Rochelle Hine presented her PhD research, which explores recovery in mental illness among mothers living in rural areas, at The South West Families and Recovery Conference last week.

Ms Hine, who is also co-ordinates the South West Families where a Parent has a Mental Illness Strategy, said among the findings was the critical support needed for new mums.

The research involved interviewing 17 mothers, aged from their 20s to their 50s, about their experience.

“Something they talked about a lot was their experience, of when they first became mothers, of parents’ groups. That’s a real opportunity I think, a lot of them were really yearning to connect with other mothers and the groups sometimes didn’t really facilitate that very well, they felt different, the didn’t feel included so that was a negative experience for them in the end,” Ms Hine said.

“That’s a real opportunity to build on and make sure there are groups for mothers that are supportive and inclusive and non-judgmental.”

Ms Hine said the research also showed that living in a rural area and being generally more well-known in the community could have both positive and negative impacts on mothers recovering from mental illness.

“In a few cases it’s been in a positive way. These are the sort of women who have lived in the community for a long time and have pre-existing relationships before they’ve developed a mental illness and before they’ve been a parent,” she said.

“Sometimes that’s been really helpful for them that they can have a chat to people in the supermarket or they can go to a service and they recognise someone there, someone they can trust and talk to about their needs.”

But Ms Hine said there were broader issues at play other than just living with a mental illness.

“It’s not so much about services and support but about having adequate housing and getting them out of poverty and things like that,” she said.

“Things were really hard for these women, parenting is hard, living day to day is hard.

“The other thing that is really strong is… a lot of them have experienced childhood trauma and different types of abuse in childhood and adult life. They said that in recovery they weren’t really recovering from the mental illness… these women were talking about needing to recover from a traumatic event that led to the mental illness.

“Sometimes that had happened very early in their childhood… one of them said ‘I’ve always been this way and now it’s got a diagnosis’.”

Ms Hine said a diverse range of women took part in the study.

“There were women from different cultural backgrounds, different income levels, some lived in public housing in small towns, some lived on family farms,” she said.

What many had in common, however, was wanting to break the cycle that had continued for generations.

“The women talked about being really proud to have left violent relationships, or to have become less reliant on alcohol or things like that, to be really consciously making an effort to change in the context of really struggling under very difficult circumstances,” Ms Hine said.