After a blissful experience with her first son, it never occurred to Jess that a subsequent pregnancy and postpartum could be any different - until she found out she was pregnant with twins.

From real and perceived health complications, Jess’s mental health rapidly declined with every intrusive thought and compulsion that took over her life. The increased caretaking demands of parenting multiples and a toddler only compounded the feeling that she wasn’t enough for her children. Despite being cared for by the local acute mental health team, Jess started to experience hallucinations and psychosis.

This is one mother’s heart-wrenching story that epitomises the painful realities of experiencing a perinatal mental illness: of your children being both your motivation to get better and your trigger; of wanting to keep your children safe but feeling unsafe in your own body and mind; and of wanting the best for your children but feeling like they’re better off without you.

This is Jess’s story. And it isn’t a story to miss.

After her dream physiological labour and birth, Amelia’s world was turned upside by a sudden postpartum haemorrhage that whisked her away from her husband and daughter.

From the moment she awoke from the surgery, Amelia was consumed by mania and insomnia. Over the next eight weeks, her postpartum psychosis escalated but Amelia was able to hide most of her delusions and hallucinations from her care providers. That is until finally she made the brave call to ask for help and present to her local hospital.

Three years on, Amelia is expecting baby number two and shares openly about all the supports that are in place to protect her mental health this time around - given the 50% chance of recurrence.

Join me as Amelia discusses the overall lack of awareness around postpartum psychosis, her initial misdiagnosis of PTSD, what worked for her and what didn’t, and the incredible support she did eventually receive.

Please note, this episode mentions suicidal ideation. Go gently.

As a psychologist, Gen was familiar with psychiatric wards, but with no history of mental ill health or any risk factors she certainly never expected to be on the ‘other side’ - admitted as a patient to an acute ward shortly after the birth of her son, Arlo.

Following a relatively smooth pregnancy and delivery, Gen’s early postpartum was fraught with mastitis and the eventual development of sepsis. However, the life-threatening infection was surpassed by the rapid decline in Gen’s mental health, with warping clocks and the belief that she was famous, among many other delusions and hallucinations that unexpectedly took hold.

From pacing the halls of a public psych ward for hours to contributing to the design of one of the new public MBUs in Sydney, this is Gen’s story of overcoming her own internal stigma, advocating for better models of care in mental health wards, and the love of her partner, Lizz, who picked up on the red flags when no one else could.