Peuperal Psychosis
Discussion
Wow what a story, you sound like a fantastic father and husband. I think its great that you have highlighted a condition that I had never heard of.
It sounds like your employer has been fantastic too, which deserves a mention as I know plenty that wouldn't be. I hope that your wife makes a full recovery and that you can put this behind you.
It sounds like your employer has been fantastic too, which deserves a mention as I know plenty that wouldn't be. I hope that your wife makes a full recovery and that you can put this behind you.
srebbe64 said:
chris1roll said:
t84 said:
Uncle Fester said:
I am worrying about part of your post. You may have made an easy mistake. It makes no difference now, but would adversely effect Amy later.
There are two different DVLA forms and procedures.
You said "Amy cannot drive on the medication, and we have about a fortnight ago we sent the notification letter to the DVLA, and lets be honest, her licence is going to be revoked."
If you tell the DVLA and let them make enquiries with her Doctor, they will revoke her licence.
Before it can be reinstated there must be new enquiries that produce satisfactory response from her Doctors. Then DVLA consider the case for a while.
This may all take 6 months from her Doctor being satisfied of her full recovery and her being fit to drive.
The Alternative procedure is for her to voluntarily declare herself unfit.
She can then declare herself fit to DVLA and resume driving as soon as DVLA receive the declaration.
The voluntary declaration requires a different form to the first procedure. Both forms can be downloaded from the medical section of the DVLA website.
If you used the wrong one, do a voluntary surrender NOW before they revoke it.
This.There are two different DVLA forms and procedures.
You said "Amy cannot drive on the medication, and we have about a fortnight ago we sent the notification letter to the DVLA, and lets be honest, her licence is going to be revoked."
If you tell the DVLA and let them make enquiries with her Doctor, they will revoke her licence.
Before it can be reinstated there must be new enquiries that produce satisfactory response from her Doctors. Then DVLA consider the case for a while.
This may all take 6 months from her Doctor being satisfied of her full recovery and her being fit to drive.
The Alternative procedure is for her to voluntarily declare herself unfit.
She can then declare herself fit to DVLA and resume driving as soon as DVLA receive the declaration.
The voluntary declaration requires a different form to the first procedure. Both forms can be downloaded from the medical section of the DVLA website.
If you used the wrong one, do a voluntary surrender NOW before they revoke it.
Caused me an absolute s
tstorm when I was diagnosed with Obstructive Sleep Apneoa.t think I may have fked up there! I'll try and give them a ring tomorrow and see if we can do a voluntary surrender if its not too late...I guess I didn't read everything thoroughly enough.Edited by chris1roll on Sunday 13th September 23:47
chris1roll said:
srebbe64 said:
chris1roll said:
t84 said:
Uncle Fester said:
I am worrying about part of your post. You may have made an easy mistake. It makes no difference now, but would adversely effect Amy later.
There are two different DVLA forms and procedures.
You said "Amy cannot drive on the medication, and we have about a fortnight ago we sent the notification letter to the DVLA, and lets be honest, her licence is going to be revoked."
If you tell the DVLA and let them make enquiries with her Doctor, they will revoke her licence.
Before it can be reinstated there must be new enquiries that produce satisfactory response from her Doctors. Then DVLA consider the case for a while.
This may all take 6 months from her Doctor being satisfied of her full recovery and her being fit to drive.
The Alternative procedure is for her to voluntarily declare herself unfit.
She can then declare herself fit to DVLA and resume driving as soon as DVLA receive the declaration.
The voluntary declaration requires a different form to the first procedure. Both forms can be downloaded from the medical section of the DVLA website.
If you used the wrong one, do a voluntary surrender NOW before they revoke it.
This.There are two different DVLA forms and procedures.
You said "Amy cannot drive on the medication, and we have about a fortnight ago we sent the notification letter to the DVLA, and lets be honest, her licence is going to be revoked."
If you tell the DVLA and let them make enquiries with her Doctor, they will revoke her licence.
Before it can be reinstated there must be new enquiries that produce satisfactory response from her Doctors. Then DVLA consider the case for a while.
This may all take 6 months from her Doctor being satisfied of her full recovery and her being fit to drive.
The Alternative procedure is for her to voluntarily declare herself unfit.
She can then declare herself fit to DVLA and resume driving as soon as DVLA receive the declaration.
The voluntary declaration requires a different form to the first procedure. Both forms can be downloaded from the medical section of the DVLA website.
If you used the wrong one, do a voluntary surrender NOW before they revoke it.
Caused me an absolute s
tstorm when I was diagnosed with Obstructive Sleep Apneoa.t think I may have fked up there! I'll try and give them a ring tomorrow and see if we can do a voluntary surrender if its not too late...I guess I didn't read everything thoroughly enough.Edited by chris1roll on Sunday 13th September 23:47
Wow. Good luck with things from now on.
I've only experienced pyshoses twice - once was a housemate who was on Prozac and had a bottle of wine in an evening. She came out with stuff about people being in the flat earlier and wondering where they'd gone with such utter conviction, I thought *I* had missed something.
The second time was as a girlfriend and I were splitting up. Paranoia got quite severe - things about her work discriminating against her and stopping her bank card from working. Sadly I didn't have the fortitude to stick it out and look after her. She went back to her family in Italy, where I hope things improved for her.
Both times were very, very scary. It's a whole new level seeing & hearing someone saying these things that are not only patently untrue, but also impossible.
I've only experienced pyshoses twice - once was a housemate who was on Prozac and had a bottle of wine in an evening. She came out with stuff about people being in the flat earlier and wondering where they'd gone with such utter conviction, I thought *I* had missed something.
The second time was as a girlfriend and I were splitting up. Paranoia got quite severe - things about her work discriminating against her and stopping her bank card from working. Sadly I didn't have the fortitude to stick it out and look after her. She went back to her family in Italy, where I hope things improved for her.
Both times were very, very scary. It's a whole new level seeing & hearing someone saying these things that are not only patently untrue, but also impossible.
sjc said:
I'd love to try a bit of gallows humour as you suggested in the original post but I'm not brave enough! You're obviously a good man, husband and dad with a good close family around you, and it's positive news that your wifes condition will improve and probably be gone completely in time.When life is back to normal, you'll both be proud of what you've got through.And then you have a bloody good shag.
Oh hang on............
Oh hang on............
It's got to the point now where we can look back at some instances and find some dark humour in it - I think if we weren't able to do that things would be even more dire.
The "visit your Aunties" conversation sounds quite funny now I look back on it, but at the time I felt like crying. God knows what she was texting them, and what they made of it.
Edited by chris1roll on Monday 14th September 00:16
chris1roll said:
sjc said:
I'd love to try a bit of gallows humour as you suggested in the original post but I'm not brave enough! You're obviously a good man, husband and dad with a good close family around you, and it's positive news that your wifes condition will improve and probably be gone completely in time.When life is back to normal, you'll both be proud of what you've got through.And then you have a bloody good shag.
Oh hang on............
Oh hang on............
It's got to the point now where we can look back at some instances and find some dark humour in it - I think if we weren't able to do that things would be even more dire.
The "visit your Aunties" conversation sounds quite funny now I look back on it, but at the time I felt like crying. God knows what she was texting them, and what they made of it.
Edited by chris1roll on Monday 14th September 00:16
It sounds like you did an amazing job. She did well do only be in hospital for a couple of days, a lot of women with puerperal psychosis can be admitted for months and will often harm their babies. It's an awful condition which no one really expects in a healthy woman who's just had a baby...happy times!
You're clearly very devoted to her and I admire you for that. All the best for the future any any other little ones that come along!
You're clearly very devoted to her and I admire you for that. All the best for the future any any other little ones that come along!
chris1roll said:
I haven't put this in the health forum as more people will see it here, and hopefully then be aware of it and more likely to seek help sooner, and I honestly won't mind any light hearted banter as we have had to develop a strong sense of gallows humour in order to get as far as we have. I think I want to write it all down now, under the relative anonymity of the written word. It will be quite long. Sorry.
4 months ago I had never even heard of peuperal psychosis, (and apparently neither has Firefoxes English dictionary) at our ante-natal classes they touched briefly on Post Natal Depression, but that was it. From early June it had taken over our lives.
Our beautiful daughter was born on 26th May, after my wife was in labour for 42 hours, all bar four of them at home with no pain relief. They both came home after 2 days, and we started to get into the "routine" of being up every two hours for feeding etc. Amy now says that she noticed things weren't right immediately she was born, but I was either too tired, or unaware to spot it.
12 days in I was woken by my wife crying in bed, saying that "everyone says I've had an affair, but I haven't done anything wrong" when I quizzed her as to who was saying this, she couldn't or wouldn't tell me. We have half of the farmhouse with my parents (and god knows where we would be if we didn't) and we decided it was a touch of the post nantals. Still I didn't twig there was anything seriously wrong.
2 days later I returned to work, and during the day recieved a couple of text messages saying that her mother was "trying very hard to get it out of her". I wasn't able to ascertain what "it" was. I came home from work early, and Amy was convinced that I had been there earlier in the day and spoken to the midwife. when I tried to insist that I had been at work she just smiled sweetly at me and said, "OK, if you say so"
I rang the midwife, and she said that she had spoken on the phone to Amy earlier and she had said some odd things about the pram, and was I concerned. By this point I was, so the midwife instructed me to ring the out of hour GP service and insist that someone came to see us that very night.
The out of hours receptionist was totally fking useless. I had rung at about 25 to six. "we can't give you an appointment till ALL the surgeries are closed" WTF? If I ring my surgery now I'm going to get an answer phone....but no, I had to wait till 7. FFS. In the meantime I rang the midwife back, and to give her her due was bloody brilliant, and helped us circumvent the normal channels and got a doctor with some psyhciatric experience to agree to come out.
Whilst we were waitng for him Amy asked me to go out in the garden with her.
I can stil remember the conversation word for word.
"it's Ok you know, you can talk about it, let it out"
me ???
"Ok, you're obviously not ready yet, never mind."
I'm even more confused now.
"The women who give birth, WE know...."
I think this is the point at which I realised things were seriously, seriously wrong.
"...We know what it is that makes us become adults, and why its so perfect, and why all the songs are perfect, its because the have been designed to be perfect."
Somehow I managed not to panic, and managed to try and keep a 'normal' flow of conversation, which over the next couple of minutes veered from somewhat abstract to totally bizarre.
All the time, I was looking at this woman talking to me, who looked like my wife, sounded like my wife, but she wasn't my wife.
Then my parents arrived home, and with Amy sat in front of the television I went out to meet them with baby in my arms.
I couldn't speak, I was welling up, and then I just about managed to blurt out, "she's gone totally fking loopy"
The doctor then rang and I had to take the call in a separate room so I could speak freely, and the call was recorded, and I had to relay everything that had been said. Whilst I was doing this Amy escorted my mother outside and treated her to pretty much the same conversation.
When the doctor arrived to talk to her, she seemed almost normal, insisted that nothing was wrong and proclaimed to have absolutely no recollection of our conversation.
For a terrible minute I thought he wasn't going to believe me, especially as he said he had "never seen someone cover it up so well, so either she is very very good, or there is nothing wrong with her"
She was very, very good, and this was to trip us up later....
Thankfully he knew she was covering up, and arranged for some people from the local psych team to come and see us the next day.
After an assessment where Amy was a lot more open, she was diagnosed with peuperal psychosis, but apparently her presentation was atypical...She was prescribed a relatively low dose of antipsychotics.
After a few more bizarre conversations, including several where the television was talking to her, and a memorable one where we had dressed baby in a babygrow with little pictures and phrases on it, 'dogs love walks' 'see some trees' 'visit your aunties' etc, she had been texting on her phone for a while before proclaiming, "well, I don't know which aunty I'm supposed to vist then because none of them know anything about it!" and another where we couldn't find the hat baby had been given in hospital and accused me of stealing it and putting it in the post to her.
I ended up having a further 3 weeks off work, where I did all the feeding, changing, and looking after of baby1roll, as well as looking after Amy, and then went back when things started to look more normal. She managed to talk the doctors into decreasing the medication.
The Friday evening I got home from work and sat down. "I think I need to re-increase my medication"
uh-oh....
As it turned out, from the start she had not been honest about what she was experiencing, and had been so good at covering it up, that I had felt OK to go back to work, and the doctors had felt it ok to reduce the meds.
In fact, things had been much much worse for her, and I have no idea how she coped in the week I was back at work.
She was hallucinating, in our bedroom was a group of people (the 'everybody' who had accused her of having an affair), who were nasty to her, saying she was a bad mother and everything we did was wrong. In our living room were just two, one dressed all in black, with a hood, and a scarred, cut bloody face. Apparently he kept looking at Baby1roll, then at me, then at Amy. Occasionally he would threaten with a knife.
She was convinced that my brother and I had fitted cameras in all the light fittings to spy on her.
She was convinced the TV and radio were aimed specifically at her, and even accused me of deliberately putting programmes on the tv that related to her in some way.
She heard voices in her head, she was convinced it was aliens, who were telling her how to work out how the world worked, and what she had to do. When one of the doctors asked her if they were talking to her right then, she said "no, they're busying themselves with some calculations" Sometimes she had moments of clarity, but they provided only temporary respite.
We slept on the settee for 3 weeks, as the bedroom was too "busy" for her. Me with a torch on a string round my wrist just in case I had to see what she was doing in a hurry.
On our first wedding anniversary, she didn't know who I was, didn't know who baby1roll was,nor where she was, I woke up to find her about to leave the house at 6 am in the pissing rain wearing only a T shirt.
The psychiatric team took note of all the cars registration numbers to speed alerting the authorities if she did manage to get out without me noticing.
After another week of this, on double the original dose of meds, I had been managing about 3 hours sleep a night, broken into half hour chunks, as she and baby1roll seemed to wake alternately. I could take no more and she was admitted to the local psychiatric ward for two days until the meds properly kicked in. This was a general psych ward, as the only mother and baby unit in the county is private, and we weren't going to get funding for the out of county NHS ward over a weekend, so baby1roll stayed home with me. We watched all the top gears we missed on iPlayer.
She returned home when the meds kicked in, but so did the side effects. I have since become well aware that psychiatric medicine is not an exact science, Its a balancing act between treating the psychosis, and crippling the patient with side effects, that made her able to sleep for 22 hours a day, and the remaining 2 being so stiff she could barely walk. She was given anti-side-effect tablets, which helped a lot, but which slightly counteracted the antipsychotic. It was a delicate balancing act, and it took a while to find the right level.
One website I found stated that 75%+ of relationships that suffer a peuperal episode end in separation or divorce. I was fked if that was going to happen to us. 3 hours of sleep a night or not, that was not happening.
I also found statistical links between long hard labours and peuperal psychosis, so I spent some time blaming myself for not taking her to hospital for pain relief earlier!
there were also scary statisitics about the number of women who take their lives do to this devastating illness. I tried not to think about that too much.
It's made me realise what is really important to me, that which I hold dear, and that which when push really comes to shove, I couldn't give a fk about.
I have also redefined my perception of stress!
The local NHS psychiatric team have been fantastic, on always on the end of the phone for us, coming to see us once or twice every single day until recently, and even providing transport for Amy to take babyroll to a baby club now I have returned to work. (Amy cannot drive on the medication, and we have about a fortnight ago we sent the notification letter to the DVLA, and lets be honest, her licence is going to be revoked. Its more than a bit of a pain for her now she is on the road to recovery and feeling for sociable, that she can't transport herself, and we live in the sticks a bit.)
We can be thankful that my parents are right next door, sometimes mum would sit with her so I could have a couple hours respite, but I felt I needed to be there all the time. I don't know what we would have done if they lived any more than about 500 yards away!
We were also lucky in that baby1roll is a very easy baby to look after, she is just so chilled out, sleeps from about 10pm to about 9-30 every night, and has done from about 7 weeks old. she doesn't ever seem to cry for no good reason, she's either hungry, soiled, or wants a cuddle
In all I have had almost 3 months off work, my employers, and my boss have been nothing short of fantastic, giving me two weeks paternity, two weeks as holiday, and the rest as compassionate on full pay, saying they could well appreciate a financial worry would not be welcome to me.
I have been back at work for a few weeks now, and things are looking up. Amy is still taking loads of tablets, and will be doing so for a year or more. She has had a couple more mildly psychotic episodes, but they have been at an easily manageable level, and she is honest enough about the condition now to tell us about them.
There, I think I have said all I feel I need to right now. I've been typing for an hour and a half! that does feel better!
Chris.
Wow. I don't know you personally Chris, but you are truly an inspiration. Well done for staying so strong for your family throughout the toughest times.4 months ago I had never even heard of peuperal psychosis, (and apparently neither has Firefoxes English dictionary) at our ante-natal classes they touched briefly on Post Natal Depression, but that was it. From early June it had taken over our lives.
Our beautiful daughter was born on 26th May, after my wife was in labour for 42 hours, all bar four of them at home with no pain relief. They both came home after 2 days, and we started to get into the "routine" of being up every two hours for feeding etc. Amy now says that she noticed things weren't right immediately she was born, but I was either too tired, or unaware to spot it.
12 days in I was woken by my wife crying in bed, saying that "everyone says I've had an affair, but I haven't done anything wrong" when I quizzed her as to who was saying this, she couldn't or wouldn't tell me. We have half of the farmhouse with my parents (and god knows where we would be if we didn't) and we decided it was a touch of the post nantals. Still I didn't twig there was anything seriously wrong.
2 days later I returned to work, and during the day recieved a couple of text messages saying that her mother was "trying very hard to get it out of her". I wasn't able to ascertain what "it" was. I came home from work early, and Amy was convinced that I had been there earlier in the day and spoken to the midwife. when I tried to insist that I had been at work she just smiled sweetly at me and said, "OK, if you say so"
I rang the midwife, and she said that she had spoken on the phone to Amy earlier and she had said some odd things about the pram, and was I concerned. By this point I was, so the midwife instructed me to ring the out of hour GP service and insist that someone came to see us that very night.
The out of hours receptionist was totally f
king useless. I had rung at about 25 to six. "we can't give you an appointment till ALL the surgeries are closed" WTF? If I ring my surgery now I'm going to get an answer phone....but no, I had to wait till 7. FFS. In the meantime I rang the midwife back, and to give her her due was bloody brilliant, and helped us circumvent the normal channels and got a doctor with some psyhciatric experience to agree to come out.Whilst we were waitng for him Amy asked me to go out in the garden with her.
I can stil remember the conversation word for word.
"it's Ok you know, you can talk about it, let it out"
me ???
"Ok, you're obviously not ready yet, never mind."
I'm even more confused now.
"The women who give birth, WE know...."
I think this is the point at which I realised things were seriously, seriously wrong.
"...We know what it is that makes us become adults, and why its so perfect, and why all the songs are perfect, its because the have been designed to be perfect."
Somehow I managed not to panic, and managed to try and keep a 'normal' flow of conversation, which over the next couple of minutes veered from somewhat abstract to totally bizarre.
All the time, I was looking at this woman talking to me, who looked like my wife, sounded like my wife, but she wasn't my wife.
Then my parents arrived home, and with Amy sat in front of the television I went out to meet them with baby in my arms.
I couldn't speak, I was welling up, and then I just about managed to blurt out, "she's gone totally f
king loopy"The doctor then rang and I had to take the call in a separate room so I could speak freely, and the call was recorded, and I had to relay everything that had been said. Whilst I was doing this Amy escorted my mother outside and treated her to pretty much the same conversation.
When the doctor arrived to talk to her, she seemed almost normal, insisted that nothing was wrong and proclaimed to have absolutely no recollection of our conversation.
For a terrible minute I thought he wasn't going to believe me, especially as he said he had "never seen someone cover it up so well, so either she is very very good, or there is nothing wrong with her"
She was very, very good, and this was to trip us up later....
Thankfully he knew she was covering up, and arranged for some people from the local psych team to come and see us the next day.
After an assessment where Amy was a lot more open, she was diagnosed with peuperal psychosis, but apparently her presentation was atypical...She was prescribed a relatively low dose of antipsychotics.
After a few more bizarre conversations, including several where the television was talking to her, and a memorable one where we had dressed baby in a babygrow with little pictures and phrases on it, 'dogs love walks' 'see some trees' 'visit your aunties' etc, she had been texting on her phone for a while before proclaiming, "well, I don't know which aunty I'm supposed to vist then because none of them know anything about it!" and another where we couldn't find the hat baby had been given in hospital and accused me of stealing it and putting it in the post to her.
I ended up having a further 3 weeks off work, where I did all the feeding, changing, and looking after of baby1roll, as well as looking after Amy, and then went back when things started to look more normal. She managed to talk the doctors into decreasing the medication.
The Friday evening I got home from work and sat down. "I think I need to re-increase my medication"
uh-oh....
As it turned out, from the start she had not been honest about what she was experiencing, and had been so good at covering it up, that I had felt OK to go back to work, and the doctors had felt it ok to reduce the meds.
In fact, things had been much much worse for her, and I have no idea how she coped in the week I was back at work.
She was hallucinating, in our bedroom was a group of people (the 'everybody' who had accused her of having an affair), who were nasty to her, saying she was a bad mother and everything we did was wrong. In our living room were just two, one dressed all in black, with a hood, and a scarred, cut bloody face. Apparently he kept looking at Baby1roll, then at me, then at Amy. Occasionally he would threaten with a knife.
She was convinced that my brother and I had fitted cameras in all the light fittings to spy on her.
She was convinced the TV and radio were aimed specifically at her, and even accused me of deliberately putting programmes on the tv that related to her in some way.
She heard voices in her head, she was convinced it was aliens, who were telling her how to work out how the world worked, and what she had to do. When one of the doctors asked her if they were talking to her right then, she said "no, they're busying themselves with some calculations" Sometimes she had moments of clarity, but they provided only temporary respite.
We slept on the settee for 3 weeks, as the bedroom was too "busy" for her. Me with a torch on a string round my wrist just in case I had to see what she was doing in a hurry.
On our first wedding anniversary, she didn't know who I was, didn't know who baby1roll was,nor where she was, I woke up to find her about to leave the house at 6 am in the pissing rain wearing only a T shirt.
The psychiatric team took note of all the cars registration numbers to speed alerting the authorities if she did manage to get out without me noticing.
After another week of this, on double the original dose of meds, I had been managing about 3 hours sleep a night, broken into half hour chunks, as she and baby1roll seemed to wake alternately. I could take no more and she was admitted to the local psychiatric ward for two days until the meds properly kicked in. This was a general psych ward, as the only mother and baby unit in the county is private, and we weren't going to get funding for the out of county NHS ward over a weekend, so baby1roll stayed home with me. We watched all the top gears we missed on iPlayer.
She returned home when the meds kicked in, but so did the side effects. I have since become well aware that psychiatric medicine is not an exact science, Its a balancing act between treating the psychosis, and crippling the patient with side effects, that made her able to sleep for 22 hours a day, and the remaining 2 being so stiff she could barely walk. She was given anti-side-effect tablets, which helped a lot, but which slightly counteracted the antipsychotic. It was a delicate balancing act, and it took a while to find the right level.
One website I found stated that 75%+ of relationships that suffer a peuperal episode end in separation or divorce. I was f
ked if that was going to happen to us. 3 hours of sleep a night or not, that was not happening.I also found statistical links between long hard labours and peuperal psychosis, so I spent some time blaming myself for not taking her to hospital for pain relief earlier!
there were also scary statisitics about the number of women who take their lives do to this devastating illness. I tried not to think about that too much.
It's made me realise what is really important to me, that which I hold dear, and that which when push really comes to shove, I couldn't give a f
k about.I have also redefined my perception of stress!
The local NHS psychiatric team have been fantastic, on always on the end of the phone for us, coming to see us once or twice every single day until recently, and even providing transport for Amy to take babyroll to a baby club now I have returned to work. (Amy cannot drive on the medication, and we have about a fortnight ago we sent the notification letter to the DVLA, and lets be honest, her licence is going to be revoked. Its more than a bit of a pain for her now she is on the road to recovery and feeling for sociable, that she can't transport herself, and we live in the sticks a bit.)
We can be thankful that my parents are right next door, sometimes mum would sit with her so I could have a couple hours respite, but I felt I needed to be there all the time. I don't know what we would have done if they lived any more than about 500 yards away!
We were also lucky in that baby1roll is a very easy baby to look after, she is just so chilled out, sleeps from about 10pm to about 9-30 every night, and has done from about 7 weeks old. she doesn't ever seem to cry for no good reason, she's either hungry, soiled, or wants a cuddle
In all I have had almost 3 months off work, my employers, and my boss have been nothing short of fantastic, giving me two weeks paternity, two weeks as holiday, and the rest as compassionate on full pay, saying they could well appreciate a financial worry would not be welcome to me.
I have been back at work for a few weeks now, and things are looking up. Amy is still taking loads of tablets, and will be doing so for a year or more. She has had a couple more mildly psychotic episodes, but they have been at an easily manageable level, and she is honest enough about the condition now to tell us about them.
There, I think I have said all I feel I need to right now. I've been typing for an hour and a half! that does feel better!
Chris.
Edited by chris1roll on Sunday 13th September 00:32
I wish you, Amy and baby all the best for the future. If you ever want to chat about anything to a complete stranger then feel free to PM me or whatever!
Good Man.
TedMaul said:
Shabs said:
top work mate, your wife is extremely lucky to have you
Agreed, well done Sir & good luck for the future for all three of you.Ive taken psychology at uni and ive never heard of it before. But ive read stories of people doing strange and weird things because they can see other people trying to cause them harm.
I cant imagine having to deal with that, i honestly dont know where you found the strength for it. Welldone to you sir, and I wish you all the best for your family future.
oh Honey............. hugs for the both of you.
for you both this is very real. your wife cannot help it and you NEED to be there for here. She will get better. If it was me in all honesty I wouldnt get pregnant again and go through this. Your wife needs you atm.
be there for her and your little one. she is not mad its just hormones etc...........
for you both this is very real. your wife cannot help it and you NEED to be there for here. She will get better. If it was me in all honesty I wouldnt get pregnant again and go through this. Your wife needs you atm.
be there for her and your little one. she is not mad its just hormones etc...........
Thanks for writing about this in such an honest and open way. It's an education for people who have little knowledge of ill mental health. I suffered from quite severe post natal depression which was terrible enough, so I can only imagine how difficult peuperal psychosis must have been. I too had a long and difficult labour and I do believe that the trauma of this had a negative effect on my health and contributed to the PND. The medication is difficult to get right as you say, and alot of people like to discourage people from taking them. If only they knew the alternative! Like you, my husband was a wonderful support and Baby TPD was the perfect little one. It's like she knew I was unwell! I too am always at risk of further depressive episodes and especially if I have more children. At the end of the day, one beautiful child is more than enough. Whatever happens in the future; be happy with Baby1, a mum who's getting better and the fact that you are one great person for sticking in there. An admirable quality indeed. Your wife will always remember this..
I echo the points here.
I work with people who have been diagnosed with bipolar and long term depression and the battles of prejudice and perception they have to go through to both get the help they need and to overcome the false perceptions and sheer stupidity of some people is just heartbreaking to hear.
We do have a shocking attitude to mental health in this country. The perception that in some way have a pshycological condition is a 'weakness' or some kind of personal 'failing' is so damaging to so many.
Couple this with the stigma attacned to getting help, whether it be medication or any other interactive approach and perhaps it's no wonder that so many in this country suffer in silence.
I work with people who have been diagnosed with bipolar and long term depression and the battles of prejudice and perception they have to go through to both get the help they need and to overcome the false perceptions and sheer stupidity of some people is just heartbreaking to hear.
We do have a shocking attitude to mental health in this country. The perception that in some way have a pshycological condition is a 'weakness' or some kind of personal 'failing' is so damaging to so many.
Couple this with the stigma attacned to getting help, whether it be medication or any other interactive approach and perhaps it's no wonder that so many in this country suffer in silence.
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Only just seen these recent replies as the thread appears to have been moved and I don't get time to check much else than gg and the lounge.....TBH I'm not sure, I think there is a possibility of an underlying condition lying dormant, prior to this I was not aware of any previous issues and we have been together since we were 16 and 17. However she has said that as a child/teenager the aliens used to talk to her and tell her nice things were going to happen. Of course we don't know if she really experienced that back then or if she was saying it as a result of the psychosis.
She is doing really well now, the side effects have diminished, and I am back to work full time.
Her Licence has been revoked (we were too late to surrender) but she has made a friend at a baby group who is giving her lifts
chris1roll said:
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Only just seen these recent replies as the thread appears to have been moved and I don't get time to check much else than gg and the lounge.....TBH I'm not sure, I think there is a possibility of an underlying condition lying dormant, prior to this I was not aware of any previous issues and we have been together since we were 16 and 17. However she has said that as a child/teenager the aliens used to talk to her and tell her nice things were going to happen. Of course we don't know if she really experienced that back then or if she was saying it as a result of the psychosis.
She is doing really well now, the side effects have diminished, and I am back to work full time.
Her Licence has been revoked (we were too late to surrender) but she has made a friend at a baby group who is giving her lifts
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Puerperal psychosis is specific to childbirth. Basically "Puerperal" means childbirth/post-delivery and "psychosis" is usually related to delusions and hallucinations, so not just like bad PND.Some people are at greater risk for both PP and PND. Previous depression/anxiety/mental health problems or a family history. However, many just come out of the blue.
Shouting at the prairie dogs at the zoo on her first birthday. She's bloody great.
We're getting there.
Amy is still on a fair dose of antipsychotic, and an antidepressant and still needs stuff to counteract the parkinsonism from the antipsychotics, but she's doing really well.
She seems to be much much more "into" Emily, if that makes sense - six/eight months ago I was getting home from work to be told she didn't want to be a mum, has then moved to me being called excitedly at work when she stood up for the first time, done this or that etc.
She hasn't felt that she is up to working, so officially handed in her notice when the maternity pay stopped. I've sold the Audi, bought her an Automatic V40, cancelled my personal mobile and sky subscription. Now my parents have been credit crunched one final time we're selling the farm, 28 years we've been here. I'm now trying to clear 28 years of junk from the yard. The doctors don't want to mess with any medication until after we're moved, which is seems perfectly sensible to me.
She's a bit worried about the move (fair enough, so am I!) but I think it should be a good fresh start for us all. We've found a lovely listed house that is actually bigger inside than the farmhouse, but without the land. Losing the workshop is going to be a pain.
We've been going out a lot at the weekends, and took Emily swimming for the first time this week, I reckon she'll swim better than I can after a few goes! and then she went in the sea at Lyme Regis on Thursday -
Try getting her out of the water! with me holding her hands she would quite happily wade out till it was over her belly, I reckon if I didn't stop her she'd toddle out till it was over her head! All in, we're having a bloody good summer together. Again, 6-8 months ago, getting Amy out of bed was a morning was a struggle, and then getting out the house took much cajoling - one time I actually had Emily in the car, and was going to go just me and her, I was shutting the gate behind me when Amy decided that actually she would come out with us.
Reading that back it seems harsh, but I swear I'd have gone stir crazy because we simply wouldn't have ever left the house.
Thinking back to times like that show me just how far we've come.
Does not having the car, the sky etc bother me? Not really.
Although I have set myself a target of a 'stang by the time I'm 40!
When I get home from work and Emily turns as I come in the door and says "Daddy!" that makes everything alright...
We're getting there.
Amy is still on a fair dose of antipsychotic, and an antidepressant and still needs stuff to counteract the parkinsonism from the antipsychotics, but she's doing really well.
She seems to be much much more "into" Emily, if that makes sense - six/eight months ago I was getting home from work to be told she didn't want to be a mum, has then moved to me being called excitedly at work when she stood up for the first time, done this or that etc.
She hasn't felt that she is up to working, so officially handed in her notice when the maternity pay stopped. I've sold the Audi, bought her an Automatic V40, cancelled my personal mobile and sky subscription. Now my parents have been credit crunched one final time we're selling the farm, 28 years we've been here. I'm now trying to clear 28 years of junk from the yard. The doctors don't want to mess with any medication until after we're moved, which is seems perfectly sensible to me.
She's a bit worried about the move (fair enough, so am I!) but I think it should be a good fresh start for us all. We've found a lovely listed house that is actually bigger inside than the farmhouse, but without the land. Losing the workshop is going to be a pain.
We've been going out a lot at the weekends, and took Emily swimming for the first time this week, I reckon she'll swim better than I can after a few goes! and then she went in the sea at Lyme Regis on Thursday -
Try getting her out of the water! with me holding her hands she would quite happily wade out till it was over her belly, I reckon if I didn't stop her she'd toddle out till it was over her head! All in, we're having a bloody good summer together. Again, 6-8 months ago, getting Amy out of bed was a morning was a struggle, and then getting out the house took much cajoling - one time I actually had Emily in the car, and was going to go just me and her, I was shutting the gate behind me when Amy decided that actually she would come out with us.
Reading that back it seems harsh, but I swear I'd have gone stir crazy because we simply wouldn't have ever left the house.
Thinking back to times like that show me just how far we've come.
Does not having the car, the sky etc bother me? Not really.
Although I have set myself a target of a 'stang by the time I'm 40!
When I get home from work and Emily turns as I come in the door and says "Daddy!" that makes everything alright...
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