• It’s been nearly six months since I put out my first list and my baby is nearly a year. He’s crawling, saying ‘mama’ and ‘dada’ and at last has his first tooth coming. Natures never done anything crueler than giving a baby who loves food so much no teeth.
  • And wow. I am here to see it all.
  • He’s currently asleep in my arms and I am quite OBSESSED and in love.
  • It feels like a good time to write.
  • I’m months off my anti psychotics and feeling happier and healthier than ever.
  • With Christmas here I know and understand that this can be a tough time for some people going through something difficult, especially with the added stress and pressure of the expectation to be feeling la la la happy and merry when you’re just not- any new Mum can identify with THAT feeling! Having a baby is meant to be the ultimate Christmas! And it doesn’t always (maybe ever?!) work out like that.
  • It’s also the end of the year and the beginning of a new one. I have to say I am grateful for the cold air, the chance to breath and layer up in jumpers, an excuse to hibernate indoors with a candle, play with my son and can feel less exposed after what has been the most soul stripping year of my life. Also my kind and gentle and smart psychiatrist, Dr Jeremy Pfeffer, who has been treating me for almost a year and who has been practising for decades, is retiring and I wanted him to be proud of himself and say thank you.
  • I really can’t even believe I’m here – SO ALIVE – and able to tell this tale. And that I am even able to even write with my actual own brain that I know once again and trust, one that hasn’t been hijacked by some wicked illness. One that can say ‘I am well’ and mean it without lying. That I can hold it together through pink lipstick instead of hoping I don’t crack whilst reading to 600 kids in a school hall a book about a cookie and a recorder-playing cactus. That I’m able to wave goodbye to this dark helter skelter of 2018 – which I believed to be the worst year of my life with confidence and to honestly say that actually this a happy story after all. I have my health, my happiness and my son! And maybe… JUST maybe… this was in fact – after everything – even the best year of my life.
  • Let me explain…
  • Firstly I just want to say what an overwhelming reaction I had to my last list, the response has been incredible- thank you.
  • Not only to receive the kindness and support from so many brave and inspiring people that gave me hope and comfort in that seriously horrendous time, every message mattered but also the honesty and openness from so many that have suffered and struggled with mental illness / mental health of any kind. The spectrum is vast and the experience is universal. As abstract as mental illness is, it certainly doesn’t discriminate, we are all on the radar and none of us are immune from suffering – it can happen to anybody at any time. As I said in my previous post, I’ve never experienced mental health issues prior to this, it’s one of those individual unique life lessons that you can only really learn the hard way. But once we do, we see the bigger picture. We remember that we are a social species and that we are built and designed to SURVIVE and the good news is that we ARE able to recover but also – if not more importantly- we are also built and designed to take care of each other. And I’ve truly seen and experienced that. Once you open up about a ‘taboo’ like this (which is ridiculous in itself as it shouldn’t be a taboo as the shame of it only inflames the anxiety and depression even more, when really, it unites us) there is an enormous gulf shrunk, an immediate absence of the dreaded ‘small talk’, a compassion, an empathy and a warmth. And most of all- HUMOUR!
  • I have been so surprised at the amount of people that appear on the surface as though they have their ‘shit together’ and in real life are struggling that have reached out to me.
  • The amount of people that I know that are on meds, that are silently addicted, or drowning in the air they live in.
  • Basically don’t be surprised to learn that EVERYBODY is going through something.
  • But don’t see this as sad, see it as reassuringly soothing, comforting and liberating to know that we are not alone at all- yes! the one thing that depression loves to tell us that we are. Alone! Well we really are not Ha. Ha. Depression. You are wrong.
  • And a special thank you to all the women from all across the world that have reached out to me and since seeked help.
  • The women that hadn’t even told their partners that they were struggling, women that have felt trapped and alone from motherhood- with or without Postnatal Depression (and thats without the psychosis added on top!) I think what’s evident is whether the initial shock of motherhood is a positive or negative experience it is still a sharp shock nonetheless and you will feel out of your own skin and like a different person afterwards, regardless of how wonderful/ terrible your birth is, no matter how much support you have or how much you try and mentally prepare yourself.
  • Basically the moral to the story of motherhood is prepare to be unprepared. No yoga ball bouncing, raspberry leaf tea sipping will prepare you for it, babes. Because anything can happen.
  • The whole thing is a messy love story of heartache. Of how much you realise you love your baby and how much you realised you love the ‘you’ you’ve just left behind.
  • But this is to say something really exciting- you will WILL get her back. So Merry Christmas to that. And you will love and cherish and respect and take care of her even more than you did before. In fact the ‘you’ you thought you lost is with you more than ever and she is actually about to become your favourite person!
  • and here is why…
  • I’ll be honest and say that even when I wrote my last piece I wasn’t fully recovered.
  • I kept thinking ‘I’m here, I’m back to my old self’ and then the next week would roll around and I’d feel even more like myself and then again and again. I’d have a dip and slip backwards, like climbing up an ice mountain wearing flip flops made of melted butter. But then I’d catch myself in a moment, have a certain thought in my head, or do a thing that felt like me and be like ‘no…THIS is me, this is who I’ve been trying to get back to.’
  • It was like slowly getting my vision back, turning the volume up. I look at photographs of myself of the past year and don’t even recognise myself and yet there I was putting my clothes on and going about life on autopilot. Doing all the things I was meant to be doing but without really doing them. I thought I’d done everything in my power to get better but turns out, like revising for an exam, there is ALWAYS more to be done and that really meant making ‘getting better’ my full time job. So I wanted to write this list with perspective, write my recovery and last but by no means least, share HOW I actually got better. Its all well and good living to tell the tale but some of you reading this might be stuck yourself (as many of the women who wrote to me were/ are) thinking YES THIS IS ME, I can relate…but what now? How can I help myself? Because at the time, when I was deep inside it, I would have given ANYTHING to be well again. So I will share that stuff here because there have been some vital things I’ve learnt along the way that have become a daily part of my recovery and, I believe, skills I’ve learnt for life that have improved me as a person.
  • Lots of people on this ‘journey’ kept reassuring me that it will ‘get better’ (I’ve heard this phrase from a trillion different people from various stand points- mums, GP’s, friends, fellow authors, people in the Park, my family, my psychiatrist) but no matter how many times you are told- IT WILL GET BETTER, I’ll be honest and say I kind of didn’t believe it actually would. When you are in the depths of any type of mental illness aka HELL you cannot see any form of hope or return back to your old self, in fact the map to the road of your own self has been chewed up and swallowed down by some evil crazy monster who wants you dead and you actually believe that this will be you forever; Numb. Zombie like. Cold. Unlovable. A burden. And you believe you will have to begin again. And no matter how much I tried and wanted to believe I would get better and still laughed and rocked my son to sleep and changed his nappy and fed him marmite on toast that he smashed up with his little toothless gums. I’d do all the motions but I never truly believed I’d feel like my old self again and suddenly…it happened.
  • Because guess what guys? Depression LIES!
  • I could write more of the gory details of what this year has entailed, what sad thoughts spun through my head and the lack of love I felt towards myself and my baby (and a lot of it is quite boring and uneventful and slow) but I would really love, instead, to move forward and share the pearls of wisdom I’ve learnt along the way in the process of putting myself back together. Please note this is not ‘self help’ as I am not qualified in any way, I have just done a TON of work and read a LOT of books. But with that in mind I believe self help can help. I value and love the NHS but what can we do about the intense waiting lists for therapy (both for cognitive and psychotherapy) and the opportunity to meet with a psychiatrist? They are so stretched, there must be more we can do to support the NHS? I have met too many women (and any sufferers of mental health) that don’t have ‘six weeks’ spare to wait around for this kind of treatment. When you are suffering from PND/ PP there is a fire burning down your brain and it IS, in many cases, a medical emergency. You could not ask somebody who has been violently hit on the head or hit by a car to ‘wait six weeks’ to see a doctor and in cases where medication is required it can take weeks for those meds to kick in. Meanwhile the patient feels as though they are dying. In those isolating, painful, confusing, desperate and terrifying weeks a person could really lose their way and spiral into a horribly upsetting place. Or worse.
  • To clarify I couldn’t have done this without support. You MUST ask for help if you need it, please do not think you can go on some private self healing crusade without people. Another one of depression’s favourite lies is that you have ‘used up’ all of your friendship tokens and favours, that you are a burden and people would be better off without you- well guess what?
  • NOT TRUE.
  • AND if you are experiencing psychosis- GET HELP- you may not even know you are as sick as you are. Probably nothing here will even be of any sense to you, it wouldn’t have been to me. Your brain is a Rubik’s cube of Black Mirror mixed with an everlasting episode of Derren Brown involving all of your worst nightmares/ horror films and biggest fears blitzed into one soupy terrible cocktail. And when the symptoms of your illness – in my case- paranoia and suspiciousness – you might even believe that you have nobody you can trust- it’s scary I know.
  • My illness was rapid, dangerous and a complete emergency.

  • ‘I’ll be straight and say I needed everything; medication, the most amazing psychiatrist, a psycho therapist and my incredible family and friends to get through this. What about the people that don’t have that? the after effects of an illness like this are earth shattering and a bit like ‘what the actual FUCK was that?!

  • And so when you are healthy again you also need to put a bit of bum work into it too. So not to be all teachery about it but if you work at it you will see the benefits and I think, you CAN get better. No matter how long it takes.

  • If you have never experienced anything like this then perhaps read on anyway… the best time to educate yourself on this type ‘mental hygiene’ is when you are well so that you can deal with life when you’re not. As I said, it can happen to anybody.

  • You do not come out of something like this baggage free.
  • When people used to say ‘I’m working on myself’ I would go ahead and perform a 360 degree eyeball roll. And now I’m like ‘okkkkaaaay. I get it’, when adults would talk about life as being tough and ‘what doesn’t kill you…’ I’d be like ‘whatever’ because I thought they were talking about newspapers and bills and redundancy but they were not. They were talking about real actual life because once you’ve been through something like this, it changes you, it’s like being apart of some sort of secret club. As my partner Hugo says, ‘we are all just growing up, waiting to take turns to experience something in our lives that changes us for good.’
  • My Psychosis itself was very brief and in all honesty nothing of note actually really happened. I was very fortunate that it was so uneventful, after hearing lots of stories of PP, all terrible- some tragic, I believe I came away lightly.
  • Mine was more of a ‘quality’ of a feeling as my therapist puts it. But that said it left me with an awful anxiety from the trauma of the birth and more from the aftermath of that.
  • Even if you say you are ‘ok’ anxiety shows itself in many forms, rearing its ugly head in whatever way it can and mine came in one that stopped me sleeping and gave me horror horror horror dreams even if I did manage to sleep. The anxiety made me nervous, told me lies, made me jumpy. It robbed my confidence, my identity, left me constantly asking for reassurance, feeling like I was lost, feeling weird around my friends, confusion, a weird itching thing that made me scratch until I bled, it made me spend hours on end unpicking my past, self analysing myself before and during the breakdown, it made me come up with strange long winded far fetched conclusions that suggested that I was somehow to blame for my illness, that I deserved it, that I should have seen it coming, that I had asked for it, that it was inevitable. That it was a punishment.
  • I would look for traces of any ‘bi-polar’ type behaviours as evidence throughout my past. Dissecting myself to shreds. It made me catastrophise, imagine the worst, hypothetically rehearse what I’d do if I got ill again over and over again. I’d think I was some fortune teller that could already see my future self in an asylum, my baby being torn out of my arms. It made me think I was pregnant again with a phantom child. Then I’d end up in a asylum for that negative thought in itself.
  • Then I’d become anxious of anxiety. It was a vicious cycle.
  • Then I’d overestimate the threats and underestimate my ability to cope with them. Anxiety made me avoid talking or thinking about what had happened or the opposite- it would sometimes be ALL I would talk about. I would even tranquillise my anxiety with alcohol- Which just isn’t me. It made me terrified of everything. I would be disturbed by the psychosis itself, replay bad memories. It gave me paranoia, feeling like everybody was talking about me. Anger at the past. And ‘why me? Why us? All I did was have a baby! I’m so angry at life! I can’t believe I let that happen to us! I wish I’d done this, I should have done that.’ Guilt. Shame. Like I was a failure and had let everybody down. It also made me dissect my psychosis which is as pointless as a dog chasing its own tail, it’s like trying to unpack a night terror. I felt that all of this over thinking was fighting it, if I thought of every possible outcome then I’d somehow be prepared, that this was being strong, that I was ‘facing my fears.’
  • I wasn’t doing anything except being hugely unhelpful, disturbing myself and causing myself a lot of unnecessary pain.
  • I was always somebody that believed I had to be a ‘strong woman’ (although now I know that I truly am in real life) but my instinct and response to getting sick was to fight. You HAD to.
  • Actually the first thing lots of people say when you become ill in any way, both mentally and physically (and don’t worry I was probably guilty of this before becoming unwell myself) is that you need to ‘fight’ your way out of it. That you need to ‘beat’ it. From ‘fighting off’ a cold to ‘losing a battle’ to a terminal illness and everything in between. First of all- what the hell do you think we are doing?! Leaving ourselves out in the wild for the hyenas to tear us to pieces? No. We are surviving the best we can. And secondly fighting is probably one of the worst things you can do. You don’t have to war with yourself. You have to work WITH yourself.
  • The key to recovery is not simple but it is simply- acceptance.
  • And by that I do not mean rolling over and playing the victim (even though depression’s most favourite thing is to make you pity yourself- again, unhelpful) because you are NOT a victim, every day you are weight lifting yourself out of hell my friend, you are a hero! and accept that too whilst you’re at it. But do not be scared.
  • Instead try rational and logical acceptance. A clear, practical understanding of ‘ok, this HAS happened and it was really shit but it’s over now and although I can’t change it and make it unhappen, I CAN change the way I view it.’
  • And this was thanks to a method called C.B.T. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. (Stemming from Albert Ellis’s R.E.B.T – Rational Emotional Behavioural Therapy- they are based on the same ideas.) I should say at this point that this technique doesn’t work for everybody. I just found that speaks to me and I understand it. I should also say that I’m speaking only from my personal experience and I am not a doctor or a psychiatrist or a professional or a genius.
  • You can do some things for yourself that in turn will give you back some of the control that you lost when you were so unwell and return the trust and confidence in yourself that the vulnerable version of you lost in the catastrophic blast of chaos that having a baby (or whatever your trigger was) explodes onto your life- control is the last thing you have when you’re sick, it will remind you of you. Your independence, your power and your pride.
  • So first, understand your anxiety. I mean, as much as one can. Anxiety is a consequence of ‘perceived’ threat or danger. It’s a cryptic and vast emotion BUT the fantastic news is that it can be treated. And you can do it yourself. I’ve kind of realised from learning about this stuff that the underlying thing which drives us to behave negatively or unhealthily is usually fear. And I had so much fear when I was sick. I hear stories of PPP where women experienced manic euphoria , I only experienced sheer absolute terror. So I had to be brave and understand my anxiety to deal with it. I had to get to know it, be honest with myself no matter how stupid it sounded-like the phantom pregnancy fear- I would write it down and look at it on a piece of paper. I would try not to judge myself or be hard on myself. And try not be disturbed by my anxious internal thoughts, remember, they are JUST thoughts.
  • So… CBT works with a basic A.B.C technique.
  • A stands for Activating event which is your trigger, it can be anything; real, imaginary, past, present or future. B stands for your belief towards that Activating event and C stands for consequence, in other words how you behave, react, feel towards that Activating event.
  • The power is in the letter B. You can change your beliefs towards any Activating Event with CBT. And this is by changing habits, thinking paths, our thought processes, rewriting the script/ narrative we’ve taught ourselves about ourselves and being in the present moment, therefore becoming the most effective person we can be. I would suggest getting a few books to explain how it works properly – suggested below or you can do a course. At first it seems like common sense and seems obvious but you’d be amazed to see how many negative unhealthy behavioural tendencies we can slip into.
  • The aim of CBT is to rationally dispute those ‘beliefs’ with facts. If it is not a fact- then dismiss it.
  • Here are some of my negative and unhealthy behavioural tendencies / negative automatic thoughts that I was trapped inside after what happened to me and how I disputed them and tested them against reality to get well again. This stuff not only calms your brain down but also can relive the physical symptoms of anxiety too (pulsing heart, churning stomach, the need to go to the toilet LOADS, headaches… the list goes on..) also, let’s be clear, CBT is not positive thinking it’s rational thinking.
  • And it’s basically like learning a new wonderful language, a language that can save your life.
  • So I began with language. A lot of my anxiety was built around rigid demands. ‘I MUST NOT get ill again’ which then leads to ‘if I get ill again it would be AWFUL’ which then naturally leads to ‘and I WOULD NOT be able to cope.’
  • So I had to begin by loosening my attitude. Becoming flexible and realistic with my preferences and not irrational. I.e ‘I would PREFER not to get ill again but IF it were to happen again, although it would be uncomfortable for me, I CAN tolerate it, look at what I’ve tolerated up now.’ I had to provide myself with the literature to identify my emotions and behavioural tendencies.
  • The word ‘awful’ is also an interesting one. There is an amazing bit of advice I learnt in Dr Windy Dryden’s book where he talks of the ‘awfulising scale’ which teaches you how heavy that word ‘awful’ actually is.
  • Let’s say, for arguments sake, that something that is 100% ‘awful’ is that you were to lose all of your limbs. So working backwards from that let’s say that losing three of your limbs is 80% bad, two of your limbs is 50% bad and so on to a permanent scar on your face being 5% bad and a scar on your face that will heal with time being 1%bad. Would I exchange the trauma/ disturbance I’ve been through for a permanent scar on my face? Probably yes, I’d take the scar if it meant I didn’t have to go through that experience. But would I exchange it to lose my limbs? No I would not. I’d keep my limbs. With regards to that, what actually happened to me is not so SO awful. It’s about 6% bad. I can tolerate it.
  • There is always worse things that can happen. Thinking like this helped me put things into perspective and realise I’m bloody lucky. I’m alive. So is Hugo. And so is our baby.
  • Catastrophising was probably the strongest negative behavioural tendency for me.
  • For hours on end I would play out in my head ‘what if’ circumstances and before I knew it within a few thoughts I’d be tricking my brain into thinking I’d be in an asylum in isolation without any contact with my baby. I could already vision myself scratching the walls and talking nonsense, ripping my hair out. Because I’d experienced something so close to this. This was the hardest one to combat because my untameable inventive imagination is creative and easily gets carried away but actually this has been the quickest habit to leave my catalogue of unhealthy thoughts. Now, I save my creativity for writing Childrens books and out of real life.
  • So through CBT I have taught myself to challenge and dispute those thoughts, not to avoid them or run with them but to test them against reality…
  • For example, what are chances of me being thrown into an asylum actually happening? Highly unlikely.
  • What evidence do I have that this will happen? None.
  • And let’s say for the sake of argument that it was 100% certain that that were to happen – I could deal with it and tolerate it because I have before and I will again. I have a support system around me and I will cope. And also what’s the point in putting myself through the hell of imagining it now only to then go and live through the hell of it in real life later down the line? I ask myself, am I ok now? As in right now. Yes I am. Any one of us could get unwell at any time. That’s the truth.
  • Asking for reassurance. Next, I’d find myself asking my friends, family and the professionals around me for reassurance that I wouldn’t get ill again… would I?
  • If you find yourself doing that here’s what you can do- you do NOT ask for reassurance. It’s annoying. And it’s anxious behaviour. The person reassuring you is not only compromised but will never be able to give you the answer you really want to hear. They will never ever say the right thing to you. They cannot ever give you the reassurance you need because they are not psychics and because their answer, either way, is never guaranteed, you will then be unsatisfied, unconvinced and consequently more anxious. It might relive you short term but it is not the answer. Plus. You do not need reassurance anyway- once you have CBT. You can reassure yourself.
  • A weird one and one of the harder ones to shake (one I’m still shaking) was warding off my threats and fears with superstition – I’m not even superstitious- or so I thought ! but I’d find myself saying to myself ‘if I do this or that or wear this or that I won’t get ill again.’ I can trace this kind of behaviour back to being a child and wanting to ‘dare’ myself to get to a certain place on the pavement before a car drove past me or make it to the bottom of the stairs before the toilet finished flushing. If I didn’t- I’d die. I’d thought this was out of boredom but it’s built out of anxiety. I can combat this by saying to myself-
  • ‘Life doesn’t work like that Laura. That’s anxious behaviour. Life will happen and do its own thing regardless of what colour lipstick you have on or if you are wearing your lucky dress. So stop it.’
  • Analysing myself was a big one. Unpicking the past, overanalysing, breaking myself down all the time, constantly unpacking my personality and coming up with the conclusion that I was somehow to blame for this, that it’s my fault, I should have seen it coming…
  • Instead I dispute, dispute, dispute- where is the evidence to support or back this up? Nowhere. Why am I forgetting about all the healthy stuff I’ve done over the years, all of the healthy ways I’ve thought, reacted and behaved in my life and all the times bad stuff has happened and its not resulted in psychosis. If I believed every day that I’d get ill again, I would never be able to leave the house!
  • Fortune Telling. This is one I still sometimes struggle with. I would believe I knew exactly what would happen to me, where I’d end up, that it was written in the stars. I would literally begin sentences with ‘I know what will happen…’
  • I combat this by remembering…
  • ‘Laura! You are NOT a fortune teller. End of story. Again, if it is not a fact, dismiss.’
  • Mind Reading. I’d behave like I knew how others were perceiving me, judging me and what they thought of me.
  • My response, again, ‘Laura. You are NOT a mind reader. End of story.’ If it is not a fact- dismiss.
  • Black and white thinking. If I fell off track or had a bad day I’d think that all of my hard work for recovery was for nothing.
  • Instead I dispute this. Blindboy (the Blindboy podcast) has a good way of looking at this, if you were dieting and ‘cheated’ by eating a cheeky biscuit you wouldn’t then go ahead and eat a Chinese takeaway made for 20 people, drink a trillion beers and then snuffle down a tub of Celebrations. It’s ok to have a biscuit and be fine with that. Life has good bits and bad bits but it doesn’t mean life is either good or bad. And you are neither good or bad. Recovery, like life, is not linear. It’s just life which has good bits and bad bits.
  • Holding a ‘low frustration tolerance.’ Underestimating my ability to cope. That it would be ‘awful’ if…instead I remind myself that I can cope and tolerate anything! Look at what I’ve tolerated up until now. Trouble comes when we overestimate the size of the ‘threat’ and underestimate our ability to cope. We are robust human beings and we can cope.
  • Tension. I would be tense, holding on to myself, my limbs, my bones and muscles so tightly as if I had to be prepared in either fight or flight mode all the time. I was always ready to throw myself out of a sinking aeroplane in a parachute or fight a grizzly bear but this only excited my organs further and made my guts churn. So I relax to the best of my ability.
  • I accept. It’s happened. It is done. It is over. I am safe.
  • Self pity is another big one. I now see my story as a happy one. A story of survival rather than what the illness has robbed me of. Look at what I’ve gained. In fact this way of thinking has been so positive for me it actually physically dries up my tears.
  • When I noticed I began to tranquillise my feelings, either with sleeping pills or alcohol I stopped immediately. Both helped me for a short while but it wasn’t something I could continue to do and it did not make me feel any better. Alcohol is a depressive anyway so that’s counteractive and pointless. But I am not judging- so do whatever you need to.
  • Avoidance. I would feel physically sick when I thought of what had happened to me. Flashbacks of my labour or my time at the psychiatric hospital would keep me up at night. But now I let the memories float past me and do not become disturbed by anxious thoughts, because they are just thoughts. Feelings do not count as evidence or truth. Emotions are not facts. Saying that, do not think twice to remove anything from your life that reminds you of feeling unwell. Clothes, books, shoes, nursing bras, even clocks on the bloody wall. Goodbye.
  • Not indulging or engaging into rabbit holes of negative thought spirals is a big one. Just don’t. Instead…Enjoy the moment. I play with my baby. Hang with Hugo. Watch tv. Do normal stuff. See a friend. Be productive. Wash up. Clear my wardrobe out. Read. Write.
  • Other stuff that helped:
  • It helped to remove any unnecessary pressures or strains from my life. Whether that be work deadlines or having to be a certain way. I just did what was right for Hugo, Jet and I. And that meant being slow, taking it easy, sticking to my area- literally geographically. Celebrating the day if I kept my head steady all day. That was enough.
  • I stopped thinking I was running from some monster other than the one I’d created inside my head. That was pretty effective.
  • There is a book. In my opinion one of the greatest books ever written, you might not identify with it unless you’ve been somewhere pretty dark. But it holds your hand and guides you through recovery in the most straight forward and gentle way, when you are ill you cannot take in any information, read or book or even watch tv. Yet this book cuts straight to the point and is no frills and no bullshit. It is not afraid to use big words that you can hardly even believe are now in your everyday vocabulary like ‘suicide.’ It is a friend. it’s called Self Help for Your Nerves by Dr Claire Weeks and inside she talks about a technique called ‘floating.’ Not fighting your way out of illness or breakdown but by floating out of it. And she goes on to state these words which have helped me enormously.
  • Float past tension and fear
  • Float past unwelcome suggestions.
  • Float, don’t fight.
  • Accept and let more time pass.
  • It’s my screensaver on my phone and my way of life. (It does also mean we have ‘float’ written on post it notes all over our house and under my pillow- but it helps!).
  • Talk. Talk. Talking. I talked to anybody that would listen.
  • Connecting with others that have been through similar things to you. Trauma of any kind. This really has been amazing. One story in particular was a woman (I won’t name her for her privacy) who came to one of my Guardian masterclasses and had experienced PPP herself a few years ago. She sent me the most wonderful email with a photo of herself swimming in the freezing cold lake, she was so positive and in love with life, showing me that since surviving PPP she can now do anything! And has gone on to have more children. These stories are inspirational and reassuring and give me comfort. That said, yes, read recovery stories but do not compare your own recovery process with anybody else’s. There is no right way to get better.
  • Don’t do ANYTHING you don’t want to do.
  • Slow down.
  • Don’t do anything that makes you feel unnecessarily anxious like watching horror films or weird reality tv shows, Internet trawling, social media crap, read newspaper articles or see certain people if they upset you. Even get somebody to take care of your admin in this period if it helps you. This is not avoidance this is just protecting yourself.
  • Running. It is long but it does help. But don’t do it to get rid of ‘anxiety’ do it because you want to.
  • Cookbooks. Adult fiction was too much for my head and kids books would make me feel more of a stranger / imposter in my life because it’s my job. Cookbooks offered me great escapism and when I was able I began to cook again which has been THE BEST.
  • Dress like yourself. I spent a long time in bobbly black leggings with holes in them which is fine but I am obsessed with colour and when I was able to see the colours once again I rainbowed myself up again and it felt great.
  • The Blindboy podcast- the ones on psychological cognitive therapy. He explains that CBT is laying down new tracks for your brain and yes it takes work but it will eventually become second nature. And in general it’s just so nice and refreshing listening to a healthy and creative likeable person talk to you frankly with no bullshit nonsense. Stuff that cuts through the pain that seems to cloud you.
  • Therapy. My therapist is a psycho therapist who is active in her approach, she realised pretty quickly that I didn’t really just want to talk and talk, reliving what had happened over and over again and so instead she taught me the bones of CBT. She believes very much, as do I, in a ‘what now?’ kind of therapy- and this for me really worked. Our sessions together are very candid and practical. And her openness with her own experiences, humour and frank conversation have been so helpful.
  • Reaching out to others. I’ve made some new friends during this experience, one is performer Bryony Kimmings. We’ve always circled each other and I always knew she was wonderful but her show ‘I’m a Phoenix Bitch’ was medicinal and therapeutic for me. It’s on next year again and I can’t recommend it enough. The way an illness like this makes you feel is so difficult to bottle into words or images, her show managed to capture my feelings towards my illness in a way that was tangible and clear. It made me feel less alone. And she got me onto Blindboy.
  • A wonderful friend from school, who is a personal trainer, Caroline Bragg, who I hadn’t seen in years, came through for me and out of the kindness of her own heart, without wanting anything in return, offered me training sessions to gain strength physically. Even though boxing and squatting in the park by the dog poo was often the LAST thing I wanted to do, these sessions were empowering and reminded me that I wasn’t some weak feeble failure.
  • And a friend of a friend also reached out to me who was suffering with PND, she has since got the help she has needed and we have remained firm friends.
  • Keeping a journal even when I’m feeling well- no especially when I’m feeling well – so I can remind myself that it always passes.
  • APP (Action on Postpartum Psychosis) an organisation to support sufferers and survivors of PPP and all the women and men involved. We need to raise awareness about this illness. It IS treatable and does not have to end in tragedy.
  • These are the books that really helped me:
  • Self Help For Your Nerves by Claire Weeks,
  • Visual CBT by Avy Joseph and Maggie Chapman
  • Understanding your Anxiety by Dr Windy Dryden,
  • Ten Steps to Positive Living by Dr Windy Dryden
  • How to Stubbornly Refuse to Make Yourself Miserable by Dr Albert Ellis
  • Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig
  • Happy by Derren Brown (because he reminds you that everything ‘is fine’)
  • The song P.J Harvey ‘We Float’ and music in general. For a long time I couldn’t listen to music. I’m not sure if this song is even about mental health but once you put your ear to the lyrics you realise everybody is trying to fathom this sticky web of life.
  • Alcohol free beer
  • Cooking programs
  • Tea
  • Lastly, giving myself time. I had to be patient with myself. Time will heal. As the baby grew up, so did I. He looks like a person now and not a needy little screaming red faced worm that I couldn’t satisfy. Now, I can work. I can dream. I can cry. I can taste food. I can concentrate. I can laugh. I can sleep. I fit back in my clothes and feel like myself. No, I feel the best I’ve ever felt. Because i’m me but just except now I get to roll around with this amazing little kid. I used to be so LIVID at the world for choosing this time to serve me a breakdown but now I’m grateful because if there’s ever a reason to stay alive, it’s having a chubby adorable hilarious face peeping up you all day long. That’s something to live for. He needs me and I need him. And plus now I have all these brilliant life skills too that I can take with me, moving me forward, I have a future ahead of me. And an understanding that I can apply to anything. I am so grateful. To have such beautiful friends and such a solid family. I have so much more space in my brain to enjoy life again, room for creativity, more understanding of life and the world, I have compassion, love, empathy and experience. I value and take care of myself. My mental regime is just as important as brushing my teeth, it is apart of me now.
  • Just so you know it was NOT a straight easy route to get here. I took a lot of obscure roads before I got to this one as quick fix short terms attempts to cure myself…
  • I spent an obscene amount of money on the clunkiest most impractical running buggy.
  • I got obsessed with Reflexology (and the woman that did it).
  • Acupuncture
  • Whisky
  • Got addicted to 1000 piece puzzles
  • Started puffing a Vape- what the hell?
  • I started boxing.
  • Fasting.
  • I even smoked Cigarettes? Weird.
  • To my hero. Hugo. I love you. He read every book I read, came to every meeting with me, let me be exactly how I needed to be. He let me blame him. Accuse him. Need him. He’s watched me attack this illness from every direction like a moth at a lightbulb and picked me up every time. He’s run in the rain with me, cried with me, stayed up all night with me, thrown out stuff that has reminded me of being ill, listened to me over and over. He’s given me so much time, space, love and care. And never doubted me for a moment. He’s incredible. I love him even more and I asked him to marry me and he said yes.
  • I need to thank my family for just being there the whole time and for being able to laugh about the whole thing with me now. I Love you. Especially my sister, Daisy, who has completely stepped in as third parent and cared for our son like he’s her own. Daisy, I know you felt everything I felt with me and more, you are my complete twin, I don’t know what I’d do without you. I love you so much.
  • Thank you so much to my best friend Adele. She has listened to me everyday, never judged me, trusted me and supported me in every way. My bear. Thank you for saving my life. You really have. I will never forget how you’ve helped me. I will always take care of you. I love you.
  • Thank you to my wonderful gorgeous friends. You know who you are. And I REALLY know who you are too. I love you.
  • To Hugo’s family, they have become a huge part of my life and supported me through this. And his brothers, Felix and Will have become great friends of mine.
  • Thank you to my therapist.
  • Thank you to my psychiatrist. You are the best in the business of fixing people’s heads. You were right. It did get better and I did go ‘completely back to normal.’
  • Thank you to my patient agents Jodie, Dan, Emily, Molly, Ariella and my publishers at Hot Key and Walker (a special thank you to my editor Jenny Jacoby who completely understood everything, thank you for letting me take my time and establish myself again! Tina, Emma and Jane, Dee, Lizzie, Maria, Kirsten, Rosi and James. And Rowan.)
  • Thank you to everybody else I work with for giving me the space and time to recover and enjoy being a Mum.
  • Thank you to my little one. You are my little one. I love watching you grow up. It is a total privilege. Thanks for making me grow up too.
  • This is the best Christmas present I ever could have asked for and my word does a scare like this make you grateful for what you have (and what you haven’t) and prioritise too! do you think I care about if my nails have polish on them these days? Errr. No. I. Do. Not.
  • What’s scary is that when I spoke of my experience every mother kind of understood where I was coming from on some sort of scale. Why is this stuff a secret? And why should we have to struggle with caring for a screaming new born and a screaming head at the same time all by ourselves?
  • We are a delicate and divine species – you’ve seen life in the animal kingdom on Dynasties (bbc watch it!) and it’s BRUTAL! Now throw that into the modern day human being world and life seems unbearable! so let’s all take care of one another. That’s the real message here. And when it comes to motherhood- it’s the most human thing a person can do, understood all over the world and been happening since the very beginning of time. But perhaps not understood as we know it, there are some dark scary sewage pipes running underneath, underscoring the landscape of this glossy rosy posy baby world, deep under the cute frilly dresses, lullabies and soft baby grows, there is another side, that created the whole operation, there is a mother. And is she ok? Maybe not. Well why not ask?
  • The baby gets ENOUGH cuddles- lets remember to cuddle the parents too.
  • There still is and always will be more work to do, until I am old and grey. We are all eternally searching for some final point of eventual happiness… but what even is that? When do we know when we’ve got there anyway?
  • My therapist gave me a journal to fill out. Eleven questions that I answer every day. Number 9 is ‘what is your most cherished wish in the situation?’ And when I first started I’d wish everyday that ‘I didn’t have anxiety’ or ‘I wish I wasn’t unwell’ or ‘I wish that this never happened to me.’ And now my wish is that Hugo and me and our baby is healthy, safe and happy. Which we are. In other words. My most cherished wish has come true. And I couldn’t really ask for anything more than that.