My memoir, A Mom Like That, had a completely different title when I first started out. It was supposed to be called The Secret We Keep. It felt like the perfect fit, especially since postpartum psychosis is the taboo topic related to motherhood that nobody wants to talk about. But when my editor advised that my title should allude to the book's actual content, I knew I had to head back to the drawing board. While I brainstormed, I thought about the experiences that made me feel like greater public awareness was necessary — that’s how the new title came to me.
I had heard moms use that exact turn of phrase so many times. “It’s not like I’m a mom like that,” I’d overhear mothers say while chatting at children’s play dates or while out to grab a coffee. I’d even hear it at support groups. People would use it to signal to everyone present that no matter what difficulties they were experiencing as a new mom, they were not like those moms. The ones who ended up taking their children’s lives because they were crazy, unmotherly, or evil.
Hearing those words would always have the same impact on me: they would make me cringe and want to hide. I knew too well that many of those moms weren’t evil; they were suffering from what is known to be the most severe psychiatric condition that a woman can ever experience in her lifetime. I knew this because I was a mom like that.
In the aftermath of tragedies stemming from postpartum psychosis, it is not unusual to find these moms, who stand accused of the most heinous of crimes, defended by their loved ones – even by spouses who themselves are still reeling from the loss of their child. Far from being blind support, what it speaks to is what this illness does: ravage the mind of those afflicted to convince otherwise rational loving moms to believe harming themself or their children is necessary. This is what makes this illness so terrifying: how it can cause a sane woman to become completely insane simply because of medical events related to childbirth.
I hope that those who read A Mom Like That will see how those who had tragic outcomes to their postpartum psychosis stories are not innately evil. Besides having been afflicted with the most severe of all psychiatric disorders, these women are not all that different from every other mom out there.
Aaisha Alvi is a postpartum psychosis awareness advocate. She volunteers with various maternal mental health organizations, including Postpartum Support International. Learn more here.