CG: You include first-person stories from women who have experienced postpartum mood disorders in your book. Without giving away any confidentiality, how did you make contact with these women? What common threads did you find in their stories? What was most surprising to you? Do you think that the process of telling their stories was helpful to them?
TT: At first, having been told that a book specifically on postpartum psychosis did not have a good chance of being published, I embarked on a book that covered the spectrum of postpartum mood disorders. I created a website, gave talks, and reached out to family and friends for stories from women who had experienced postpartum mood disorders. I was surprised at many of the women whom I knew who related having had PPMD, some of whom were older women who had never shared their stories with anyone. Although I had been told that women with PPP would be reluctant to tell their stories, I heard from so many of them that I realized I had enough for a book. When I saw that another book had been published on the full spectrum of PPMDs my friends and family reacted with dismay that someone else had written the book I was working on. I took this however as an opportunity to write the book I really wanted to write—one that focused on PPP.
I corresponded with the women who volunteered to share their stories by mail and email, going back and forth with them to “polish” their stories, not in a literary sense, but in order to gain clarity. Many of these women related that sharing their stories was healing for them. The process of reading the stories was healing for me. The overwhelming feeling was of not being alone; this had happened to other women. The willingness of other women to share their stories bolstered my own courage to share my experience.
CG: Having written a book on postpartum psychosis, what kinds of responses have you gotten from the public? Have any of these surprised or disconcerted you?
TT: Often people ask if I am a mental health professional. When I say I am not, they usually seem puzzled and ask why I wrote it. When I say that I had PPP it seems people do not know what to say. Or sometimes the reactions are startling. One woman loudly exclaimed, “You mean you were crazy?” Another confided that her husband didn’t believe in “things like that.” I realized that he was fortunate not to have had experiences in his life where he had to learn otherwise.
Although usually my talks have drawn larger than expected crowds, at one library talk, shortly after my book was published, I was initially disappointed to see that only three people had come. Before any event I say a silent prayer putting it in God’s hands that my talk will help someone, even if it is just one person. At the end of the talk, a woman shared that she had had postpartum psychosis decades earlier but had never told anyone besides her family and doctors. If there’d been a bigger audience, she might not have felt free to share that.
CG: What do you think is most “misunderstood” about postpartum mood disorders? What preconceptions would you like to correct?
TT: There are three main misconceptions I encounter:
1. Once crazy, always crazy: Once a person has a psychotic break, they are forever tainted by the experience. In fact, psychotic breaks are more common than we think, and can be caused by a variety of factors.
2. The mind is “gone”—that the person is “absent” during a psychotic break. We treat people roughly when they’re having a psychotic break, as if they don’t register what they’re experiencing. Whereas these women are often traumatized by how they are treated during PPP.
3. “It cannot happen to me.” There is a misconception that this illness only happens to “other” people—women who already have problems like drug addiction, poverty, abuse, and existing mental illness. People do not understand, or perhaps believe, that it really can be random and happen to any pregnant or postpartum woman.
CG: One of the most intriguing parts of your book to me was the warning to women who might have postpartum OCD; in fact, I use that warning to begin this novel. As a writer with a very overactive imagination (and one who experienced “intrusive” thoughts postpartum) it occurred to me that this might leave a woman very vulnerable to influences. Can you tell me any more of what you’ve learned about this element of postpartum mood disorder?
TT: “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” As PMADs become better known, women—and even professionals—may assume that if a woman has OCD symptoms she cannot have PPP. That is incorrect, they can co-occur. Conversely, a woman with OCD may fear she has PPP when she does not—this could increase her risk of suicide. And then, of course, there is the tendency of women with OCD to “borrow” images. That is, they can be highly suggestible so when they are told or read of another woman’s intrusive thoughts about “X” they start having intrusive thoughts about “X” as well.
CG: What advice would you give to a woman who suspects she might be suffering from a postpartum mood disorder? What advice would you give to her family and friends?
TT: Get help. There is no virtue in suffering. You deserve and your family deserves the best possible start to a life together—that cannot happen with a mood disorder in the way. ALL perinatal mood disorders are identifiable, diagnosable, and treatable, and with proper care you will be yourself again.
To family and friends: Care for those you love. Help her get help. Help her help herself. If she cannot help herself, act for her. Do not wait for her to ask.
