Chelsea Myers (00:00)
Hey, welcome back to another episode of Quiet Confessions, where usually I would spend a little bit of time catching you up on where I'm at. We were supposed to start a series on my brain tumor journey, but I have something much more important that I I just need to talk about this week and next week and for however long it takes.
But I really, really feel it's important to be talking about postpartum psychosis right now. And yes, this is heavily impacted by the Lindsay Clancy case and how prominent it is in the media right now. So this is your content warning. I understand that this can be a very triggering topic.
it can bring up a lot of feelings for a lot of people. It brings up a lot of feelings for me. And if this is not something that you can listen to and maintain your own mental health, please feel free to skip this episode.
I'm mostly going to be talking about the facts about postpartum psychosis and the statistics and why it's so important that we continue to talk about it. I may talk a little bit about the Lindsay Clancy case and my feelings about it. but mostly I just want to emphasize the importance of knowing the facts.
Knowing the signs and why it's so important to keep talking about these things and sharing stories and how it saves lives. So I will start off by saying I am not a medical expert. I am not a mental health professional, but I am a trained peer mentor and
Peer group facilitator through Postpartum Support International. And through those roles, I have had to become incredibly familiar with all perinatal mental health disorders, including postpartum psychosis. And we all get specific training in postpartum psychosis because it is the most extreme form of perinatal mental health disorder, but it is also.
incredibly treatable and you can make a you can and will make a full recovery. so I do have background knowledge. I also have the experience and just absolute honor of connecting with so many people who have gone through postpartum psychosis themselves, whether that be guests on the podcasts, followers on social media,
Pocket friends, I have met so many incredible individuals who have experienced postpartum psychosis, gotten the help that they needed, and made a full recovery. So I do feel like I can speak about this from a place of knowledge and empathy. And to be completely honest with you, a little bit of my own experience when I was going through my own.
Perinatal and postpartum mental health struggles, postpartum psychosis was on the table. A lot of diagnoses were on the table for me. And it was on the table. I was never formally diagnosed, and to this day, I'll never know. my doctors leaned more towards OCD. but again, it was there, and I still question to this day.
my delusions and my break with reality. So with all of that said
I just need you to know, you, whoever's listening right now, whether you are a perinatal individual, whether you are a support person, whether you are a partner, whether you just have a friend who has experienced a perinatal mental health disorder. The reason that people like myself will not stop talking about this, even when it feels uncomfortable, is because.
Talking about it saves lives. Staying silent perpetuates the shame, perpetuates the guilt. It increases the risk of media demonizing perinatal and postpartum individuals who are experiencing mental health crises and outcomes that are beyond imaginable. They are unthinkable and
The fact is that the rate of homicide or infanticide in cases of postpartum psychosis is so incredibly small. It is between two and four percent of all cases of postpartum psychosis. And that is almost exclusively if the individual
was undiagnosed, misdiagnosed, or improperly treated.
Let's talk about what postpartum psychosis is.
Chelsea Myers (05:15)
While postpartum psychosis is not as common as the other perinatal mental health disorders, it is not considered rare.
Cases of postpartum psychosis can occur in one to two out of every 1,000 births.
It can also occur after a pregnancy loss at any stage.
Chelsea Myers (05:34)
Postpartum psychosis is a complete break from reality.
Someone experiencing postpartum psychosis will have delusions, hallucinations, auditory or visual, or both. And I want to make a distinction between delusions and intrusive thoughts. Because intrusive thoughts are incredibly common. They're incredibly common in general.
But they're also incredibly common in postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, postpartum OCD, and yes, postpartum psychosis. The difference between an intrusive thought and a delusion or a break from reality is an intrusive thought is one that you can recognize and think to yourself, this feels wrong. This doesn't feel like me. I don't know why I'm thinking this. This is confusing. It doesn't make the thought any more comfortable to have. It doesn't make it
Any less jarring, but you can recognize it as something separate from yourself. Someone experiencing postpartum psychosis may have these thoughts that are completely outside of the norm for them. Thoughts that do not make sense to them or anyone that knows them. Usually they are on a grand scale. So
being incredibly suspicious of the people around you, or thinking you're being watched by the government, or that your child is not really a child, or your child, or that your house is somehow covered in germs and that you and your family are gonna die. Like these are thoughts that feel real and that don't just go away when
You become disturbed by them.
We are taught to not talk about specific thoughts or delusions in order to help others not feel triggered. But in this instance, I I am choosing to say the things that I have heard from other people's mouths, from people who have experienced postpartum psychosis, because I think it's important to truly understand the distinction between an intrusive thought like
Don't drop the baby down the stairs, as opposed to a delusion of my child is a demon.
And they're they're out to get me. And I need to protect myself and my family. That is a huge difference and one that needs to be understood. So when we're talking about postpartum psychosis, we're talking about a complete break from reality. The number one thing that I hope everyone can take away from whatever it is I talked to you about today is that this is not your fault.
The person who is experiencing postpartum psychosis, the people around the person experiencing postpartum psychosis, there is no fault. There is no one to blame. It is a mental health disorder. That being said, if it is caught early, if it is recognized, and if it is treated as the emergency that it is, you can make a full recovery.
So, what does that mean? What does it mean recognizing it early? What does it mean taking action early? Well, this is actually a much bigger question than it may seem. On the small scale, it means if you're noticing these things in yourself, say something, which can be incredibly hard when you are detached from reality because you don't know who to trust. But even if there's a little part of you
That feels uncomfortable or a little bit frightened by the things that you're feeling, experiencing, thinking, tell someone you trust. Whether that be your doctor, your partner, a friend, just tell someone. Now, for the people around the postpartum individual, you need to be looking for signs that your loved one is not themselves. Lack of sleep.
High energy, appetite changes. Again, rapid talking, thinking outside the norm, behaving completely outside of how they typically would behave. If you are noticing these things, bring it up. Talk to the postpartum individual. And if things are escalating to a point where they you can tell at this point, you can tell that they are.
Completely detached from themselves and reality. It is imperative that you get them to an emergency room or you contact the maternal mental health hotline or 988 or 911, get them to a hospital so that they can be evaluated and they can be treated. Postpartum psychosis is a medical emergency every time. And acting fast will result
in a better outcome.
It's scary. I'm not gonna tell you it's not. Going into a hospital, being evaluated for a psychiatric disorder, and then in all likelihood, being admitted into a psychiatric unit. No one wants to think about what that looks like. No one wants to think about what that means, but it is the difference between recovery and a possible tragic outcome.
On a bigger scale, what this means is that providers, medical providers, and mental health providers need to be trained to be able to spot the signs of postpartum psychosis. They need to be trained to be able to spot the signs of all perinatal mental health disorders.
There is no training for mental health professionals in PMHDs. There is no training for OBGYNs or midwives or just general PCPs about perinatal mental health disorders. It doesn't exist. It's a blip. Even in the DSM, it is just a blip. And that to me is more terrifying than anything else.
Because if you've listened to the podcast and you've followed me on social media or any perinatal mental health advocate,
You will know that one of the top killers of people in the postpartum period is due to perinatal mental health disorders. The fact that perinatal individuals are only seeing their doctor or their GYN once, six to eight weeks after giving birth, filling out a form and being sent on their way, it disgusts me.
Mental health is just as important as your physical health. And your infant sees their doctor.
So much more than the birthing individual sees their doctor after birth. And it makes no sense to me. We should be monitoring postpartum individuals from the time that they give birth weekly, if possible, and evaluating their physical health and their mental health. For how long, I don't know. Like I said, I'm not a medical professional or a mental health professional, but it needs to be consistent.
And it needs to be repetitive. People aren't gonna speak out on their own, especially if they don't know what it is they're experiencing or why they're experiencing it.
When it comes to postpartum psychosis in the media, we tend to only hear about the catastrophic results. We hear about the families that
Ooh God, this is hard.
The news only wants to cover
The tragic outcomes where children and babies' lives are taken, or mothers' lives are taken.
We don't hear about the myriad of ways that postpartum psychosis can manifest. We only hear about the sensationalized versions because that's what plays for the media. That's what gets views. That's what gets people talking. It gets people angry. It gets people sad. It gets people it gets people engaged.
But it's for all the wrong reasons.
I have intentionally been staying away from the media for the most part around the Lindsay Clancy case for personal reasons. One, because there are parts of her story that resonate with me. And I, as actively as I work on my own healing journey,
I tend to try to avoid triggering myself if I can.
But I have looked at some of the trial details. I did know about Lindsay Clancy prior to the trial starting, and I knew a bit about her situation. Learning now about all of the medications she was prescribed in such a short window of time and how often they were switched and the things that she was taking at the same time. That personally I think.
what put me over the edge
I I couldn't keep my mouth shut anymore.
In a very similar span of time, if not a little bit shorter, I was prescribed much more medication than Lindsay was, and switched so often back and forth, on this, off that, back on this again, mix this with that. I
I've said it before, I filled two gallon size Ziploc bags with all the things that different doctors prescribed me and switched and never gave anything enough time to get to a therapeutic level. And it wrecked me. Knowing that Lindsay went through something similar when she was at her most vulnerable makes me so sick.
Also, I know that she was hospitalized for a time and that when she came home, her husband says that she showed signs of getting better. I want to be clear that masking is a thing. Shame is a thing. I am never ever going to assume anything about what Lindsay was experiencing. I am not going to put myself in her shoes and I am not going to tell you.
what it was that she was thinking or doing or feeling during the time that she was experiencing this mental health crisis because I don't know and I'll never know and you won't know either. But what I will say is that the people who suffer the most tend to hide it behind the most convincing masks.
think I'll leave that at that. I'm not I'm not gonna make any assumptions.
I also want to address the criminalization of postpartum individuals who experience postpartum psychosis.
This is something that may make you feel some sort of way, and that's okay. You're allowed to feel however you feel, and you can be mad at me, you can agree with me, you can feel validated, you can feel upset. But my personal opinion is that in cases like this, the postpartum individual was failed on every level.
They were failed by their doctors. They were failed by their mental health professionals. Even if they had the best intentions, the signs were missed.
And tragedy struck.
I believe putting someone on criminal trial for a mental health crisis that is completely out of their control is wrong.
I do not believe in any way that what happens to children in these tragic situations is okay. I don't believe that it is justified. don't believe that it's right. No one's lives deserve to be lost for any reason.
Especially in situations like this. But what I do believe is that the postpartum individuals.
In these situations, experiencing psychosis, are not to blame. They are not themselves.
They're not in control.
And for the survivors, they have to live with the results every single day.
I don't know what the answer is.
I don't know how to fix it than
Being proactive rather than reactive.
I do feel that outcomes like the one in the Lindsay Clancy case can be avoided if.
We start taking mental health, especially in the perinatal and postpartum period, far more seriously. if we are monitoring birthing individuals throughout their pregnancies and after birth much more closely, checking in on their mental health regularly.
Coming up with something better than the frickin' Edinburgh scale, that we can avoid this. We can catch the signs, we can get proper treatment because we'll know how to treat them. If doctors are trained on perineatal mental health disorders, like medical doctors and mental health professionals, if that is part of their training, before they can ever get a medical license.
We can avoid this.
Obviously nothing is a hundred percent.
There will always be
Outliers
But I firmly believe if we cared more about the birthing individual
as a whole person, mind, body, all of it.
We would see a significant decline in
Perinatal mental health disorders being ongoing, being untreated, perinatal individuals being left to fend for themselves and just white knuckle it through. if we had more education prior to giving birth about perinatal mental health disorders.
We would have more empowered people in the birthing environment, whether that be the birthing individual or their partners or their support people. There wouldn't be shame. There wouldn't be stigma. We would be able to speak up when we noticed something was wrong. Our doctors would be able to ask us and we wouldn't have a fear of what happens if I tell them the truth. Our doctors would know what to prescribe. They would know what to suggest. They would know the resources to reach out to.
We would know the resources to reach out to, which by the way, is Postpartum Support International. If you have any questions about anything perinatal or postpartum related, Postpartum Support International is where you want to look. If you are in crisis, 988-911 or the maternal mental health hotline, which is 833-TLC Mama. I'm talking myself in circles. I am all up in my feels, but I have loved
Far too many individuals who have not only suffered from postpartum psychosis, but any postpartum or perinatal mental health disorder who have suffered alone, who have suffered in silence and in shame and in fear and in guilt. And I was one of them. And I don't want that to be you. I don't want that to be another person.
I honestly feel like sharing our stories, talking about it, educating people about it is the best thing we can do. When the media sensationalizes these things, it instills fear and it shuts down the conversation and it halts any progress that we can make towards getting these people the help that they need. These people being myself included.
Ugh, it's hard to talk about without getting fired up. But I kinda want you to get fired up. I want you to get fired up about
Advocacy. want you to get fired up about policy change and reform. I want you to get fired up about being there for the people in your life who have just had a baby. I want you to get fired up about being the best support person you can be for the people in your life who have just had a baby and for yourself. I want you to feel safe.
In talking about how you feel physically, mentally, holistically, the whole nine yards. We can't stop talking about this. We can't oversensationalize it. We can't demonize it. And we can't be afraid to share our stories. That was crazy. That was a lot. But I hope that what you take away from this is that perinatal mental health disorders do not discriminate.
They can happen to anyone. They do not define you. And help is available. Recovery is possible.
So that's my confession this week. Will I have more to talk about next week? Maybe. We'll see. I'm obviously feeling a lot of things. But for now.
This is gonna have to be a very heavily edited episode because not even I can make sense of the circles I just found myself in. But I hope that what you take away from this confession today is that you're not alone.
You are not to blame, and with help you can get better.
Please check the show notes to find links to Postpartum Support International, the Maternal Mental Health Line, or the 988 Crisis Line. I'll see you next week.
