Who am I?

Hi. I’m Tiffany.

I gave birth to my son, Ridge, in January of 2020. Everything was great, the end!

I wish.

TRIGGER WARNING – SUICIDAL IDEATION, SELF HARM, POST PARTUM MOOD DISORDERS

At about 3 months postpartum I started feeling intensely depressed. I let myself hide it from my family for so long, I became suicidal. It got so bad I found myself afraid to be alone, or even just without my newborn son. I knew if he were around, I was safe because I would never put him in harms way.

Unmotivated, it physically pained me to get out of bed most mornings. I lost interest in my work. I no longer found pleasure in my daily walks; I lost my love of cooking meals. I was an anxious disaster, easily irritated by mundane actions of those around me. I was afraid to drive, afraid of what my impulses were capable of when left to their own devices.

I eventually told my husband, Reese, who has been my biggest support system through it all. He helped me find a therapist and became so involved in understanding my needs and helping me overcome the toughest times of my life.

Even so, my depression cycled… I would be fine for a day or two, then in a pit of despair for a week. It felt like a never-ending hell.

To add to my depression, my son decided he hated sleeping. He only wanted his mommy, and he wanted her 2, 3, sometimes 4 times throughout the night.

It was somewhere around that time the hallucinations started.

I would be rocking my son in his room and hear a small voice or see a fleeting figure. They became more intense, and frequent - I would wake up to a voice whispering something in my ear, getting louder at the end of every sentence. At the very height of hallucination intensity, I saw my living room completely ablaze, flames crackling, paint melting off the walls… in the middle of the day… I stood in awe at the edge of the flames feeling the heat overcome my body as my 11-year-old Labrador retriever calmly walked through the fire to my feet, grounding me enough to realize the flames were not real.

When I was diagnosed with Postpartum Depression (PPD) and Psychosis (PPP), I desperately searched for someone like me. Anything to make me feel less alone. Less like a complete mental patient. Surely Andrea Yates was not the first and only person to ever experience this?

My search turned up empty. I was able to find *some* moms talking about PPD, but not in a way that I personally found to be helpful, and definitely not anyone speaking up about PPP.

This is when Postpartum Psycho was born. I was already journaling my experience, might as well put it out there for other moms who needed to hear the same message I did –

You are not alone, and you are not crazy.

As it turns out, there were a lot of moms like me.

So come on in, join the #momsgonemental club. We laugh, we cry, we grow… we are figuring this sh*t out together now.

This is my story. These are my experiences. I hope it can in some way, shape, or form help you, too.