39 | Chloe
“Because I felt so good, I wasn’t worried about it too much. I think I was just waiting for the crash... I obviously knew that this couldn’t continue forever. I couldn’t have this great mood and be not sleeping for the rest of my life. It was going to have to end at some point. What it looked like when it ended was really scary for me.”
With a family history of postpartum depression, Chloe thought she knew what signs and symptoms to look out for when it came to perinatal mental illness. But, as she says, she didn’t know about the ‘opposite side’.
Immediately after birth, Chloe couldn’t sleep, and within five days, she was experiencing a psychotic episode - or what she calls, ‘the crash’. Like clockwork, the same thing happened within five days of her second birth.
In this episode, Tassie mum of two, Chloe, vividly recounts the insomnia, euphoria, mania, hallucinations, and delusions that consumed her early postpartum days, as well as the crippling and juxtaposing depression that unfortunately followed her second episode.
Above all, Chloe takes me on a journey through the aftermath of her experiences: the loneliness she felt, the need to make sense of what happened, discovering her new ‘normal’, fostering support and connections, the trial-and-error that comes with recovery, and all the ways she is determinedly trying to make peace with it all.
This is Chloe’s not-to-be-missed story about the highs and lows (and everything in between) of parenting and surviving postpartum psychosis.
“At the time, I said I had a good birth experience. I thought it was quite a positive experience. And it wasn't not a positive experience, but I definitely think, especially comparing to my second, I felt very out of control in it. It was such an intense experience and I was just not at all prepared for that side of it.”
“I was just so out of... Especially when I was pushing, I was just out of my body and I just felt this bizarre sense of this premonition of what was happening.”
“And then the haemorrhage afterwards was… again, at the time, I didn't think it was that bad. But reflecting back, actually it was just really shitty because it was like, I'd finally delivered my baby, I'd done it! And then it was just everyone was in the room. There was just people everywhere jabbing me with all these things. I didn't know, had no idea what was going on. I was like, just stop touching me. I was like, I don't even care if I bleed out anymore.”
“Stuart was trying to latch on and no one was worrying about him at all because they were just all concerned with trying to stop this bleed. And I was really worried about him not latching on. And that he was just being ignored. And yeah, I just feel like it took away from those, what should be a nice peaceful those first moments of just being able to sit and hold your baby and all of that.”
“The tiredness had gone. I didn’t feel like I needed to sleep, and that escalated...”
“That first night, I think I might have got a little bit of sleep, but I was in the hospital and it's not the the easiest place to sleep! I remember at one point, I had him on my chest and then I jolted because I dozed off and I jolted and I was like, ‘Oh, my God. I just fell asleep with him sitting on there.’ I think I just had this real fear of him sleeping on me and falling asleep. Then I just had this big thing with falling asleep.”
“I think probably the first night, I was still tired, but after that, the tiredness had gone. I didn't feel like I needed to sleep, and that escalated.”
“It was this vicious cycle of: I would lay down and try and go to sleep, and I couldn't get to sleep for a bit. And then I'd be like, ‘well, there's no point going to sleep now because he's about to wake up for a feed’. And that just kept going. I was still trying to go to sleep, but… I was energised!”
“I was up in Stuart's room just sorting out all his clothes and I was doing cloth nappies and sorting out all this stuff. I didn't even know what I was doing.”
“I was writing. I had a journal down because I kept a journal during pregnancy and during labour and stuff as well. I was frantically writing down stuff. Because I was so tired, I think my brain was just not able to hold on to thoughts very well. And so I just had this overwhelming sense of wanting to get all this stuff out because I just felt like I was having all these realisations and really introspective about myself, that I was realising all these things about my past and how my habits and behaviours that I was doing - I was just looking at it in a different way and realising all this really important stuff that was just so important and I had to get it down!”
“And that just escalated and escalated as time went on.”
“It was just this weird psychoanalysis I was having. I remember I was talking to Toby about it and I was talking to all my family. And I felt like everything that I was scared to do, if I did it, it would just be amazing. And I would just randomly tell my dad, we're not very touchy feely people, and I called my dad at one point and I was like, ‘Dad, I love you’. And just that thing. And it was just a weird time.”
“I could see everyone was just like just side-eyeing me like what's going on? But we were like, it's just like post-birth hormones. It's normal to feel a bit of that euphoria.”
“We were trying different things to try and help me to sleep. We called up PAC at the hospital to ask them, and they said to go to a chemist. But I had this real thing about not wanting to leave the house. I was worried that I would get put away into hospital.”
“I was drinking chamomile tea. I was listening to sleep music stuff and just all the things that you could try and do naturally to try and help sleep. I was doing that. I even had a little Riff-Raff toy for my son that makes white noise, so I had that in the bed with me. But yeah, nothing was working.”
“I was getting into these really deep states of relaxation. I remember at one point I was laying on the bed in a yoga, like a Savasana thing, and just in this deep relaxation state. It was this, I can't even describe it, but it was incredible. I was relaxing all parts of my body and just feeling this total peace and sense of just deep, deep relaxation in me, which was really cool. Yeah, a lot of it was not... It wasn't all bad, if that makes sense.”
“I just had no sense of in my body, even like going to the toilet… I just had no sensation of that feeling of needing to go. The same with food. People would bring me food and I'd eat it and be like, oh my God, I'm starving. I just had no feeling of those bodily functions at all.”
“Because my mum has a history of postnatal depression with all three of her kids quite badly, I was very, very concerned about that happening to me as well. None of us even knew the opposite side of it and knew that it was a thing to be concerned about... But again, because I felt so good, I wasn’t worried about it too much.”
“Because my mum has a history of postnatal depression with all three of her kids quite badly, I was very, very concerned about that happening to me as well. None of us even knew the opposite side of it and knew that it was a thing to be concerned about.”
“Everyone was concerned because I wasn't sleeping, and I was worried that I wasn't sleeping as well. I think it was a documentary or something I saw about these awful sleep studies in somewhere, and they just lost their minds. I was like, ‘Oh, my God, I need to sleep. This is not normal. I haven't slept in three days. It's not okay.’”
“The fact that I wasn't tired as well, I was like, It just doesn't really make sense.”
“But again, because I felt so good, I wasn't worried about it too much.”
“I think I was just waiting for the crash was what was happening. I was like, I'm going to crash and just be out of it completely. I was worried about what was going to happen when this stopped. I obviously knew that this couldn't continue forever. I couldn't have this great mood and be not sleeping for the rest of my life. It was going to have to end at some point. What it looked like when it ended was really scary for me.”
“In the car, I thought that I was on this radio talk show. So I was talking to this thinking I was being recorded and that this all was happening to find out this really important answer to something that was just going to change the world...”
“Five days after I'd given birth, we had the three and five day check with the midwife. So she came to our house and she was concerned because I had really pressured speech. She was like, yes, something's not right here. And I'd obviously said to her as well that I hadn't been sleeping.”
“So nothing happened at that point, but she obviously went back to her, whoever she spoke to. And then she called back. I think she might have spoken to Mum or Toby, it wasn't to me. And she said that postpartum mania was an emergency and I needed to come into the hospital.”
“It was a bit blurry with what actually happened there. But I thought that, well, we thought that we'd been told to come in at six o'clock, that that was an appointment that had been made for us. But I'm not sure if that was actually the case.”
“4: 30 was when my husband went to get my mother-in-law from the airport. She was coming down from Townsville to visit, to see Stuart. And at 4: 30, she was due to arrive. And I think that was the point where I went into the psychosis itself.”
“So I was in this, I was in my room and I thought I was going into this hypnosis state with my mum, and it was related to like, Aboriginal elders. There was this really mystical sense of it.”
“Yeah, so I went into this psychosis and then it was like, I had to be in this dual hypnosis thing with my husband, Toby… that's where we went, got in the car, went to the hospital.”
“And then in the car, I thought that I was on this radio talk show. So I was talking to this thinking I was being recorded and that this all was happening to find out this really important answer to something that was just going to change the world.”
“It was going to be this amazing realisation thing that I had to do all this stuff to get there. So it was weird. I was aware of what I was doing, but it was like I had to be this crazy person for this documentary thing that I was recording that was happening, that I had to do all this stuff to make it interesting and for it to become this viral thing that everyone saw, so everyone got this answer to this amazing thing.”
“And that escalated….”
“I yelled out the windows, ‘we're going to the hospital’ to some random people because they were going to be a part of it. And then that happened a couple of times with people in there. So we went into the emergency and they took me straight through into a bed because I was sitting at the desk and I thought that there was a camera, like one of the little pen spaces was filming me. And they took me straight through and I was escalating still in the hospital.”
“I remember the curtains were closed and I thought that there was cameras behind the curtains and there was people talking ready to come in and film this big moment and that everyone else was in on it as well. I remember this nurse came in at one point and she smiled at me. I was like, ‘yes, she knows what's happening! We're still on track to do what I needed to do!’”
“And then it was just thing after thing that I had to do to make it. My shoulder, because I dislocated my shoulder a few years ago, my shoulder had to dislocate. And then I had to hold my breath for X amount of time until I passed out to achieve this answer, realisation thing. And yeah, poor Toby was with me through this whole thing. He was so solid and all, but it can't not have been super traumatising for him.”
“I was in there screaming at people and being the most crazy patient that you could imagine. Yeah, and then it just kept going. And then I think I came out of it at one point, but then went back into it and just had this urgency of trying to work out what this was because it was slipping away from me. I don't know what it was supposed to be, but it was this all-important message that I was supposed to get.”
This is when Chloe was put under the Mental Health Act.
“And eventually, I think at one point, they were all holding me down and they injected me with Droperidol, which didn't work for a while. I think they might have had to do two doses, but then I eventually crashed after that and passed out and finally slept.”
“When I woke up, I was just so disorientated and just so confused about this whole thing... I was just sitting there like, what has happened? What has my brain just done? I’m not with my six-day-old baby. What’s going on?”
“When I woke up, I was just so disorientated and just so confused about this whole thing. I was like, Where is my... I knew where he was. I knew the mum had him, but Toby was gone as well. Then he came back that morning. I'm not sure at what point he left, but anyway.”
“But yeah, I was just sitting there like, what has happened? What has my brain just done? I'm not with my six-day-old baby. What's going on?”
“I think I did pump at one point in the hospital, and luckily, my supply was still fine. It didn't affect it at all, which was really lucky. I was able to keep breastfeeding. But yeah, it was just, holy shit. What has happened?”
“I do remember most of it. It was a bit jumbled just because it was confusing to remember all and because my thoughts were just so jumbled. So just remembering all was a bit tricky. But no, I do remember it all, which, yeah, I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. I think Toby wishes that I hadn't remembered it.”
“Then a psychiatrist came in to talk to me. They were umm-ing and ahh-ing whether to put me on the psych ward then. And they spoke to Toby to see whether he'd be comfortable with me coming home and me just being looked after under the acute care team, which he was, thankfully.”
“So I ended up only being in hospital, just that one overnight. And then I went home the next day and was seen under the acute care team who came out to my house every day or so and it just reduced as I was still fine.”
“I was just in that crazy, newly postpartum stage, trying to navigate all of that with my first baby and also try and come to terms with everything that had happened...”
“But from there I was fine. I was on Olanzapine, so anti-psychotic medication, which I ended up being on for a very long time. I did try and come off a couple of times, but felt just terrible. So I was on that for 19 months in the end before I eventually, my third try, came off it.”
“The flatness the medication brought felt very jarring compared to the euphoric high I had experienced. I felt like I couldn’t trust my brain anymore, that it was capable of total insanity, and I had no control over it. I so wanted to get back to a semblance of the positive mindset, joy, and passion that I felt in the mania. But at a healthy level, my life felt so colourless, and I had no drive to do anything. I felt vulnerable, fragile, and lost. I felt like I had lost my identity completely with what happened and just being a mother.”
“I was lucky that I didn't really get any side effects from it. I responded to it immediately and it obviously worked.”
“I was able to breastfeed on it. So very small amounts do pass through to the breast milk, but it's considered to be safe, which, again, I was very grateful for because breastfeeding was super important to me and was something I really loved doing.”
“So, yeah, I breastfed Stuart up until he was 18 months, which was amazing to be able to do.”
“I didn't really have any other episodes after that.”
“I feel like the medication really sedated me and dulled me. I didn't feel like my normal self. And I was glad to get off it for that reason - even though towards at the end, I was on a very, very low dose, so it didn't make a massive difference.”
“But the medication is a bit of a tricky one because with Olanzapine the metabolic profile isn't great. And so they don't like you to be on it for long term. So I did try to switch to lithium at one point, but I felt just this overwhelming sense of this dread and anxiety feeling when I came off it, which happened twice when I tried to come off it completely and when I tried to switch it to a different medication. So I just stayed on it on a really low dose.”
“But yeah, I was just in that crazy, newly postpartum stage, trying to navigate all of that with my first baby and also try and come to terms with everything that had happened.”
“Everything in my life had changed anyway from having the baby. But then it was like this other layer of everything has changed because this psychosis happened to me and my brain...”
After successfully tapering off her medication at 19 months postpartum, Chloe remarks that she didn’t notice a difference between her medicated and non-medicated self because of the work she had been doing with her care team. “I think I'd had a lot of time to process and I'd done a lot of self-work in that time as well.”
“I saw a psychiatrist and I think a psychologist and also an OT came at different points. They were just working with me to have a bit of a routine in place and to work out things I can do to help support my mental health and to feel better, which was helpful.”
“So from the acute care team, there was another team as well that I can't remember the name of that I was under at one point. I switched from one to the other. I was with PIMHS. That was after. There was two that were checking in regularly, and then that went to phone check-ins. But then I was referred to PIMHS after that, so that's the Perinatal Infant Mental Health Service.”
“I don't know if you heard of B from Core and Floor Restore? I did a birth debrief with her, which ended up not being about the birth really at all. It was about the psychosis and all of that. Yeah, she It really helped me actually. It was just this different way of looking at it as not just been an all bad experience, which I found really helpful and really put me on the path to looking at it in a different way, which was really nice.”
“I joined her Modern Mum's Village as well, it was like a virtual mum's group thing, but it was facilitated by her. It was really good, actually. It was really nice to have that sense of connection.”
“So all that, I think, contributed to me feeling better as well. Coming off the Olanzapine, I think I felt that blunting was less there, but that was about the only real difference that I noticed.”
“So it was a very, yeah, just weird time in my life. It's just like everything in my life had changed anyway from having the baby. But then it was like this other layer of everything has changed because this psychosis happened to me and my brain.”
“It was this sense of, which I still have even now, you just don't know what my brain is capable of doing and what it means to my future and what it means to my kids' future, like whether they're going to have the same struggles. It's hard to come to terms with.”
“I really wanted to talk about it with people because I just felt like it was just so... It just felt too in my head. I needed to get it out and talk, but my husband had no desire to talk about it at all. He just wanted to put it behind him, which I understand.”
“I was just trying to get into play groups and stuff. And it was just... I just felt so just isolated from everyone because I just felt like I just had this profound, crazy experience that I couldn't really articulate to people.”
“And I wanted to be able to share it with people - which I did. I've always been quite open with it, which makes me feel better about it within myself, that it's not this taboo subject that people are going to be scared of, and scared of me because of it. But yeah, it was just hard to relate to people.”
“Obviously, being a new mum is this crazy big thing, and matrescence and all of that. But yeah, I just felt like I just had this double massive thing that I had to contend with as well, and it just made me feel quite alone in it all.”
“The lasting impacts just will never go away, I don't think. Just knowing what my baseline was was the other thing. I just was so conscious of my mood and what I was feeling and just trying to work out whether this was just my new normal. Was this me feeling depressed? Was it the medication? Was it just my physiology has changed from giving birth and being a mother? It was just so hard to know.”
“I just felt that real shock of the fact that I had a baby because he wasn't planned as well. So it was all very unexpected. And so I was just thrown into this parenting thing.”
“But yeah, I felt I was very lonely. I didn't have any friends that had kids or any friends at all really back in Tassie because I've been away for five years and hadn't really kept touch with anyone. So I was very lonely and my husband had started a new job… He'd only just started his job, so he only had two weeks off, which they managed to wrangle because he didn't have any accrued leave.”
“And we were living an hour away from my parents. So there wasn't a whole lot of support there, which was hard. And it was that compounding of just finding my identity again, like with everything that had happened and just being a new mother and not working. And just all of it was just hard to contend with it.”
“So I felt connected with him and I obviously loved him deeply. But yeah, it was a hard time and I felt quite isolated in it.”
“It was a conscious effort to try and get out and go to try and get a mum's group going and go to play groups and made some mum friends, which was really good. And that definitely helped.”
“Knowing that you’re not alone and building that bit of community is just so helpful...”
“They gave me the diagnosis - the psychiatrist in the hospital - I remember I wrote it down, it was bipolar, current episode, manic. But I just didn't really feel like it fitted. It didn't really sit well with me. It still doesn't, really. But I think I accept it.”
“Obviously, with the second episode and everything, I accept it a little bit more now.”
“But I requested all my notes. I requested my birth notes and my emergency notes, which was good to read. But on the emergency notes, that's where I first saw the term postpartum psychosis.”
“I saw that and I, as you do, went down a little Google rabbit hole. But it actually ended up being really helpful.”
“I found the Action on Postpartum Psychosis website, which is amazing. It has all these stories of people's lived experience, which I read all of them… I was like, ‘yeah, this feels more like what happened to me.’”
“I felt very lucky that I didn't have that depressive crash that a lot of people had talked about and that I recovered quickly and found the right medications so quickly because it was like so many stories of people being inpatient for weeks or months even and just taking so long to recover. And so I felt quite grateful in that sense.”
“And just to know I wasn't alone in it, that it was other people had gone through this as well.”
“So I stuck with… That's what I called it to myself and to other people, that was postpartum psychosis, which, yeah, again, just felt better for me.”
“I also joined a few support groups on Facebook, which have also been really good. There's an Australian specific one and then a worldwide one. But just knowing that you're not alone and building that bit of community is just so helpful.”
“I felt so out of control my first birth, that Hilda’s was so… I just felt very primal. It was a really empowering birth...”
“We'd always wanted to have not one kid, so we had spoken about that.”
“We fell pregnant straight away. I had two periods back and then I was pregnant again. We actually would have conceived on our wedding trip, which is nice.”
“We were straight into it again. The second pregnancy - I was sick with Stuart, but I was way sicker, I had HG with Hilda for 20 weeks! I was just a shell. I was losing weight. I just could barely eat anything. It was next level with a toddler.”
“It was just like all I wanted to do was just lay down. I had no energy to do anything. But thankfully, it didn't last the whole pregnancy. But then I was getting really bad back and had SIJ pain and was just pretty uncomfortable just in my body. We moved twice in the pregnancy and we sold two houses as well.”
“It was just a crazy stressful time.”
“I went to 40 plus 6. Those last few weeks were quite hard just waiting because I thought it was going to be earlier. It just took a very long time and I was not in the best mental space towards the end because I was just over it and uncomfortable and ready.”
“My second birth was amazing. I had a planned home birth with a private midwife.”
“And I was linked in with PIMHS for my second pregnancy as well with my history. So I was seeing the psychiatrist regularly through my pregnancy as well, but didn't have any issues. So I was just touching base and checking out how I was going. But I was very determined to put everything in place to set myself up to have a really supportive postpartum and birth, which I did. I had a doula as well.”
“The stats for postpartum psychosis is a 50 to 80% chance of it happening again. The strong recommendation was to be on medication either during pregnancy or immediately after birth. But I didn't want to. I wanted to stay off the medication, especially because I had such a hard time coming off the Olanzapine. I was really keen to avoid going on it. I still had some tablets at home, so they were like ‘if, post-birth, you feel like you need to take it, just take it’ kind of thing.”
“I had a plan for any relapse, like a relapse prevention plan, that was written out and printed off, and my parents had a copy as well. Then [PIMHS] had a plan for them to call me at three days postpartum, I think it was, which they did do, but I missed the call and didn't want to call them back, so I did not.”
“I had definitely gone down a bit of a… I shouldn’t say, gone down, but still am just like very much in the alternative natural space. I really wanted to have a natural birth with no augmentation, no monitoring, a physiological third stage and all of that, which I did have for the birth, which was peaceful and controlled compared to with Stuart. I felt so out of control my first birth, that Hilda’s was so… I just felt very primal. It was a really empowering birth.”
“But yes, I was reluctantly engaged with PIMHS. I really didn't want I have to be engaged with them. I just wanted to do my thing and manage myself as I thought I could without any psychiatric help. But I knew that it was the smart thing to do to be in touch with them. Obviously, Toby wanted me to as well.”
“But yeah, so the second postpartum I, again, just couldn't get to sleep.”
“Because it was different, I wasn’t as worried. I felt like something was happening, but I didn’t think it was a bad thing that was happening. I wasn’t concerned about it...”
“It was different this time around, though. The mania, it wasn't… I don't know if you would call it mania. It definitely wasn't as elevated. I was, again, very introspective I was thinking very deeply about everything. It was all very birth-related. I felt like I was going through a rebirth experience and just felt very connected with everyone.”
“I had this thing in my head where I could reach out and connect with all these different people in my life. I could visualise it quite clearly. It was this white strand with this Mickey Mouse hand on the end. And I would reach out and rub people's head to just show them that I was thinking of them.”
“But I didn't have any of that urgency needing to write stuff down or that thing.”
“Because it was different, I wasn't as worried. I felt like something was happening, but I didn't think it was a bad thing that was happening. I wasn't concerned about it.”
“Then I think it was the third night I called my midwife. After laying in bed deliberating for a very long time, I was laying there like, ‘okay, what should I do? Should I take the Olanzapine, which I really didn’t want to do? Should I call the mental health hotline?’ which was my care plan… So I decided to call the midwife at 9: 30 that night.”
“I just said, ‘so I haven't been sleeping’ and I wasn't really sure where to go from there. And we chatted about that and she said she was going to call my mum to get her to come up and take Hilda, so I didn't have her there. And I was going to take some Restavit as well.”
“It was at 3:00 AM that night, I took two Restavit tablets, which is the max dose. I did go to sleep for like 3 hours until 6:00 AM when Stuart woke up.”
“But yeah, I was really in my body. I could feel the after-birth contractions and stuff, and I could feel the blood being pushed out of my body. I fely my food digesting. It was almost like I would eat and I would instantly feel the glucose entering my bloodstream. I just felt so in tune with my body, which was a really amazing feeling”
“I felt very good, but not that elevated good that I had the first time around.”
“And yeah, that kept going on. And it was pretty much the exact same time in day five that I went into the psychosis. But again, it wasn't as big as Stuart's either.”
“Mum was there as well. I was running around, I was thinking that all these different things had all this special meaning. There was some white lilies that someone had delivered and I thought it meant that someone was going to die, and then it was that it was going to be my friend's Mum, but then no, it was my grandmother, then it was this person. And then my mum had this thing earlier, and I was like, oh, mum is going to die from cancer. I was like, oh, no. I was like, no, don't let it be mum. And it just kept chopping around like that.”
“And there's just all these different things that I would see and attribute meaning to and that mum and Toby had to do these certain things. And it was working out all their, again, all their past shit. Then at one point I told mum that she had to read me a book because it was going to fit stuff from my childhood. And yeah, just all this, all this different stuff that was just one after the other.”
“The other thing - everyone's digestion was a really big part of it, which sounds a bit weird, but poor Toby was trying to go to the toilet and I kept doing stuff to make him run out to me. I smashed a glass at one point. I was just running around doing random stuff.”
“Then at one point I thought that my mum was the one having the mental breakdown. And I went over to her and tried to rip Hilda out of her hands. She was trying to give her a bottle.”
“Again, just thinking deeply. I had this box in my head where I could go to when I was speaking to people and just speak to them in that box without them hearing me. It would just get across what I needed to, or get it out of me without it affecting anything. It's hard to explain, but it felt like revolutionary at the time. It was going to mean I could interact with people a lot more easily and freely and not be self-conscious and be confident and all of that.”
“Then I was loaded into the ambulance. I’m pretty sure I had no pants on. I was moving around a lot, so they ended up restraining me... It was a bit hazy at that point, but I ended up in emergency in the same bed as last time. Toby came with me as well, and I feel like he was just… I can’t imagine what it would have been like for him...”
“I'm not sure exactly the order of what he did, but [Toby] had called an ambulance and he was on the phone to my psychiatrist, the PIMHS psychiatrist at one point, and I yelled out to her because I thought she was in this rebirth experience thing, something like ‘it was all good, she knows what's going on.’ I didn't actually speak to her.”
“I didn't really have any concept of what was going on, and I wasn't rationally talking to anyone about it all. But an ambulance eventually came. Apparently, it was like an hour wait for it.”
“I was just running around at this point. I think at one point I leapt off our deck down five steps, five days postpartum, this flying leap onto the grass. I'm lucky I didn't hurt myself more.”
During this time, Toby tried to give Chloe some of the leftover Olanzapine that was in the house. “He gave them to me at one point to take. It would have been after he spoke to someone on the phone, but I spat them out.”
“I did eventually take some of them, and I think they actually went to the chemist to get a oral disintegrating version of it in a higher dose because they were only the 2. 5 milligram ones, so they got 10 milligram, which I think I did take one of those as well. But it was past that point, I think.”
“But yeah, the ambulance came and I was still in the same state and I thought I could see someone who died.”
“The acute care team had come as well. So they were also there. So there was a psychiatrist there. I'm not sure at what point they came. He was on this phone with one psychiatrist, but then the acute care team psychiatrist was there in person, so they came to the house. They got there before the ambulance.”
“Then I was loaded into the ambulance. I'm pretty sure I had no pants on. I was moving around a lot, so they ended up restraining me, like cuffing my feet and hands. I think one arm was not because I was doing something weird with it. But again, I was injected with the Droperidol, so I would have been put under the Mental Health Act again.”
“I'm not sure if I actually slept in the ambulance or not. It was a bit hazy at that point, but I ended up in emergency in the same bed as last time. Toby came with me as well, and I feel like he was just… I can't imagine what it would have been like for him.”
“But yes, the Droperidol, again, knocked me. And yeah, I was back in the hospital. And yeah, again, there was no bed, so I ended up being in emergency overnight, again, waiting for a room on the psych ward.”
“I'd come back to myself at that point.”
“And yeah, emergency is just a wild place. It's such a not comforting place at all… I was like, in my room in my little cordoned off bed. Toby had these earphones that I was listening to some songs and I was still having this sense of everything was really meaningful at that point as well.”
“I was watching a really cute video of Stuart and Hilda together and just crying.”
“That progressed into quite a deep depression, which honestly, with all of it, was probably the worst part of all my experiences...”
“I'm not sure how it happened, but I ended up getting a room in the maternity ward, which was amazing because obviously that's way nicer than… I haven't actually been to the psych ward because both times they didn't have beds. I feel like I was quite lucky in that sense.”
“They obviously deemed that I was okay enough for that to occur. I ended up staying there two nights, which was actually really nice.”
“Hilda wasn't with me, so she'd stayed with Mum, which was probably the hardest part of it. The first night maternity, I was there just with Toby. But yeah, it was quite nice. I felt like we were, I felt very connected to him and we got Uber Eats dinner sat on the bed and had it and it was as nice as it could be under the circumstances.”
“Then Mum and Dad brought Hilda up the next day and she stayed overnight with me the second day.”
“At that point, I felt okay. I was like, ‘Whatever happens, we're together now.’“
“I saw PIMHS in the hospital, but I had to wait till the Monday when they were in office. Over the weekend, I just saw the on-call psychiatrist in emergency and was just managed by the nurses and that. I was put back on my lanspine, so I was taking that on a much higher dose. Then I went home after those two nights.”
“I would have been happy to stay in the hospital longer if it wasn't for Stuart, because I was really worried about him, obviously bringing a new baby into his life in general. Then he'd been at my sister-in-law's and brother's house while I was in the hospital. And so I was just really worried that he was just going to feel like he'd be completely abandoned, that this new baby had come and he'd just be left. So I was really keen to get back for him.”
“But yeah, so when we got home, it was hard with Stuart because I felt with all my running around, I was really, really sore. What I wanted to do was just end the medication because I was on a higher dose. I think I was on 10 or 15 milligrams a day of Olanzapine, and it was really sedating. I was going to bed at 6: 30 at night and sleeping for 12 hours and was just I didn't have any energy during the day.”
“That was quite hard to contend with. Stuart and I couldn't, like I did with him, just sit and cuddle all day. He obviously was two at the time, so he wanted to be doing stuff constantly.”
“And so I had this sedation from the Olanzapine and wasn’t feeling quite flash. But that went from that, into just this sense of agitation and unrest in my body. I just felt really off. Then that progressed into quite a deep depression, which honestly, with all of it, was probably the worst part of all my experiences.”
“I’m definitely glad that I was in the mindset where I was still trying to get that help. I wasn’t just shutting out and giving up. I’m glad I had that strength, at least to do that, especially for my family...”
“I felt very flat and life felt really, really monotonous and just really hard. The only thing I was looking forward to was to go to bed to escape my life for a bit. I was really worried about my brain and the pathways it was making with how I was feeling and my mood, and I was really scared of what my life would look like feeling this way.”
“Every day, it just felt like a battle. It was just a struggle through the whole day. The days just felt endless and there was no end in sight. It was just an awful feeling. I had nothing to give to parenting. I was just so depressed. I could see the effect that my low mood was having on my son, like he was acting out, and that was just making it all the more difficult because I was not feeling great.”
“I would force myself to interact with him and Hilda, cuddle and kiss them and try and play with them, but my heart just wasn't in it at all. I had no desire to do any of it.”
“I feel like now I have such empathy for people that go through it because it's just the worst. Because you don't feel like doing anything as well, it's just so hard to pull yourself out of it and try and get on with life, really.”
“In June, my grandfather died, and I was jealous of that he was able to die and escape the suffering of this existence. I didn't want to want to die. I wanted to want to live for my kids and to be there for them, but I was like, I can't live my life like this. It was just unbearable. Just existing was just felt too much. I wanted out of it.”
“Stuart was at the age where we were looking at starting toilet training him, and the idea of it was just absolutely overwhelming. I was like, I just can't do it. I just can't do anything. It was just terrible.”
“It is painful existing. Time passes painfully slowly. I feel hopeless, disconnected. Nothing has meaning. I need to escape it, but I don’t know how. I I don’t feel like doing anything to just distract myself. I can’t escape by killing myself because it would totally destroy my family’s life, emotionally and logistically. So what do I do? Help me, please.”
Chloe wrote in her diary about how she felt at this time, and generously shared this with me.
After writing this in her diary, Chloe asked for help.
“After that, I called up PIMHS. I had a phone appointment with my psychiatrist and I was like, ‘I need something, I can't keep going like this.’”
“And so she recommended that I start on antidepressants. So I started on Sertraline, which helped. So I obviously started on a low dose and then I raised it a couple of times because I was still not feeling great, but it got me out of that really deep hole, which was helpful.”
“I'm definitely glad that I was in the mindset where I was still trying to get that help. I wasn't just shutting out and giving up. I'm glad I had that strength, at least to do that, especially for my family.”
“Because I had the history, obviously, of psychosis, antidepressants can be tricky with that. So I had to increase my Olanzapine dose as well, which I was a bit disappointed by. But again, I was desperate, so I was willing to do anything. So I upped my Olanzapine dose. I was on 10 milligrams at night and 5 milligrams in the morning, and then ended up on 100 milligrams of Sertraline in the morning as well. So that helped. I got out of that hole. That was June last year.”
“So I've been on the Sertraline and Olanzapine since then. Sorry, not the Olanzapine. I was on the Olanzapine, but then switched over to Ziprasidone, which is another antipsychotic because I was just… The Olanzapine just made me insatiably hungry. I just could not stop eating and I was gaining weight and feeling really shitty about that, which was not helping my mental health either.”
“So we switched over to Ziprasidone, which has been better. But yeah, so I've just recently reduced down my Sertraline to 75 milligrams with the intention to try and wean off all of my medication, which I'm really, really keen to be able to do, but it's been very hard.”
“I’m just working very hard on being compassionate with myself and just being kind to myself. I think it’s really important...”
Towards the end of our conversation, I asked Chloe whether, in hindsight, she thought beginning the Olanzapine immediately post-birth with Hilda would have made a difference. “Yes, I do think so. Yeah, but it's hard.”
“But yes, it definitely would have been better to have just taken the Olanzapine from that first bit, especially with the aftermath and the depression afterwards was just not at all good.”
“Because I'm on a much higher dose of Olanzapine, well, Ziprasidone, but on the antidepressants and the antipsychotic now, I just feel like it's just really blunting me. I don't feel like I have much desire or drive in my life at the moment, and I really want to get out of that to enjoy my life more. I still don't feel right.”
“I do feel like the experience was a very meaningful experience. And I still really want to go into and process all the mania, whatever you want to call it, thoughts that I was having. I feel like it would really help me mentally to work it all out and work through it all, which is still my plan to do. It's just finding the people to do it with.”
“I want to link back in with B, hopefully. But yeah, I wrote out my story, which I found really helpful, and I think I would probably be adding to that for a while. I would like to make that into something one day maybe. And yeah, just processing it through and just trying to support my physical and mental health as much as I can.”
“I've been seeing a really good bodywork chiropractor, and I'm seeing a herbalist that does counselling as well. She does Reiki. So I'm just trying all these different things to see what's going to help me to feel good. I've started doing cold water swimming and yeah, I'm trying to write stuff down as much as I can and just get it all out.”
“I also have a listening partner who's been amazing. So that's another thing that B set up with the Modern Mum Village, where you just do a voice note with whatever you're feeling at the moment. And the idea is just that you have someone just to listen to you without necessarily solving it or anything. So that's been really helpful.”
“And exercise is a massive thing for me as well. It makes me feel so much better. So I really try and do something every day. And yeah, just try and live my life and find the joy where I can. I'm just working very hard on being compassionate with myself and just being kind to myself - I think it's really important, and just connecting with people.”
“I just really enjoy that connection with my family, with my friends, and trying to deepen those connections and just get out and do more things, even though I don't really feel like doing many things, but just making it happen and hoping going through the I will eventually feel like it more, I guess.”
“I've spoken about it with my mum a bit. It was good to have another person there that I could corroborate the story. So that's been nice to do. And she's been such an amazing support, both logistically, just with the kids and looking after them and just mentally. She's just been really good to talk to.”
“My dad as well. So we actually live next door to them, which is amazing. So we go down there all the time and just hang out because I don't really like being by myself with the kids at the moment. I really much prefer being around other people and spreading that load, especially with my three year old is very, he's a lot! And it's just so much easier when there's other people around.”
“And so my sister-in-law is also, we're really close and she's just great to just be able to talk to and have that support there… I feel like I've got, this time around because we moved from where I was after Stuart, like the support is a lot closer and I feel a lot more supported this postpartum after this experience, which has been really nice.”
“Life can just feel so hard just mothering in general without that extra layer of mental health struggles, and just having that support there can just make so much difference...”
Before we wrapped up our conversation, Chloe had lots of advice to share.
“I think the best thing to do is just to call in that support, whoever you've got that you trust enough to be able to unload to and just that practical support in whatever way it looks, just to be able to out around the house with the kids and just to be easy on yourself and accept that help, I think is such a massive thing.”
“Life can just feel so hard just mothering in general without that extra layer of mental health struggles, and just having that support there can just make so much difference.”
“Just prioritising your health in whatever way you can, like getting enough sleep, getting exercise, getting outside in the sunshine, eating nourishing foods, having that physical support for yourself is just makes a lot of so much difference as well. And just having that right team around you.”
“Just trying different things, I think is just, you just don't know what will be the thing that makes a little bit of difference.”
“I really appreciate the space you've created here. It's really nice and so good to just be able to hear people's struggles and stories and how they've come through and what they've done. And it's an amazing space.”
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Episode Sponsor
This episode of Perinatal Stories Australia is proudly sponsored by Mums Matter Psychology—because your mental health matters.
Frances and her expert team of psychologists, social workers, and occupational therapists are passionate about providing affordable, high-quality mental health care for pregnant women and parents with children up to 4 years old.
Through Medicare bulk-billed therapy sessions—up to 20 at no cost to you—they make support accessible to everyone. If you’re in Victoria, visit one of their welcoming clinic locations. Outside Victoria? Their nationwide Telehealth services bring care to your fingertips.
Mums Matter Psychology also offers a range of online therapy groups and webinars, providing additional ways to access support and connect with others on a similar journey.
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