Am I seeing dead people or is it postnatal psychosis? One person’s experience of mental health help

A Bristol mother, who asked not to be named, wanted to share her experience of paranormal activity versus postnatal psychosis.

“Although I thought it was really important to highlight my own personal brush with postnatal psychosis, I still know mental health carries a stigma, and it’s not something I want my work colleagues chatting about behind my back,” she says.

This is her story:

Recently, I watched an episode of Casualty with the BBC covering mental health issues in Ruth’s storyline. The doctor had a breakdown and was committed to a mental health ward. The episode was handled well. It was sympathetic and I have no doubt that this is raising awareness for people who have mental health problems or live with people who do. 

Although it covered some mental health issues, it has only scratched the surface and I would like to share my story.

Last summer I gave birth to my third child. After a fairly easy time in the first few months, I was completely knocked off my feet one night when I started experiencing strong paranormal activity in my house.

I am a fairly broad minded person and have lived and worked in some very old buildings.  I have experienced strange occurrences before in my life both at home and work. But these were nothing to be alarmed at.

On the night in question whilst putting my children to bed, I heard my wind chimes downstairs in the kitchen chiming. There was no one else in the house as my partner was working away and no window had been left open. After putting my children to bed, I experienced mist on my stairs so thick it looked like the house was on fire. This was followed by a bright light flashing across my room. After phoning my parents to gain reassurance and moral support and trying to convince myself that there was nothing strange going on, the image of a man suddenly appeared in my back room.

That night I managed to talk to a medium who later on in the course of events came and exorcised my house. I told her that I was convinced I had an angry man down stairs but also the spirit of a friendly woman that I am sure I had seen during my pregnancy. Both of these spirits she managed to confirm with the extra information that the man was angry because he had been stabbed in the 1970s and was still looking for revenge.

I was convinced that it was paranormal activity and had proved that it wasn’t my eye sight after a trip to the opticians. This was when someone suggested that I was showing symptoms of postnatal psychosis. Although this person had also experienced strange activities in my house I took their advice and went to see a doctor.

I was also seeing my health visitor and having support from my local children centre. I found the experience terrifying and was worried it might happen again. I found I needed other people in my house both day and night. 

After blood tests came back fine, I was referred to a mother and baby mental health ward where I was told they specialised in psychosis and postnatal depression.

Relieved that I might get some answers I was totally shocked at what happened next.

On my arrival I was allowed to enter the in-patient section as the weather was so cold the out patient waiting room was freezing. This is where I believe I met one of the deputy managers. On showing me a spare chair that I could sit in she started to move a pram out the way. It was a lightweight pram and she battered it with force to one side out of the way.  All I could mumble was “There’s a baby in that pram.” She looked at me shocked and replied “Is there?”

 I was then left to wait. Two minutes later the mother came back to check on her child. As I believe that she had been admitted to the ward for having postnatal depression, I didn’t really have the heart to tell her what had happened to her child.

After this incident I had lost faith in the whole process. I became gob smacked when I told two doctors that I was seeing dead people in my house – who were terrifying me – to which they replied  “Can’t you just ignore them?”

Things went from bad to worse. They were not really able to relate to why I was crying whilst telling my story of how badly the experiences had affected my life. I was told off for rocking my newborn from side to side to stop him from crying because it was giving them motion sickness. 

They also stated that I did not look fat enough to be comfort eating, even though I was eating my own body weight in digestives. After consulting with each other outside the room, they promptly told me they did not know what it was I had. This didn’t stop them from prescribing me some medication.  They didn’t even check if I was breastfeeding and if the medication was safe.

After reading the notes the doctor sent my GP, which was a jumble of stuff that I hadn’t really said and hearing my experience, my family were more convinced that I hadn’t actually seen a doctor but talked to another patient with mental health problems from the waiting room. 

The whole experience was horrendous and I was alarmed at how they handled the whole situation.   It made me wonder how they were treating more vulnerable people who didn’t have so much support at home.

I felt humiliated and low and decided that how could I take medication that two doctors had prescribed when they had told me that they did not know what the medical issue was?

I decided to sort this out myself. A spiritualist came to exorcise the house and to be doubly sure, I asked my local vicar to bless the house. I also started taking multivitamin tables as low iron can cause hallucinations.

I have stayed away from people that want a good gossip about the whole story.

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