Deakin University study reveals how death of a mother affects women

Jaymee Williams has revealed her own personal battle after the shock early death of her mother, amid new findings into the impact losing a mother has on adult daughters.

Exclusive: When Jaymee Williams was struggling to cope with the shock early death of her mother she was prescribed antidepressants instead of being offered grief counselling.

The 30-year-old is one of many women who support group Motherless Daughters Australia (MDA) claim are having their natural grief “pathologised” as a mental illness.

The organisation is calling for new Medicare rebates for grief counselling, a review of bereavement leave and other support to help daughters cope with their loss.

MDA said more than a million Australian women lost their mother before the age of 44 and it is having a profound impact on their lives as they face major life events like weddings and childbirth without their key supporter and cheerleader.

A new survey of more than 2700 daughters who lost their mother commissioned by Motherless Daughters found those who were older at the time of their mother’s death experienced poorer mental health and physical outcomes.

“We found that daughters who were less secure in their attachment, who were more dependent on their mother, who provided personal care to their mother, and who did not expect their mother’s death, generally experienced poorer outcomes,” Deakin University researcher Jessica Bowring said.

Last year a Stockholm University study found children who have lost a mother ran a 33 per cent higher risk of taking antidepressants.

Jaymee Williams, with mother Sharon, who died suddenly from late stage ovarian cancer last year. Picture: Supplied

Ms Williams, from Newcastle in NSW, was devastated when her mother Sharon was diagnosed with late stage ovarian cancer last year.

“We only really had 12 days from her diagnosis day to the day we lost her, which is quite horrific,” Ms Williams said.

The only child had already lost her aunt and her pop in the last three years and was very close to her mother who had coached her in netball from the age of four.

As she struggled to cope with her loss the mortgage broker went to the doctor hoping for a referral to a grief counsellor or a psychologist but instead was prescribed the antidepressant Lexapro.

After taking the medication she felt so emotionally “numb’ she did not even shed tears when she came across her mother’s funeral book one day.

She stopped using the medicine after three weeks.

“You should be allowed to be sad and grieve, and shed some tears, but I was not, and obviously that was the medication. This isn’t right, you shouldn’t feel nothing,” she said.

Danielle Snelling, co-founder of Motherless Daughters, lost her mum at the age of 23. Picture: Supplied

“It’s really alarming to us because that feeds into grief being pathologised. And grief is not a mental illness,” said Motherless Daughters support group co-founder Danielle Snelling.

Adelaide University psychiatrist Professor Jon Jureidini agrees.

“You’re putting somebody onto a medication that has real harms and real difficulties with getting off,” Prof Jureidini said.

“The most underrated intervention in medicine is watchful waiting. For somebody who’s distressed within a month of their mother dying, then some validation of that emotional response is really powerful,” he said.

MDA provide a number of support services including one that matches women who have lost their mother with other people of the same age in their region so they can meet and provide support to each other.