For Ariane Beeston pregnancy was a performance. Each day, she acted out excitement and gratitude about the new life growing inside her belly.
But in truth, she was struggling.
She had convinced herself that the 20-week scan would reveal a bevy of birth defects, the kind she'd been warned about in all those advertisements for prenatal vitamins. She was struggling to accept her changing body and swat away the disordered eating patterns that had plagued her youth. And by the final trimester, Ariane was struggling to feel anything at all. She was hollow and her world muted, as if it had been stripped of its colour.
Ariane was a newly registered psychologist, well-versed in the symptoms of mental illness. And yet she told no one what she was going through.
Listen to the conversation below. Post continues after audio…
Then her baby arrived. A healthy, 3.4kg boy. As she cradled him on her chest, she waited for that rush of intense love, meaning, and existential relief. It didn't come.
"I just didn't feel anything. It was just this very strange sense of nothing," Ariane told Mamamia's No Filter podcast.
Weeks later, Ariane began to experience paranoid thoughts about her child being taken away by protective services. Ariane worked in child protection before having her son, and she became convinced the tables would be turned on her, all because her newborn had developed nappy rash.
Again, Ariane told no one.
Then came the delusions and hallucinations.
First, an inability to see her son's face, as if his features all blurred into one another. Then, the sight of a tiny, green dragon that would occasionally appear in his place. She'd look down and there it would be, sitting in the pram or doing tummy time on the playmat. It would disappear mere moments later, but was so real to her that she'd try to photograph it.
Watch: Let's Talk Pregnancy. Post continues after video.
Then came the most unsettling one of all: an overwhelming sense that she wasn't alive, that she didn't exist. She contemplated suicide then, rationalised it: "It wouldn't matter," she said, "because I was dead anyway."
Still, Ariane told no one. She kept performing.
Such is the stigma of perinatal mental illness that Ariane was certain she'd lose her career and possibly her son if she spoke up about what was happening inside her head.
She even managed to pass the perinatal mental health screening — a standard questionnaire given to women during pregnancy and in the months after birth to help identify signs of emotional distress.
The EPDS (Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale) asks the mother to consider a series of 10 short statements and select a response reflecting how she felt during the week prior. For example, "I have been able to laugh and see the funny side of things":
( ) As much as I always could
( ) Not quite as much now
( ) Definitely not so much now
( ) Not at all
The EPDS is designed to catch women needing clinical assessment or additional support. Of course, it relies on the mother's own assessment of her situation. Ariane is one of many women who have slipped, or even snuck, through the cracks.
"Some of it was performance. Some of it was [because], as a mental health professional, I knew what to say and what not to say. I knew what things to circle and what not to circle," she said.
Still, to people close to her, especially her husband, it was obvious something was wrong.
"I had no appetite. I couldn't sleep, and I was just vacant. There was nothing there behind my eyes. The light had gone," she said.
By the ninth month postpartum, Ariane was admitted to a mother and baby mental health unit.
"I was so embarrassed," she said. "It just felt like complete rock bottom that I had ended up there. [I felt like] not just a failure as a mother, but a failure as a mental health professional, as a psychologist, as someone who had worked in a similar space, to be on the other side of the camera, to be the one who was being observed and watched."
Ariane was ultimately diagnosed with psychotic depression, a major depressive disorder characterised by hallucinations and/or delusions.
Perinatal mental illness is common. According to the Centre for Perinatal Excellence (COPE), one in five women experience symptoms of anxiety in the year after giving birth and one in seven experience depression. Postnatal psychosis, meanwhile, is rare. It affects around one woman per 1000 who give birth.
Through specialist psychiatric treatment and medication, Ariane was able to return to a sense of equilibrium, to fall in love with her son and with motherhood.
There have been setbacks and relapses, including a further hospital admission. But she has navigated it all with the help of fellow mental health professionals, her husband and an extended support network.
More than a decade on, she works for COPE, Australia's peak body for perinatal emotional health, and she has recently released a memoir about her experience: Because I Am Not Myself You See.
If you or someone you love is struggling to cope during pregnancy or early parenthood, call the PANDA Helpline on 1300 726 306 (9am-7:30pm Monday-Saturday AEST) or visit panda.org.au
Lifeline: 13 11 14 (24/7) or lifeline.org.au
Feature Image: @arianejbeeston Instagram.
As women, our bodies experience many changes throughout life. We’d love to hear about your experiences! Complete our short survey for a chance to win a $50 gift voucher.