OCD s paychosis

[MichelleO]

I'm confused after being diagnosed with pp then later from a different doctor when I moved saying it's OCD so what is really the difference between having intrusive thoughts which is and OCD symptom to having psychosis which is much more rare and dangerous? Please help me out here. I have a dr appointment today but I want other people to explain their symptoms with psychosis and others with bad OCD

[Ellie_at_APP Partner]

Hi MichelleO

From the little I know (and I'm absolutely no professional!) severe OCD can present a bit like PP and there are probably similarities / crossovers. In terms of my experience of PP it came on very suddenly and very acutely. One night when my baby was 3 days old my partner came to give me my baby to breastfeed and I just couldn't do it at all, I just held him and kept saying "is this real?", I couldn't even work out how to get him to breastfeed. I couldn't do anything, almost catatonic. It felt like I was in a nightmare I couldn't quite wake up from. Then I lost touch completely with reality having thoughts I'd killed my baby in bed, that it was the end of the world, that I was the devil, that I had to choose which of my family could live, and the others would die...it was hugely traumatic and scary. I say all this just so you get a picture of what PP is like (at least from my experience) - strong delusions and completely removed from 'reality' which usually comes on very quickly within the first few weeks after the birth, though some people do have episodes later. Women are diagnosed with PP if the psychotic episode is within the first year postpartum. I don't know if this was a bit like your experience? Others may describe something different.

I hope this helps maybe clarify for you a bit? And most importantly I hope your doctors appointment went OK today? Are you getting the support you need?

[MichelleO in reply to Ellie_at_APP]

I never lost touch of reality I heard a bad story of a woman with pp (she put her baby in the oven) I hadn't slept from being in labor for 5 days and then not sleeping cause I was afraid something would happen like sids etc and right when I heard that story I went full blown panic everything was dangerous to me I could be crazy and do these awful thoughts in my sleep and I'm still afraid to sleep with him I would have auditory hallucinations but they were always when I was trying to sleep so my new dr thinks there hypnological auditory hallucinations but there's no way of knowing exactly what I have but there messing with my meds again and it's making me super anxious cause I'm afraid of going crazier. But I also have weird, random, scary pictures when I close my eyes and sometimes have shouting in my head but not a hallucination an auditory hallucinations in like in my ear. But I'm just depressed cause I'm not getting what I want and need from either doctor I have very serious fears still and my counselor just says I'm fine and it doesn't help. My psychiatrist says she's trying to stabilize my mood but doesn't think I'm psychotic just excessive worrying but I need answers like am I going to hurt my son in my sleep and I never get an answer I want I just wanna know my son will stay alive and healthy if I knew for sure I could care less about me

[Ellie_at_APP Partner in reply to MichelleO]

Hi MichelleO

I'm sorry to hear you're struggling with these thoughts. I've written on a couple of threads about this recently but it sounds like you are focusing on quite a negative thought (e.g. you'll harm your son) - which in a way is a symptom of being ill. I had various negative thoughts when I was ill, that I would end up in a mental health hospital for the rest of my life and that my partner and son should just leave me, and I became really obsessed with that thought and convinced that it would happen. It sounds a bit like that, but obviously a different thought.

It's a really natural mum thing to worry that something is going to happen to your baby, but just sounds like it's worrying you excessively. Are you able to access any counselling/cbt as I think it would be really useful for these kind of negative thoughts, to help break the thought patterns.

Take care X

[suzannah0]

For me my husband picked up the symptoms very quickly. I was mostly withdrawing from people, things just got too much. And that wasn't my personality. My thoughts were irrational. I talked too much, but no friends saw that as a problem. I was sleeping and looking after baby well, just tired. Then I told my sister her wedding, that I missed didn't exist..though I didn't quite mean it, I said it the wrong way. I went straight on medicine. But the hospital thought I was well and didn't follow up properly, then I stopped medicine and got all the full blown symptoms of pp eg hallucinations (happy ones,not scary). I've had those pictures in the past...sort of like visual hallucinations but not quite. I lived for years like this without hospitalization but I was constantly worried. in retrospect it was hallucinations coz it wasn't normal...I always put it down to psychosis, just in case now. I now I read up on the clinical markers for pp and state that as clearly as I can to the doctors so they can tick off boxes. It meant I was in hospital as a voluntary patient, but it meant I got the help. Keep up the medicine if you can!!

[haroldmag in reply to suzannah0]

The medical community has an expression "Co-morbidity" which meant that a person has several conditions at one time. (for example: with physical disabilities, a person could have spinal bifida and hydrocephalus) So, someone could have PP and also OCD for example.