A mother has revealed how she tried to kill her husband and baby after being tormented by hallucinations.
Laura, 35, from Chesterfield, Derbyshire, suffered from post-natal psychosis and said she felt “the only way to be together” with her family was to corral them all against the wall.
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The office administrator had not previously suffered any mental health issues, but was diagnosed two weeks after the birth of her daughter Olivia.
Laura began to have feelings “like someone was trying to take us” and almost crashed her car while driving to her friend’s house after being awake for 40 hours.
She said: “The first hallucination I had was Olivia being molested and thrown. I had three of these dreams and got to the point where I didn’t want to go to bed.
“The lack of sleep made it much worse, and because Dan was sleeping, I resented him. I started to be aggressive towards him.
“I still feel guilty, even though it wasn’t me, it could have ended so differently. I owe my life to unity.”
Postpartum psychosis is a serious mental illness that occurs in about 1 in every 1,000 mothers who give birth.
While it’s common to experience the “baby blues” after giving birth, postpartum psychosis is different and should be treated as a medical emergency, according to the NHS.
Symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions, mania, bad mood and feeling very confused usually occur in the first two weeks.
Doctors aren’t sure what exactly causes it, but women who have bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or a family history of mental illness are at greater risk.
Laura, who shared her story in Channel 4 documentary Losing It: Our Mental Health Emergency, began experiencing hallucinations days after giving birth in 2019.
She revealed how she started feeling more aggressive than usual and resenting her partner Dan, 33, before the episode in which she almost killed them.
She said: “Dan was driving but in my head he was blinking for longer periods than normal, as if he was about to fall asleep, so I asked him to stop and said I would drive.
“I sat in the driver’s seat, cried and explained to him that I was hallucinating.
“I was really upset and when he didn’t comfort me, I got mad and angry and asked if I could put an end to it.
MEDICAL EMERGENCY
“In a split second I got into the car. It felt like someone was trying to take one of us and I just wanted us to be together, so logically the only way we could be together was to end it.
“I was going faster and faster and I saw a wall. Dan was screaming ‘please stop, please stop, Olivia needs a mother and a future, please stop’.”
Dan pressed the car’s on/off button, which slowed it down, and managed to get him and Olivia out of there.
Laura ran away but returned and was taken to A&E before being admitted and spending six weeks with a perinatal team at Nottinghamshire Healthcare Trust.
She was given haloperidol, an antipsychotic medication, and was closely monitored before recovering.
What are the signs and symptoms of postpartum psychosis?
Symptoms may include:
- hallucinations – hearing, seeing, smelling or feeling things that are not there
- delusions – suspicions, fears, thoughts or beliefs that are unlikely to be true
- mania – feeling very “high” or hyperactive, for example, talking and thinking too much or too quickly, restlessness or loss of normal inhibitions
- depressed mood – showing signs of depression, withdrawn or tearful, lack of energy, loss of appetite, anxiety, agitation, or difficulty sleeping
- sometimes a mix of manic mood and depressed mood – or rapid mood swings
- feeling very confused
Source: The National Health Service
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