Post-partum psychosis
‘I had terrifying hallucinations after I gave birth
It’s often said we all have our demons – though few of us have to face them in our homes. Yet Olivia Siegl’s nemesis found her in the kitchen. “I was doing some washing,” she says, “putting my new baby Éva’s babygrows and little socks in the machine when I turned around and this ugly bright blue demon was standing there, growling at me.
“I can remember letting out a scream, hearing myself make a sort of primal noise of terror before beginning to laugh and cry hysterically with relief when I realised it was not real. It was horrifying.”
Nor was it her first encounter. Three weeks earlier, on a quiet September evening, Siegl had begun seeing demons flying around her home, circling it, trying to get in where she feared they would attack Éva. “I called my husband Jamie who was out watching football and begged him to come home. I was on my knees in the kitchen literally trying to get a grip on reality. Neither of us could understand what was going on. We had certainly no idea that having a baby could ignite this kind of mental confusion.”
Siegl was in the grip of post-partum psychosis, a rare but serious mental illness that comes on after childbirth, affecting about one in 1,000 women. It is far from the “baby blues”, the natural hormonal swings that occur in most women a few days after childbirth, but it can be an extension of postnatal depression, which affects more than one in every 10 women within a year of giving birth.
Thirty-nine-year-old Siegl – who has just written a new book, Bonkers: A Real Mum’s Hilariously Honest Tales of Motherhood, Mayhem and Mental Health, about her experience – lives in Bridgnorth, Shropshire, with her husband Jamie, 39, a global sales director, and their two daughters Éva, five, and Isla-mai, three and a half.
Bright and chatty, there is no sign that she has been so unwell. Indeed, Siegl looks as though little could faze her. “I was always happy in myself,” she explains, “positive and outgoing – an optimistic person. And then this happened.”
The couple had married in June 2011 with a view to starting a family as soon as possible. Éva was born six weeks early on Christmas Eve in 2012. The birth was traumatic: the epidural failed to work and Siegl had been left frightened and in pain.
“From the moment we left the labour ward,” she says, “something wasn’t quite right with me. I had this beautiful, longed-for baby girl, but I felt I had lost something, too. I felt muted and off-kilter. I put it down to the shock of the birth.”
Siegl tried to breastfeed but found it difficult, which left her feeling guilty: “I had this constant sense of foreboding, that something awful would happen. It was far past normal anxiety.”
A few days after the birth, the Siegls were due to be taught how to bathe their baby. “Halfway down the corridor, I had a panic attack. I felt the whole world had shifted and I could hardly breathe.” She put it down to
‘My husband found me in the kitchen, trying to get a grip on reality’
exhaustion. When the couple took their daughter home, Siegl would dread people coming around. “So, with military precision, I drew up a never-ending list of jobs I needed to do as a mother. I would constantly disinfect and sterilise the house, and carry out stocktakes on the nappies and baby clothes I’d bought her.
“Then I’d be awake all night, beating myself up about not doing enough for Éva. I wasn’t eating or taking care of myself. I felt like I was watching life happen, not experiencing it.”
Her husband bore the brunt of her anxiety. “Some days, he would see me introverted and unable to leave the house, then I would be snappy. My anger levels soared, I was constantly agitated. We both put it down to tiredness and new motherhood.”
Siegl admits her feelings were wound up in shame at how inadequate she perceived herself as a mother.
When Éva was seven months old, Siegl had a complete breakdown and told her husband how bad she felt. She reluctantly agreed to see the GP, convinced he would judge her unfit and take Éva away or would confirm one of her ongoing fears that she had a terminal illness.
But her GP diagnosed postnatal depression (PND) and offered antidepressants and counselling. “It was a massive relief to have a diagnosis, but devastating, too. It was confirmation that I wasn’t experiencing motherhood as a normal mum and I was ashamed to need medication.”
After about six weeks, however, Siegl was feeling better. She had reluctantly agreed to her husband’s suggestion that they tell close friends about the PND. “He told me we needed the support and he was right. Everyone was fantastic.”
In 2013, the couple were keen to grow their family. She went back to her GP to ask if it was safe to stop her medication. She was told it was, and that having another baby would “help sort her hormones out”. Siegl says: “I realise now how wrong this advice was, but I was determined this illness had already taken enough from me and would not steal my chances of having more children.”
She became pregnant and felt well initially. But after the 12-week mark, as the morning sickness passed, the agitation returned. “And at about six months, my dark stranger came back to haunt me.”
Siegl decided to get more counselling and began twice-weekly sessions. “She was the first professional I confided in about my visions. She was shocked, but helped me work through my fears.”
Isla-mai was born six weeks early – like her sister – in July 2014. This time, the birth was calm and controlled. “I wonder now if the first birth was the trigger for what happened,” says Siegl.
In contrast to that first experience, Siegl was able to breastfeed and spent hours with Isla-mai enjoying skin-onskin time in the neonatal ward.
“I felt really content and happy for the first four weeks but, sadly, that wore off,” she says. “By eight weeks, I
was feeling panicky again and began to withdraw. Jamie noticed and encouraged me to get back to seeing my counsellor. That was so important; having someone outside the family was good for all of us.”
What frustrated Siegl most was that she had not been warned that her mind was at risk either before the first pregnancy or the second. “When you get pregnant,” she explains, “there are lots of leaflets on eating well and taking exercise or rest, but nothing for supporting your mental health.”
Indeed, it was only a year after overcoming the illness that Siegl watched a Youtube video showing someone talk about their postpartum psychosis – “I got goose bumps. I’d never even heard of it but these were all my symptoms, including hallucinations.”
Siegl began a Facebook group and set up the Every Mum Movement (everymummovement.com) to highlight the importance of taking care of maternal mental health, and a blog called The Baby Bible (the-babybible.com). And while post-partum psychosis is never far from her professional thoughts, it’s also still a topic that concerns her personally.
“I do worry it will come back. I am completely well and the happiest I have felt since Isla-mai was small. But anyone who has been through a battle with their mind will know that you always have that fear something will come back. I need to treat my mental health with the same importance as my physical health.”