Oxford university, postnatal depression and me
Mental health issues among students are slowly gaining recognition, but awareness of postnatal depression is almost non-existent. Emily Beater recalls how she coped with it alongside studying at Oxford
Emily Beater
Published on April 13 2017
Last updated September 12 2023
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I found out that I was pregnant during Freshers' Week. My mind often flitsto that moment, the two pinklinesand my shock and exhilaration. Like manyundergraduates, I came to the University of Oxford with a dread of inadequacy. Now, my body was doing something wonderful, driving me towards a point that fear could not prevent.
The rest was complicated. I had to tell my parents, just days after I had left for university, that I was having a baby. My internet search for pregnancy brought up images of mature women, rings glistening, full of smiles.Married? Tick. Late-20s? Tick. I was the otherstock-image girl with head in hands, attracting words like "epidemic" and information on terminations.
An incredulous “what happened?” from someone, pulled me further into my fear of failure. I did not immediately begin feeling like this was a catastrophe. I absorbed it from a society that deemed my situation a disaster.
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I returned to Oxford with my partner and our three-month-old daughter. In my first year as a student parent, I found work exhilarating. I didn't know I was depressed, only that I loathed housework, never slept and sat in a kind ofmessy shock.
Studying had colour and control. It was always a relief to return to my laptop after an evening of childcare tasks, which only seemed to increase with the grey of my mood.
I felt like an awfulmother. Iloved my daughter, yet I wasan imposter. I would look at her, herrosebud mouth and chubby warmth, her material realness and the weight of her. She needed security. However, I was nothing, a clay creature who scraped myself up and gave everything. But it wasn't enough.
I lived hanging on by my fingernails frettingabout sending herto nursery on a student loan,about my career-less state, about the future.
Ouraccommodationwas full of parents doing a master's or DPhils (I was the only undergraduate), yet my isolation was painful. I think the student parent is simply trying to survive, our schedules so punishing that even networking feels like a guilty distraction.
The weeks consumed us. Playgroup dates and mum meet-ups rushed by as we battled between our children and the intense turnover of work.IfI did attend agroup, I feltlike a spy with a dirty secret.
Postnatal depression made me angry.A tick-list recording depression often neglects theviolence of feelings. Weepiness, irritability and loss of appetite all suggest misery, a gentle wasting. But whatabout when you wanta bus to crush you? What about at 3 o'clock in the morning when you finallycrawl into bed, hear the baby cry and youdream deeply and lucidly of throttlingyourself? My throat welled with knives at every noise, voices stabbed like a cattle prod.
I wanted everything tostop, just for a second. The tiredness was torture, but who dares mention torture in relation tomotherhood? I deeply loved and welcomed my daughter, yet I was young, andshe wasn't part of a plan.
Within motherhood, sleep deprivation and mental deterioration are rarely understood or accepted. Surely it would adversely affect any of us? Andwhen tiredness turns into suicidal thoughts or psychosis, people wring their hands and wonder why. If we cannot have honest discussions about motherhood, if we cannot eliminate the stigma of feelings considered unnatural in mothers, how can we helpthose with postnatal depression?
We must stop thinking there is something defunct in mothers who struggle to bond with their babies, who are exhausted and who find continually caring for another human being difficult. We must stop linking mothers to a state of never suffering or never admitting they suffer. Being a mother can be wonderful, life-affirming and definitive. It can also be very hard and this should reapunderstanding, not shame.
As a depressed young student mum, I know that having to fight stereotypes of failure on top of motherhood and mental illness is not only demoralising, it is pointless. Like all human beings, young parents need support, respect and legitimisation to flourish in the world.
Emily Beater is asecond-year undergraduate student at the University of Oxford
Read more:
Universities must ‘gather round table’ to discuss mental health
If you are affected by any of the issues discussed in this piece, please contact for further advice.
