Ariane looked at her baby but saw a dragon. Now she’s helping mums understand mental health

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With a raw retelling of how her mind broke with an illness brought on by pregnancy and birth, psychologist Ariane Beeston wants to help other struggling mothers.

Psychologist Ariane Beeston look into her baby’s pram one day and instead saw a dragon. It had happened before – in the cot, the swings, the highchair.

But about four days after Henry’s birth, Beeston began to experience delusions and intrusive thoughts so troubling she felt she should hide them, lest he was removed by the organisation she worked for. Beeston with her son Henry. She began to experience symptoms of post-natal psychosis a few days after his birth.

Beeston says there are many things women aren’t told before they become mothers, and the symptoms of post-natal psychosis are among them. Beeston says that while she was in a mother-baby psychiatric ward she tried to find a book that could help her understand what can go on with emotions and the psyche due to perinatal mental ill-health, and that her book,Though difficult to revisit a time when her mind was unmoored, Beeston says a joyful aspect of it has been the many grateful responses she has been receiving.

While only 1 to 3 per cent will experience postpartum psychosis like Beeston, many women feel isolated when they have perinatal anxiety or depression and don’t feel they can discuss it.“One of the biggest challenges is that people feel so alone in their experiences, and that compounds what they’re going through,” says Highet. “Reading stories of other people’s experiences straight away makes them feel less alone and realise the importance of getting help.

 

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