Nine days after giving birth to my daughter, I told my husband I had a prophecy to share.
It was nighttime, and I’d been trying in vain to fall asleep when I suddenly heard a booming voice say something incredible: I was going to rewrite the Bible.
The voice was so loud that I almost covered my ears. An adrenaline rush hit me like never before – it felt like electricity was running through my veins.
From the look on my husband’s face, I could tell he was concerned – we are not the kind of people who hear from God – but I was too excited to care. God was telling me secrets. I felt deliriously happy.
The day after I started hearing God’s voice, my husband and father drove me to a local hospital for an evaluation. I spent the entire drive muttering to myself.
They diagnosed me with postpartum psychosis, and I didn’t leave the hospital for 17 days. During my stay, I filled up a stack of notebooks with the messages I received.
I believed my baby was the second coming of Jesus, that Satan had possessed my body and that the nurses were trying to kill me.
I refused to shower, wash my hair or clean my teeth because God told me that, if I did, I’d die.
Ayana Lage believed Satan had possessed her body, and that the nurses were trying to kill her
The couple’s joy at the birth of their baby soon turned sinister when Lage started to show signs of postpartum psychosis, believing their child to be the second coming of Christ
Unable to see loved ones or my baby – and sometimes unsure whether I’d actually had a baby at all – my once-rational thought process was consumed with delusions, and overnight, I turned into a fearless charismatic, obeying what I believed to be God’s orders.
Postpartum psychosis is often associated with infanticide. When left untreated, four percent of sufferers will kill their infants.
Lindsay Clancy allegedly strangled her three children in 2023 while her husband was picking up takeout food for the family.
In 2001, Andrea Yates drowned her five children in a bathtub.
Their stories unsettle me, but we are inextricably linked, and I feel a particular kinship that’s only possible when you’ve heard the same voices.
If I’d been home, not in a psychiatric ward, and the voice told me to send my child to heaven, I almost certainly would’ve listened. It’s hard for me to finish that thought.
Before I became fully psychotic, I marveled at the level of energy I felt. Going to bed felt like a waste of time. Now I see it for what it was: a glaring warning sign.
Lindsay Clancy allegedly strangled her three children in 2023 while her husband was picking up takeout food for the family
Clancy didn’t have a postpartum psychosis diagnosis at the time of the murders, but her attorneys have suggested it could have been a factor
This is just one of my journal entries from that time:
‘I scrawl “I need to see my baby” on a scrap of paper with a stubby pencil. My handwriting is slanted and hurried. The words will escape me if I don’t get them out fast enough.
‘The baby in question is my daughter. Or maybe she isn’t? I ask God whether I’ve imagined her. He reassures me that she’s the second coming of Jesus. I smile.’
My mind was gone. My grasp on reality was severed. But the baby – at least the idea of her – was enough to keep me going. I felt a primal pull.
Another long, delusional journal entry reads: ‘The doctor has striking brown eyes and speaks in a gentle tone. I will google him later and would not be surprised to learn he has a dozen five-star patient reviews.
‘Unfortunately, he is Satan.
‘This revelation comes to me one morning as I sit in the common room of the ward, waiting for God to share more.
‘He seemed perfectly pleasant when I first met him, so it is disappointing that Dr Ramirez is working against me.
‘Because he is Satan, the so-called psychiatrist is also overseeing the hospital’s illegal experiments. The doctors at the hospital hold secret meetings to figure out how to bring down people with special powers; at least one other patient on the ward also hears from God, although I’m not sure I believe her proclamations.
‘Also, some nurses are patients in disguise, trying to trick me. They aren’t doing this independently; Dr Ramirez has engineered the whole thing to mess with me.
In 2001, Andrea Yates drowned her five children in a bathtub
Yates’s murder conviction was later overturned and she was found not guilty by reason of insanity as she suffered from postpartum psychosis
‘I don’t know who I can trust, so I refuse to take my medication. You would, too, if it might poison you. Although I’m already dead, so how could I be poisoned? Wait. I’m not dead yet. I am in a coma. My family is holding a prayer vigil outside the hospital, and thousands of people have joined. The movement has gone viral, and they are surrounded by news cameras.
‘But I can’t even enjoy the great news because I’m surrounded by people who want to kill me. This isn’t a real hospital, anyway. It’s hell’s waiting room, where you go after you die.
‘God decides whether you’ll burn for the rest of eternity, but he has to give you a second chance. My first test is stopping Dr Ramirez and his staff from murdering us. If I do that, God will welcome me into heaven.’
What makes someone likely to develop postpartum psychosis? A family history of bipolar disorder, or experiencing a complicated or traumatic birth contribute. Sleep deprivation and hormonal changes may also play a role.
I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety in college, after years of struggling silently.
My family was deeply religious, and I desperately tried to convince God to heal me of my mental health conditions.
Eventually, I started to resent him for not doing what the Bible promised he’d do. I think that’s why it was so intoxicating when I felt like he started to talk to me during the psychotic episode. Finally, he was listening.
But some of the messages he ‘sent’ were deeply disturbing – like this one I recorded in my journal:
‘Every corner of hell’s waiting room smells like death. I hold my breath as long as I can, but eventually, I am confronted again with the horrific odor.
‘This is the proof I’ve been looking for. Not only is the hospital running cruel experiments on patients, torturing us for no reason, but the doctors are also killing us. God hasn’t prepared me for this.
Nine days after giving birth to their daughter, Lage told her husband, Vagner, she had a prophecy to share
‘I ask him for the bravery to investigate further. Suddenly, he tells me to go to the shower room. I open the door, and the stench hits me. I gag, afraid that I am going to throw up.
‘The smell is awful, but it is far from the worst thing I am experiencing. The shower is filled with dead people piled waist-high. I cautiously get closer, but I cannot hide my terror.
‘As I approach, I concentrate on the faces frozen in terror. To my horror, I realize they are patients. I have wondered where people are disappearing to, and now it is unfortunately clear.
‘The so-called nurses have been asking me if I want to take a shower, and I knew it was a bad, bad, bad idea. I just couldn’t place why. Now, I know. If I ever come back to this room, I will die.’
The idea of taking medication also terrified me: ‘I’ll die a slow, agonizing death, writhing on the floor until my body gives in if I take the pills. The staff filled them with chemicals that’ll kill me. I know this deep down in my heart.’
But I felt an unexpected pull when, several days into my stay, one nurse patiently explained that the pills would help me. It was the first step to saving my own life.
‘The day-shift nurses are angels, but the night shift is made up of demons in disguise. It’s the middle of the day. I can trust her,’ I wrote.
‘I take the cup. I feel wonder when I look down at my hand. It feels like I’m holding seashells from the beach. One round one that reminds me of butterscotch. A light pink capsule similar to my favorite nail polish color. Tiny blue tablets. Could Satan create something this beautiful?
Ayana said she has a long, complicated history with faith, and could not help but think about how it intertwined with her psychosis
‘I believe God, but maybe I misheard him on this one. Besides, I’m exhausted. Death doesn’t sound so bad, and dying a martyr means I’ll definitely go to heaven.
‘I wash down the handful of pills with apple juice and wait. Nothing happens. I’m not dying.
‘If God got this wrong, what else is he lying about?’
I can’t help but think of my long, complicated history with faith and how it intertwines with my psychosis. I spent years praying for a miracle, convinced God would help me because the Bible said to expect it of him.
I didn’t need to see a doctor because God is both all-powerful and in charge of the universe. He would save me from myself. But he didn’t. So I ended up on psychiatric meds – a move that was years overdue.
Getting well enough to leave the hospital was a fight. But the most challenging part was still ahead of me.
Excerpted from Missing Me by Ayana Lage. (Copyright 2026) Used with permission from Worthy Books, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
