Willemijn - Owning the Stigma: Postpartum Psychosis and Recovery

*This episode discusses topics realted to Postpartum Psychosis, including delusional thinking and psychiatric hospitalization.

In this episode of Quiet Connection, Chelsea sits down with Willemijn De Bruin, a world traveler, public health researcher, and mother of two, to discuss her unexpected journey through postpartum psychosis. Willemijn opens up about her traumatic first birth, her two psychiatric hospitalizations in the UK, and the painstaking road to recovery that took nearly a year.

She also shares her courageous decision to have a second child despite the risks, how she built a preventative strategy and support system, and the healing birth that followed. Now an outspoken advocate for maternal mental health, Willemijn combines her lived experience with her professional background to raise awareness and push for systemic change.

This episode is a testament to resilience, recovery, and the power of speaking out.

To learn more about Willemijn, visit her Instagram or Website.

If you or a loved one is facing maternal mental health challenges, please use the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline (1-833-TLC-MAMA) or the Postpartum Support International Warm Line (1-800-944-4773). You can also call or text 988 if you are in immediate crisis.

If you suspect you or your loved one is experiencing Postpartum Psychosis, please seek treatment at your nearest emergency department. 

🗝️ Key Takeaways

• Postpartum psychosis can happen to anyone—even without prior mental health history.
• Hospitalization in mother-baby units can save lives, but access remains limited globally.
• Relapse is possible, but recovery is also possible—it often takes a year or more.
• With preventative planning and strong support systems, second pregnancies can be healing.
• Advocacy and storytelling are powerful tools to reduce stigma and improve healthcare systems.

💬 Soundbites

1. “I never thought it could happen to me—and then I suffered postpartum psychosis.” 
2. “My partner saved my life by insisting something was wrong when I couldn’t see it.” 
3. “Recovery doesn’t end when you leave the hospital—that’s when it begins.” 
4. “Postpartum psychosis can happen to anyone. It’s not rare. It’s one to two in a thousand births.” 
5. “I owned my story early on. Speaking about it openly was part of my healing.” 

This episode discusses topics that may be triggering for some individuals. Please check the show notes for more information and be mindful of your own mental health and comfort levels.

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Join Odd Moms On Call as we tackle parenting in a world on fire—one hot take, eye roll, and belly laugh at a time. 

Transcript

Chelsea Myers (00:01)
Hello, today I am joined by Willemijn. Hello Willemijn, how are you?

Willemijn De Bruin (00:09)
Hi Chelsea, I'm good, how are you?

Chelsea Myers (00:11)
I'm so good. This has been such a long time coming listeners. We connected such a long time ago and because you are a world traveler, ⁓ fate has just kind of bounced us around, but we're here and I'm excited and I'm yeah, I'm really looking forward to chatting with you today. ⁓ Rather than me go down the list of all the things I admire about you, I would love it.

if you could introduce yourself to listeners and let us know who you were before becoming a parent.

Willemijn De Bruin (00:48)
Absolutely. So my name is Willemijn. Like you said, a bit of a world traveler. I am from the Netherlands, born and raised, and I did stick around until my 25th birthday or so. But then the traveling began and I lived in New Zealand with my partner, then moved to the UK, which is where I had my firstborn son. And I'm sure we'll dive into that later. Then after that, actually, we had a very

exciting and tropical chapter where we lived in Sri Lanka for two years and very recently ⁓ moved to South Africa. So ⁓ we've landed this site and ⁓ happy to be here. My partner is South African and so are my two kids actually. And yeah, who was I before becoming a mother? I still like to think I am that person or I definitely found that person back, which is something that really makes me happy.

I am a sporty, outgoing, social kind of extrovert person. In terms of work, I've got a background in international public health. I studied public health very much with the dream to start working in international development. So what I do for a living is I think along with NGOs.

about how they implement projects and how they can evaluate, assess them and how they can strategically do that differently sometimes to make even more impact. So ⁓ yeah, a lot of that. And I feel like my background actually is also in a wicked way connected to my ⁓ experience suffering maternal mental health issues. So those two have now come together into what I do for work and what I do from a very...

deep passion that I have.

Chelsea Myers (02:44)
Yeah, and that is something that is very evident. And we'll talk about this later on in the episode, but if you follow Villamine on Instagram or any social media, like your advocacy and your passion is so evident. And that's something that definitely, definitely drew me to you. But yeah, let's...

Let's get into it a little bit. love that you said that you're finding that person again and you feel like you are that person again, which is really important. So going back to the beginning of your parenting journey, you, my brain just died for a second. This is why I edit my episodes. Okay. ⁓ so you met your partner, you were at the time living in the UK.

and you decided baby time. How did that initially go for you? How was pregnancy and the experience before birth?

Willemijn De Bruin (03:50)
Yeah, actually I met my partner way before the UK. actually did all the traveling that I said we did together. So him and I, met in the Netherlands and then jointly we went to New Zealand. And actually the move to the UK was slightly related to us starting to think about babies. We were actually loving life in New Zealand. But for me personally, I felt like I was so far removed literally on the other side of the world from family and friends.

I wasn't quite sure whether I wanted to do something significant as parenthood all the way on the other side of the world being far removed from people very close to me. So the decision to move to the UK was partly because of career development, but definitely also my desire to be closer to family and friends in the Netherlands. ⁓

the reason we landed on the UK was from my partner's job perspective and I thought at the time, that's nice and fairly close to home, which it is until the pandemic hits. ⁓ But yeah, we were talking about babies but we were one of those couples that were blessed with literally trying for about a week and then it happened.

Chelsea Myers (04:58)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Willemijn De Bruin (05:09)
So ⁓ it was actually quite strange because we had spoken about it and I moved to England before he did. We were half a year apart. So I already ⁓ went off birth control and my body could kind of get ready for it. And then he ⁓ literally arrived the week that all international airports were shutting. But for some sort of miracle, he pushed and he got stuck a little bit on his journey for a week in Auckland. But then eventually he did make it on one

the very few last international airplanes and he walked through total empty airports and arrived in the UK. yeah, I guess, Heinz, like you never know, but I think it was basically when we said hello again that I felt pregnant. So we never really had to try or anything. And with that, my firstborn son is also the definition of a COVID baby because he was conceived March 20 and we had him in the first week.

Chelsea Myers (05:46)
my gosh.

Willemijn De Bruin (06:08)
of January 2021. So pretty much when the world was totally on hold.

Chelsea Myers (06:11)
Yeah.

Yeah. And that's with a lot of my guests who were pregnant during COVID. It's such a different experience and such a unique experience because we talk about isolation in general in terms of pregnancy and postpartum, but we were all isolated. You were truly isolated through your pregnancy. ⁓ Were you enjoying that?

Were you enjoying having that time with you and your partner through your pregnancy?

Willemijn De Bruin (06:45)
Actually we did have a really great time because we were house sitting, very beautiful big house with a big garden so I didn't feel like ⁓ locked down in that sense. We had a lovely outdoor space and in the UK you're also allowed to go for ⁓ one outing ⁓ a day so we did actually have this lovely kind of little bubble and I think we really got excited by the pregnancy and we got to enjoy the fact that this was coming our way and...

also didn't have some of these pregnancy niggles or things that you have to deal with. Like I never had to hide in the beginning that I was not drinking alcohol because there was no socializing. So this kind of like my best friend drank my champagne sneakily while we were at the party kind of vibe I never had. But also I could really take it like I could take it easy and rest and listen to my body working from home, especially in the late stage of your pregnancy is actually quite nice because you know, you can sit on the sofa when you're

comfortable. I think a lot of these, yeah, I didn't really feel that isolated during pregnancy. The only thing is that I started missing a few of the things that are also parts of me that I enjoy. Like I didn't get to do ⁓ pregnancy yoga, for example, which is totally something that I would have done if it wasn't for COVID. And I do feel hindsight that my whole period of pregnancy was like nice, but I do

hindsight now reflecting on what happened postpartum. think like there were maybe parts of my normal life that I was missing, like I'm a social person, I'm a sporty person, like I said, and there was none of that. So maybe hindsight, it did have an effect, but at the time it felt like we were in this lovely bubble. The only thing is we were also moving and that was a bit stressful. The last few months, so last trimester,

Chelsea Myers (08:31)
Yeah.

That's stressful in every pregnancy.

Willemijn De Bruin (08:38)
Yes,

moving and I don't know what it is, but a lot of people tend to do it and I guess it has to do with having to upgrade to more space. yeah, we were definitely that couple that was scrambling doing renovations in third trimester, which was a bit of a challenge. And that's maybe when my stress level started rising. But the first and second trimester were lovely when we were still house sitting in that beautiful house.

over summer by the way which was a lovely summer in the UK. ⁓

Chelsea Myers (09:08)
Yeah, yeah.

And I asked that to sort of get a background because obviously I know the direction that your story took, but listeners don't. So we're gonna, it's gonna feel like we're breezing through some things, but skipping ahead to, first of all, giving birth during a pandemic. I'm not sure what it was like in the UK, but... ⁓

Why, well, why don't you tell me what was that like? What was it like over there?

Willemijn De Bruin (09:40)
Yeah, of course this is hard because I don't know what it was like in the USA but I guess like it was the typical things that were experienced worldwide like definitely healthcare was stretched, ⁓ healthcare stuff was by then because the pandemic had been going on for like nine or ten months they're definitely overburdened, burned out so you could sense that kind of level of ⁓

stress within the health system and also even a little bit before. I don't think normally you would have as little context points with your midwife as what I had during my pregnancy. So you could feel as a patient doing your normal health trajectory of being pregnant like they were not quite able to meet the needs that they're probably normally able to meet. ⁓ though I did see my midwife a few times

I think I only saw it twice face to face, which is less than what is usual, I think. I did have contacts online though, and I did have a hospital appointment for the general 20-week check. But yeah, throughout pregnancy, they did what I needed to do, but you could send from every aspect. And it was also in the news, like the NHS, which is the national health system in the UK, was under pressure.

Chelsea Myers (10:45)
Yeah. Yes.

Willemijn De Bruin (11:07)
like many places in the world. And then I went into labor six days postpartum. Sorry, not six days postpartum, six days post my due date. So we were waiting. was due to have my baby on the 31st of December, which is also an interesting due date. And he was nice and happy and cozy. So we had to wait a little bit longer. And then I went into labor on the 6th of January.

Chelsea Myers (11:14)
Mmm.

Yeah.

You

Willemijn De Bruin (11:34)
Went into hospital and I have to say the hospital and the maternity ward that day seemed like fairly normal. There wasn't like utter chaos. I was already in what they thought was true labor when I arrived at hospital. So we had time that well and I was allowed into my own room directly, which was a nice birthing suite with a bath. And the only minor detail was that there was a cracked window and it was minus four that day. So it was a little bit...

a little bit chilly. I didn't realize at the time, but when I saw the photos later, my partner, was wearing a jacket and I was like, why were you wearing your winter coat? The whole like, that doesn't make sense. He was like, did you not realize that room was freezing? So, but yeah, other than that, the room and the space that we were given was great. And I had ⁓ nice supportive caretakers around me, but I did have a very long prolonged.

Chelsea Myers (12:32)
a little over ⁓ 24 hours. Yeah.

Willemijn De Bruin (12:37)
Yeah, like 24 plus seven, so yeah, over 30 hours and that's long and I was like what they call this like failure to progress, was stuck at 70 centimeter dilation for ages and I was quite set on, I did a hypnobirthing course and I was quite set on not going down the very medicalized route. I had prepared myself for that. I wasn't fully set on like not having any interventions, but I was hoping that I could do it that way.

Chelsea Myers (12:39)
Yeah. Yeah.

Willemijn De Bruin (13:05)
And for a long time it looked like I was doing well, but then I got stuck at the seven centimeters for hours and hours and hours. And then your body just starts to get very fatigued. And at a certain stage, the pain wasn't even really taken over that much, but it was more exhaustion. So eventually we decided that I would have an epidural overnight because they were like, girl, you got to have some energy to push because...

Chelsea Myers (13:33)
Yeah.

Willemijn De Bruin (13:34)
That's the critical part. And I was okay with that. The epidural setting was horrible. ⁓ I feel I had to come in and do it again. So I had it twice. And I could initially also when they didn't come in for those tests, whether you can still feel, I could still feel it. And by then my partner was a bit like, you guys do know that she's very tall, right? I'm one meter 81. He's like...

you have realized that maybe, you he started to worry a bit and I was like, yeah, I can still feel it. I can still feel it. So then he had to come in and do it again. And by then I was definitely getting a bit like feeling more that sense of being out of control and being more medicalized. But luckily ⁓ our son was like in total ⁓ happy state, no, signs of stress. I did get a bit of rest after the epidural and then in the morning I

was finally delayed enough and I had a assisted delivery. So what do you call it? An episiotomy, little incision and then episiotomy. And then ⁓ he was delivered with forceps. So I felt like at that stage I was like totally out of control. And I didn't quite like this fact that then suddenly ⁓

Chelsea Myers (14:40)
an episiotomy,

Willemijn De Bruin (15:00)
OBGYN walks in and that lady was quite forceful. She was like, yeah, we're going to do it now. And if you don't do it now, like you're on the clock kind of vibe. And that was really when I started to feel a little bit like, okay, well guys, you know, it was going quite all right. But if you all start hovering over me and telling me I'm on the clock and it got to happen now and otherwise we're going to rush to Cesarean. Like that.

Chelsea Myers (15:07)
Mmm.

Willemijn De Bruin (15:24)
I never really reflect on my birth ⁓ experience as being traumatic, but I think there were a few elements there that were traumatic. It's just not nice when that full autonomy is taken away from you when you're in a process that actually, in my case, I was prepared and I knew what I wanted and I also still felt like I knew what I was able to do. But there was definitely a bit of that sliding level of...

the healthcare professionals take over and think they know better, ⁓ which is not always the case. Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (15:57)
Yeah.

So I love, I ask about all that context and I love all of that context. I do want to note, you're not the first person to tell me who has given birth in the UK that it feels like the OBGYNs come in and they're like, okay, we're on the clock. And that's not how birth is supposed to go. Like your body is not on a timer. ⁓ So that seems to be kind of a common occurrence over there. But all of that backstory,

where you had this nice pregnancy experience where you were able to take things slow, you felt empowered, you may have missed out on some of the things you would have liked to experience, but overall it was a pretty smooth pregnancy, takes us to your postpartum experience, which was very different than what you had envisioned. Do you want to talk about that a little bit?

Willemijn De Bruin (16:48)
Yeah, totally. So I feel like maybe for the listeners who don't know, like I suffered postpartum psychosis. But like you just summarized quite well, I did have a fairly normal pregnancy. Yes, there was a bit of renovation, stress and moving houses, but there was nothing, there were no real signs during my pregnancy that mentally I was struggling. ⁓ Again, like I just said myself, I didn't have a super smooth first labor, like first delivery of my first child.

But then again, most women don't have the first baby usually takes longer. It's not unusual that there is assisted delivery. Like there was nothing really out of the ordinary. ⁓ And also besides I had not ever struggled with my mental health prior to this. So though ⁓ I had heard about mental health issues and specifically people tend to know when they do know anything they know about postpartum depression.

I had not, like, I kind of brushed it off thinking, okay, that might happen, but definitely not to me kind of vibe. And then I suffered postpartum psychosis, which is a little bit the mother of all, let's say beasts, but not the other word with B, but yeah, it's the mother of all. But if you think in the maternal mental health ⁓ complications that you could have postpartum.

Chelsea Myers (18:01)
Yeah.

Willemijn De Bruin (18:09)
And it totally took us by surprise. And I do feel like that definitely did start within hospital because after having the baby, after that you go to the maternity ward, which opposite to what I described there, you could sense the stress. Like it was chaos in the hospital. It was a small room with six beds, only tiny curtains around it. There were other mothers. It seems like it wasn't just running as smooth. There was a bit of like,

I heard a bit of fighting between nurses, like there was tension there and there was no calm and peace and quiet. And I was discharged from hospital about, I had to sleep there for one night and that first night I didn't get to sleep even though my baby slept. And I feel like that was the beginning because postpartum psychosis often starts with ⁓ insomnia.

And for me, it definitely did. And my first night of no sleep after such a long labor was at the maternity ward. And ⁓ my baby actually slept through quite long, quite long. Like he, I think he, like I fed him in the night, like in the evening, and then he slept up until four a.m., which is unheard of for a baby. I think he was just exhausted from labor. So I could have, but I could already in that, like that night, I could sense, like I was like,

Chelsea Myers (19:07)
Mm-hmm.

my gosh.

Wow.

Willemijn De Bruin (19:36)
I was woken up by other noises. There was a fight between another mom who was having a fight with ⁓ the nurses because they were telling her that she had two formula feed and I think she didn't. And then there was this other lady who was calling with her family in India and it was such an utter chaos there. And the lights were on. There was like, I felt like there was no any kind of even effort to make a quiet space.

So I decided to sleep with my noise cancelers on, but then I was course worried that I wouldn't hear my own baby. So like this is where kind of like the stress and the uneasiness started. But then the next day I was like, okay, I gotta go home. I don't wanna be here another night. So the whole day I kind of pushed and advocated for me ticking all the boxes to be dismissed. So was like, yeah, you know, who do I need to see? Who do I need to, and doctors kept.

coming by and nurses kept coming by and I was like, can I go, can I go, can I go? But it was all unorganized and chaotic. And I was just like pushing because I wanted to get out of there. And I did, did go home that next day. And I just never really got into this kind of calm, quiet. I think that over the days I was just in this typical elated, high energy.

mood and over the days at home, the first week postpartum, that just deteriorated. And after three days, I started to become ⁓ delusional. I started to have a few like very interesting, wildly creative ideas that in my mind make sense. And my partner started to look a bit like me, like, what are you on about? And then I just didn't sleep, even if the baby would sleep. And it just got worse from there.

It started to also create a lot of pressure between me and him because he was like, I think later he did recognize that something was off, but the first few days he was just like, what's wrong with you? Like just, you know, we just had a baby. Take take it, take take it, take it,

Chelsea Myers (21:44)
Yeah.

Willemijn De Bruin (21:52)
⁓ But yeah, how do you know that that's not normal? Which is one of my big questions also. Like everyone says, when you don't have a baby, when you have a baby, you don't sleep. know, everyone knows that having a baby is associated with poor sleep. But I was at a certain stage, I was like, but this is not normal. I'm like, I'm not, not sleeping whatsoever. No sleep.

Chelsea Myers (22:04)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Willemijn De Bruin (22:16)
I even texted

a friend who also had a baby that week and I was like, no, I don't think I ever have to sleep again. And she was like, not quite sure about that one. was like, no, just listen to meditation podcasts. I will be fine. So that's when I started to like lose it. But how do people pick up on a new mom who is like maybe a bit crazy interacting and doing. And it was only until I had like a major or kind of

panic attack around day 10, which happened to be when the midwife was around. And I think that really saved me that that midwife and ⁓ my partner were like, no, something is not right. And ⁓

Chelsea Myers (23:02)
Yeah, what

was that? What was that turning point?

Willemijn De Bruin (23:05)
think over the days since Omnia started gathering and I luckily didn't suffer from full-on hallucinations. So maybe for the listeners the difference between the delusions and hallucinations is a good one to clarify but delusions are like untrue thinking. But hallucinations are when you actually have senses that are not like you could see or hear or feel something.

that is not there. didn't really have hallucinations but I did have very severe delusional thinking and it started unfolding. I had figured out in my mind, okay, if I don't sleep that's not healthy. And then I had made the conclusion, well then, you know, if you're doing something that is not healthy, I might just lose my ability to think rationally, which is still kind of like a normal conclusion.

Chelsea Myers (23:42)
Mm-hmm.

Willemijn De Bruin (23:55)
But then I got worried that ⁓ when I'm very tired, English is my second language. So when I got really tired, I always struggle a little bit with speaking English, which is okay because my partner understands Dutch. So then I switched to my mother tongue. But I had then come to the conclusion that I was going to lose my ability to speak. And I also thought that I was fully going to lose my, like I might die from lack of sleep.

Chelsea Myers (24:20)
Mm-hmm.

Willemijn De Bruin (24:20)
So

at a certain stage, I really became convinced that I was going to lose my ability to speak. Therefore, I started frantically writing down in a very chaotic, messy kind of notes. Everything I was writing down, there were notes everywhere because I thought, okay, like maybe soon I can't write anymore either. So I was trying to convey messages in that way. And I had...

I started to be convinced that if I wouldn't sleep I might die, so therefore maybe I should eat and drink more. So I was like going to the fridge all the time. Drinking milk, like milk and milk because I thought like if I don't eat and drink I will definitely die. And when the midwife was there I had a panic attack saying I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die. And obviously that is something that is taken serious. And she kind of guided me through it out of the panic attack first, but then

Chelsea Myers (24:51)
Wow.

Yeah.

Willemijn De Bruin (25:12)
later when I think they got me calm and I can't recall everything as well. I think ⁓ the midwife and my partner, had a chat and yeah, I've said this on other podcasts and recordings that I did, I really think he saved my life because without knowing what it was, he was able to be like...

she's not all right. And I think a lot of, and we know there's a lot of postpartum psychosis goes undiagnosed for a long time. It lingers where, which is when the true tragedy comes in. Women are suffering silently and no one kind of picks it up. And maybe, maybe because I was extremely bombastic about it and the timing was, the timing was, ⁓

Chelsea Myers (25:56)
You

Willemijn De Bruin (26:00)
lucky in a way that the midwife was around, it was picked up, but he was definitely able to say like, I don't know what's wrong, but something is wrong with her and we need to take it seriously. And I was admitted to a psychiatric ward, a mother and baby unit, as they call it in the UK, which is a specialized psychiatric ward for mothers and their babies, which is brilliant. Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (26:24)
which

doesn't exist in a lot of other developed nations. We don't have that here and they don't have them in Canada as far as I know. But they do in the UK and you get to have baby with you.

Willemijn De Bruin (26:28)
Yeah.

No.

Yes, and that's why I pause the video in my story because it's like, obviously I didn't know this at the time. like, for me, it was still extremely traumatic because, you know, I had to go, I had to get in the car, we had to get baby stuff and I kind of knew I was extremely confused right then. But my partner said like, no, we're going to take you somewhere because, you're not okay and they're going to help you. And I, by then, I thought I was going to a sleep hotel because I just...

Chelsea Myers (27:07)
Ha

Willemijn De Bruin (27:08)
I knew that I had to sleep, so and then in the car, remember we spoke a bit in an analogy, but I said, so I'm going to the sleep hotel and he was like, yeah, you're going to the sleep hotel. So I was convinced I was going to a sleep hotel, but actually I was going to a psychiatric unit and I didn't know right then what that was, what that meant. And it was only until way later in my recovery journey that indeed I found out like I was so lucky.

Chelsea Myers (27:11)
Yeah.

Willemijn De Bruin (27:37)
there was a mother and baby unit. And yes, they are ⁓ available in the UK. Still not enough if you look at it from a needs-based perspective. There are not enough and also they're not near enough. So you might have to travel very far, which means you're removed from your partner and your family. Sometimes there is at the time that you need it, there's not a bed available. So even in the UK, is 100 % room for improvement. But yes, they do have them and countries like...

⁓ The US, Canada and many other Western developed countries don't have them. Some countries do have them, but if you only have one or two in the whole country, then that's not going to really make difference either. So yeah, I was lucky enough to be admitted to one on the day that I needed it. And the drive from door to door was about 15 minutes. So yes, I was extremely lucky. Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (28:35)
wow.

Yeah. So we'll touch a little bit on the recovery process because that'll lead us to our next section. But once you were settled in at the mother-baby unit and you finally kind of had a grasp on what you were doing there and why you were there, ⁓ how long did that process...

take and did you, how did you feel throughout? How did you feel about being there?

Willemijn De Bruin (29:08)
I'm not gonna lie, I found it horrible. all this kind of positive talk that I have about it now is really because I know that it was needed. But when I was admitted, I remember the moment I walked in, it was quite like dramatic because everything was COVID. So it's daunting to walk onto a psychiatric ward. It's even more daunting to do that when everyone is wearing a little mask and their faces are covered. When you're with your newborn baby, only 10 days postpartum, I was like...

I felt like I was walking into a ghost house or some sort of prison. I was extremely confused and scared, but I tried to really be brave. And my partner had said to me, like, you got to be brave. You got to do this. I, by then I was so confused. I thought that everything that was being said to me had a deeper or a second or reverse kind of meaning. So even something saying like as simple as like,

My partner had said, you gotta be brave, you gotta listen to them. I thought, okay, maybe he means I should not listen to them. Kind of vibe, like that was my kind of thinking. I was so delusional. So for me to stabilize, which is what they do initially, when you come in with such acute psychiatric conditions as a psychosis, they're first always gonna stabilize you on medication. And that process took about a week. So in the beginning, I was still not sleeping. I was still delusional, I still walking around and making notes.

Chelsea Myers (30:14)
Mmm.

Willemijn De Bruin (30:35)
creating chaos and moving stuff from left to right in the room. So only once I had kind of settled and slept a bit and like with the help of medication and I started to have a little bit of realization like, okay, this is happening to me. That's when I was like, okay, I ⁓ kind of understand that I, why I'm here. But then, and this is an interesting personality of mine. I'm like, extremely, I can be extremely determined.

and I'm a bit competitive, so I was like, okay, I've got to get out of here now. So I kind of didn't want to be there and I really felt like I'm just going to be your A plus student and do everything the way it's supposed to be done so that it can go home ASAP. And I did go home after three weeks, which in hindsight, I think was too quick, but... ⁓

Chelsea Myers (31:28)
Mmm.

Willemijn De Bruin (31:29)
With all the respect for the caretakers there, they were also dealing with COVID and what they normally do is they send people home for a day, a couple of hours, you come back again and then maybe later you go for the weekend and you come back again on Monday morning. But the issue with COVID was that then upon return to the ward, you would have to isolate in the room, which is...

horrible, like no one wants to be isolated in a room, let alone with a baby in a psychiatric unit. So upon my first trial to go home, I came back and I had to isolate and the psychiatrist came to assess me and I kind of like convinced her now, like let's just go home because I'm not going to do this 24 hour isolation thing. And I got to go home after three weeks. My parents came over from

Chelsea Myers (31:56)
Mm-hmm.

Willemijn De Bruin (32:23)
The Netherlands to help. So I had my mom and dad and my partner by then to help me and the baby, but to be honest more so me. ⁓

And I was kind of getting a little bit better, but I had a relapse after two months. So basically two and a half months postpartum, we made a decision to change my medication because of side effects. And that really backfired. And I don't really feel that that was anyone's fault or mistake, but it was a big one because I had to go back into the unit. And my second psychosis was actually,

Chelsea Myers (32:42)
Mmm.

Willemijn De Bruin (33:02)
much more severe. The way I was delusional and confused about things were a lot more scary. I was thinking a lot more about the devil and convinced that my baby was a devil child, which is not something I really like to say out loud, but I did. And I

Chelsea Myers (33:23)
Yeah. Yeah.

Willemijn De Bruin (33:26)
I was a lot more also convinced, like it was, I don't know, in a weird way, it was a bit of a darker psychosis. And I think I had a little bit of more understanding that it was happening again. So I was fighting it more again as well. So when I was in the unit, I displayed a lot more like not only confused behavior, but also sometimes aggressive behavior. was like,

I don't want to be here, what am I doing here? Like I would get angry a lot and frustrated a lot. And ⁓ the second admission, which in, it was also again about three, four weeks, I struggled a lot more with ⁓ internal demons and it was a harder one to go through. ⁓ But recovery in another way was nicer because by then...

There were quite a few nice people in the ward, some people that I still actually talk to nowadays. And there was a lovely ⁓ activity ⁓ coordinator who would take us on walks and outings. And she was very supportive. I would even do a little workout with her because she was like, you want to work out? OK, we work out. actually, was.

Chelsea Myers (34:31)
Mm-hmm.

Willemijn De Bruin (34:44)
If I think back about it now, like we would play games and a nurse would polish my nails. Like, I feel like we took it a bit more slow. And for me that worked because the real recovery trajectory started after that. And it takes long because you actually recover at home. But yeah, it was about, I would say a year before you really back to yourself. You're definitely, they even say that at the...

when you're being sent home, like, is when recovery starts. We've stabilized you, but at home you recover. ⁓ And that took a long time.

Chelsea Myers (35:18)
Yeah.

You brought up several really important things that I think are important to highlight when we talk about postpartum psychosis. One, not having any history of mental health disorders. ⁓ anyone, anyone can experience postpartum psychosis. And you can have all the support in the world and still experience postpartum psychosis. ⁓ Also being open about the fact that you relapsed.

is something that is brave and is also, it's important to talk about that because just because you relapse does not mean you can't get better. Doesn't mean that you can't get better and that you can't recover because you can. And then another thing that I wanted to highlight as well is the difference between your two like psychotic episodes where the first one was very much delusional and hyperactive. And the second one, it's so

for people to report having these almost like religious type thinking, even if you're not a religious person. ⁓ And I'm not sure what your background is, but like it's super common in postpartum psychosis to start thinking about the devil and start thinking, like a lot of people see their infants as a demon or as an adult or not a baby, just not a baby at all. So like these are markers to be aware of.

⁓ in the postpartum period that would alert you to you may need to be seeking help for postpartum psychosis. And again, not brushing over anything. Like you said, it took you like a full year before you started to say like, okay, I am recovered. I am at a place where I feel like me again. And I know something that's really important that you want to talk about is your decision to have another child.

after everything that you experienced, going from never having any experience with mental health disorders at all to having to be hospitalized twice, when did, I'm not sure if you can hear my dog chewing. I'm really sorry if you can hear. Okay. My puppy, my puppy is right next to me chewing on a bone. Okay. So I'm really curious about when that discussion came up.

Willemijn De Bruin (37:29)
No, I can't.

Chelsea Myers (37:42)
with you and your partner and how you felt about having another child.

Willemijn De Bruin (37:48)
Yeah, it's a good question. So it was actually fairly soon. So after that second admission, I did spend basically the summer in the Netherlands because we'd figure out I just needed like company and people around me. he was working. So even though it was very hard, we decided I would go to the Netherlands with ⁓ my baby. And which was extremely hard for him because he was away from us.

after a very traumatic start to parenthood. But I spent the summer with my mom and dad mostly at my parental house and I spent it also with very low-key seeing friends and that's when I found a little bit of myself again even though I was in a very low mood space for the whole of summer. think all the high moods at the beginning of psychosis was kind of like offset with... ⁓

I was never really diagnosed with depression, but I was definitely on the depressed side. I was just like very slow and no energy and not in a great space. But then after that summer, I went home and as if we didn't have to deal with enough, my father-in-law passed away, which was in South Africa. So we weren't able to make it on time, but we did decide to travel there for the service. So

Chelsea Myers (39:02)
Mmm.

Willemijn De Bruin (39:15)
We spent about a month here in South Africa and it was spring here and that was the moment I started to really like feel like a little bit of my normal self. I wasn't fully recovered but I started to notice little things like I was laughing about jokes again and I could look around and appreciate little things like I don't know a flower or a beautiful color or like I could feel joy and I was starting to slowly process a little bit of this like

Oh my gosh, what on earth happened to me? But it did happen and you know, these things happen. It's also when I started to read a little bit more about the topic, trying to understand like what is post-partum psychosis and who, like why did this happen to me? And I started to unravel everything and process it a little bit. And it was at a lunch at a wine farm that we had a chat and I was like, I don't know what happened, but I feel like I'm...

kind of turning a corner and Anton, my partner, was also like, yeah. then we had a tiny chat. It wasn't really anything formal, but in that conversation, we both expressed that despite everything, we would be keen to have another child. Not like we were straight away gonna go for it, but I think both of us said like, okay, it was horrible, but it feels like we're on the other end of things. if we would do this again, like...

I would be okay to take that risk and I'm keen to have another child. We were having lovely family time, also the three of us, which we had not actually had up until the moment our son was nine months because I was in hospital twice and then I spent two months away in the Netherlands while he was in England. So it was our first little cute family moment and I think both of us were like...

We love this. And if this was the price that we had to pay in order to get here, it was a big price, but we're happy. That was the gist of that conversation. And then we went back and we started having your normal life, settling in as parents, which is another journey of finding yourself. And I really want to stress this, for mothers who go through maternal mental health issues, like every new mom has to reinvent.

herself like who am I as a parent but doing that while you're also recovering from a mental health issue is a total different ball game because you kind of have to find your old self back but you also have to reinvent your new self at the same time and it's just like it's very confusing

Chelsea Myers (41:50)
Yeah!

Willemijn De Bruin (41:54)
And I think that is like the slow process that started when we were away from home and then we came home and we just started to do the normal things like we enrolled him to a nursery. I started very low key doing some work again. I started doing little things like exercising again, like really things that felt like me. And then, yeah.

well, this is typical for me and my partner. Something big happened because he got a job offer in Sri Lanka. And I think especially my father was looking at me like, I think you guys have had enough last year. And we were like, yeah, but this is a great opportunity.

Chelsea Myers (42:24)
You

Willemijn De Bruin (42:35)
I kind of wanted to get away from the setting. I wanted a fresh start. I wanted to be away from England. And I was like, yeah, let's do this. So we made a big international move to Sri Lanka. And only once we landed on the other side, I felt, and it took me a bit of time to land there. So by then my son was two years. We really started looking into having a second child. And again, blessed after one week of trying. Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (43:00)
my gosh.

Willemijn De Bruin (43:03)
I think I removed my coil and I was pregnant within six days after that, was hilarious. But yeah, pregnancy too happened and it was a very conscious decision to wrap up your question. It was a very conscious decision. Both him and both I were like, we want to do this again, which is a big decision because you have a big risk in the case of postpartum psychosis is basically 50-50. So, you know, you're

kind of playing Russian roulette with your own mental health. And I understand that not everyone wants that. Sometimes it's the mother, sometimes it's the father, sometimes it's both, but we were both keen to have another child. And I felt like, okay, I felt confident that if I would build my own village and have my own...

Chelsea Myers (43:37)
Yeah.

Willemijn De Bruin (43:57)
preventative strategy that we could do this with me staying healthy. So that was a whole different journey, one that I look at Beckett with so much joy and pride because I did stay healthy. A little bit of a, yeah.

Chelsea Myers (44:11)
Yeah.

Yeah. And it and it I think what I'm like gleaning from what you're describing too is you both were talking about preparing you were talking of like you said building your village. ⁓ But it also I get this sense that like, while you hoped that it wouldn't happen again, if it did happen again, you knew what to

do this time. Yeah. So, sorry, go ahead.

Willemijn De Bruin (44:41)
Yes, yes. Yeah.

happy to talk a bit through it but I like I literally had a document and I later stripped it down to a template which I sometimes share with people when they ask for it but I literally went down planning my mental health prevention strategy and then I had literally a plan A and a plan B for postpartum and plan A was like I stay well and plan B is what if not

I really went on it from different angles. So we consulted the psychiatrist who looked after me from the second admission to the mother and baby unit in England and my whole, because they keep seeing you until you're discharged when you're really healthy. In my case, when you're postpartum, we contacted her again. She came on board, even though we were living in Sri Lanka, so she voluntarily contributed, but she thought along.

and she advised me about options for preventative medication. Then I sourced a psychiatrist in Sri Lanka, which was not easy, but there are great people there too. And I eventually found someone who had not specialized in perinatal mental health, but someone who had quite a bit of experience in it. And he was very forward thinking, even able and willing to connect with the psychiatrist.

the UK and then I also started looking at other things. I had like a psych, I did a bit of counseling during my pregnancy. So I had a psychologist on board. We hired a doula ⁓ who was there for me. She was also a doula who is a prenatal yoga teacher. So I did yoga with her, but I also prepared for birth and she was very on board. ⁓

with doing instead of just doula-ing which is her normal thing she did doula plus postpartum care and we took it to the next level she did ⁓ night care so she would arrive postpartum the first two weeks ⁓ at our home early early in the morning or actually still in the night and then for a few hours between 3am and 6am she would have ⁓

Chelsea Myers (46:43)
Mm.

Willemijn De Bruin (47:05)
my second born baby and I would like breastfeed so I did even decide to fully go breastfeeding but ⁓ she would have him and feed him between those hours so that I knew like okay I might not get the sleep that I want and need up until 3 a.m. but between 3 and 6 is definitely a window of guaranteed sleep and we did that for two weeks ⁓ I was kind of like

crafting who I wanted nearby, who not, who I wanted to kind of have in my immediate proximity. So my mom and dad came over for Christmas holiday. Again, I was due on the 1st of January, so I tend to have... Yeah, this one was also late. So my second born was the 9th of January. But yeah, at the time I gave birth, my mom, my dad, my brother and his wife were all around. So I felt like I had...

Chelsea Myers (47:44)
⁓ my god.

Willemijn De Bruin (47:59)
my crew even though I live overseas. And it was just like a very carefully crafted bubble with healthcare providers and also social support. I had an OBGYN who knew my whole background, who was very receptive of my kind of birthing wishes and desires. the whole experience, pregnancy, birth itself was like a dream.

I would give birth like that tomorrow, honestly. It was easy, cruisy, quick. No, I'm not going to say pain-free, but it was medication-free. I had hypnobirth, it was all the way you wanted to go. And it was such an empowering experience. And then on top of it, I mentally stayed well afterwards, which makes the all-around experience so fulfilling and almost like healing.

Chelsea Myers (48:58)
Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I hesitate to use the word like redemption because like, of course what you went through was very traumatic and very, very, very difficult beyond what most of us can understand, but like still valid. It's still how your first child was brought into the world. And, but I am always thankful to hear from parents when

Willemijn De Bruin (48:59)
Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (49:27)
they do decide to have another one. I'm so thankful when they get the experience that they wanted the first time around. just, yeah, it's almost like you said, like that full circle moment, like, oh, this is, this is what I thought. This is what I wanted all along. And it doesn't, I want to stress too, and you, I'm sure can support this. Like it doesn't change how you feel about either of your children. It just,

Willemijn De Bruin (49:35)
Yeah.

It is.

Chelsea Myers (49:56)
impacts how you feel about the experiences of them coming into the world.

Willemijn De Bruin (50:02)
Absolutely. I mean, everyone who has more than one child, know that you're feeling for every... Like every child is different. So and I will never say I love one more than the other, but I love them in a different way. Like I'll maybe try and explain like my firstborn when I was extremely sick, sometimes when I have a nice moment with him or like a little cuddle or I him in the eyes. Like I feel like I'm so connected with him because I literally went through hell with him.

Chelsea Myers (50:09)
Yup.

Mm-hmm.

Willemijn De Bruin (50:32)
And

because I was in the mother and baby unit, I had him with me. And thankfully, I never, even though at a stage I thought he was a devil's child, that was just because I didn't, luckily I didn't see hallucinate a devil. I was just telling my partner, I was saying like, he's a devil's child because of him I'm here. And there's, that's kind of like in part true, but I always loved him and I cared. And this is the thing that even the healthcare providers at the mother and baby units,

complimented this, I never rejected him. I always wanted to look after him, have him close by. I even kept combi breastfeeding him. So I had, like I went through hell and back with him. And I feel like I've got an extremely good connection with him because of that, because he was my only constant in this whole process. Then my other son, I can sometimes look him into the eyes and like he's just...

Chelsea Myers (51:22)
Mm-hmm.

Willemijn De Bruin (51:29)
He's the definition of a little island baby. I think he's got some kind of tropical Buddhist island vibes. But I always look at him and I think like, you're such a dude and you really make me have this joyful, blissful kind of carefree experience. And I'm ⁓ thankful to him for that. So I kind of have this very opposite experiences, but both I went through with and because of my children.

Chelsea Myers (51:35)
You

Willemijn De Bruin (51:59)
And I love them for that. But very, I would not encourage every person to go for another baby because that's a very personal decision. And I totally understand that you might not want to do that, but I definitely wish everyone to have like a second healing experience and it will empower you and it will also help you maybe. ⁓

Chelsea Myers (51:59)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Willemijn De Bruin (52:26)
your story, like I totally own my story now. I actually feel good about the first bad experience as well, which is weird, but that's maybe because...

Chelsea Myers (52:37)
think it's

weird. I don't think it's weird. It's something that you survived and and you and you should be proud of that you should own that I I love that I love that so much that you say that you own it. I there's this whole movement over here at least where we talk about owning your stigma. And there is such a stigma around postpartum psychosis and to go through hell and back and to be standing here today. Yeah, own it you

you defeated that with your support system, ⁓ which sort of brings me to your advocacy work. So you are not only working in the public health system, but like this is kind of transmuted into being a postpartum psychosis advocate. How do you think your combined experiences

contribute to how you show up as an advocate for others.

Willemijn De Bruin (53:41)
⁓ Good question. think I never really felt the stigma. So own your stigma. I love this sentence. I think I owned my stigma from an early stage. I didn't feel ⁓ worried or scared about sharing my experience from even when I was still quite unwell and even to people that I didn't know. So I was openly talking about it even while I was still unwell.

And once I recovered and once it seemed like I was not diagnosed with an existing, I, until this stage, you'll never know, but I never had a relapse outside of my postpartum period. And it's, most likely the case that I don't have a diagnosis, like for instance, bipolar disorder. So I feel like I'm in this kind of safe space where

I was a mental health patient, but currently I'm not. And I kind of feel like I maybe owe it to those people that are more in this stigma space to speak up because I come off a little bit of a point of privilege. I can talk about the past rather than today. And I feel like telling my story is important for other women to feel less alone, but more so to raise awareness.

Yeah, I happen to be in a position that I do reflect or from my educational background that I learned to reflect on healthcare systems and on social systems around healthcare. And I feel like I'm in this position that I can tell my own story, but I can combine it with the bigger picture. Like what are the statistics behind maternal mental health issues? How common is it? Because people always think it's not common, but you know,

postpartum psychosis is one to two in a thousand or people like to say one in five hundred. That's common if you think about how many women are pregnant and how many babies are there. And I feel like also having moved countries I can kind of reflect, okay I had a baby in...

Chelsea Myers (55:34)
It's very common.

Willemijn De Bruin (55:51)
the UK, I know from a lot of friends what it's like in the Netherlands. I'm now here in South Africa. I've had my second born in Sri Lanka. I feel like I'm in this position that I can reflect on it from different angles, including lift experience. And I want to be able to combine a bit of the professional talk with a little bit of the talk that is happening more in the peer support space and bringing those two together.

And if I'm really being honest, I would like to do more of it because everything I do now is more from a voluntary perspective and outside of it, I still have my other work, which is paid work. And in an ideal world, I could be doing more of the professional talk and the awareness raising and advocacy because there's so much improvement to be made in basically any country. Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (56:42)
I

think if anyone can do it, you can do it. And I, and I feel that about, about almost everyone that I speak to on Quiet Connection, because you being willing to share your story on a public platform is, I always say vulnerability is the biggest strength and you are advocating by sharing your story. ⁓ I think before I get to, I have a new wrap up question. I'm trying something new.

But before we get to that, just because you have lived experience and you also have somewhat of a professional experience of the healthcare system, what are some of the most important things you want new parents to know in terms of identifying and maybe seeking treatment for postpartum psychosis in particular?

Willemijn De Bruin (57:35)
Well, think generally, think ⁓ I want mental health to be much more integrated in prenatal care. think ⁓ it will obviously depend on which country you are, but in almost every country you will go through the physical, the potential physical complications of pregnancy and childbirth. They'll tell you about signs of high blood pressure or, you know, those things.

And I just would like to see that mental health, maternal mental health is taken equally serious, like superfactual, like these are the kind of diseases, these are the symptoms, be aware, it can happen to anyone. So I feel like there must just be very transparent, clear communication already from the early stage. And I know this is not great. And for instance, I did this hypno birth course.

it wasn't really included. And I understand that because you're talking to expecting parents and you want them to be excited and you don't want to scare them. But if you don't want to, like you can't misinform people for that reason either. So generally I would really like to see that changed. And then secondly, and this is really critical, not just the parents need to know the symptoms. I feel that there is a big gap in...

Actually, healthcare professionals not knowing and understanding symptoms of ⁓ postpartum psychosis. And listening to the episode that you hinted to me of Nancy, it's shocking to hear that a person like her, she ended up on ENR and no one knew what was going on. She was sent home. The signs were not picked up, yet she was there in an emergency room.

Chelsea Myers (59:22)
Mm-hmm.

Willemijn De Bruin (59:25)
That is awful. That is the system failing her at so many levels. And that I would like to see differently. Every healthcare professional should be able to pick up these systems. ⁓ And that is aside from whether there should be specialized psychotic units. Of course, I would like to see mother and baby units everywhere accessible with the right capacity, not too far from your home. But that is more like, I feel like...

Chelsea Myers (59:40)
Mm-hmm.

Willemijn De Bruin (59:55)
that is a further win in some spaces. One that is critical, yes, but let's at least start with the fact that your normal existing healthcare system understands this concern. Because not everyone is lucky like me. Not everyone has a partner who picks it up. Not everyone happens to have a panic attack while the midwife is there. And also I was lucky it was a senior midwife who knew what was happening. I might've had...

Chelsea Myers (1:00:13)
Mm-hmm.

Willemijn De Bruin (1:00:22)
a junior midwife or someone who was not informed in, I would have not been picked up. So yeah, that's my main message to healthcare professionals that anyone who deals with pregnant people or people for early postpartum needs to understand the symptoms of postpartum psychosis and other maternal mental health diseases and take them very seriously because people die, mothers die and children die.

Chelsea Myers (1:00:44)
Yes. Yes. ⁓

And I will even take it a step beyond that. I think health care providers, yes, because they're the people that you're interfacing with the most, but even mental health care providers, at least in the US, again, I can't speak to other countries, but in their education, PMADs aren't even covered. And if they are, it's like a subsection of a subsection, it's like you mention it in a class one day, and then you never hear about it again. So I think

Willemijn De Bruin (1:01:13)
Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (1:01:14)
Yeah, so more understanding, more knowledge, more compassion ⁓ from healthcare providers and mental healthcare providers is so critical. ⁓ So I am, I'm gonna take us to my new section that I'm trying out. And it's gonna, it's interesting, we're gonna see how this goes. So I'm asking my guests to sort of...

reflect on your own journey, but we're gonna go, we're gonna pretend for a minute, us millennials that were back when we were like 12, 15, when we used to have to like leave messages on people's phones to get ahold of them. And I'm gonna ask you, you obviously have no idea who my next guest is. You have no idea what their story is.

you froze on my screen. good. There, you're still there. ⁓ No, no, it's okay. So you don't know who they are. You don't know what their story is, but you're gonna leave a message. You're leaving them a voicemail on the Quiet Connection line. And what message would you like to leave for the next parent that I speak to?

I know I don't either

that. That's a beautiful message. The fun part about this is that the guests aren't going to get their messages until the episodes air. So it's like a mystery. like your message, you'll get your message. Like, you'll have to listen to the episode before to hear what the message for you was. It's this thing that I'm just trying. I don't know. It feels kind of fun and it feels cool. And I also love that it creates connection between my guests.

So yeah, I appreciate you playing along.

Yeah!

I that. there are other episodes that are out or will be out that are specifically about postpartum psychosis. And I'm sure, like I said, I always say I can find a little piece of my story in everyone's story. And I think that's the beauty of connection. ⁓ If my listeners would like to connect with you and follow along your journey, ⁓ they will be linked in the show notes. But where would you like them to look for you?

Yep.

Yeah. I love it. It will be linked in the show notes. I always say check the show notes. There's always good stuff in there. But I'm so grateful that we finally got to connect and that this conversation felt so impactful. I know it's going to resonate with so many. And I'm just thankful to you for the for the work that you're doing and the life that you're living. And I'm excited to follow along in your journey.

Alright, I'm gonna hit stop. It won't hang up.