I had an episode of pp exactly a year ago when I was 5 mths postpartum, I woke up one morning in complete confusion and depersonalization. I believe I was saved before this happened, but now I'm questioning it. Over thE past year I have doubted and questioned everything I've read in my Bible and so much has made me feel condemned like there is just no hope for me. Like maybe I'm the one who isn't one of the elect. Many are called few are chosen scripture says. Maybe I'm the one that is falling away. It's so scary because I had so much faith and trust in the Lord before this happened. Now I'm so insecure and having a hard time finding my way back to faith and trust I'm crying out in fear instead of faith. Has any christian been messed with like this? I'm so scared that maybe I'm feeling this way because maybe I wasn't saved and God wants to get me somewhere but I'm just not getting it and if I don't get it figured out then I'm just doomed for hell. I so desperately want to be saved if I'm not already. But my anxiety and doubts and fears make me think how can he save me if I'm not trusting he will. It's like saying I know you can do this but I don't think you will do it for me. I NEVER THOUGHT LIKE THIS BEFORE . I'm so scared I'm not one of the chosen. This Pp and anxiety has got me so messed up my husband says I'm always all over the place and he feel like he needs to watch me all the time b3cause I am just not using my head ever.
Faith shaken after Pp: I had an episode... - Action on Postpar...
Faith shaken after Pp
I also then think ,maybe this has nothing to do with anything related to pp and it really is just a matter of me falling away . I'm so scared that I feel this way though. I'm not ok with thinking that. I'm not ok with thE thought of me not being a believer.
Hi Kraft84,
The good news is it will get better. I too am a Christian, and after going through PP the first time I was kind of withdrawn with God. It felt like God didn't hear my cry and I questioned why did this have to happen to me. I kept praying and searching the scriptures and things got better. With my second child I took all the precautions, but my PP ended up being worst the second time around. I trusted God, and I trusted that he will see me through and take care of me. And he did. Just have patience and don't stop praying and reading Gods word. Are you currently taking any medication or seeing a GP about your anxiety. It's always good to talk to a professional who can help. Having a good support system can be tremendous toward the recovery process as well. God loves you and we all love you.
Best wishes❤️
The problem is I feel like I'm losing my faith. I'm crying out in fear. Not faith. And then I'm thrown the confusion and question if I'm sure I even believe, but I only questioned that after I started doubting everything else. And then I fear, am I not understanding something correctly? And i was never confused before but now I'm like I know God is there and I know Jesus is there but it's like my mind want to think of them as 2 but really they are the same and one. It's all really confusing in my mind and I know my anxiety doesn't help. I had the question come to me in a dream last night, "why would you want to reject God's word?" And it scared me and I woke up and thought am I rejecting because I'm having a hard time believing right now. I thought I was saved before all this but now all this makes me wonder and I'm in constant fear 
If you read some of my posts you will see I went through something very similar. I had severe depersonalization, detealization. I thought I was the worst sinner in all the world and my soul would be tortured in hell forever. It was so very awful I don't even have the words to describe it.
I can't believe I didn't initially realize it was PP. I was never overly religious before but went completely off the deep end obsessed with it. Calling priests, reading and memorizing scriptures and novenas. Couldn't watch anything that was non christian. Only Christian radio. Just complete obsession. I felt constant terror over everything. It was really a horrific mixed state mania. That was not normal and not healthy at all.
That's where I'm at, Its becoming an obsessive behavior. Although I don't feel like I'm the worst sinner, I feel like I'm in confusion of Jesus, my salvation, scared of falling away, being the one that just won't ever understand, the one who hears the promises but can't take them for myself because I don't feel I deserve them and because im in confusion I'm not trusting his promises so I feel like I'm constantly trying to save myself because I feel like there's no hope for me to ever 'just get it'. I feel like God is looking at me going, "look ,this is it , why are you so confused, what don't you get?! YourE not getting it so your just not going to be saved" how horrible of me to think these things too. And then I question how Jesus is the son if he is God and I never questioned this before. I was never in confusion before with this. I feel so stuck. And what if I wasn't truly saved before all this anxiety and confusion hit? I so desperately want to be saved but how can I be if I'm in constant confusion? 
I don't feel this will ever go away and I fear that if I were to die today I wouldn't know where I'm going because I'm so lost in my own confusion. I do say to Satan that I rebuke him in Jesus name , but if I'm in my own confusion I feel like the lord is going ,I'm not going to help you because you don't even know where your faith is at. It's awful
Hello kraft84 I was not a Christian when I experienced pp but the illness for me was full of religious ideas, thoughts and patterns. All these years on and becoming a Christian I think we can all have moments when we doubt and feel distant from God. I listen to worship music which helps me focus and I remind myself of God's promises. He will never leave you or forsake you. Cast your anxiety on Him as he cares for you. Pour your heart out to him and exchange worry and fear for his peace. Prayer and reading psalms and maybe John chapter 10.
Helen
Helen ,I do try ,it seems like anything I read in the bible is condemning and I feel like I m just double minded and so unstable how can I evwr have unwavering faith and not doubt my own belief. I was never like this! Then it makes me wonder if before all this happened was I just thinking I was saved and I really wasnt. I had a relationship with the lord and now I feel like I'm just constantlypraying to a wall because he's just shaking his head at me saying why don't you just understand the basics and believe in me that I can save you.
Hi Kraft
84
I wanted to write because I feel very, very similar to you, and have not had any words to express it, and now you have done.
I think though that the key is to hold on, as you are doing, to keep praying, to keep faith in whatever you can, and if you can’t just keep clinging on any way, keep going, the fact that you’re doing this means you are very, very strong. Questioning and feeling fear and feeling terror is part of having faith – and is so much more intense after PP. Just reading your messages has shown me that there are experiences that you think are yours alone, but that actually come from the illness. When you said that you always knew that Jesus and God were one, but now you question and think they may be separate, that rung so familiar to me, as I have been struggling with similar things for 2 years. Somehow PPP splits minds into tiny, tiny pieces. I have found it has made me think of separation, not just in terms of my religious beliefs, but with my partner, my family, and with my friends. I have pushed them far, because of this.
Please keep holding on, and keep going, and keep knowing that things will get better. I now have moments where I feel more my self than I have in years. I also still have times of great fear and crying and worry. But I’m starting to be able to think of the positive times while these are going on and they help me get through them. I’m starting to think of lighter thoughts. Things really do change, and shift. It’s 2 years now since I had PPP. Therapy has really helped, for me, with a clinical psychologist, and time. I really, really relate to your posts. It is the PPP that is causing these fears in you, and things will get much, much better xx
How do you deal with thinking God and Jesus are 2 but yet they are one. I saw a pastoral psychologist yesterday and he explained it to be(because I've always been taught trinity) like a traffic light theres red yellow and green but all still make up one component or if you were to be in court God is the judge and Jesus is your attorney, but they work together. I think maybe this is lack of biblical knowledge as well even though I was brought up in the church(non denomination) but the PP definately wracked my brain and I don't know how to get back to normal. I really am unsure now if I was evER really saved before and if I'm in confusion about it all how can he save me if I'm not understanding. Makes me scared.
I also have stopped a talking to even on of my closest friends and since my PP my husband and I have felt more distant this past year. We together were growing so much in our walk with the lord and then BAM I woke up 5 mths postpartum with this madness and nothing made sense to me involving my faith. I didn't understand how anything happened and if I didn't understand how things happened then how can I believe and if I don't believe then I can't be saved and I wonder if I'm not understanding things because maybe I never really did. Maybe I thought I understood trinity and I thought I truly believed in Jesus but if if having these thoughts then maybe I never really did? Maybe I was never really saved before this happened and God is using this PP to bring to my attention that I never really understood correctly. It's all so scary and confusing.
Hi Kraft 84
First of all I'm so sorry you're struggling with your faith particularly. I don't really know where to start in terms of my reply, as I think faith is such a personal thing, and so it is hard to respond to someone who is writing about their own faith. I guess I have to trust that just sharing my own personal experience of PP and my faith may be helpful to you. So please just take what you want from what I share and leave the rest.
I have to agree with what some others have said above. During and after the PP (so during the psychosis, and also the depression I had after PP) I was filled with so much of these negative thoughts - that I was evil, that I had rejected God etc. I was wracked with guilt, and also fear, of this experience I had had as I really felt like I had met the devil. I felt completely broken. It was really scary.
But I have to say - these negative thoughts - e.g. for you these thoughts that you're not saved- they are just part of the illness, they are not 'true' - this focusing on negative thoughts that come in your mind. I think for people with faith it is often related to their faith, for others it may be other negative thoughts. It's because our mind's are so vulnerable and poorly.
I found when I was ill I would focus on really negative things - some were faith based, but others were general - one was that I was convinced I'd never ever get better and I would end up in a general psychiatric hospital forever (I was in a MBU), to the point I did tell my partner to just take our baby and leave me. And I became really obsessed with this thought. My experience was that these thoughts didn't get me anywhere, but just led down a dark hole, and I had to fight them, and try and break the cycle of thinking them, which was really hard. I could only do it with the support of the staff in the MBU. And distraction to try not to focus on them. Perhaps you have become focused on these thoughts of not being saved, and questioning your faith, and that actually it's just your mind doing this because you are unwell?
I was so lucky. I had a friend who was a spiritual director who came to visit me in the MBU and who I then saw regularly. She became godmother to my son and is such a close and special friend for me now. After my descent into the depression where I felt like I'd seen the 'devil' and I had rejected God she took me for a walk by the sea, put her arm around me, and told me that God's love was never ending just like the sea lapping on the shore, and unconditional. God was always there and never leaves us. I felt like she held up the light for me when I couldn't feel or see it. She made me focus on a God that was unconditionally loving, who was feeling nothing but love for me, and wanting to hold me close, so that I could be well and whole again, and everything I was meant to be. She tried to mirror this 'God' for me, in the way she supported me. She was not judging me, or damning me or anything like that. It's these kind of thoughts, these images of God, bible stories of Jesus showing his unconditional love and forgiveness for people (there are hundreds of those stories!) that she helped me to focus on, rather than thoughts of sin and damnation. She would send me cards with beautiful quotations or bible stories on that I just really needed to hear.
I have found some Buddhist practice really helpful too - mindfulness and meditation. Noticing just the detail and beauty around me. Trying to be still and silent, to centre myself. I found this hard when I was ill though, as my mind was just full of so many thoughts, but maybe some yoga, or running, or any physical exercise. or listening to chants and music? Trying to be in touch with your body, and in the present moment rather than tied up in your thoughts.
Also I have found really helpful the Buddhist image of the lotus flower - the most beautiful thing arising from the mud, the suffering. This has certainly been my experience of PP - it has been a journey of transformation, of the hell and suffering and trauma of the whole experience being transformed into something really beautiful somehow. I can't often explain how and why I feel this, but I do.
I hope you don't mind me sharing my thoughts like this, please just take what you want from it.
Take care, and I hope that some of the responses you have received on here at least help you not to feel so alone in your experience.
Ellie X
I'm a Christian too. God loves you no matter what. You have thought disorder like I had, and medicine helps. Remember Luke was a doctor so he would have given medicine! Keep taking to health professionals to help..I found nonchristian medical staff better than Christians psychologists personally when I was feeling this way, and spoke just to my pastor about religious stuff. I found mindfulness therapy really helped.
The Dr's while I was in hospital chose an antipsychotic for me
Do you stil need to be on it? I'm worried I will need to be on it forever. I'm so up and down emotionally. And I can't stop the intrusive thoughts and I keep doubting my faith. One day I'm so sure of Jesus and his promises and hours later or the next day I'm questioning if I even believe it but before I had my son I didn't think like this. I'm scared this is going to make me fall into disbelief and everyday I feel like I have to think about it all day. Then I fear if I die or the end comes and I don't have this figured out in my head. Why can't I just not be in doubt and just have unwavering faith.
No, just for a year
Hi kraft84,
To share my experience of antispychotics, I took them for a year. The dose reduced before stopping so it wasn't too sudden. I think that for some people, medication can be something they live with for longer and I also took Lithium for 3 years. On some level, whilst I didn't enjoy taking meds at the time, I can see now that they enabled my recovery. I think if people need medication, then it's not something we should be scared of. People take tablets for all sorts of things. I know this is easy to say though, but I really do think it's important.
I too found myself very up and down emotionally and I think that this is a common thing for many of us through PP and recovery. I'm sorry to hear that you feel yourself doubting your faith - again, I doubted absolutely everything throughout my illness and having the confidence to believe in anything took me some time. So again, I think it is a natural part of this horrid illness.
I hope that you are feeling better with the shared experiences here. Please try not to worry, you will get to where you want to be. We are all here to listen. Take care, xx
You even doubted your faith? How did you get past that and feel secure in your salvation?
Hi kraft84,
It's hard for me to know how much I doubted and what, as I don't remember the worst of my illness I'm afraid.
Faith for me, as with others to an extent I suppose, is quite a fluid thing, and whilst I believe and would call myself a Christian, I am not very fixed on it and consider myself quite lapsed as far as practising goes. But I do find it comforting to know that there is something, someone there, and that I can reflect on it myself rather than anything too overt, if that makes sense?
As with a lot of things, time has been a great healer. And realising that I cannot make sense of everything and that some things are just meant to be. I realise this is a cliche in many ways, but the passing of time has been very helpful. I hope that you will find it so too.
Take care, xx
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