Ā Tātou Kōrero | Our Stories

Eva’s story

“I hated that I was hurting everyone around me, and that everyone would be a lot better if I wasn’t me. I was pregnant with my fourth child. I wanted to kill myself again. And I thought, you know what, I’m just going to crash my car. And then they booked me an appointment.

And he said to me, when was the first time you had postnatal depression? And I said, well, I think it might have been when I was pregnant with my second child. And he looked at me and he said, “Well, I don’t have it here on the records.” And I say to him “Well, at the time, why didn’t I get help?” I felt really vulnerable in that moment. At that point, I kind of had my guard up, ‘Who the F are you? To tell me my life? You don’t know me. You haven’t walked in my shoes!’, but it was almost as if he was looking past me.

You put all of your faith and all of your everything into the health professionals. I just didn’t feel that trust in him or any kind of compassion. I feel like every interaction I had was always about medication. Always. ‘Why haven’t you taken them?’ ‘Because I’m scared.’ ‘Okay, we’re going to change them. We’re going to put you on something else.’ I think that the system is too clinical. I think instead of treating me like I’m a person instead of looking at my whakapapa, instead of understanding that I have intergenerational trauma, ‘Let’s put you on meds.’ and yeah, it just didn’t work.”

Eva’s story forms part of our Power of Contact Video series. This video was created for care professionals, to help reduce the stigma and discrimination when working with Māori whānau, and to become providers who are less biased and know how to practice without personal judgement which can only benefit our pregnant māmā and new parents.

Watch: Power of Contact – Reducing the stigma and discrimination – a Mātauranga Māori approach on YouTube.