Postpartum psychosis?

After my middle child (25+ years ago) I had a two week period during which I was hearing voices, talking to and seeing dead people, and seeing what looked like 'static' in the world around me. After two weeks this ended with a spontaneous 'near death' sort of experience.

I never received treatment or even saw a doctor for this. My husband at the time decided I was possessed and left me. Shortly after he left I got into therapy and was diagnosed with PTSD.

Now though, when I ask professionals about this, I'm told, "Oh you probably had postpartum psychosis." But when I read the symptoms of postpartum psychosis, they don't seem to fit. I never had ANY urge to harm the baby or my family. I did not feel depressed, just freaked out by what was happening.

Does anyone have any experience with this? I have always wondered why this happened, especially why specific things happened (things many people would call delusional or hallucinatory). Now, I'm told again and again it meant nothing, it was all chemical.

But why? Do you know what I am getting at? Can anyone help me understand this?

I'm not an expert, but it does sound like postpartum psychosis to me as well. You had psychotic experiences immediately after the birth of a child which resolved fairly quickly on their own. I don't think that violence is a necessary part of postpartum psychosis any more than it is of other psychoses. We tend to think of the violence aspect because those are the stories that make the newspaper.

I met a woman earlier this year who was living in mental health housing where my son was staying. She was about my age but had spent much of her adult life battling psychosis. She had been a journalist until the birth of her first child when she was 29 when she became psychotic. That was 19 years ago. She said she'd had periods of stability on medications, but the medications always stopped working eventually and she was thrown back into psychosis. She looked so tired when she was telling me about it.

Based on what it says at wikipedia, your experience is more typical - resolving within weeks or months. Wikipedia also says this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postpartum_psychosis

Ah, I see I didn't even address your question. I tend to believe there's meaning in "madness," that experiences like sz have an least some psychological or emotional or traumatic basis. I don't buy into a pure medical model, in other words.

But even I think that postpartum depression/psychosis are mostly biochemical. Your entire hormonal system is thrown into chaos by pregnancy, childbirth, nursing, etc. It would be surprising if some women didn't have "mental problems" in those circumstances.

I suppose the stress of becoming a mother might contribute, but you say you had this experience with your middle child. So I assume you had children before and after without having this reaction. So, who knows?

Thank you Costello!

I believe there is meaning in madness too, but your link was especially helpful, and it does make sense. So maybe my experience wasn't so atypical after all.

I often wonder if some hallucinatory or psychotic experiences aren't 'real' in the sense that other people might perceive the same (or a similar) thing if their own chemistry was altered by whatever.

Not all, but some.

Also, I wonder if some people who perceive themselves to be tormented by spirits aren't really tormented by spirits. Sometimes the simplest explanation is the best. Occam's razor I think it's called. I still have altered perceptions at times, but I don't think of them as hallucinatory or delusional, just odd. I think many 'sane' people do.

Thank you for your helpful response.

Oh and yes, I had two other children without psychosis afterward, but I did have problem pregnancies with all three (preeclamspia, high BP), and I did start to have intense PTSD flashbacks once the psychosis resolved with the second.

My current therapist says that women with PTSD are at much higher risk for postpartum psychosis, so perhaps she is right.

It still fascinates me. Like, how does the brain do this stuff and why? When it happens to you, you have a much more driving need to understand. It's hard to explain, but it's always there, hanging over me, the questions.

Anything's possible, I suppose. No one has the right answer to psychosis yet. Just theories and hypotheses. Personally I think there isn't one right answer. There are so many different experiences, I think we're looking at more than one "illness," probably with more than one cause.

I don't believe in spirits myself, but I'm humble enough to acknowledge that I could be wrong. Maybe if I'd experienced it myself, I'd be a believer.

That is really interesting, and it feeds into my own theory which is that psychosis has trauma at its heart. The person may be biologically susceptical in some unspecified way. I don't know. But ultimately it's a reaction to trauma.

It fascinates me too - mostly because of my son. I believe that if I'd had such an experience, I'd definitely want to understand the whys and wherefores.

It seems like psychosis has to be experienced to be truly understood. My son tries to explain it to me, but I never quite get a handle on it apparently. I try to repeat back to him what I understood him to say, but I mostly get it wrong. I imagine it would be like explaining the color blue to a blind person.

Sometimes I wish I could have a short-term limited psychotic experience so that I could understand. Maybe your experience was meant to give you insights into psychosis for some reason. Maybe it was a gift that you'll be called upon to use sometime.

I have always thought the psychotic break was a gift to me--that believing some of the content kept me from harming myself during the three years of intensive PTSD treatment that followed. I thought it was all part of a grander plan, so I hung in there. Now, years later, it barely matters if it was or not, it did protect me during that time.

I know what you mean about translating this stuff. It IS like explaining the color blue to a blind person.

I agree with you that it's many things under one heading. That seems so clear. I think the best shrinks even admit that.

Thanks for your thoughts and all the best to you and your son.

I hope so. It seems like people get their pet theory and make everything fit that theory. Mental health professionals in particular seem to project very simplistic answers. I sometimes wonder if it's because they work with people who are in such a huge amount of distress. In order to calm the distress they feel the need to send a powerful message: I'm an expert. I know what's wrong here, and I know what to do about it. Everything is going to be okay.

Sometimes my son wants to hear those words: Everything is going to be fine. But how can I make such a promise? I don't know if everything is going to be fine or not.

Thanks.

BTW, I absolutely love your status: pgrundy never met a monster she didn't like.

I think I'll try to make that my life's philosophy. I never met a monster I didn't like.

I think it can be a defensive mechanism.

I read once an interesting speculation about the chemical imbalance theory.... the yes, chemistry is involved, but we are not sure if it is causation or mere correlation.

That's such a good point. Just because they occur together in many cases doesn't mean one causes the other.

LOL! I love monster movies and 50s UFO movies, but I'll watch almost anything with a monster or a UFO in it. I have blogs on aliens and the paranormal.

But on a more serious note, I do think that facing our monsters and learning to accept them and even make friends is central to compassion and growth. It's an important theme in my life.

I had a wonderful experience of post partum psychosis. It helped me bond with my baby, trust myself to do the right thing by him, even helped me with breast feeding, sleeping, and standing up for what I knew was best for him. I was completely convinced that he was an angel sent from heaven, and on several occasions I saw him flying round the room. He'd just up and whizz about, and it made me so happy to see it. Of course, he can't have actually flown, but I think I can interpret that experience as being positive, and helping me be a better, more confident mother. It lasted no more than a couple of months. By the time he'd stopped flying he'd started crawling at any rate. I used to describe it to people afterwards as post natal euphoria, and I've often wondered if anyone else had similarly happy experience of what was, all things considered, madness.