scared to ask but do i have puerperal psychosis?

[0132sarah]

hi, ive been reading the symptoms for puerperal psychosis.
I moved into our house in may. then a couple months later found out the previous people who lived here lost their baby to cot death. petrified me. i was always anxious about cot death. constantly checking my baby. I know i have pni.
i'm seeing a cpn. waiting to see a psychiatrist. on anti depressants and anti psychotics. health visitor see's me every week.
I am convinced this house is haunted by the baby, i hear baby crying every evening. but my baby is fast asleep. i never hear the crying through the intercom. no one seems to hear it. i keep thinking about getting a medium round to help the baby to pass on in peace. but my doctor suspects i have puerperal psychosis because of all of this. I also see things in the corner of my eye. I'm not hallucinating. please people be honest with me. i need to know whats going on. its starting to get to me. either way i feel like im loosing it. before i started taking anti psychotics (been on them just over a week, quetiapine 50mg) i started screaming, couldn't handle all the pressure in my head. too much chaos. please help me. x

[Weeble]

Sarah

Hi please don't panic I have had many similar problems for instance one day I looked down and thought I had gone see through, I regularly thought my baby was dead. What I learned is this was not psychosis but severe depression, because my brain was so scared it started to make my thoughts and feelings concrete. I saw my baby as dead because once I did find a dead baby etc etc. I like you was tormented by these thoughts, I dared not tell a soul because I did not believe people would believe me. It has taken me nerly a year to discuss these experiences, but I am constantly told they were not psychosis. The key thing here is you have insight, you are maintaining contact with reality. So please don't panic. A cpn and ,my smhhv taught me a simple tool to manage these times if with your baby, describe the room in detail and describe to your child what she is looking at. Eventually after about ten mins you find the thoughts have stopped and your child is looking at you. It is amazing.

I am just about to start quetapine too and although it is used in high doses for schizophrenia and manic depression, in lower doses it is a mood stabiliser, it helps stops the crashing lows. Listening to you I have been where you are now, and I feel so sad for you. It will get better, don't despair.

Kat

[Bookwormprincess]

Hi Sarah,

Just wondered how you are doing now 6 months later? Did you ever get a conclusive diagnosis. I hope you are through the worst bit now and on your way to recovery. Took me 16 months to feel like me again but I did get there.

Thinking of you
N x