Postpartum Psychosis: Breaking The Silence - Emma's Story

*Please note that this episode discusses Postpartum Psychosis, delusions, and hallucinations. We also talk about the stigma surrounding PPP and how the media portrays mothers who succumb to its more severe symptoms. 

Please excuse the audio quality of this episode as we seem to be having some difficulty with our overseas recordings. We have done all that we can, but we recognize that your listening experience may be impacted. We ask that you try to look past this and fully take in Emma's incredibly powerful story.

In the Season Four Finale of Quiet Connection: Postpartum Mental health, I'm connecting with Emma Grenfell, a survivor of postpartum psychosis, who shares her candid journey through motherhood, mental health challenges, and the importance of advocacy and education. Emma emphasizes the significance of recognizing early warning signs, the impact of stigma, and the necessity of creating a supportive environment for those struggling with mental health issues. Emma's story is one of resilience, empowerment, and the drive to help others navigate similar challenges.

Takeaways

• Emma shares her journey as a survivor of postpartum psychosis.
• The importance of recognizing early warning signs of mental health issues.
• Postpartum psychosis can manifest in various ways, including hallucinations and delusions.
• Advocacy for mental health is crucial for both individuals and their support systems.
• Education about postpartum psychosis is essential for reducing stigma.
• Emma emphasizes the need for a supportive environment for new mothers.
• The role of healthcare professionals in recognizing and treating postpartum psychosis is vital.
• Emma's experience highlights the importance of self-advocacy in mental health care.
• The conversation aims to normalize discussions around mental health and motherhood.
• Emma encourages open dialogue about mental health to help others feel less alone.

Sound Bites
"I was just in fight or flight."
"I thought we were all gonna die."
"You need to do better."

To learn more about Emma, visit her Instagram!

This episode discusses topics that may be triggering for some individuals. Please check the show notes for more information and be mindful of your own mental health and comfort levels.

Visit our Patreon to help support our mission to normalize the conversation and end the stigma surrounding PMADs!

Transcript

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Chelsea (00:00)
Welcome to Quiet Connection, a podcast dedicated to ending the stigma around postpartum mental health. I'm Chelsea. Today, I have the privilege of connecting with Emma, a survivor of postpartum psychosis who is making a tremendous impact by raising awareness and fostering solidarity around this specific perinatal mood and anxiety disorder. She shares her story with candor and has a remarkable ability to look back and find humor within the darkness.

She shares so many incredible tips on spotting the warning signs of PPP and how you can help a friend or loved one if you suspect that they are in the midst of it. Here's Emma.

Chelsea (00:43)
Hello! Today I'm here with Emma. Emma, how are you?

Emma Grenfell (00:47)
Hi, I'm good. How are you? Thanks, Chelsea.

Chelsea (00:50)
I'm doing really well. If you can't tell, listeners, we are once again across the world in Australia. And yes, so Emma's in the future. For me, it's Sunday night and for Emma, it's Monday day. Yes, yes. So I always find that so funny.

Emma Grenfell (01:00)
We certainly are.

Ha!

Monday morning, 10 .30.

Chelsea (01:18)
whenever I have my guests who are abroad. It is, but you know what? It's cool. It's very, very cool. So I would love it if you could sort of introduce yourself and let my listeners know who you were before you were a mom.

Emma Grenfell (01:18)
It's crazy. Yeah, so bizarre.

It is cool.

Yes, so I'm Emma. I will be 28 next week. I have two kids. Thank you. It's crazy. This year has just, my goodness, it's just flown. But yes, so I have a beautiful three -year -old daughter and a one -year -old soon to be two -year -old daughter. And they are just the light of my life.

Chelsea (01:43)
Happy early birthday!

Emma Grenfell (02:00)
I love them and I love my family, my partner and I have been together for 12 years. lot of history there and yeah, I so love being a mum, but I was an entirely different person as you said, Chelsea beforehand, you know. I still like to think I'm lively and bubbly and...

Chelsea (02:07)
you

Emma Grenfell (02:27)
There's part of the old me in there, but some existing mental health issues and things like that pre -mum just like, it just skyrocketed in the last three years. So that's why I'm here, to talk about that sort of stuff.

Chelsea (02:40)
Yeah.

Emma Grenfell (02:48)
I'm on the other side, thankfully. I still have my dark days. Yeah, I was just saying to you, Chelsea, I just came back from seeing my psychologist. You know, that's my self -care for the day. yeah, that's it, pretty much.

Chelsea (02:57)
You

Yeah.

that's you in a nutshell. also just realized listeners, so I'm wearing my bluey sweatshirt and you're wearing a USA shirt.

Emma Grenfell (03:14)
I didn't even notice that.

Chelsea (03:16)
didn't notice it until just now. We both were channeling it.

Emma Grenfell (03:17)
Where did he go? Yeah, East Coast. East

Sports Club, apparently. Kmart.

Chelsea (03:24)
Very nice, very nice, love it.

Emma Grenfell (03:25)
That's great, my

cleaning ware.

Chelsea (03:27)
Love it, yeah, my PJs, your cleaning wear, I love it. Yup. Anyway, after that little side note, something that I ask all my guests, which seems like such a silly question, but it really helps me get to know you a little bit better is, did you always envision yourself being a mom?

Emma Grenfell (03:29)
Yeah, amazing. Look at us.

Yeah!

No, no I didn't. I think I wanted to be a mum. I wasn't sure when, I wasn't sure if I'd ever be ready. I think I had a lot of doubts, not that there was any doubts within my relationship but like my goodness is this the person that I'm going to be having children with.

Chelsea (03:50)
No.

Emma Grenfell (04:11)
I was young, was 20, my goodness, 24, turning 24, I think when I had my, my eldest. But yeah, we sort of reached a point, my partner and I, where we bought our house, he proposed, and then one day he just said, I think you should stop taking the pill. was pretty amazing. We, we unfortunately had a Miscarriage

Chelsea (04:17)
Yeah?

Emma Grenfell (04:35)
back when I was 17. Which was yeah, why my first? We can go into that. Why my first pregnancy was just so anxiety ridden and like based off trauma. But yeah, it wasn't until I was like early 20s really that I thought, I could do this gig. it a go, just dabble in it a little bit.

Chelsea (04:44)
Mm -hmm.

So when you guys made that decision, obviously like you just said, you had a previous history. Did you also have a previous history of mental health? Were you saying like mental health struggles? Yeah, yeah.

Emma Grenfell (05:00)
Mm.

absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. was

primarily, you know, anxiety and depression, bit of childhood trauma, things like that. But that, that didn't really say it wasn't on my mind really until I was sort of at the end of my first trimester with our, with our first born. You know, I fell pregnant pretty much straight away, which was very, very fortunate, but

Chelsea (05:30)
Mm

Emma Grenfell (05:32)
Yeah, of course I had in the back of my mind, am I going to lose this baby? I was just, that's when I went back on antidepressants. just wasn't coping with the stress.

Chelsea (05:42)
Well, and you also, you not only had like mental health issues, but like you said, you'd suffered a previous miscarriage. that like that's anxiety inducing when you're going into any pregnancy, when you have, when you have that in the back of your mind. so talk to me a little bit about, about your pregnancy journey. Like how was pregnancy for you?

Emma Grenfell (05:48)
Boom.

Mmm.

you

my first pregnancy, my god, I hated every second of it. I hated it. I wasn't really unwell, but for the first couple of months I was vomiting at least once a day, dry reaching. I was just in physical pain. But at the same time, like, my god.

Chelsea (06:10)
Yeah.

Emma Grenfell (06:25)
What is this beautiful thing inside of me? Like I need to make sure it's okay. So I had the little fetal Doppler, all that sort of stuff. I had my own, I bought one online. So the second I could hear its heartbeat, I was just listening to it all day. We did the gender reveal, found out we were having a little girl, but I just, I put on a lot of weight as well and I felt, I didn't feel beautiful.

Chelsea (06:34)
wow, you had your own? Yeah.

Emma Grenfell (06:52)
I didn't, I feel like pregnancy is really, can be really like glamorized and you get consumed by what's on social media like, my God, this pregnant person, she's so beautiful, look at her belly, look at this, skin. I was not glowing whatsoever. Yep, glow, was swollen. My tits were like,

Chelsea (07:11)
There was no glow.

Emma Grenfell (07:19)
the size of my, I was just, I had cankles. It was horrible. I was really, I was just not, not happy. And I ended up giving birth at 39 weeks. waddled into the hospital. was a very long, tedious labor. But the moment she came out, I was just in love. Like it just,

Chelsea (07:34)
Okay.

Yeah.

Emma Grenfell (07:45)
made

everything so worthwhile. I still to this day, I've birthed two babies vaginally and I still to this day say I would go through labour in a heartbeat. the empowerment, I don't know, it was obviously excruciating and I hated every second But it was my births, I was very lucky.

to not have any complications during birth or pregnancy for that matter.

Chelsea (08:12)
It just wasn't super enjoyable, which is totally common.

Emma Grenfell (08:17)
It is, it is. And look, I think more and more women are opening up to the idea of, actually, I didn't really enjoy my pregnancy and that's okay. Because it's not really beautiful for everybody. But I made a promise, I made a vow to myself that second time around, because we were trying to conceive. I don't know why again, but no.

Chelsea (08:27)
Yeah.

Hahaha

Emma Grenfell (08:42)
At five months postpartum, was another little baby in there. And this time around, I said, no, Emma, you are going to enjoy it. Like just, just try, you know. People struggle to conceive. There are infertility issues all over the world

Chelsea (08:48)
my gosh.

Emma Grenfell (09:03)
I didn't want to take it for granted again and I didn't. I worked up until like two weeks before I gave birth. I looked after myself, I nurtured my body. I was very, very run down. So I guess that's probably where my mental health took the first dark turn because I was looking after an infant as well.

So no wonder I was a bit skinnier this time around.

Chelsea (09:29)
Yeah.

You were a little bit, yeah, you were a little busier this time around.

Emma Grenfell (09:31)
You

I was a little

busier. I did, you know, still have the time off work. It was beautiful. Again, another uncomplicated, peaceful birth. But yeah, very, very, very quickly. I think I developed insomnia when I was about six months pregnant with our second. Although I had a baby that was sleeping through the night, thank God.

Chelsea (09:53)
wow.

Yeah.

Emma Grenfell (09:59)
This one, my second, and now I know because she's a little... the hurricane. She never slept in the womb. So yeah, I just didn't sleep from like six months pregnant to probably three months postpartum.

Chelsea (10:14)
my gosh. Emma, my gosh.

Emma Grenfell (10:15)
And that was why, yeah,

mean, you know, obviously, but that period of my life, you know, I pieced together a timeline and thank God I love my photos and my videos and stuff. But if I didn't have that, it would just kind of be gone, just poof.

Chelsea (10:34)
Yeah.

I will say, there is something about second born children. They are built different. They are cuckoo bananas. my second was the same way, like never ever stayed still and she's two and still doesn't stay still. But regardless,

Emma Grenfell (10:40)
Thank you.

Yep.

Yep.

Thank

Chelsea (10:55)
So after your second pregnancy and your second delivery, you're already coming from a point of little to no sleep. So that's already really, really affecting your mental health. When did you start to notice a shift in how you were coping?

Emma Grenfell (11:03)
Mm.

Yeah, was probably, so my second was born in November of 2022 and it was very early, early 2023. So it was, it began really subtly. You know, we had her in her bassinet in our bedroom. I was breastfeeding. She was waking God every hour.

so I'd just pop her on the boob. It was rough. My partner was working night shift at that time, so he was set up in our spare room so he could get some sleep, and I was like, that's cool. Quite often, my daughter would end up in bed with me, and after you have your second, the whole safe sleeping thing, all that, obviously I made sure it was safe, but I'm like, you know, we're mammals.

Chelsea (11:45)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes.

Emma Grenfell (12:06)
We're gonna sleep with our children. We're gonna nurture our babies So she slept with me You know an hour at a time and it wasn't until one morning I don't know if I was awake or asleep, but I let's just say I came to and She was in her bassinet next to me screaming and it was like blood curdling it echoed through the entire house. It was like something off a horror movie and

she had her little finger, you know how onesies you can pull the mittens over the hands and the feet sometimes? Yeah, she so I couldn't see her fingers, but her mitten was over her hand and I think it was her little finger was it was bent backward stuck in the sleeve of the onesie.

Chelsea (12:36)
Mm -hmm.

Emma Grenfell (12:50)
And it had been like that for God knows how long. And I've taken it out, obviously, and it was a bit limp and floppy. There was no circulation to the finger. And it was then in that moment that something just switched in me. And I used to be a nurse, so that became my worst enemy. All of this medical knowledge just went out the window. Called my neighbor, who's also a nurse.

Mind you, this was like four o 'clock in the morning and I was hysterical. I'm like, my God, I've broken her finger. Like, what do I do? I'm going to take her to the hospital. And it was just, it was a horrible experience. And then slowly but surely, you know, the pink started coming back. She had good capillary refill, all that sort of stuff. So she was okay. But from there, it was just like, I had this.

Chelsea (13:20)
my gosh.

Emma Grenfell (13:42)
I had to protect her. As well as my other daughter, every part of me, every cell in my body had to protect her. I was just in fight or flight, you know, So I think, you know, a lot of women that experience what I did, they can have very intrusive thoughts.

Chelsea (13:45)
Mm.

Emma Grenfell (14:04)
you know, cases can be tragic. So I never, never, ever once wanted to harm my children or her thoughts or anything like that. It was just, have to do what it takes to make sure that she's gonna survive. I felt like the whole world was kinda out to get us.

Chelsea (14:07)
Mm

Yeah. And that was that was like a reality for you. That was. Yeah, it was so. Do you want to put do you want to name what it was that you that you experienced?

Emma Grenfell (14:27)
Absolutely.

Yeah, It wasn't until I mean things got things got a bit worse from there, which we could go into the So postpartum psychosis affects roughly one to two in 1000 women annually. And I think people people see things, you know, on the news and social media. You hear of these.

Chelsea (14:41)
Yeah, absolutely.

Emma Grenfell (15:00)
absolutely tragic cases of women you know taking the lives of their children taking the lives taking their own lives it's just it's so fucked up and pardon my French but there's no other way to really it's it's horrible and you know these the women that that may survive you know are being imprisoned for murder and

sectioned under, like it's just, they're thrown into these mental institutions and psychiatric facilities. And look, I think the world is doing better, I do, but there needs to be more education and better treatment for women experiencing this because although mine was a relatively mild illness, it

could have been and very quickly could have been a lot worse.

Chelsea (15:56)
Yeah, yeah. And I think things that you pointed out so well are, well, one, I asked you if you want to name it because that is you. there's a whole school of thought of like, you are not your trauma. And so for some people that means like, I don't want to put a name to it. I don't need to put a name to it. For others, like,

Emma Grenfell (16:15)
Hmm.

Chelsea (16:17)
for me, I'm of the mindset of like, own your stigma, like, okay, yeah, this is something that happened to me, it doesn't define me. So it's purely want to make sure that it that you were in charge of that. But something that you pointed out is that the media only shows us the worst case scenario. And

Emma Grenfell (16:21)
Yes.

Mm.

Chelsea (16:38)
And by the media, mean like the news outlets, also like movies and TV and stuff. Like when you see postpartum psychosis or psychosis portrayed, it is always the worst case scenario. You're not hearing about the moms like you that did not have thoughts of harming yourself or harming your baby, but still experienced really extreme like delusion. I hate to call it delusion, like

Emma Grenfell (17:00)
Mm.

Hmm No, well,

that's the medical term. Yep delusions hallucinations like and as you pointed out before Chelsea that That was my reality You know, I was yeah, I was just so Convinced that these things were happening we Had had bushfires, you know better

Chelsea (17:07)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Emma Grenfell (17:29)
about 50, 60 kilometres from us around the same time. And where we live is a community that was very affected by the Black Saturday bushfires back in 2009. So in my mind, this was happening and I just remember again coming to, I don't know if I was napping with the kids, but I could vividly smell smoke I could hear

Chelsea (17:42)
Mm.

Emma Grenfell (17:57)
like the crackling of trees. I could feel heat coming through where I'm sitting now, my bedroom window. And I was like, what's going on? And then I look out my bedroom window and our whole backyard is on fire. Obviously it wasn't.

Chelsea (18:07)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's I was gonna ask. It was not on fire.

Emma Grenfell (18:14)
It was not.

I was having a full blown auditory visual hallucination. I was just like, my God, because it was on my TV that this suburb, this community very, very close to us were being evacuated at that point in time. that day was my, I suppose, moment of awakening where I actually really realized.

Chelsea (18:32)
Mm -hmm.

Emma Grenfell (18:40)
what I'd been going through. There were several things leading up to that. But yeah, we got in the car and got the hell out of there and I dropped my children off to my mom and my mother -in -law and I took myself to the doctors.

Chelsea (18:53)
You did so that you were the one that initiated getting help.

Emma Grenfell (18:57)
Yeah, which is, yeah, it's tough and that still cuts pretty deep because I've had to advocate for my own mental health and my emotional well -being pretty well my entire life. You know, I was, I suppose, having a bit of a psychotic break and went to see a psychiatrist who was part of my antinatal and postnatal.

team and I just remember her asking me if I'd heard of mother baby units and I said no and she didn't provide any other information. That was it. That was it. Yep she just said look I think there could be one within a 50 kilometre radius to you but you'll have to check it out and then yeah prescribed me an anti -psychotic medication but

Chelsea (19:32)
She just stopped? She's just like, end of

Emma Grenfell (19:48)
she prescribed it for generalised anxiety disorder. When I went to see her I was really paranoid. I probably would have been on the manic end of psychosis. she just said you need to sleep. But this particular drug can make you feel very, very drowsy. It's seroquel. A lot of people that experience psychotic symptoms are on this medication and have wonderful results.

Chelsea (19:52)
Okay.

Emma Grenfell (20:14)
But for me, I was like, my God, it's making me sleepy. I can't sleep. Every time I go to sleep, something happens. that was that. And I'm like, that was your job to protect me in that instance. And I found a lot over the years, being an ex health professional, I was quite dismissed. You know, know how to manage this, you know, this drug.

Chelsea (20:34)
Mmm.

Emma Grenfell (20:37)
all that sort of stuff but I felt like I was never really treated as the patient.

Chelsea (20:44)
Yeah. you have, did you have anybody in your corner, like in your support system? did you, was your partner even aware of the severity of what was going on? No.

Emma Grenfell (20:45)
So that

No, no, he not. And that's, and I think that's the main issue with postpartum psychosis in particular is your friends, your family, your loved ones, your circle, they need to know those early warning signs. You know, they need to be educated because, you know, to them, I was just, I was just a bit hyperactive. You know, like I was in my newborn bubble, I was

Chelsea (21:20)
Yeah.

Emma Grenfell (21:23)
frantically cleaning, I wasn't sleeping, all that sort of stuff. It can just be so overlooked, the underlying, but then again, I had my psychiatrist misdiagnose me. Who can you trust? Who can you confide in? Who's gonna do their job properly? So I think everybody, like if you're looking at it holistically, everybody.

needs to be educated and be able to identify those early warning signs. Postpartum psychosis is a medical emergency. Majority of the time requiring hospitalisation, I was very, very fortunate and I thank my lucky stars every day that I was able to come out of it the way I did.

Chelsea (21:58)
Mm -hmm.

Emma Grenfell (22:10)
Yeah, my poor family I think were just like, Emma is so tired. She's just a little bit loopy. They didn't quite, yeah, they couldn't quite comprehend what was going on, but I knew that something was not right. This was not, yeah, what I experienced first time around.

Chelsea (22:15)
Yeah.

Yeah, and that seems to be so every case of, I mean, every mental health challenge is different and everybody experiences mental health challenges differently. I think something that I'm learning that's specific to postpartum psychosis is that it isn't something that you immediately go to. It isn't something that you're like, this must be, she must be having a psychotic break.

and it can go completely unnoticed for some people, for some birthing people, it's very obvious and it's very loud and it's very like outwardly expressed. But then for other people, it's very internal. And I think a lot of the stigma around it is that we expect these big, scary behaviors. And that's just not always the case.

So like you're saying, like educating yourself about the early warning signs and knowing what to look for, especially partners and family members. You are obviously a lived experience expert.

Emma Grenfell (23:32)
Mm.

Chelsea (23:36)
So you know what your signs are, but for all of our listeners, like what are some of the signs that would point to postpartum psychosis rather than postpartum anxiety or postpartum OCD?

Emma Grenfell (23:38)
Mm.

Yeah,

absolutely. think the big one because postpartum psychosis is usually linked to bipolar disorder. So quite often, for myself for example, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder type 2 for the first time after experiencing postpartum psychosis. So the symptoms of mania

Chelsea (23:59)
Mm -hmm.

Emma Grenfell (24:15)
I suppose in psychosis are where you they come from bipolar. So initially a person may just lose complete need for sleep. Maybe extremely fatigued like I was, yes. But I think the first red flag would just be not sleeping. And then certainly erratic sort of behaviour which goes hand in hand with mania. So...

You have your rapid speech, overdrive, hyper stimulation, just hyperactivity. And then of course you're running on lack of sleep but so much adrenaline, you just go, go, go, go, go. And then quite often there may be some form of delusion belief.

Chelsea (24:57)
Yeah.

Emma Grenfell (25:04)
So strange beliefs, you know, for a lot of people they might go to more the spiritual side of things and think, okay, there's that higher power. Like I need to be doing this and I have to do this right now because the spiritual gods are telling me what to do. And quite often that's where it can turn very, very dark because women can start to have these beliefs. So the delusions.

might turn into auditory and visual hallucinations and it's not always that the mother is wanting to harm the baby or thinks that there's something wrong with the baby. They, sort of similar to what I did, want to protect and they might think there is someone out there that's coming to get them. Women might be hospitalized for their symptoms and I've heard stories of women in their wards saying that

Chelsea (25:51)
Mm -hmm.

Emma Grenfell (26:00)
the cameras and the lights in the hospital with the government, you know, spying on them. And that they were coming to take their baby away. And I read this incredible memoir and shout out to Ariane Beeston, who works for COPE, Centre of Perinatal Excellence. I've met her, read her memoir. I'm not myself, you see. It is fricking incredible.

Chelsea (26:04)
Mmm. Mm -hmm.

Okay.

Emma Grenfell (26:27)
It is just the most beautifully raw written story and Ariane's experience as a professional ballet dancer and then going into child protective services, child psychology, all that sort of stuff to then actually being the patient to being diagnosed with postpartum psychosis.

Chelsea (26:49)
Wow.

Emma Grenfell (26:50)
So she had hallucinations of her baby turning into a fire -breathing dragon. Like it's insane. So it can be obviously such a very, very different experience for many women. But it's certainly, and I think the thing that maybe my partner picked up on for me is going back to hallucinations. It can be really, really subtle.

Chelsea (26:56)
my gosh.

Emma Grenfell (27:17)
I was sitting up in bed one morning and could see my partner walking past the door, was on the phone, heard his dad on loudspeaker saying, yep, I'll be up this morning, I'll come bring coffee, whatever, I'll see you at whatever time. And then I remember yelling out to my partner and saying, hey, what time is your dad gonna be here? Like, shit, I better get up and get ready.

Chelsea (27:41)
Yeah.

Emma Grenfell (27:42)
my partner was asleep in bed so I was like talking to someone that wasn't there. And then when he actually did get up he goes, I have not spoken to dad like he's not coming over. So that was kind of like, I was like scratching my head like what just happened? It was completely bizarre.

Chelsea (27:46)
my gosh. Yeah.

Yeah.

Because it's not a dream state. It's not a dream state, it's real.

Emma Grenfell (28:06)
No!

You are totally awake. Yeah, yeah. And see that's the thing, I think, yeah if you're lucky enough to get a little bit of sleep, well then, for me it was a lot of night tremors and I, in the end I was actually too scared to sleep so it was, you are so so overtired that your brain is actually picturing things and putting things where they don't.

belong, you know, my dog, I remember was standing at the end of my bed and he was the size of a house and was just angry and looking over at me like just horrible random things, which can sometimes really be hard for you can go and share that with your support network and say, my goodness, like I think I'm seeing things or hearing things and they don't

really take it seriously. I don't think they understand the severity of it. I mean if I could have my time again and go through this experience again I would say to all of my family and friends, new parents, if they are acting any different, any different than they normally would be, doesn't matter how small or how big the difference is.

Don't just think, they're tired, they're a new mum, they just need some rest. Like, take it seriously. Go and get them, you know, go and take them to see a doctor, at the very least. But even then, I would just say, you know, go straight to the emergency department. Like, you don't, after going through this, I don't think you're stuffed around with things like this.

Chelsea (29:41)
Yeah.

No, and so like several things, several things stuck out to me with with what you were just saying. And also like clarify every time I say like, wow, it's not like it's not like, wow, you're crazy. wow, like that must have been terrifying. and yeah, the being taken seriously thing.

Emma Grenfell (29:56)
haha

Chelsea (30:06)
It is an issue for women and people who identify as female. just, we and they, I identify as non -binary, but are not taken seriously as like a default. feel like a lot of the time our symptoms are often, like you said, attributed to like, you need to get some sleep or like you need to drink more water.

Emma Grenfell (30:16)
Mm.

Hmm.

Chelsea (30:28)
And in those moments when you're at your most vulnerable and you said you advocated for yourself, which is insanely incredible, but like you needed someone to step in and advocate for you. And even when you did advocate for yourself, you did not get the help that you needed. So.

Emma Grenfell (30:49)
Mm.

Chelsea (30:49)
There's so many questions and I want to try to like keep it linear. like, so most of your thoughts and most of your delusional thinking had to do with the safety of you and your children. How did that affect your ability to parent?

Emma Grenfell (30:51)
Woof.

Yes.

Yeah, it was tough because I was obviously looking after an older child as well. And I think it's funny because my way, and I can laugh about it now because it is pretty hilarious. My way of protecting my children was when I became, excuse me, really unwell.

Chelsea (31:15)
Mm -hmm.

Emma Grenfell (31:27)
I thought, ooh, I'm having a reaction to this medication. I don't like it. I'm going to stop it. So I did, which obviously you're not supposed to. I'm not a medical professional, do not abruptly stop taking prescribed medication.

Chelsea (31:32)
Mm

Do not

- no, do not abruptly stop taking especially psychological medication. Yes, yes, I've been on antipsychotics. Yes. Yeah.

Emma Grenfell (31:46)
Especially anti -psychotics. There you go. Yep, no,

not a great idea. But I did it. And I did it. no, I ended up with mastitis. So I was devastated. But I was quick to treat it. Got the antibiotics. All was good. But the couple of days there while the infection had really sort of taken effect, I...

Chelsea (31:55)
No.

Emma Grenfell (32:14)
was going around on my hands and knees looking at, so we live in an older house, brick, but the wooden timber window frames, we get a lot of wet weather up here and condensation, so the wood can rot. And then obviously cause condensation on the inside of the window, which can result in black mold. So I remember crawling around on my hands and knees with like the sorest boobs in the world. I was just.

Chelsea (32:39)
I'm

Emma Grenfell (32:39)
on fire and I'm looking at the windows going my god and I'm scrubbing them with bleach and they were they had dirt and mold and stuff on them but my youngest was only a couple months old she'd been really really sick, congested and whatnot and I've gone my god and I had a bucket full of bacterial wipes and paper towel that were just black from cleaning the windows and then I started looking up

black mold poisoning and all this sort of stuff just went down the rabbit hole completely. I remember saying to my partner, my god, that's why she's so sick. Like she's dying of black mold poisoning. And I was like, my god, I can't breathe either. Like it was just this horrible, horrible experience where I'm like, my whole family has been poisoned. I just went on a manic cleaning. Like, it was just.

I mean, my house was sparkling and I got rid of it.

Chelsea (33:37)
I was

gonna say your house had never been more clean.

Emma Grenfell (33:40)
That's one good thing if you're ever experiencing mania and you like cleaning that's a good time to just get it all That helps to all the bipolar people out there. But no, was kind of, and that was obviously me trying to take care of my family because I thought we were all gonna die. That was probably the main.

delusion that I had and the voices were telling me like they're going to die. You're not taking care of them. Everyone's going to die. So I would say I was still able to parent. I wasn't functioning well. Like my milk dried up shortly after I couldn't breastfeed anymore. I was losing weight. I wasn't really taking care of my personal hygiene. I was a bit of a mess.

Chelsea (34:09)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Emma Grenfell (34:26)
I would put everything else aside to ensure my family's happiness and well -being and safety. Pretty much.

Chelsea (34:34)
Yeah, and

that's really important to note. Again, if we're talking about ending this stigma and sort of changing the narrative a little bit is, and I'm finding again through the research that I'm doing and talking to people like you, the majority of the time it is about protecting your family and more often than not almost over -parenting or being over -protective.

Emma Grenfell (34:43)
Hmm.

Yes.

Chelsea (35:01)
So yeah, I'm just like driving that point home that the media portrays it in a certain light, but it doesn't look like that for everyone. And for the vast majority of people, it doesn't look like that, but it can. So sort of taking us down the path a little more, like you advocated for yourself, you took yourself in.

Emma Grenfell (35:14)
Mm. Yeah.

Chelsea (35:22)
For listeners who are not familiar with mother baby units in the US mother baby units are just where you go after you have your baby. Like you're transferred from. Yeah. You're transferred. Well, no, like it's not the same thing. So like you go from labor and delivery to the mother baby unit and then like a day later you go home. Yes. so.

Emma Grenfell (35:30)
wow.

like a postcard award. Yep. Okay.

Chelsea (35:44)
in Australia and in the UK and I'm sure in other places as well, there are actual mental health inpatient facilities where you can go with your baby. Yeah, you deserved a shot at that. Yeah, but it's something, so in the US,

Emma Grenfell (35:48)
Yeah.

Yeah, and I hear they're wonderful. They can be wonderful.

Thank you.

Chelsea (36:07)
They're in the entire country. Our country is massive. There are only two inpatient perinatal mental health facilities in the entire country and neither of them include having your baby with you.

There is this resource in other countries that exists and I think it's such a beautiful model. Again, I need to learn more about it too from people who have experienced it, but being able to get the mental health support that you need while also experiencing that with baby. you're sort of, right? Like, so you're learning like, we are safe. We are safe.

Emma Grenfell (36:26)
you

Hmm.

it is, It's crucial

bonding time. I can't imagine, and I think once I started looking at MBUs, got really, it wasn't until afterwards and then I sort of started recovering, I was like, my God, we would have really, really benefited from that. It scared me initially because I thought it was gonna be an adult inpatient psychiatric facility, which,

Chelsea (36:48)
Mm -hmm.

Emma Grenfell (37:08)
It is, but I would have had my baby with me. I would have been supported. We would have been able to get some sleep. Maybe I wouldn't have gotten mastitis. All these what ifs, and that's okay. But if I were to ever, ever have another baby, my chances of going through this again are significantly higher now that I've had a single episode.

Chelsea (37:11)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Emma Grenfell (37:28)
But if I ever notice these signs again and after having another baby potentially I would sign me up, know, pre book me a spot in a mother baby, you

Chelsea (37:36)
Right? Yeah.

Make a reservation.

Emma Grenfell (37:41)
Make

a reservation, yeah make a reservation. They are saving women's lives and I will protest and protest and kick and scream and shout and make as much noise as possible. We need to do better. I cannot believe in the whole of the United States. There are only two psychiatric facilities and you can't have your child with you.

Chelsea (38:03)
Yeah, so it's only two inpatient psychiatric facilities specific to perinatal mental health. I mean, we have other psychiatric inpatient facilities. They are all horrible. I mean, I can't generalize, but we have a huge mental health crisis in the US. But when it comes to maternal in the US, then the leading cause of death postpartum is suicide.

Emma Grenfell (38:08)
Wow. Yeah.

yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. I think Australia's statistic is about the same maternal suicide. Yeah.

Chelsea (38:34)
Yeah. So I mean, that outweighs, like hypertensive disorders and like hemorrhage. And so there's a huge crisis and there's, there's absolutely no, no support. but I just wanted to make that distinction for listeners who are listening to in the U S like mother, baby units.

Emma Grenfell (38:39)
Yeah.

Chelsea (38:53)
are a beautiful thing in other countries and something that we deserve here and something that you deserve to have access to. Quite frankly, am, as I'm sure you are, I'm furious at the psychiatrist that you went to see. Yeah. Yeah.

Emma Grenfell (39:08)
My goodness, I've said things over the last 12 months. I'm like what a

dickhead. Know your shit, know do better do better Like and for any listeners out there who want to learn more I will my goodness. I think I'm gonna get

Chelsea (39:18)
Yeah. Yes. Yes!

Emma Grenfell (39:28)
engraved on my tombstone like the Center of Perinatal Excellence, non -for -profit organization, my god, my god, they saved me.

Chelsea (39:34)
Yes.

Well, that was going to be my next question. was

going to say, how did you navigate this? How did you get yourself out of this?

Emma Grenfell (39:46)
COVID they have these incredible resources. There's an app, a phone app where you type in your location. There's an e -directory where it links you in with local perinatal psychiatrists, psychologists, counsellors, et cetera.

They not only educate health professionals in the sector, know, ebooks and training and all this sort of stuff, but you know, it's a toolkit essentially for new parents, new families that are experiencing mental health. And it wasn't until I started reading about postpartum psychosis, I was like, shit, like that's just nailed it on the head. And I...

Chelsea (40:33)
Yeah.

Emma Grenfell (40:33)
printed

out all these fact sheets. Yeah, yeah. I printed them all out, I highlighted everything, I laminated them, I went to see a psychiatrist, he diagnosed me with bipolar type 2. I've gone right, bipolar type 2 fact sheets, here you go, I them to all my family. And then I started researching. And then I started doing my own research.

Chelsea (40:35)
Of course that's part of it, because you have to know everything about it.

Mm

Emma Grenfell (40:59)
started raising awareness, I created my postpartum psychosis mama Instagram page just to share what I know and what I've learnt. And if it wasn't for such incredible resources out there and such a beautiful team of individuals with lived experience and all that sort of stuff and healthcare experience, medical practitioners.

teaming together and creating accessible materials and information to people. I mean it shouldn't have to be like that. You shouldn't have to dig deep and find your own answers. Like it was pretty, you know, to hear something, to be told something that I knew deep down. was hard. I was like, well, I told you so.

Chelsea (41:49)
Yeah, yeah.

And it doesn't, I don't know if it was this way for you, but it almost, it feels like it should be validating, but it's not. It's more like a, yeah, no shit. yeah. Yeah.

Emma Grenfell (42:00)
Hmm.

Yeah, it was.

Absolutely. I'm like, I have been researching this for the last however many weeks. Nobody's been listening to me. And now you tell me that this is what I have, this is what I experienced. But it all just starts to, you know, it all just starts to make sense. Like it kind of pieced together my childhood and

it made me realize that a lot of this stemmed from the trauma I had from having a miscarriage. Like it led to a really unenjoyable first pregnancy and then my second pregnancy, so on, so forth. And it just kind of goes to show, you know, how things multiply and how they evolve. So for me, it was also like a screw you to everybody else who ever just thought I was depressed or

Chelsea (42:55)
Yeah.

Emma Grenfell (42:57)
I'm just like, no, no, no, it's this. yeah. And I remember saying to, it was actually, the psychiatrist had diagnosed me with bipolar type two. Then I went on to speak to a clinical psychologist who actually did the diagnostic criteria for borderline personality disorder, which is a good one, which is another.

Chelsea (43:03)
You're like, told you. Yeah.

Emma Grenfell (43:23)
very seriously stigmatized mental illness. But I just looked at her, was like, hmm, that also kind of works. And like you, I own my title. I was so eager to get some answers because then I'm like, well, hello, now we know how to deal with it.

Chelsea (43:28)
Yeah.

Exactly.

Emma Grenfell (43:47)
So it was great. I was like, this all makes so much sense. So I think, yeah, if that's one thing I can sort of stress to everybody is to just, unfortunately, continue to advocate for yourself and educate your family and friends. Give them laminated copies of handouts like I did and go, go read it.

Chelsea (44:09)
Highlighted.

It's great and everything that like you can joke about it now and you can laugh about it now. And that's I mean, I'm, I'm so glad that that's your journey. I am the same way I like if I can't laugh at my trauma, I don't know what I would do. Seriously.

Emma Grenfell (44:14)
Yes.

If you don't love, you'll cry.

you

Chelsea (44:30)
And I

get that it's not that way for everybody. No, I mean, it's not funny, the things from in my perspective, some of the things looking back, because hindsight, it's always hindsight's beautiful thing. When you look back on it, you're like, that was ridiculous. But in the moment, in the moment, it's not. It's real and it's scary.

Emma Grenfell (44:32)
No, it's not. It's not funny. It's not.

Hmm.

Yeah.

yeah, yeah.

No,

and you would never dismiss someone else's experience and think that that was funny or anything either. Like I wouldn't expect people to be listening to my story and going, that's hilarious. You know, just because I'm laughing doesn't mean you can.

Chelsea (44:59)
No. No.

No.

And I mean, it's like, I'm, I'm absolutely laughing with you because so much of, of what you're talking about, like I can relate I was hospitalized three separate times, for suicidal ideation and delusions and everything.

Emma Grenfell (45:13)
Yeah

Chelsea (45:26)
At one of them, I flew to a different state to go to one of the perinatal units. And the doctors didn't tell me, but they told my partner, postpartum psychosis was on the table as one of my potential diagnoses. They didn't end up, they never told me and they chalked it up to OCD. But a lot of the things that you're talking about with the delusions of like safety, I was convinced that my newborn had an

insanely rare seizure disorder and that she was gonna die.

Like we took her to the hospital, she did the EEGs, I'm like sobbing in the emergency room. And so, well so like I can relate to a lot of it. So when I'm laughing with you, I'm like laughing at myself a little bit too.

Emma Grenfell (46:05)
my God, see ya.

Yes. Right. Yes. Okay,

I understand. my goodness. Wow.

Chelsea (46:17)
Yeah, yeah, so whether

I leave that in or not, because this, this episode, this is not about me, this is about you and your story, but.

Emma Grenfell (46:23)
No, but it's so

important for, think, you're the creator of this. You're holding this safe space for people, which is a beautiful thing. You know, when I've heard some of your stories and you share your things, but it doesn't mean that you can't talk about it with me. Like, I think that's, I think the more people unite together and go, hey, actually, I kind of experience that too. Or can I ask you a little bit more? Or can I share my story? And you just...

Chelsea (46:39)
you

Yeah.

Emma Grenfell (46:53)
We can just be this great big undefeatable group of powerful people that have experienced a lot of shit stuff.

Chelsea (47:00)
Yes.

We're part of a

club that we never wanted to be a part of.

Emma Grenfell (47:07)
No,

not ideal. I mean, not great. But hopefully we can be a part of change.

Chelsea (47:09)
No.

Yes, yeah, and that's the goal. And honestly, like I know it's kind of the same thing that you're doing with your advocacy and talking about it. Like, I'm just one person and the way that I feel like I can help enact change is by giving voice to people who have been ignored or who have been silenced. So that's why I do try to like, I am so centered on my guests because it is

you, it is your story and it deserves to be told and it deserves to be heard. But like getting us back on track a little bit. it's, it is, it's, I think that there's this beautiful and also kind of twisty side to mental health and people who have experienced mental health challenges throughout their lives that like, yeah, you have to see the humor in it.

Emma Grenfell (47:52)
I'm so sorry.

Chelsea (48:09)
You don't have to see the humor in it, but many people see the humor in it because just like you said, if you're not laughing, you're crying. Yes.

Emma Grenfell (48:09)
So.

You're in a ball, walking in the corner, just not knowing what

to do with yourself. A lot of people, yeah, they do. They try to find the humor in it. You've seen a very, very dark side of life. You try to see the light. You try to see the fun side of life.

Chelsea (48:21)
Yes! So...

Yeah. So you somehow navigated your way through postpartum psychosis. I also wanted to know, just because I'm throwing facts out this episode for some reason, guess, most birthing people are not diagnosed with bipolar until after childbirth. And many have experienced it throughout their lives.

Emma Grenfell (48:45)
All

Chelsea (48:55)
went undiagnosed until after childbirth. So when you said that I was like, just another like, just another way that they were brushing you aside. Yeah.

Emma Grenfell (49:03)
Yeah!

Yeah, but

it's so true and I mean I don't know if age plays a factor or not. It shouldn't.

Chelsea (49:16)
I honestly

think it's gender. I hate it and I hate playing the gender card. I hate it, but...

Emma Grenfell (49:18)
Yeah, yeah.

Very interesting you say that, yeah, because I do know some males that have been diagnosed with mood disorders, personality disorders, all these serious mental health illnesses are much, much younger than I am and obviously pre -parenthood, you know, if we're talking men, fathers as well. But...

Chelsea (49:38)
Hmm?

Emma Grenfell (49:44)
It's really interesting and no matter how much I spoke of my family history and how much you can tell people, there's actually this in my family, like there's a history of mood disorders. Nobody investigates that. I'll just chuck you on some antidepressants, know, puberty, women, know, puberty hormones. Yeah, yep, absolutely. And if I had have been told what I was told,

Chelsea (49:57)
Mm.

Yeah, yeah, are you menstruating? Yeah, yeah.

Emma Grenfell (50:10)
ten, fifteen years ago. My experience of pre -motherhood and post probably would have been so, so, so, so different. I probably would have been medicated for the last, like so many different factors. So many and you know, I just, I hope that whether or not my children inherit some of my genes, that's okay.

Chelsea (50:24)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Emma Grenfell (50:35)
You know, it is what it is, but I will stress to them and I will stress to anybody listening and everybody that I know. Just talk about your mental health. Just do it. Just just push. If you want to get yourself a label and entitle it and get a diagnosis for, fantastic because there are resources out there. There are people that will help. There are people that will listen. I just, yeah, for me, I just wish it was sooner.

Chelsea (50:46)
Mm

Emma Grenfell (51:03)
That's all.

Chelsea (51:04)
Yeah. And like what you were talking about with like passing on any sort of mental health issues to your children, that's a worry for a lot of parents. It's definitely a worry that I've had. But I think the difference in this generation of parents is that we are talking about it. We're talking about, like I have no worries for your children because you are

Emma Grenfell (51:11)
Yeah.

Chelsea (51:28)
talking about this and you are like, you are loud and saying it with your whole chest. And I know that in the same way that you advocate for yourself, you will advocate for your children. So I have, I have all the confidence in the world that, that they will have, our kids will have a different experience than we did.

Emma Grenfell (51:41)
Thank you.

Yeah,

yeah, yeah, I hope so and it's it's harder for the older generations. I know when I talk to my mum as well, it's challenging for them to understand why we speak so much about it and every second, you know, young person these days has this or this or... but you know, I guess it just wasn't sort of it was really taboo back then.

wasn't, it was still there, it existed. It just wasn't really spoken about. But I think you look at the statistics and you go, right, people with mental illness, you know, are at a higher risk of taking their own lives. Overdose, substance abuse, substance addiction, all of this horrible life ruining stuff that they have no control over.

Chelsea (52:15)
Yes.

Emma Grenfell (52:35)
you know, and all you gotta do is just speak about it and, and, you know, give, give it a voice, give that person a chance. I don't think that's really, yeah, I don't think there's anything wrong with that at all.

Chelsea (52:46)
No, not at all, not at all. It could absolutely save lives and that's what we're trying to do. Just make, cause the shame contributes to the silence. if, if, if even just one person listening like to your story specifically is like, my God, I feel that way. I'm not crazy. I'm not crazy. I can say something. Right?

Emma Grenfell (52:49)
if it could save a life, you know.

Mmm.

Mm. Mm.

Absolutely. Yep.

Chelsea (53:15)
Just normalizing the conversation. So you talk, and I don't even know if we need to go down this path. Like you talked about maybe potentially having more kids in the future. You know that you're at a higher risk. What sort of, does it, does it inhibit the desire to have more kids or does it just sort of empower you to be more prepared?

Emma Grenfell (53:18)
Yeah.

Mmm good question, really good question. I'm on both sides of the fence very much so. I mean I think a lot of my mental health as well here is I'm not going to say the contraceptive pill contributes to it but it certainly plays a factor.

Chelsea (53:43)
Okay.

I will agree with you 100%.

Emma Grenfell (53:57)
Hmm another joyful thing about being

a woman and getting periods and all that shit,

Chelsea (54:03)
Yes. Yeah, yeah. The

pill can greatly impact your mental health, especially if you're predispositioned to mental health disorders. Yeah.

Emma Grenfell (54:10)
Correct. Yep, well that's

exactly right. Yeah. So you throw PMDD in there, know, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, all that sort of stuff. Like it can be a really, really rough time for a lot of women. So I don't particularly want to take the pill anymore. Which of course then we're looking at other options, but...

Chelsea (54:32)
Yeah.

Emma Grenfell (54:36)
being the age that I am at the moment and my partner being two years older than me, I think we have a little bit of time to sort of just think, okay, well, let's just see how these next couple of years go. I would probably, just so that I could look after myself a little bit better, wait until my children are in primary school. I think.

Chelsea (54:56)
Mm -hmm.

Emma Grenfell (54:57)
That way, they're in school, it's just me taking care of me and the newborn. And then, you know, I'll still do the same thing, sort of like look after my mental health and probably see a specialist team and all that sort of stuff. But I mean, you don't know until you know, right? So I don't want to worry myself when it may not even happen. And if it does, well, we kind of just ride the wave.

Chelsea (55:16)
Yeah.

Absolutely.

Exactly.

Yeah, I think that that is a super healthy way to look at it. And it goes back to that whole idea of like owning your stigma, which again, I'm not pushing on anyone that everyone's journey is different, but like owning it and being like, yeah, this is just a part of my journey and could happen, might not happen. We're going to see, we're going to ride the wave and we're going to see. I think that's an amazing way to look at it.

Emma Grenfell (55:37)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Chelsea (55:52)
so I guess to like round us out, I had two questions. I think I'm going to combine them.

Emma Grenfell (55:56)
Mmm.

Mmm.

Chelsea (56:02)
from your lived experience and from how much you've learned through this, how can the rest of us, everyone, parents, non -parents, support people, everyone, how can we better advocate for understanding around postpartum psychosis?

Emma Grenfell (56:21)
Yeah, again, good one. I think it starts with obviously educating ourselves first. knowing the facts, know, knowing it doesn't have to be everything, but just a simple statistic, you know, one in one to two, one in 1000 women will experience postpartum psychosis. And a lot of the time the underlying mental illness may be bipolar disorder.

I think to be a successful advocate is to know those things because then you can just be a voice, you know, and whether that be creating a page or a dedicated group or something, but for me, I don't give two shits what anybody thinks about me. They can think I'm bananas, they can think I'm talking rubbish, you know, but can, you know, I don't care.

Chelsea (56:57)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Emma Grenfell (57:14)
I think being able to stand there and go, right, if you're experiencing this, or you see someone, witness someone experiencing this, this is what you need to do, and you need to do it now. Like, whether that be call an ambulance or go and get the medical attention. If you're friends with a new mother who is crying in a fricking heap on the floor,

Chelsea (57:29)
Mm -hmm.

Emma Grenfell (57:40)
and struggling and all she wants is her newborn child to just stop crying for a minute then ask her what do you need? What can I do? Like just I think yeah to de -stigmatize and break down those barriers it's just the simple fact that for a lot of us we're really really really struggling and we might actually not know what it is that we need or we want.

But to have someone listening to us and just understanding and being able to identify, okay, maybe they're not just the baby blues. I'm not just gonna tell her sleep when the baby sleeps. Don't forget to, like, get off. If one more person had of told me that, my God. You, no, no.

Chelsea (58:19)
Yeah,

I can't. Yeah. my God. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no,

Emma Grenfell (58:31)
you just want to punch them in the face. You do. It's a horrible

Chelsea (58:31)
no.

Emma Grenfell (58:36)
thing to say to a new parent that you've got no idea what's going on inside their mind. know, and just, yeah, just knowing, just being able to identify when somebody is not okay and act on it and actually ask them if they're okay.

Chelsea (58:55)
Yeah.

Emma Grenfell (58:55)
instead of having to, yeah, reach out for help, know, exhaust all of your lifelines and feel like no one's listening, it'd be nice to have someone come to you.

Hmm.

Chelsea (59:07)
I think the underlying thing in a lot of what you're saying is just believe people. Believe people when they tell you that they're not okay. Yeah, and yeah. I am in awe of the tenacity and the strength that it took for you to get yourself through what you went through. It...

Emma Grenfell (59:13)
Yeah.

Chelsea (59:28)
I mean, I don't even, I don't have words because like I, I know what it's like to face the darkest dark places, but I know that I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for my support system. So to speak to you and to hear how well you pushed and advocated for yourself despite knowing what was going on around you was

Emma Grenfell (59:30)
Thank

Yeah.

Chelsea (59:54)
terrifying. I just, you're a badass. You are a warrior. You are a mental health warrior. good. Well, you are. You're an absolute badass. You're a mental health warrior. I love what you're doing to spread awareness and to spread resources and knowledge, which brings me to...

Emma Grenfell (59:57)
Thank you! You've made my day.

Chelsea (1:00:16)
Where can my listeners find you to learn more about your story and to learn more about postpartum psychosis?

Emma Grenfell (1:00:23)
Of course, yes, it's just a small little platform that I've got on Instagram. yeah, you can find me at postpartumpsychosismama on Instagram, MUMA. So yeah, fantastic. There's all photos of me and my babies and you know, sort of like put it into a little bit of a timeline, little bit of story, storytelling in there.

Chelsea (1:00:37)
Yes, that'll be linked in the show notes. So check the show notes and you can just go and find Emma.

Emma Grenfell (1:00:52)
Bye.

Chelsea (1:00:52)
Yeah, no, I just, love your authenticity and your transparency and it, it really echoes sort of my philosophy in life. It's like, I'm not going to be ashamed of this. This is a part of me. It isn't, it doesn't define me and that kind of, I just get that vibe from you as well. So it's, my gosh, it's beautiful. You are amazing. I could just sit here and give you compliments all day, but, but,

Emma Grenfell (1:01:01)
you

Thank you, Chelsea.

I don't get there very

often.

Chelsea (1:01:21)
Well, here's some for you to take with you. I so appreciate you making the time to share your story with me. And I definitely, definitely would love to connect again. But it is now past my bedtime. It is time for me to go to bed. I have to get the kids up and ready for school in the morning. But

Emma Grenfell (1:01:22)
That's great.

for you to go to bed.

It's time for me to bleach my shower. I will, thank you Chelsea. Thank you for holding this space, know, thank you for allowing me to be me. It's taken a little while to get this back, you know, and to not feel...

Chelsea (1:01:50)
Thank you. Well, you have fun doing that. And just thank you so, much.

Yeah.

Emma Grenfell (1:02:09)
ashamed or shy like I'm yeah it's it's nice to be able to just and kind of relive my experience it's refreshing to to sort of get it out and yeah I hope that it can help just even one person more would be great but if if it can just

Chelsea (1:02:30)
It

absolutely, I know it

Chelsea (1:02:33)
Emma, thank you so much for what was truly an emotional, relatable, and informative chat. Your ability to find joy and glimmers in life, as well as your tenacity in advocating for yourself and others is so beautiful. I can't wait to see where your journey takes you. You can keep up with us on Quiet Connection by following us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and threads at Quiet Connection Podcast.

You can help our community grow by leaving us a rating and review on Apple podcasts or Spotify and consider sharing our episodes on social media. To share your personal journey, you can contact us through our website at quietconnectionpodcast .com or by email at quietconnectionppmh at gmail .com. Join us next time when another story is told and you realize you are not alone.

I see you.