What is postpartum psychosis?

September 6, 2026 / 9:32 AM EDT / CBS News

Ten years ago, Meghan Cliffel was a working mother in New York City. In December 2015, she was back at work, eight months after giving birth to her second girl: "I had taken on a lot of work stress, and not quite feeling like myself, but outwardly, I was functioning well," she said. "And it wasn't until Friday, December 4th of 2015, when things just dramatically changed for me."

On that day, Cliffel says she began to believe she was being "surveilled." "And from that moment on, I am just lost in a totally deluded, terrifying reality, where I believe the entire city is out to get me," she said.

Then, she started to hallucinate. "The TV starts to change, and it's the face of a male relative of mine, and then he says, 'If she thinks she's getting out of this alive, she's got another thing coming,'" Cliffel said.

As her husband, Colin, remembers, the next morning Meghan's crisis engulfed the whole family: "I felt like I was interacting with a wholly different person," he said. "Her behavior in those, like, acute 12 hours in particular in our apartment…

Original source: https://www.cbsnews.com/entertainment/