When postnatal depression isn’t like the pictures

When journalist and author Sinead Corcoran Dye found herself physically ill after giving birth to baby Vivie, postnatal depression (PND) was the last thing on her mind.

“It didn’t occur to me for ages that this could be postnatal depression because I was physically sick,” she says.

Her vision of someone with PND was of “a sad woman wearing a linen shirt, staring sadly out of a window.

“I didn’t look like that. I wasn’t sad. I felt nothing – I was (physically) sick,” she says.

An array of symptoms

Sinead’s experience, as explored in her debut memoir It Nearly Killed Me (But I Love You), highlights how PND can present itself in many different ways.

“I woke up on the fourth day after having Vivie and it was like my hyperemesis (gravidarum) was back, but combined with the flu or a virus.”

She was vomiting, boiling hot, freezing cold, had migraines, felt like her skin was burning and just had to sleep constantly. She describes feeling like she was pinned down, unable to get up, or respond to her baby’s cries.

As she got worse, she became convinced it couldn’t be a virus and there must be a pair of tongs or a scalpel left inside her after her C-section, poisoning her. She also struggled to bond with Vivie initially, describing just feeling like a “woman and a baby”.

“I didn’t hate her, but I felt no connection to her,” she says.

Sinead was terrified after a GP check showed nothing was physically wrong. She was referred to her psychiatrist, who recognised the severity of her condition and referred her on to the Mother and Baby Unit at Starship Hospital, which Sinead describes as for the “very severe cases of postnatal depression or psychosis.”

A difficult start

Sinead’s experience had followed a difficult pregnancy and birth. On the day of her planned C-section, already feeling unwell, she had a panic attack on the operating table.

“I was shaking, not trembling – I was like convulsing.”

The experience left her with nerve damage from the multiple attempts at the epidural, a deep sense of shame, and apologising profusely to the hospital staff.

“I felt so ashamed that I just gapped it from my own birth. It took me like 20 minutes to even realise my baby was here. I just thought everyone was mad at me,” she says.

Getting support

Sinead is highly complimentary of the Mother and Baby Unit, despite being initially resistant to going.

“I just keep saying to everyone, I don’t belong here. Look – I’ve got Peter Alexander slippers! I’m only here because they’re ramping up my meds. I’m not one of these people.

“Then, very quickly, I realised these people are all the people, I’m the people. There are no ‘these people'”.

Sinead describes the nurses at the hospital as respectful, empowering and highly experienced with mental illness and postnatal depression.

“The women who work there are just incredible… they just see through your bullshit. I was pretending to be fun, and funny and cute. And they were like: ‘You can tell us that you like feel like a terrible Mum and that you (feel like) you don’t deserve your baby,” she says.

Many of Sinead’s nurses had experienced postnatal depression or anxiety themselves. Once there, with the right medication in hand and knowing she was in a safe place, her symptoms cleared rapidly.

“It was safe. I knew no harm would come to me or the baby. I knew it was only up from here, you’re not going to get sicker. And so I just was better.”

Learnings for others

Sinead’s story is a powerful reminder that mental health challenges in parenthood are common – and treatable. And that the symptoms can look very different for different people.

“Over 90 percent of new mums experience intrusive thoughts. It’s a hormonal thing,” Sinead says.

Her message to other parents is clear: “You’re doing great.” She also believes they should accept that they can’t, and don’t need to do, and be, everything, and to remember that the expectations for being a ‘good’ Mum can be much higher than for being a ‘good’ Dad.

“I read somewhere that you’ve got to choose what it is you don’t do and then just be okay with it. And if it’s cooking or if it’s cleaning or whatever, you know, pick your thing you can’t do and make your peace with it.”