Mental health has always been on the periphery of my day-to-day life. As is the case for so many others, I know too many people who have suffered from depression and are no longer here to tell their story. Despite this, it wasn’t until late last year that I became aware of how multifaceted mental health problems are. This shouldn’t have surprised me, given how there are so many different ailments we can suffer from, physically, so why would this not be the case for our mental health as well?
In November 2019, I learned that a friend was in hospital due to injuries sustained as she battled through the darkest moments of postpartum psychosis—a condition I hadn’t previously heard of—months after the birth of her beautiful baby. I had heard of postnatal depression, but not psychosis. Some quick research told me how this was a condition affecting one in 1000 mothers and included having hallucinations and hearing voices. Terrifyingly, this condition didn’t discriminate, as it could affect