period, where as a patient, you feel like you are the only patient who is never going to get better. You are the one person, you are that patient who is beyond help and is never going to get better. No matter what people tell you, you are that one person who's never, ever, ever, ever going to get well.”

“I don't know what it is about that particular time.”

“I think there is that feeling of ‘I am the one person who is just never going to get better. I'm going to be feeling like this forever’, which I find really interesting. I think that if anyone's listening and think that that's them, we can both say we have felt that way, too, and that's not the case. It does happen, and it takes a while. Sometimes it takes years.”

“But I think, yeah, up until that point, I think that's how I felt. I'm the one person who's never going to, like why are you wasting your time? Yeah, and so I had to get past that block. And I thought, genuinely, I thought I was the one person who was just going to have a postpartum illness for the rest of my life. I was just completely not able to be fixed.”

“And I find that so interesting that that seems to be quite a common experience.”

“I think once I realised that I wasn't that special, my case was not going to be written up by Dr. Q in an international journal and presented at conferences around the world. That was not my time to shine. Yeah, that I was then able to start to move forward. Not being special was the moment!”

“It's these little moments where you start to have more good days and bad days. You have a couple of good days in a row. And it's difficult because we know, and again, something that you talk about so beautifully about the fact that the recovery process is not at all linear. That's really distressing as you're getting better because you feel like you're turning a corner and then suddenly you'll have a really bad day or a couple of bad days. There's that terror of, ‘Oh, my gosh, is it back? Am I sick again? Am I back there?’ And it is just, unfortunately, part of that process, isn't it?”

“And again, that's making sure people realise that of you had a couple of bad days, it doesn't mean that you're relapsing or you're back in that really scary place. It's just part of part of recovery. But something that's really important that we normalise, it's not straight, I wish mental illness and treatment was that simple, but it's not.”

“So I think, yeah, if anyone is listening and feels that, yeah, that they maybe had postnatal depression, that perhaps they continued to have issues and perhaps not as severe, but that it is something that they continue to experience, that there's no shame in that either. It's not a competition… some of us are just more susceptible to those periods, and that's okay, too, and to give yourself grace around that, I think.”

To be continued…