Keila's story: from patient to peer support

Kelia is one of a growing number of Derbyshire Healthcare peer support workers, whose personal experience of mental ill health allows them to help others with similar struggles. 
“Helping people at one of the darkest times in their life is such a privilege and a blessing. I feel honoured to be walking with them on this journey.”
This journey is one that perinatal peer support worker Kelia O’Brien is all too familiar with, having suffered with her mental health after the birth of her little boy Foxx.
“It really can happen to anybody, even people who’ve never suffered with their mental health before,” said Kelia, who is part of the Trust’s Perinatal (mother and baby) mental health team. “You can be so happy to have got pregnant, really excited about having your baby and then you end up really poorly in ways you’ve never experienced before.”
Kelia was only 22 when she found out she was pregnant.
“It was unplanned so it was a real shock. But when I’d got used to the idea, I was really excited and so looking forward to being a mum,” she said. “I had this picture of my body as a temple and I was going to nourish it – but in reality, I just grew big and miserable!
“It was then that my mental health issues really started to ramp up. I became obsessive about things and my anxiety was through the roof. I was terrified of giving birth and I couldn’t even think about what life would be like when my baby was born because pregnancy and birth were scaring me so much.”
Kelia became so ill that she couldn’t leave the house.
“I was having really intrusive and uncomfortable thoughts. I was convinced my baby was dead inside me and that I was having a miscarriage.”
When Foxx was born, Kelia’s anxieties initially disappeared - “I was in a little magic bubble, running on love and adrenaline” - but, over time, the intrusive thoughts started to creep back in, along with uncomfortable visions, leaving her feeling like “the world’s worst human being”.
“I couldn’t understand why I was having these awful thoughts. I felt abnormal, like a horrible mother, so had all these feelings of guilt as well. I didn’t tell anyone because I thought they would take my baby away from me,” she said.
“I became really withdrawn and wouldn’t leave the house with my baby; I was just surviving.” 
Kelia was referred to a community psychiatric nurse and a nursery nurse to help her, and said: “Even though they were absolutely lovely, I didn’t engage with them because I was convinced I was going to be seen as an unfit mother and my baby would be taken away from me.”
Thankfully she had support from her mum and some good friends, who helped her come through it.
But Kelia admits: “If I’d known what I know now, I would have done things very differently. I should have engaged from the start, been open and honest, and then I know I would have got a lot better a lot sooner.
“It’s this that made me want to be a peer support worker. I want to help people who feel like I did, and show them there is a way out. They can tell me anything and I won’t judge. I can sympathise from a place of experience.
“When I was poorly, I was a real mood sucker, but when I started to get better, the cloud over me got smaller and smaller and one day a big gust of wind came and blew it away.”
Two years in, Kelia loves the diversity of her role. “It’s really person-centred. We do goal setting, for example some people might find it totally overwhelming going to the shops, so one week we will just drive to the shops and sit in the car for a bit. The next time, we might go in, perhaps not buy anything, but just walk around. Then we’ll go with baby, get a couple of bits. Eventually we will build up to them being able to do a shop independently. Just those little things are life-changing.”
Kelia believes social media plays a big part in affecting new parents’ mental health these days. “They see perfect celebrities on Instagram, back to pre-baby weight in weeks, showing off this perfect lifestyle and they feel they can’t measure up to that, that they’re not good enough. But when you have a baby, your life is turned upside down, nothing can prepare you for it, and people need a safe environment to express themselves when things aren’t great, and that is where I come in.
“I feel so honoured to be in this role. It is a blessing to be able to help people.”