As many of you hopping on here might not be my FB friends, I should start with some background. Postpartum psychosis background. Something I never thought would happen to me and my family, but did. A most unique and somewhat life altering event.
In December of 2022, our fourth child, our daughter, was born. She was and has always been a gift–a contented, precious gift. Little did I know how much I would appreciate her good nature during hard times.
Starting New Years Day 2023, the normal postpartum blues began to change. I remember standing in the kitchen at our friends’ home. There was a large group of us together for a New Years party and I was dishing up food for our kids from the food lineup. I began to get very flustered, the noise of the many children attacking my senses, and I almost became paralyzed in thought in that moment. I couldn’t do the next thing. Time and conversation were moving “too fast” for my brain to handle; that’s what I kept saying to my husband on our drive home, weeping about having to leave and being embarrassed by my behavior. We chalked it up to trying to do too many things too fast.
The next day and days that followed, things just kind of spiraled out of control. Visits to my primary care doc happened. We thought it was “just” postpartum depression that may be setting in. I still had some sense of reality for awhile. I knew I was having a hard time and I just felt sad, down, unable to process things like I normally would. I remember a strong desire to write down everything I had to do over the next few weeks in case I needed more time to do them, or had to pass them off to someone else.
Somehow, over the course of that coming week, I began to lose touch with reality. It really is still to this day unbelievable to me what the human brain is capable of. Truly. The fact that it can be so affected by hormonal imbalances and other factors such as high copper levels (highly suspect in my case), it’s incredible (and devastating). One major takeaway is that the brain should really be viewed like any other organ to some extent. It can be damaged. When it malfunctions, it needs time and modern medicine to heal.
My hallucinations set in that week after New Years. The first one happened in the evening. My sister in law was staying overnight that night because I guess there was already worry about my mental state at that point. I got out of bed and found my husband in our office. He tells me now he knew immediately that something was wrong; something in my eyes was different. Pupils dilated.
As the week unfolded in our home, auditory and visual hallucinations continued and only on a few occasions were the few people there able to get to the “real me”. In those moments of clarity, they would try to explain to me what was happening, or as much as they knew themselves through at home diagnoses and conversations with primary care. I could understand for a time and then I would slip back into a hallucination and it would “start all over”. I couldn’t discern reality from fiction. What I thought I heard others say or do, much of it wasn’t what they were actually saying or doing. Sometimes I would imagine people to be there that weren’t actually there or not see those that were. I do believe that in those moments the devil was working overtime. He was throwing fiery darts at my frail mind, preying on my base emotions and the fight/flight response. He was trying to convince me in that state that He had control and that I should be afraid, very afraid–which I was for a time. It felt SO real.
Part of this story is that I didn’t sleep much at all. My husband, watching my every move for days on end, thought that I hardly slept more than an hour/two each night. The hallucinations kept me on alert, afraid to fall asleep because of what I would encounter there. Apparently this is a very common symptom of psychosis, one that actually perpetuates the problem. There’s a reason new moms already feel a little off kilter when they aren’t getting much sleep….
If you’re still reading, bless you. These are ramblings really. Processing that I’m doing months after this has all occurred which is still therapeutic in some ways. I want to shower these thoughts in overarching takeaways; things I remember from that time that demonstrate the ever present nature of our God. I think of the verse “He who watches over you will never slumber nor sleep” (Psalm 121:3). It helps to think that in the nights I wasn’t sleeping hardly at all, neither was my Lord. I was awake and caught in a mental state so disconnected from reality, but even there His hand was holding me. He was watching over me every second. It’s such a tangible example of a verse in action. See, the Bible is so rich and full with promises that are true for our every day AND for the unthinkable trials we face! Even when I couldn’t think on that verse in the moment, it never became any less true because God is the owner of those promises. He is the one from whom they are given and we can always, always trust Him.
I also love the idea that when I was literally out of my mind, the Lord brought forth Scripture out of the recesses of my heart. I quoted Q&A 1 of the Heidelberg Catechism and numerous psalms throughout the course of the week, some of them verses that I learned back in early elementary school. Scripture applied to our hearts is so powerful. He gives us His living Word so that we might be comforted, and when we memorize it– it is etched there in a sense, in our hearts and minds together. God’s word is active and mighty, an ever present help in times of trouble and a beacon to light our way through the darkest night. How true that was for me, even when I couldn’t see it.
I spent nine days in the hospital after about that much time at home. My husband and I checked in through the ER and after a full 24 hours in a most terrible room, I was admitted. Solo. Newborn baby at home with my sister and family. Other kids with sister and law and fam. Husband left by himself in our empty house. I know how hard this was for him, but he weathered the storm with so much strength, patience, and tender love for me. This, out of many other things I’ll remember about this time, is the sweetest memory. He kept his promise to me that he made 12 years ago on a chilly winter night in December and I love him even more having gone through this together. Meanwhile, I soaked up the treatment I was given there like a thirsty traveler. I had so much perspective as I started to come back to myself; so much thanksgiving for what I had been brought through and kind of a euphoric sense of well being and hope. That would change as it turns out, over the course of the next weeks and months, to another mindset–one of dark feelings/anxieties/depressive thoughts and I would ask every day, “Lord, where are you in this?” “Why did you bring this upon me?” “When will this ever go away??” My faith would be tested during this time and it would be very honestly hard most days to see the goodness of the Lord. I hope to share more on this as well and in so doing to be reminded of how the Lord molds and shapes us through trials of many kinds, remembering James 1:2-4 and the idea of perseverance. He who began a good work in you WILL bring it to completion. You can bank on it.
Since January I’ve done much reading on PP psychosis and so many describe it as a medical emergency. I didn’t realize it at that time, but I think the few who were with me did. For them, it was taxing. For them, it was new information being thrown at them every second; new developments, little to no sleep, phone calls to doctors/facilities, and of course the care they showed me to try and keep me safe, in our home, for as long as they could. For them, it was like a marathon that they hadn’t even trained for and an excruciating exercise physically, mentally, and emotionally. I am exceedingly & eternally grateful to them and to the Lord for keeping them too. Looking back, I know deeply and fully that I was/am loved well.
“In the darkness, God will keep me. He will stay and never sleep. In the darkness, God is brighter, though the night is long and deep. In the shadows, You are with me and You know my every fear. In the shadows, none can harm me for the mighty King is here. All this day Your hand has held me, God of Heaven by my side. Thank you, Father, for your goodness; You will hold me through the night.”
This song, ‘The Night Song by City Alight’ recommended by my sister, has become a favorite. I play it so often in fact that my kids are sick of it. It feels like a short synopsis of what we went through as a family and the melody calms my heart. The chorus speaks of how God is good all the time, even when we face nights that are long and deep. Even when we struggle to see His goodness, He is holding us. Emphasis on His work and His ways, and not our own. I know just how frail I can be and how apt I am to forget His promises, sometimes even feeling so very far away from them. I have learned just how afraid I can become when I stop looking up. And yet, I can go through something as unheard of as PP psychosis and through it the Lord can and will use it to His glory. Isn’t our God amazing?
This song builds to the final verse which I just love so much. “So I find my rest in Jesus, He who came to rescue me. Jesus saved me from the darkness; I will rise to life with Him.” Despite myself, the Lord has rescued me. He saved me from even worse circumstances that could have ensued, but even more than that His saving work on the cross has saved me from eternal condemnation. No matter what valley you are facing today or what may lie ahead, remember with me that Jesus is the answer. No matter how dismal things may seem, He has already done everything that needed to be done to bring us life, now and into eternity. It is certain and sure that the darkness will not be the end. Satan and all that he can ever muster is just a distraction from the reality:: Jesus is King. Because of who He is, I do not need to fear or to flee, but when I do, even then He declares ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest’.
I will never forget January 2023 and the lessons I am learning from it, more of which I’ll continue to pen as a way to process and to share: Thank you, Father, for your goodness. You have held me through the night.