You Can’t Ask That: Postnatal Depression (ABC TV Wed 1 June 2022)

Having a child is marketed as one of the most exciting and rewarding experiences a person can have. But what if it’s not the case? What if that happiness is replaced by sadness? What if the only way out appears to be causing harm to yourself or your child?

Antoinette was passionate about her work, her daughter, her husband, and her life. Despite this, she described feeling dread and depression shortly after giving birth.

“All of a sudden the room started to close in on me and I felt incredibly claustrophobic, and all around me is joy and then I feel I can’t show how I’m feeling because I’m ashamed that I should be happy and I’m not,” she says.

When Lorraine had her first child in the 1980s postnatal depression was not yet on the radar, and remains largely misunderstood today.

“I didn’t know the difference between the utter exhaustion of looking after a brand-new baby, with the utter exhaustion that’s associated with depression,” she says.

As many as 1 in 5 women and 1 in 10 men experience depression in the year after the birth of their baby. Lorraine says it left her feeling “incapable, unworthy, a failure.”

Airdate: Wednesday 1 June 2022 at 9.00pm on ABC.