Breaking the Silence: Patricia's Battle with Postpartum Psychosis (Part 2)

When the joy of welcoming a new life is overshadowed by the silent battles of postpartum depression, the stories that emerge can be as heart-wrenching as they are crucial to share. 

We previously left you on a cliffhanger. Now, here is part two of Patricia Tomasi's story. She shared her harrowing experience with postpartum anxiety, intrusive thoughts, and the chilling touch of psychosis, shedding light on the struggles that many new mothers face in silence.

Her candid recount speaks to the soul:

• Highlighting the often dismissive responses from healthcare professionals
• The arduous journey towards finding the right treatment
• It emphasizes why immediate and accurate care is not just necessary but life-saving.

We honour initiatives like Flora's Walk, which celebrates these stories while raising funds to enhance perinatal mental health programs and services. 

Tune in for an inspiring conversation that is both a call to action and a profound reminder of the strength found in vulnerability and shared perinatal experiences.

Chapters

• 0:00 Postpartum Mental Health Advocacy in Canada
• 10:56 Empowering Perinatal Mental Health Advocacy

Transcript

Patricia Tomasi: 0:00

My spidey senses are on. We're all aware, we're all keeping track of what's happening. And then I felt great after I gave birth. I didn't sink into that depression like I did the first time and things were good for the first few months. Then, in the third month, I started to get that irritability and anxiety. I skipped the depression stage and then I started to get those intrusive thoughts and then those slips started to happen.

Patricia Tomasi: 0:38

But what was scarier about this time is that it wasn't like Dorothy opening up the door to the magic, colourful world. It was dark. I was like what do I do? I thought we're like shadow demons. In the corner of my bedroom I was having awful nightmares of driving off a cliff with my newborn and then I'd wake up and it took me a while to understand whether that was real or not. Did I do that? Was I going to do that? The really weird state to be in.

Patricia Tomasi: 1:16

And so as soon as those slips started happening, I told my husband right away. I said, oh my God, I need it's happening. I really thought for a minute there it wasn't going to happen, but it was happening. We got to address this. So right about just right around that time I think I was just going to, I was going to go into the doctor like the next day, and then that night I had a really bad panic attack and I called 911. I said I can't wait till tomorrow, I've got to go in. I've got to go in because I was so afraid I was going to slip and again and not not be able to come back.

Patricia Tomasi: 1:54

So again, but you know, same drill called 911, went to the hospital, ran through the blood tests, but this time I'm like, okay, no, but listen, I have postpartum anxiety for sure, and this is what happened to me last time and it might be postpartum psychosis. I was like I'm telling you I think there's much more awareness now but back then like this was only, you know, nine years ago I was completely ignored. They were just looking for everything but what I was telling them. And then, you know, after waiting hours to see the doctor, and the doctor finally came in again I was telling him my story and again he completely ignored me and instead offered me an MRI to check for multiple sclerosis, because one of the symptoms I told him was that I was feeling numbness in my hands and feet.

Patricia Tomasi: 2:52

Which there are so many signs, so many different symptoms of anxiety. It's been a symptom of anxiety, but he's like, yeah, you know I can set you up for an MRI. And I was like, oh no, no. And then he sent me home. He sent me home, I should have been hospitalized, yeah. So he sent me home and the next day I called up my family doctor's office.

Patricia Tomasi: 3:22

You know how hard it is to get an appointment in your family doctor's office but I told the receptionist and luckily she was sympathetic because she herself went through some mental health issues with her daughter. So she squeezed me in. I went in, I told the family doctor what was happening. I said you have to run me through that scale. I'm not going to score high because this is mostly anxiety. And then you have to give me medication. I don't care what to do. So she and she knows she was on board. She was like yeah, yeah, no problem.

Patricia Tomasi: 3:58

You know, I was still scared to take the medication, though on the way home the slips kept happening and I I part of me was thinking it's poison, they're trying to poison me. Like I was hanging on to reality. I'm hanging on for dear life, quite seriously. Yes. So I get home and there's this whole scene of my husband and I in my room and he's like did you take the pill yet? And I was like no, I didn't tell him that I was having those thoughts. I was getting really close to slipping where you. I just don't Want to tell anybody.

Patricia Tomasi: 4:29

I knew I was gonna take it but, you know, had to fight that fear. He's like just take it. I'm like I know, I know I'm gonna take it and I'm balling and and you know he's trying to like, reassure me, remember what you went through and reminding me and I'm like, yeah, yeah, okay, I know, I know. And so I finally took it. I started taking it every day and started to Feel a little better after a couple weeks, after a month. A little better than that. After a couple months, a lot better. About three months I probably felt the best I've ever felt in my entire life and realized I probably should have been Cation a long time ago, probably had undiagnosed lots of things for a long time and and I started to enjoy motherhood easy. So, luckily, I Avoided the slip, thank God, the second time. And that's when I just was like, wow, this is, this is nuts, that the health care system wasn't there for me and I'm lucky that.

Kayla Huszar: 5:36

I'm still like you were literally telling them. You're in the emergency room as a second-time parent who has lived through this before, and You're full on advocating for yourself and it's not being received.

Patricia Tomasi: 6:00

Yep, and that's when. That's when the seed was planted, I guess, and slowly Became the fierce advocate that I am today, because I was just flabbergasted, yeah, and then learning about flora, and you know, like a few years after this happened to me and like my god, how many times this is happening. And we don't even know about it because we actually don't keep stats on Suicide due to perinatal mental illness. So I'm like that, I just couldn't believe in Canada that this was happening.

Patricia Tomasi: 6:38

So one of the experts I interviewed for Huffpost Canada was Jamie Charlebois, who's the perinatal mood and disorder coordinator for the area that I live in at the time and we found out we lived in the same city just a couple of years ago. We lived in the same city, just a couple kilometers apart, and both advocating in different ways. You know, I was writing about it and she was Helping set up new access to programs in our area and we started meeting up for coffee and talking about it and saying this is an. You know, it's a topic I'm really, we're really interested in and we were like I'm gonna go to the group or something that we can join and help them and use our skills to help them, and we couldn't find the group and we just naively- jumped in and said well, start it on yourself.

Patricia Tomasi: 7:31

Yeah, let's see what happens. Yeah, what did they say? An idea whose time had come. Because as soon as we pressed publish, click on the Facebook page of the Canadian perinatal mental health collaborative, all of a sudden it was like a magnet. Everybody came together and was like yes, yes. So it's like we weren't the only ones looking for a group to start advocating.

Patricia Tomasi: 7:59

So we provided the space and it's been four and a half years now and we, right out of the gate, we were very focused. We said, okay, we want to nap. We went right. We went right for the top we want a national strategy for perinatal mental health. We didn't start small, big right away and we don't have a commitment yet for a national strategy, but we've had wins along the way. Last year at floors walk, the former Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, carolyn Bennett, announced funding for the development of Canada's first clinical perinatal mental health guidelines called the CANMAT guidelines, and that's being done through women's college hospital and CPMHC is part of that process. It's very rewarding. They're going to be coming out in the fall and that's great. It's going to set the base of clinically what needs to be done for perinatal mental health. But we still need that national cohesive strategy across Canada, and so we're still going for that.

Kayla Huszar: 9:15

Yeah, yeah. So someone is interested in either seeking support, or maybe they're a provider and they're listening to this or, you know, maybe Flora's Walk kind of peaks their interest. Is there a central place where you have all of this information?

Patricia Tomasi: 9:36

Yes, you can go to our website, cpmhcca, and that's where you can sign up to join Flora's Walk, to join a chapter. We recently started chapters in every province and territory to advocate there, in the provinces and territories as well as federally. You can follow us on Instagram at CPMHC and in our link tree you can join, you can sign for our newsletter. I will get rid of this cold and you can many ways to join us and to advocate in your part of Canada. Probably the biggest thing they can do right now is join Flora's Walk, which is which will be taking place the first week of May.

Kayla Huszar: 10:29

Awesome. Okay, I will include all of those links in the show notes and we'll supplement some of that information in the blog portion of the podcast. And I just want to extend my most sincere gratitude for you taking the time to meet with me today and talk about this and the amazing showing of vulnerability. And again, even though you feel like you know you're an open book, you want to share your story with everyone because it matters. It takes vulnerability and bravery to show up in this space and to share it and to do what you do, and Canada and the landscape of perinatal mental health will be better because you're a part of it.

Patricia Tomasi: 11:18

Thank you, and I feel the same way about you and all the amazing people that I've met on this journey who come to this as well, most of them through lived experience, and that's why, with Flora's Walk, we see it as a way to give back to the community and help them improve timely access. So, if you sign up, 75% of what you raise will either go back to your organization or an organization that you choose in your community who's helping provide a perinatal mental health program or service. So so, thank you. Thank you once again for allowing me to talk about perinatal mental health and for all the work that you're doing.

Patricia Tomasi: 12:06

So thank you so much, and we will see you in the next episode and I look forward to sharing the episode once it's out and sharing all your episodes too.