ARIANE BEESTON Because I’m Not Myself, You See. Reviewed by Mary Garden

Ariane Beeston’s memoir chronicles her experience of postpartum psychosis, a devastating but little-understood condition.

Because I’m Not Myself, You See casts a spotlight on an issue I knew nothing about. Postpartum psychosis is the most severe form of postpartum psychiatric illness and a rare event. Beeston writes that ‘it affects around one to two in every 1000 mums’. In this illness, delusional beliefs are common and often focus on the child. There is a risk of infanticide as well as suicide.

Beeston is a child protection worker and newly registered psychologist when she gives birth to her first child. She is candid and courageous in writing about her experiences, as nothing can be more exposing than ‘failing as a mother’ and disconnecting from reality during what she wanted to be the ‘happiest moment of her life’.

Unable to sleep, I lie staring at the ceiling. Although I feel a little numb, a little removed, a little not-quite-right, I have not cried. I do not cry. I do not sleep.

‘You can get a bit teary when your milk comes in,’ Mum says when she visits one evening after work with my beloved Nonna. ‘The baby blues. Day three or four is when it usually hits.’

I brace for blue, but all I see is grey.

Beeston struggles through the next few months. She details her chronic sleeplessness ‒ ‘Dizzy with exhaustion, drunk with it, I fantasise about sleep. I lust for it’ ‒ and her difficulties breastfeeding ‒ ‘How could I possibly fail at something so “natural”?’  But then she begins to hallucinate. She is on her way home from work when her baby turns into a dragon.

We are standing at the lights of a busy intersection, waiting to cross the road. […] It’s not the first time it’s happened. I’ve seen dragons before – in the cot, the swings, the highchair. But this one is angry and fierce and red.

And she can’t stop crying; she does not want to be alive anymore. Her doctor prescribes Zoloft, an SSRI, and refers her to a perinatal psychiatrist, who is of little help. (Perinatal is the period of time from pregnancy up to a year after giving birth.) This psychiatrist remarks, ‘You’re a psychologist. Have you tried any cognitive behavioral techniques?’ implying that she should have been able to fix herself. He then proceeds to tell her there’s an emerging literature around mothers and first episode bipolar type 2.  

I feel the heat swell in my cheeks … I want to say to the psychiatrist, ‘What the fuck could you possibly know about being a new mum? How the fuck could you possibly help me? But I don’t. Instead, I pay for the session and leave.

One of the most disturbing aspects of Beeston’s story is the fact that severe forms of mental distress can be hard to detect, and are also sometimes ignored, which can have tragic results.

She is fortunate. When her depression does not improve, her doctor suggests she and her baby go into hospital, a mother and baby psychiatric unit. The three-week stay in that unit is lifesaving, although it will not be the last time Beeston needs to be hospitalised.

Over time, Beeston rebuilds herself. She learns to manage her illness with the help of medication, the support of her husband and her family, regular psychiatric treatment and psychotherapy. She learns to love activities like ballet again.

There are societal myths around motherhood, that maternal love is biological and instinctual, and that a mother has failed if they ‘don’t feel the crash of love at first sight’, if they don’t bond with their baby instantly. Beeston does a brilliant job detailing her struggles, sharing her feelings of ‘failure, remoteness, shame and guilt’, and how she was completely blindsided by her experiences of new parenthood. She challenges the narrative of perfect pregnancies and perfect mothers, and highlights the harm caused by these motherhood myths.

When women struggle with motherhood, I feel an instant need to swoop in and protect them. When they don’t, I often feel jealous, envious that their experience wasn’t as terrible as mine. I feel like a monster even thinking this, but it’s true.

Because I’m Not Myself, You See is beautifully written but it is not without its flaws, and at times runs the risk of overstatement. Beeston refers to ‘an oft-cited study’ published in 1980 in The British Journal of Psychology (the study can be found here) in which 40 per cent of first-time mothers said their predominant emotion when holding their baby for the first time was indifference. When I looked up the article, I found that most of these mothers developed affection for their babies within a week of delivery. In a later chapter, Beeston writes that postnatal depression ‘occurs in one in seven new mums’. This is an alarming statistic, but when I investigated further, I discovered that some of these mothers had a depressive disorder before pregnancy (there are estimates of around 30 per cent) and there are other risk factors such as having family members who’ve had depression or other mood disorders.

Most striking is the omission of citations and accompanying endnotes. Although there is a comprehensive list of references at the end of the book (which readers may not be aware of until they’ve finished reading), I wanted to know the sources Beeston used to support her claims. I could find no references for some of the statistics mentioned, such as the one for postnatal depression above, or that ‘postpartum psychosis occurs in 1 in 1000 pregnancies’ and ‘perinatal depression and anxiety affects one in five mothers’. (A quick search of the literature reveals that rather than exact figures, qualifiers are often used such as ‘around’, ‘up to’ or ‘between’. For example, ‘between 1-2 in 1000 births’  is frequently cited in relation to postpartum psychosis and ‘up to one in five’ for postpartum depression and anxiety.)

Despite these minor criticisms, Because I’m Not Myself, You See is an important book that deserves to be widely read. It could save lives. It is a challenging and difficult read, but will resonate especially with those who have had similar experiences of motherhood ‒ not only those who may have suffered postpartum disorders, but all those mothers who’ve experienced difficulties breastfeeding, extreme sleep deprivation or social isolation. Hopefully, it will help other people have more understanding of, and empathy towards, those women on the emotional roller coaster of matrescence.

Ariane Beeston Because I’m Not Myself, You See Black Inc 2024 PB 320pp $36.99

Mary Garden is an award-winning author and a journalist, with a PhD in Journalism (USC). She lives in Castlemaine in regional Victoria, on Dja Dja Wurrung Country. Her new book My Father’s Suitcase was published in 2024.

You can buy Because I’m Not Myself, You See from Abbey’s at a 10% discount by quoting the promotion code NEWTOWNREVIEW.

You can also check if it is available from Newtown Library.

If you’d like to help keep the Newtown Review of Books a free and independent site for book reviews, please consider making a donation. Your support is greatly appreciated.

Tags: Ariane | Beeston, Australian women writers, matrescence, memoir, motherhood myths, postnatal depression, postpartum psychosis