Mum's The Word! The Parenting Podcast - Laura Dockrill

Episode Date: October 9, 2022

Author and fellow podcaster Laura Dockrill joins Ashley to talk about what she faced after giving birth including how she woke up on her first Mother’s Day in a psychiatric ward, without a clue where she was, separated from her newborn, with a diagnosis of postpartum psychosis.This episode comes with a trigger warning as we will be discussing postnatal mental health, postpartum psychosis, suicidal ideation and traumatic birth.Laura's book is called "What Have I Done? Motherhood, Mental Illness and Me" - buy it now online or from all good publishers. Her podcast is called Zombiemum and can be found wherever you got this podcast!Get in touch with your questions and experiences at [e-mail]----A Create Podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello everyone, I'm very excited about this episode but I just want to give a trigger warning as we will be discussing postnatal mental health, postpartum psychosis, suicidal ideation and traumatic birth as well. So please feel free to skip this episode if you feel it's not the one for you. But I am really excited to open up the conversation around this topic and even more excited that the person I will be speaking to is a brilliant writer, performance poet and author of an absolutely incredible book. What Have I Done? Motherhood, a Mental Illness and Me. It was one of Stlus' best non-fiction books of 2020. It was described by Adele as a book to save

a whole generation of women. And she's also the host of the Zombie Mum podcast. And, of course, mother to her son, Jet. It is Laura Dockrill. Hey, thank you. On each step with Peloton. From their pop runs to walk and talks,

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thank you so much for coming on i feel feel like motherhood, for whatever reason, is very romanticized. And so it's really nice to have podcasts such as mine or yours that actually talk about the more kind of, well, reality of it, I guess. Totally. It is sensationalized. And I think, I mean, naively, and it's not our fault. It's really not our fault. It's the sensationalized kind of thing, the experience that we see in the media of us automatically knowing what to do. Like we have this maternal seed in our belly that's just going to bloom and blossom and come to life once this baby is out of us. We're going to, you know,

start wanting to hang washing from the line and baking fresh bread and just being a badass automatically. And actually it's the biggest life shift you can go through. But we don't feel like we can say because then people might think we're a bad mom. And then we've heard the sensationalized, ugly versions in media of what a bad mom I'm doing, you know, speech quotation marks around it looks like too. And that can't be us.

We can't have failed at life's biggest ask from us. And so we keep it a secret. And then I think the whole thing just circulates, but it's a whole conspiracy, a toxic conspiracy. It's so funny, isn't it? The idea that if you are open about the difficulties and challenges that you're somehow considered negative. And I cringe. I don't know what you were like in your pregnancy, but I look back and I cringe so hard at myself because I remember thinking, or actually, I think I even said it. I was like, mum's really negative.

And even when I gave birth, I was like, this is amazing. Like mums are just so negative. And now I'm like, uh-huh. Are we negative or are we literally crying for help? Are we just desperate, doing the best we can? I know. I totally hear that.

What was your experience like from like pregnancy and then obviously we'll talk about up to the point of birth? Well, exactly as you've just said, you know, which I'm so glad you are because you're completely unpacking it. But yeah, like you, naive, blissfully naive. I was very, very in the height of love. My best friend and I, who we've known each other since we were 14, we had just got together after being secretly in love with each other for years.

I love that. And we got pregnant really quickly, which everyone else was going, what the hell are you doing? But to us, it's like, no, no. And skipping a little bit ahead to go backwards. You know, I don't think we would have survived this whole experience if we had not known each other for the amount of time we did. But I honestly felt like I had this kind of protective ring around me.

You know, it was keeping me safe. Like friends couldn't fall out with me. I couldn't get a cold. Shit stuff just wasn't going to happen because I felt so safe. And I enjoyed being up in the middle of the night and eating peanut butter and toast and watching films and just feeling so, all those things. How naive. I thought, I can do this. I was looking forward to giving birth vaginally. I felt like I was up for it, up for the challenge. And you just can't prepare no matter how many books you read. The birthing plan, to write a birthing plan, it just feels like a kind of passport to

anxiety. It's like you're just locking yourself into something that most likely is not going to go the way you want, already beginning the list of reasons why I have failed. And actually, this thing is going to do its way however you have you know, you have no control over it really. So I'm exactly the same as you. I have a playlist on my phone. I did not need that playlist. Yeah, I literally was like, I could not give a shit what music is playing right now. Just get this baby out of me.

But do you know what's interesting as a second time pregnant person, because the experience is very different, but I still do feel even though I know what's coming and I'm shitting myself about the birth and I'm nervous about potentially going through the kind of postnatal depression again I actually feel stronger because I am prepared for it but I still have that excitement in a way. And I still, I still am feeling like I'm really excited about this, which is actually mad because I remember when I first gave birth or particularly in that six to 12 months thinking like, why the fuck would

people have another one? Like people are mental. And then I'd think, is there something wrong with me? Like, what am I not getting and now so it's nice that I'm in this situation again and yes it's not the same because let's be honest people don't really give a shit the second time when you say you're having a baby and um you know in the first time in the first pregnancy Tommy would be like you know whatever you want like here's your water here's a fan are you too hot you're? And now it's like, we just don't have time for that with the toddler running around. And sometimes I'm like, I'm pregnant.

And he's like, good for you. But I am experiencing joy and it's nice because I didn't know if I would. But I also think that I'm absolutely batshit crazy at the same time. No, I think that's wonderful. I think that, you know, I always think this, you know, I feel like I've seen the real monsters of the world now,

the real darkness, all the things that, you know, old people go, you know, that life can be hard and challenging. I feel like I've seen, I have had one of those exes on the map now. And still I'm in love with life, you know, and doing a simple thing like going to the supermarket or taking my little boy to the library, whatever. I feel even more enriched and empowered by those tiny tiny little minuscule moments of the day so the fact that yes this is a joyous celebratory thing that you're going through and now you've

seen it for what it really is and you still feel even excited and joyous and brilliant about it I think that's beautiful and so I think yes that should be celebrated too because now you're just being realistic which actually you know that things can not always go to plan and how wonderful but it is funny as well because you know like you were saying the the process of like doing the hospital bag and the playlist and all of that stuff now i'm like looking at options to be like how the fuck am i going to do this like it's not about it's not about what 90 it's not about what 90 i've got on because i know i'll be butt naked shitting, it's not about, it's not about what nighty I've got on because I know I'll be butt naked shitting myself. It's not, you know, it's not any of those things.

No, you're literally like, how can I get this out? Could they just bring out my mouth when I'm asleep? Yeah. Are you sure we can't do general anesthetic? How do we get this out? So what was the kind of journey for you from going from this really excited, beautiful pregnancy to birth and then after? Yeah, well, I was, you know, I'm the oldest of my brother and sister and I was the first in my family to have a baby. Same for Hugo, my partner's size. We had the same as you, a lot of protection and safety support around us, which i'm filled with massively privileged as well and then um basically i became two weeks overdue and i was really showing really small so even though i kept going back to doctors being like everyone is set like people start pointing out

obviously she's very rude you'll notice that if you're pregnant isn't it everybody loves to give you an unsolicited point of view on your pregnancy your bump your how you're doing it fuck off um so I everyone was noticing people on the um train you know will just would be like oh you don't you know you don't look whatever it was and I became overdue and um I just I wasn't manic at all now I know what my fear is I wasn't manic but I had a huge amount of energy even on like my due date I went for a run on my due date, which is just when I think back to that, I was like, I felt like I could kind of go clubbing or something. Like I just had, and I think this was nerves and anxiety. I have never, I should say, I've never experienced poor mental health before.

So I've had like, you know, normal anxiety for like things that you'd get anxious about, but not, you know know this was something different um and so we were caught I'd had five I think of those dreadful stretch and sweeps now so I was you know we'd done everything we kind of could to bring things along but it was Valentine's Day so it was a kind of energy at the hospital when we went down but apparently everybody wants a Valentine's baby so I was was just like, no, no, no, no, no. Are they these people all two weeks overdue? And then we did the whole corridor thing where you're like sitting there with these other, and everybody just seemed to look kind of, once again, I should say there was no right way to do this. I'm just saying from a first time, you know, expecting mother, I didn't know these things, but everybody else seemed to look teapot, like, you know, really

heavy and like kind of so kind of you know natural like mammals that were ready to go and I was like oh I don't feel like you know. So were you having contractions at this point? No I'd been asked to go down because I was two weeks overdue and we were like shown to the it just began straight away that I had I guess being on totally honest that that vision that i had which again it's not my own fault it's what i've seen in the media and you've got nine you know 10 months to dream up what this day is going to look like but it just everything it wasn't just how it looked it just didn't feel how i'd imagine and i'm not i wasn't

imagining like rolling you know sheets white sheets, white sheets and angels, you know, but I imagined a kind of person being there going, this is, you know, you know, I've watched a lot of one born every minute, really for that experience. And everything was just a bit, bit is like kind of busy, flustered. Like I was kind of inconvenience. I'm not prescribing blame to the NHS themselves. I know they're hugely overworked and um and also there was comfort in that too the same way you like to see um kind of nonchalant air stewardesses or stewards on a bit on a turbulent flight you know you want to see people being

relaxed and chill but there was just an energy there that wasn't right and my blood pressure was just absolutely soaring through the roof and um very quickly things just began to unravel so what happened when you say it began to unravel like what was the process of your birth if you don't mind going over it again of course I'm just trying to remember all the exact details but in short um because there was it was just complete casserole of nonsense it was I felt like I was kind of like on one of those um I don't like a kind of prank you know like um that's that prank show that used to be on it was like they were just you're waiting for Ashton Kutcher to come out and be like I was 1000% looking for Ashton like

when's this guy coming out because it was it was just problem after problem it'd be like every time somebody the door swung open it would be to say some more bad news um so it was there was protein in my urine straight away i was extremely highly anxious and i was feeling it in this way that i'd never but i guess i had was experiencing my first panic attack where like you could have wrung me out i was sweating so much and i had these like highs i do i don't rash up anyway when i feel nervous or hot whatever but i literally like i've been stung by a thousand wasps and my heart, I could just feel it throbbing from my chest. And we used the hospital in central London and everyone just kept telling me to enjoy the view. And meanwhile, my body was just ratting, like I'd done a trillion drugs.

And again, like you just mentioned, I just wanted to poo the entire time. I was like, I'm just going to shit that I could like poo enough to fill this entire room. And that was making me feel really self-conscious because I'd only just met these people, but I wasn't actually feeling any contraction. So I just was feeling like I was shitting myself in public. So I had that to contend with. And then it was just midwife after midwife. I think in total, we counted up to like 12 or 13 different midwives and there was was just nobody there to cling on to and go, what's going on? The emergence, basically, Jett's heart, somebody described it that every time my blood pressure was soaring, so every time I was kind of having a sort of contraction, but at this point, I think I was on the epidural maybe at this point, so I wasn't feeling it, but Jet's heart was completely lowering. They described it as that he was falling underwater and then coming up to take a breath of air and going underneath. In short, he had been starving in my womb.

My placenta had failed. I reckon, well, basically a bit of complication. And he was essentially starving inside me. So the more overdue that I was going, he was just shrinking and shrinking. And then we had meconium. I called an emergency caesarean. And yeah, he came out this cold. I thought, again, in my naive self, because I've been eating cheese toasties and ice cream in the middle of the night.

I just had this vision that he'd be this pride. I thought he's lodged in there somewhere. He's just up by my spine clinging onto my ribs you know thought he'd be this prized pumpkin and he was this like kind of starved and I just remember his first phase my thought being like he is angry at me that's what I thought when I saw him he just I just thought he's this boy is so angry at me and then that already implanted you know you couldn't even you know these these voices is my negative internal voice you know you couldn't even give birth naturally laura you're a failed mom how did you not spot the signs that he needed you did you how did you not know where's your maternal instincts that you couldn't even pick up that he was suffering the meconium and then that just started

i just created this like evidence list and already sleep deprived because you don't sleep do you and you're getting ready for your labor physically your back's hurting and all that stuff but also you're anxious you're nervous i can't sleep before i go on holiday let alone back to i've got to say that was the most annoying thing having people be like enjoy the sleep while you can and when you're like struggling with insomnia and to be fair i've had it again like even like even with a toddler when sleep is like the most precious thing in the world to me i wake up up at like three, four, five at night. Same. And it's so annoying to have people tell you to enjoy your sleep while you can.

I'm not going to lie. That's partly, I think, why I popped was that I was taking so much unsolicited advice from people, kind people, people that I trust, that I look up to. Get as much sleep in as you can. Oh, sleep as much as you can before the baby comes or get in all your sleep at once. It's like, that's a coma. I can't possibly do that.

Like I can't get in a hundred hours of sleep in one day. And that- And also as if you wake up after a hundred hours and you're like, that's me for another year. Like, you know, is it else? Will Ferrell. And he's like, I slept a whole 40 minutes. Thank you.

100%. And so I was already on the back foot i think and then that's when um things just started to get from bad to worse because um because he'd starved inside me when he came out he was starving but mostly when if you have a cesarean your milk takes a while to come in so then my milk just wasn't catching up with how hungry he was and everyone I mean I could just see the look on all the staff's faces just basically saying um this he's you've got a hungry baby on your hands he needs to play catch up me already on the back foot and I mean I'm not saying this to for anyone to go wow you're amazing but I caught sight of like the birthing notes in the ward and I'd fed for like 18 hours, five minute break, another five hours.

And I don't know if anyone's ever been in a maternity ward. Have you been in one of these? I actually got kicked out four hours after giving birth. So no. Nice. So pros and cons to that, because I didn't have to do the birthing ward, but I also went home pretty traumatized and badly stitched up.

You have to do how many tests, you know, driving lessons to get a car. And this, they're just like, here's your baby. Bye now. Bye bye now. Maternity ward is like the most, imagine the hottest room you've ever been in, shared with about eight other people and no air, no space to breathe. And if you're in the maternity ward, it's because something's gone wrong, right? Either you or the baby or something isn't right. So everybody's going through their own miniature traumas side by side. It's just a carousel of people crying, taking turns to cry, adults, children. And we've all gone through this mad experience. And can I ask at this point, was your partner allowed in the maternity ward with you so i had baby before covid so hugo was there with me the whole entire time but he's this is a guy that's asked me you know the day before i give birth if he's going to be born with teeth no he doesn't know what he and um his little bag that he usually takes on tour with him that's

got all his like you know guitar picks in it and leads and stuff is now filled with like baby blankets and muzzies. If I see another muzzy again, oh my God, I'll be sick right now. And so the floor is like, you know, hard lino and your bed is really raised and you're not allowed to fall asleep with your baby on the chest. You have to physically feed them until they sleep and then place them in the cot. Jet is just not letting go of me at all, but I'm not allowed to sleep with him there. They won't let you as a rule. So I just didn't sleep.

And I honestly think something happened in there. A switch flicked and I went mad. So when you say you went mad, because I know you use this word and obviously a lot of mental health advocates say mental health advocates say don't use the word mad or crazy it's not but you openly say you were mad I went mad because I used the word mad because it's how you know we say shit we say sour it's my expression of it I've said unwell before um I used it on social media and people seem to think I've come down with the cold and there has to be some sort of differentiation for me to describe what this is. And the word mad to me feels different to what I am now. And while I still feel like that's something that we all experience every day as part of life, this was an extraordinary experience. This was not a regular. And I have no problem when people say, God, you were mad.

It's like, yeah, I was. I read books. That you know, I read, that's what I've grown up with. I read poems, I read books. I liken it to the madness that I have read. That's the word that I prefer to use. Unwell just doesn't cut it. And now as time has gone on, I can say my illness or because I want, people will always say, oh, that wasn't you. You know, it wasn't you.

It was the illness. It wasn't you. It was the illness. Now I feel like, no, it was me. And I'm proud of me because that actually feels like it takes that away from me as well. It's like, no, that was my illness and I got better. And that was a part of me. That was obviously now I see it wasn't my fault. I was terrified, traumatized. And that was my reaction, my response. It might have been embarrassing. I might have had shame around it. It wasn't the prettiest thing in the world, but it was my response to fear. So when we're talking about the madness, this is postpartum psychosis. So at what point was it diagnosed? And at what point retrospectively, did you think it started

straight away from birth? And how long did it take for you to kind of feel that sort of connection or bond with jet if you did sure i just wanted to say there was a part in the labor that i think also where i remember kind of losing i thought okay i almost felt my true self like levitate away and that was when they inserted a hook, the hook, the kind of needle to manually break my waters, which I can only describe as like a kind of scene from like Victorian torture. And they kind of made out as if it was going to be normal. And this hook is so long. And I just remember like shrieking off the bed.

I've been fortunate enough to never really, I've never had any major incidents in my life, probably because I'm such a wuss, I don't do anything scary, but suddenly needles are coming in you left, right and center and you're being checked and you're wired up and injections are going in you. And then this hook and the pain I felt only to then find out that my water's had already broken.

And that's what then it scratched my son's head. So he came out with this like bloody head that was like all so I can see now I look back I'm like of course I went mad as you say because you're you're you have this idea as you say this fluffy like you know cozy beautiful world and then a hook's going up here and scratching your child's head and everything's scary everyone when you're being rushed to emergency areas so when that kind of I guess that moment of madness came I was in the ward for a week without any sleep just feeding non-stop I'm vegetarian but I was picking up chicken carcasses like an animal like a viking ripping up flesh drinking jugs of water like without having not having the time to fill a cup

just getting it down me I I just felt like a caged tiger and um I just thought when I get home it will be okay when I got home that's actually when things went work got worse because I was like my house doesn't feel like my house I don't feel like me nothing feels the same as I left it I was one person last week and now I'm this whole different person um and so you said how long has i been with jet or did you ask me did you because um did you feel did you feel like you bonded with jet straight away because for example i was always told the moment that that baby's on your chest i know you're gonna feel the love like nothing like it and i remember them putting alph on my chest and i remember being like i can't wait to get home to snoop who's my dog and i just remember thinking like there's a video of me and they put him on my chest and i actually look a bit like you're right yeah because it's so yeah and i remember

even when i took him home i was a bit like this is where you live like i hope it's all right like i felt like i just brought a laundry into the house and it took probably like for me i i'd say like four days it was like the breastfeeding and everything else and then i had like a real high for four months and then i crashed but obviously everyone's timelines are very unique and different so what was your you're obviously going through all of these emotions and then you have jet home yeah how did you feel to him well i remember somebody that i worked with when not during when i was pregnant when i was in my like ignorant phase said to me just remember it was a dad he went just remember um they're a stranger and I thought oh you horrible horrible person don't tell me

my child is going to be a stranger like I've created him and um yeah that is exactly what it's like you suddenly think oh my goodness I know nothing about you. But, you know, he was also, I think, first of all, it reminded me, well, no, not reminded me, because I never knew this. It showed me that Jet was a person immediately in his own right. He wasn't mine. So there would be documents for me, documents for him. They would be giving him injections without asking my permission, but being like, no, no, he's now a citizen within his own right with his own numbers and digits and details and nothing to do with you. And that suddenly is like, oh my God, yeah, he's not just mine. And so that was all frightening and chaotic. And then it kind of removed me even more from him. I felt exactly the same from you. I just

wanted life to go back to normal. And I think I was so sure he was going to die because there was so much panic in the room that I had almost, and I sound so, so sure he was going to die because there was so much panic in the room that I had almost and they sound so I don't mean this in a heartless way I think I mean this in a survival way I think I was preparing myself for the worst so even when I brought him home I was like don't get attached Laura because you don't know how long this is going to last like don't get attached to this baby like it's not going to end well. That kind of feeling. Then I have to say that the illness became so big that I didn't really feel anything. I didn't feel negatively towards him, which is another thing I'm trying to dismantle with the stereotype of postnatal mental illness is that we're baby killers or whatever it is.

I had no negative feelings towards Jet. I was all internalized about myself. And that is, I think, partly because of the stigma and pressure expectation put upon us new parents that we need to be smashing it all the time and immediately be in love. And when you don't feel those feelings, you go, oh, well, then I'm just horrible. I would relate myself to like the villainesses in Disney characters like I'm the evil wicked stepmother things like that which I'd never thought in my life because I just thought I was so cold and heartless but it was the illness but do you know what for me I I always wonder and I still wonder now like did I have postnatal depression or are babies just quite

shit and it was such a weird thing and I know that some people love that like baby stage but for me I was thinking like I don't think I'm depressed I think motherhood is just crap and so like yes mental health is serious and I know that what we're going to talk about in your case it's it's mental health but I think like was it my mental health or also was it the realization that my 50 50 relationship and by the way I should caveat and say Tommy is amazing and is 50-50 where he can be, but society doesn't allow it to be 50-50 because he was back at work after two weeks. He doesn't have boobs, so wasn't breastfeeding. So biologically, he couldn't do. And even, you know, going onto TV or DJing, I wanted to prove I was still Ashley and still,

like I was not just a mom, but then I had to take him everywhere with me to do those things in case he needed feeding. And then I was breastfeeding on TV and I was thinking like, for fuck's sake, needed feeding. And then I was breastfeeding on TV and I was thinking like, for fuck's sake, I wanted to be here to prove that I'm not a mom. And now I'm cementing my mother status even more. And then suddenly people were almost only asking me to come on to talk about mother topics. And I was like, but I can still talk about politics or I can still talk about social commentating or whatever else it was. And I was like, I'm building this vicious cycle. And the reason I kind of decided like, do you know what? I could do it all over again. It was that realization that they change and they become more fun and you get more back. But also you can have a bit of

your independence back. Whereas at the time, I honestly felt trapped in this very permanent decision. And of course, that's marred with guilt because you love them. They're this innocent little creature that you would protect. And this is what annoys me as well, what you're saying, this sort of like expectation on mothers, or if you talk about that you're struggling or that you're not enjoying it, that it's like this evil character that you want to murder your child. But for me, it was the sacrifice because of my love that made it so fucking shit for me because I couldn't be me. I couldn't be Ashley because, you know, I breastfed and he wouldn't take a bottle and I was sleep deprived. But I felt like for me personally, like I had him in the bed, like I didn't want to let

him go. I felt like we needed to be there next to each other. And of course, if I was a bit more pragmatic, I would have been like, I'm going get some sleep tommy will give him the bottle he can sleep over in his bedside crib but it was almost like this crazy love for him where i lost myself but i also fucking hated motherhood and i remember thinking like when i got covid i was like i can't be ill like who's gonna look who's gonna look after this child like what it's like me forever. And that was the realization of like, if you don't like your job or you don't like a friend or you don't like your boyfriend or your husband,

like you can leave, but you can't walk away. You can't walk away from parenting. You show up and you stick around. But you know, you tapped in something so nice there, which is the not just a mom thing. You know, this is something I've been struggling with again now in a new phase, which is, you know know the six-week holidays it's either spent either pretending I'm not a mum or I don't have a job and not being able to do anything properly in

either capacity and that is a strange it does actually bring up some of the feelings I felt in those early stages of motherhood the holidays because it reminds me of an identity loss which I have spent so long trying to regain and get back again and um you know it's funny because I always need these like milestones to show me like I have recovered I am better and then I had this like I know it sounds maybe cheesy but this epiphany like last week where I was like no no like Jet is the mark of my recovery you know he he is that and this literally a mundane boring day of pushing him on a swing I mean I find parks so boring I can't tell you how the playground makes me so bored and irritated but that is actually essentially what I have been fighting to get back to is is just being there with him that is what this whole fight has been about I can completely

identify although mine was um a back step you know delayed but I guess October time 2018 so it would have been eight months I just then remember just being obsessively throwing my I felt like I'm so sorry like I was just so cold and not that person you know we can get that but the suicidal thoughts a lot of that was purely because I felt so guilty that I wasn't giving him the love that I believed he was purely because I felt so guilty that I wasn't giving him the love that I believed he deserved. Sorry, because I was busy being in a psychiatric ward. I wasn't like off in the Maldives with the gals. Like I was unable to have that space that was without survival mode. So, and that's really interesting what you've just said, which is so,

I love that, which is that you're working you've got your independence back by working but you're working now talking about your identity as a mother which is exactly kind of not what you want to be on tv or known for but that becomes your thing which we say on a parenting podcast we say on a fucking parenting podcast but at the same time you know I like to think that I'm doing Jet a favor by going yeah when you have a baby you don't have to pretend that this is the greatest thing ever all the time you know Jet will tell me now if he feels anxious he's four and he'll say he feels anxious or we'll do CBT together he knows I was unwell and he asks me for help and I'm so proud that I was

never taught this in school I was nobody ever sat me down and talked to me about antidepressants or anxiety or depression or insomnia and now my phone you know and autocorrect if I type the word it went to right inside my phone goes insomnia spaghetti schizophrenia and I'm glad that I live in a world like that now because wisdom is power you know it's going to help say continue to inform me and help me grow up and i guess for jet as well you've got open dialogue about emotions which i think you know so many of our generation didn't have that it was kind of like suck it up and totally shame is the was the biggest symptom of my illness by far the ultimate podcast for married at first sight fans is here this is recappedcapped at First Sight.

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Uh, about that. Recapped at first sight. Find us wherever you get your podcasts. So can we rewind? Because obviously you mentioned that you're in a psychiatric ward. So we're back to you coming home with Jet from hospital. And then you mentioned that you're in a psychiatric ward so we're back to you coming home with jet from hospital and then you mentioned at eight months that's when you were back so what happened oh yeah i wasn't there that long so don't worry but um i i like the first but what have i

done was going to originally be called the broken oven because that's how i felt i felt like i was this oven with everybody with their head in the through the glass you know watching the cake rise or licking their lips being like oh when's this cake coming out cake came out and everyone like ran off to eat it and I just felt like this oven that had cooked it and was just like slowly powering down on my own oh she's broken slinger out on the old roadside that's basically how I felt inside that everyone was there cooing over the baby isn't he and it's like I felt like I was like why can't they see what I can the baby isn't he and it's like I felt like I was like why can't they see what I can see why can't they see he's angry at me that he's starved he's got these bloody cuts all over his head that he's shrink shriveled up you could see where his skin

had got plump once and then had like you know got retracted so it was all baggy and all his veins and everything went out and I was and I thought, and he needs me nonstop, wants to be fed nonstop. And it just became too much for me. So I think the first thing that happened was I just started not, I lost track of time. So time became abstract. This is about now, he's about a week and a half

because I was in the ward for a week. So this is like a week and a half old. I just was noticing I just wasn't feeding. My family all came to stay and my house became like Glastonbury Festival, which was wonderful because it was essentially suicide watch. I thought they were there to help Jet, but now looking back, it wasn't. It's because I had basically expressed to a couple of my members of family that I was going soon. I wanted to put, you know, set up things up things in you know this is where my savings are going this is where this is happening um and really it was because I didn't want Jet to

see me so ill but also my side I was so sorry I'll backpedal so yeah that was happening and then I started thinking that music was giving me messages so I love music we had music on all the time when he was born and I was like this song is basically telling me that something really bad is about to happen every passing ambulance police siren I believe was coming to get me and I couldn't put my finger on it and I didn't know what it was all jumbled up in my mind I had no clarity at this point but I was just like something bad that kind of dread you get from you know the end of the school holidays maybe now kids will be feeling it about but going back into secondary school going back to school feeling

sunday night before work feeling or coming out of the cinema at three o'clock in the middle of winter and it's pitch black and you don't know where the day has gone dread times a million anxiety times a million i've fucked the whole world up over and i need to apologize to everybody kind of feeling but it um I guess my illness is like similar described to bipolar disorder, how it presents itself, but it's kind of sped up and condensed. So with one hour, it can be that true, true, true fear. But that was the main emotion. And then obviously, because I'm human, I was trying to piece together why was I feeling like that? It must be because I had a baby and I'm a shit mom and I've always been shit. Why was that?

And then my brain just began going back. Maybe it's because you didn't feed your hamster when you were younger and you're never good at taking care of your plants and you were always a bad person. You were always a bad friend building together this narrative. We had a plant outside, like a fig tree. And I was just Googling what the fig tree meant. And I was like, oh, the fig is like, you know, the fruit and it's to do with gods and in the garden of eden and latching that you know what don't forget my job I guess I was like piecing together the story behind it in fact it's messed up even on my nhs notes it says that she

has a very big imagination and is a children's author and storyteller and I just thought no no I didn't dream this up like I was probably doing what anyone would be doing trying to work it all out um and then um I just started feeling further and further removed from Jet somebody had bought us a giant teddy bear like a six foot bear in the post on my mum's work friends and it just came the idea it just said that the bear's watching you it's got cctv in its eyes it knows you're a shit mum and it's filming you who would be so interested in my boring little life I really don't know but that's why I believe once I was changing jet snappy and that's when it properly came this this voice just came into my mind and

um and it just said something like you know you're along the lines of it just came from inside it wasn't like an external voice but it just said it wasn't but it wasn't mine I'd had no control over it and it just said you've really fucked up wasn't mine i'd had no control over it and it just said you've really fucked up like you know what you've done you fucked up and i was like oh my god so i just asked said to hugo can you change jets nappy continue i went down the hallway and the voice just seemed to come with me and it like followed me to the bedroom and i was like oh my god what is this you know when you're really have you been really drunk you know you're really drunk and you sit on the toilet and it's kind of fun and you're really, have you ever been really drunk? You know when you're really drunk and you sit on the toilet

and it's kind of fun and you're like, everything's kind of spinning. That's when you realise, a little bit before that, but you think it's like your first moment of quiet. You may be in a busy bar or pub

and you go, oh God, you're really drunk now. It's like that feeling, but a scary horror version where I was just in the bathroom, like, oh,

you've actually gone. You've properly popped. I looked in the bathroom like oh you've actually gone you've properly popped I looked in the mirror and I just saw something in my eyes that just wasn't me like look back like and I thought oh goodness what do I do I don't want to say this out loud I don't want to keep it a secret and the thing about my version of mental illness is that it what I experienced it felt really like a hostage situation like a kind of bully that was basically saying if you tell anybody we're going to it's going to be you know we're going to make it worse for you whatever that worse was which is just so messed up because it's like can't I just not

can't my own brain just stop doing that I was taking then I took myself to the doctors which I'm very proud of always ask for help if anyone's feeling like this is nothing to be embarrassed or ashamed about but you can't tell yourself that when you're in the throes of it I was going to the GP every day saying I can't explain to me something is wrong um and that's when I just thought I can't live like this you know and that's where a suicidal thought came I had I had suicidal thoughts in many many veins one of them was I just couldn't live like this I just couldn't live with 24 hours of pure harassment in my mind. That's an impossible life to live. When people associate mental illness with weakness,

it's crazy to me because you're daily weightlifting, like mentally weightlifting psychologically on some new plane to even make a cup of tea is a phenomenal, mighty task. Then I was suicidal in my psychosis. Everybody knows you're such a bad person. It's part of the story. You have to do this. And actually that had a few things, but then it was also, you know, survival. I believe the whole world was such a great threat to me that I wanted to, you know, die by suicide so that I could keep myself safe because I was so scared of what was to come, if that makes sense, which I believed was going to go down a worse, a worse, down an uglier route. So actually I can understand the logical want of that. You know, people jump out of burning buildings because they don't want to get burned

to a crisp. It's not because, oh, ha ha ha, I'm so selfish and cowardly. It's because something potentially worse is coming. So I understand the logic of that, but living with that, you know, having to say out loud, I've just had a baby baby I'm meant to be the happiest I've ever been and I'm thinking about you know doing something really horrible to myself and to my family is is not an easy thing to say out loud I'm really sorry that you experienced that and oh it's not your fault Ashley no I know but I like I've been in the kind of suicidal ideation bit of motherhood as well. And I know how like shit it is. And I'm so happy that we're both like sat here now and smiling and telling the story,

which will hopefully help other people. Me too. At what point did you actually get, I don't know what even the technical term is, is it submitted? I don't know what even the technical term is. Is it submitted? Well, I had a big serious, it became quite serious meeting at the gym. I cannot tell you how much I thought this is not real. It was a shock. Like sitting in a GP room, my local GP, where I usually go past so breezy,

yo, hello, like past my little coffee shop, just absolutely upbeat. Suddenly sitting there and a doctor saying, are you hearing voices? Was just like, I can't believe this is happening to me. So my first response was no, because technically I wasn't hearing voices, but she was like, have you sort of looked around and, you know, someone being there? And I thought this is getting real. I remember all my hairs going on and going, I can't believe I'm being asked these questions. I'm like, no, like that sounds like the things we see in horror films. Absolutely not. She's like, it sounds like what you've got is post-natal depression. So, you know, take these antidepressants, but she's like, it's going to take six weeks to kick in or whatever. And meanwhile, I've not slept for about two or three

weeks, two weeks, jet speeding nonstop. I'm having suicidal thoughts. I'm having moments of racing thoughts, mania, doing things really quickly. I was literally going to a kitchen surface, moving everything around really, really quickly and doing nothing. I couldn't account for time. Sending strange messages to my friends, nothing abusive, just cryptic and odd. And I was very, very traumatized from the birth. So everyone knew that. Everyone was like, this sounds like PTSD, but it was something else. I had a meeting on the Friday with the GP and they said look let's see how you get on over the weekend take the medication see if you sleep everyone was desperate to get me to sleep I was like a kind of fairy tale princess that the whole village was

like sleep sleep and that was just putting more pressure I'm never going to sleep into these under these circumstances and the Saturday Friday night was the worst night of my whole entire life. I basically, my mum slept in the bed with me and had to physically hold me down so that I didn't try and take my own life, which is, I can't imagine what that was like for her. I was begging her to let me go. The horrible thing about suicide is that I can't imagine how you'd even do it. You need to hold like a board meeting.

It takes an awful lot of strength. it's not an easy thing to do so that was awful and I just said something you know I need help and my whole family thank god and because um they didn't want to take me back to the hospital I'd had jet because I had a lot of trauma from there which was the closest hospital my GP was closed so we took me luckily to a private doctor which found a bed for me um a psychiatric ward and I woke up on ironically on mothering Sunday my first ever mothering Sunday in a psychiatric ward it's completely I'd managed to sleep they'd given me some medication um and I just remember you know waking up and just seeing an eye watching me in this room that I didn't know and going, oh, my God.

And that was the rock bottom of my life. Yeah, that was the worst moment of my whole life. But actually the best moment, too, because it got me onto the path of where I am now. I literally just remember crawling across the floor like in a duvet. I was in general psych. They couldn't find space for me at mother and baby unit. I was in general psych they couldn't find space for me at mother and baby unit and um that that was you know so I was in rooms all day long with um people with all different suffering with all different kind of illnesses from alcoholism schizophrenia bipolar and just

thinking how the fuck did I get here it actually probably didn't help me that bit because I that's why the book's called what have I done because I wasn't sure if I was in a prison or in a because the first person I spoke to had lost his life due to alcohol so i thought maybe this is a prison maybe i'm in a rehabilitation center maybe i've done a crime um and then there was people suffering with eating disorders and and then actually i'm so glad for this experience because i had this moment where i like zoomed out and i thought what what made you think, Laura, you were not ever going to end up in a place like this? You're a human being after all. And all these people are just human beings going through something.

And that just reminded me about the condition. And I actually feel looking back, although that was the loneliest experience I've ever been. I'm trying really badly not to cry. That was the loneliest experience I've ever been in. It was also the most universal. cry that was the loneliest experience I've ever been in it was also the most universal I'd never felt so connected to being part of human because it just made me I wasn't this person I was in there I was extremely shy very very quiet um I had no like energy for life or interest anybody else but and I remember the first day my empathy coming back to me in that ward because if I went in there now I would have been hugging everybody and holding everyone's

hands but there I was just like yeah it's um it was very very um impactful it's informed my whole life that experience everyone should spend time in a psychiatric ward it is so humbling well I suppose as well they say that you have to get to rock bottom to sort of rebuild. And all of life experiences, it does allow you to feel empathy for so many other people. Totally. So how long were you there?

And then what was it like kind of coming out? And when did you start to feel, I say normal, like, are you ever normal after your birth? Sure, sure. When did you start to feel like the version of yourself that you are now? Sure. Well, obviously, if you've ever gone through psychosis, you'll know that everything plays into it.

So that's the difficult. It's a really catch-22 illness. So even when you're put into the hands of care, it doesn't take long for you to not trust the hands of care that you're in. The paranoia is so strong and you're constantly combating the 30 years you've been on the planet and everything you know versus these two days that are suddenly sending you these messages they are so powerful and convincing that you just and and i don't even like taking a paracetamol you know i can't even drink loose tea leaves i get high off loose tea and then i'm there like you need to take this this this you know all these tablets i just thought they got to the point where the suicidal thoughts were so strong that i was like i might as well go for it go with along

with this whatever this doctor it didn't help that it felt like actually every single person that seemed to be looking after me was a little bit eccentric so i was just like no no this is like some sort of you know jordan peele film everyone was just a little bit to the left um and when I luckily when I've gone back to visit people since I've been well I'm like oh no everyone was just a little bit like all the doctors and everything um so you lose all sense of trust all the sense of instinct um which is obviously scary um I just did I was in the hospital my time there i was a goody goody i did everything i was told partly that was my illness which made me think that i was involved in a custody battle and i had to be an a-star student to get out of the hospital otherwise

hugo and his family were gonna take jet from me but i'm kind of glad for that because it meant that i took all my meds i got up i did root therapy every single day um and i mean i was a complete catatonic zombie but i still did it um i ate three meals a day i just ate everything that was in front of me and just got took the sleeping tablets slept slept slept slept and just tried my very very very best to get ready and get ready to get better um and when i my family had like covered my room with pictures of jet which at the the time I was like, why have you done this? But I kept, you know, I just, I just tried. I just tried.

Obviously, I was going through the physical symptoms as well. So I had a scar still, I was like bleeding. My boobs were still making milk. I have these like sad memories of myself, you know. The door was open to my room the nurses were coming past and i was like squeezing breast milk out just to go down to the sink because i couldn't feed him because the medication i wasn't able to pass through the milk um but then obviously still playing this game with with hugo playing tricks with my family

not wanting to tell them stuff holding matthew meetings with my family that it was our family versus Hugo's family we were at war um just mad things and um luckily I got out after two weeks but it was too soon I probably should have spent another couple of weeks there but I felt already like time was ticking I was losing my bond with Jet they were going to take you know they were going to take Jet but also that um I was scared that you know Jet wasn't going to know who i was and that he was gonna we were separated um and i felt guilty i had mum guilt even in psychosis how awful um and then i was allowed home um but it was still a week i was with for a week i wasn't allowed to be on my own with jet which was really hard actually because um it made me feel like i had done something wrong to him when I had

and all couldn't be trusted with him and I think that was really hard on my partner as well because he was like I don't want to tell you you can't change him or be with him he just really wasn't a dick about it and then um after which is quite common after a psychosis I had depression I fell into a depressive episode which was actually just as hard as the psychosis but for different reasons where the psychosis is really manic and like a Rubik's cube and really bombastic. You can't help but pay attention to somebody with psychosis. You know, the pupils are massive and my behavior was strange. You can't eat. The depression, it's like everyone was kind of like, well, you're out now and you're not going to hurt anyone. But I was just so low. I had no energy, no spark. I didn't want to do anything or see anybody and i just felt also

in my own skin a lot of the side effects of the medication mean you you know i'm it's not about putting on weight it's like you actually swell so like i just felt and you feel heavy and that's incredible genius science of the medication that it slows you down but it's not comfortable to so when you see these these pamphlets like try swimming with your baby. It's like, how am I even meant to swim when I'm holding a newborn? Like how, how am I meant to swim? I just, I'm holding a baby. I might as well be standing watching TV. Um, so that was just impossible. Um, but, and then it was this writing this book that truly, truly saved my life. And it's so funny because I've avoided my imagination. I thought my imagination did this to me. I did this to me. I took all that blame. You know know I brought the illness on how do you know how many

writers wish they could bring madness on to write about it I don't even wish that they could do that um to get into the mind of a serial killer or whatever it's just like so so awful I was doing that to myself making myself feel it was my fault um but I didn't trust it I was just so scared of being triggered. And then I realized like my whole life, that's always how I've dealt with everything, good news, bad news, whatever, life stuff. I've written and it was happening

whether I liked it or not. And I ended up writing the whole book on my phone with Jet on me because I just had to tell this story. Looking back, I think part of it was also in case I still didn't trust that I was going to be safe and it was like a this is my version of what actually happened it was like a kind of declaration um but something drove me to write that because I've tried writing my books on my phone since and it is not happening girl so like that definitely was something that wrote

itself do you know what out of all of it I was like the most impressed by the fact you wrote it on your phone I was like how how I can't even read on my phone those thumbs were doing overtime so how old was jet when the book came out uh it was so he would just have turned two and then we were thrown into the pandemic which again was another strange thing i was like so ready to be we were meant to be launching at the palladium and i was so ready to set it free and stand there emotionally naked and suddenly i you know we were plunged into darkness and the warehouses were closed the bookshops were closed and um but then my therapist i went to see her after that because i was worried about the book coming out and after covid and everything and

she just said well you could look at it like you know you got to write that story down and nobody read it so great but it was actually well read wasn't it it was very well received and um it's actually on my on my list i went through um so many different books showing the reality of motherhood and a lot of them are quite comedic as well as even though they're dark but for me that's what saved me like people like you writing it down on your phone and um you're you're honestly like even talking to me today like especially when i can see how emotional it still makes you like you should be so proud because it's stories like yours that help when say i was in what i was

going through without which was probably more postnatal depression but i felt like you said earlier the evil disney person or that if i told people how I felt, they'd think I didn't love my child or they'd think I was evil or they'd think I was this like un-maternal woman. And actually, the conclusion that I've come to for my thing is I wish I was a dad. I would be a great dad. Expectations are so low. You get praise nobody criticizes you for being at work or for you know doing what you need to do or if you want to go out and see your friends they're like oh well he deserves a little break doesn't he like if i was a dad i would be loving life yeah daddy they go

oh they go oh it's you go babysitting i'm like he's not babysitting he's being a dad yeah i'm not giving him a fiver at the end of it like it's mad isn't it as much as you want and there's toast and bagels in the freezer it's mad i every time i go out whether it's for dj go get anything still i've what 20 months now people are still saying oh who's looking after the baby and i'm like the dad has the dad whereas tommy went away for work for an entire week and i'm i was like did anyone ask you who was looking after him? And he was like, no, well, I guess they would just presume. And I was like, exactly.

It's so corrosive, isn't it? And it just doesn't help it really. I mean, I've got to say that Hugo is just like, I mean, Jet and three of us are just such a unit. I'm not going to have any more babies. I was actually going to ask that. Would the experience of what you went through have like an impact chance yeah no of me getting that again and my saving grace you know is that i came out of this without jet seeing how unwell i was um so i didn't

have to go through that but we are so you know i've been teaching jet about periods and i say why do i have a period and he goes so you can have babies and I said but am I going to have any more babies and he says no because you've got me and I say yes and that's the that's the way with all three of us Hugo absolutely but you know it's two if you look at it like the stereotype there was two mums in that scenario how I see it you know Hugo did everything and beyond that would out of the mum if I was half the mum that he was I would have been happy you know he was incredible for anyone listening who might be listening because they know someone going through whether it's um postnatal depression or postpartum psychosis and by the way just for

anyone listening i know that google exists but it is a serious mental health is illness that affects um about 1400 new mums every year and it is different to postnatal depression as you probably um figure from listening to laura's story but for anyone who is experiencing someone that they love going through it what would be your advice to help so glad you asked that um because people don't realize that they are they are so so so valuable in this moment because the illness is so specific to each person and it's very it hides itself and then you've got shame on top of that doing the extra work to hide so it's in those tiny tiny tiny details you're looking out for

the old bits of your friend that have changed in in the gate like the way they walk in their gate in the way their eyes are literally their manner their mannerisms. I felt like I was posing, you know, being an imposter, like being like, what would a new mom do now? They'd probably kiss their baby, you know, like a kind of wooden puppet. It's like in those moments, if your friend is acting strange, and that can be the word strange, there's no other way to describe it.

In those tiny moments, that's when you start, you know, watching them closely, asking if they're okay. I always say treat it like, you know, unattended luggage at a train station. You know, it could be nothing. It could be nothing, but ask, you know, get the help because you could go on to save someone's life. And even if they push you away in the moment and go, you know, if it has to get to that point where you have to go to A&E or anything like that, they're annoyed at you, I promise you they will look back and go, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. It's worth that pain in that moment to save somebody's life.

And it is a life-threatening illness. It is considered as a medical emergency. So you have to act quickly. And for anyone who is experiencing what they think might be post postpartum psychosis what what advice after your entire experience like what what hope or advice would you give yes the great thing about postpartum psychosis you can 100 get better it's completely treatable and actually i'll tell you an advantage of postpartum psychosis to post-natal depression one of its advantages is that it is so ginormous that it is all hands do come together on deck it's treated like it is you know you've had all

your limbs chopped off whereas a postnatal depression as you've probably seen with other people you know it can go on for years undetected and suffering um so um it will it will be very very painful but if with the right help and the right care and if you ask for help and do all those brave things you will get better and your your children you know will get through it with you and they'll be very very very very proud of you oh i was gonna um ask some questions that we've got from listeners but actually after how meaty this is i feel like there's so much to get through and um i just want to leave it on there because i i i think you know mental health especially um after having a baby it

is something that isn't talked about enough and um do you know what i feel like excited to be going into the second pregnancy with the knowledge of the ifs and the buts whereas the first time i didn't even like i didn't want to watch One Born every minute or anything because I was like I just need to know it's going to be positive whereas now

I still would have done it that way the first time because there is like beauty in the naivety of it all and in that positive mental mindset but it's empowering

for me to know that there are people like you that have been through how tough it is and who've come out the other side so honestly thank you so much for coming to talk oh thank you that's a lovely thing to say i think

that's true i think that's the right way to be and um i just want to remind everyone as well but i'll put all the details below that um laura's book is called what have i done motherhood mental illness and me and um you're also the host of the zombie mum podcast do you talk so i guess you talk about um a lot of mental health in the podcast yeah yeah yeah we do yeah oh i'm so honestly so grateful for your time and i hope you guys enjoyed listening to this episode of mum's the word parenting podcast as well um thank you so much laura thank you and then i i always feel like a youtuber when i say this and i say that every time but don't forget if you are enjoying the podcast, then hit subscribe or follow buttons.

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