I haven’t made it a secret that pregnancy and having a baby has obliterated my mental health, in ways I didn’t entirely expect at times.

I love my baby, he’s beautiful and clever and so sweet. He wakes up chatting and giggles at everything. He’s a good sleeper and he’s sociable with other people. He is the spitting image of me and his eyes are like chocolate buttons. The first 2-3 weeks of newborn trenches were a challenge, but overall now he is a delight.

I initially struggled with people touching him. I’m told this is a completely normal hormonal and biological response for women who have new babies. I worried about him being dropped or getting distressed. I was reassured that this wasn’t unusual – in fact, it was expected. But instead of these fears decreasing with time, they continued to escalate. I collected anxieties gradually: I might drop him down the stairs, the pram might fall over, he doesn’t like me. After a couple of events that seemingly confirmed some of the things I was worried about, I started multiplying intrusive thoughts pretty much every day. It brought me to a place where they were on a constant loop in my head. He’s going to get kidnapped, I’m going to drop him on concrete, other people are paedophiles. He will overheat in the car, I will tread on him, people are going to take him from me and refuse to give him back. He’s going to drown in the bath, somebody will drive into him, he is going to die in his sleep. It felt utterly relentless.

So I noticed I was doing things to try and calm those nerves. I was walking on the stairs with him so I could always see my feet. I was wearing the pram strap round my wrist at all times. I was excessively checking the car seat was the right way round and that the car was cooling down. At one point during a particularly bad patch with a manic episode on the horizon, I believed he would die if I went to sleep. 

But it wasn’t just the checking. I stopped going to supermarkets alone. I didn’t feel safe enough to go for walks. I held him at all times in the carrier. My world started to feel very small very quickly, and it was a very lonely place to be. 

It was agreed by my psychiatrist and CCO that I’d reached a point where therapy was needed. I was absolutely on board with this because it felt like things had spiralled out of control. I had my suspicions about what would be formulated – I am a therapist after all – but it’s hard to be objective about yourself. I also always have a tendency to think I am being overdramatic, which has led to me ending up in crisis situations before as a result of underplaying my risk and symptoms.

However, unsurprisingly at this point I guess, I have now been diagnosed with perinatal obsessive compulsive disorder. This was overall somewhat of a surprise in some ways, because I think I had braced myself for struggling with my mood in one way or another after he was born. This wasn’t an area that I thought I’d be tripped up or had prepared myself for particularly and it feels like it’s snuck up on me. Some of you may remember that a therapist from NHS Talking Therapies diagnosed me with OCD a couple of years ago. I disputed this and therapy was discontinued. Whilst I stand by the fact that the diagnosis back then was incorrect, I do accept that I’ve long been a victim of intrusive thoughts and a higher level of magical thinking than the average person. That tendency has clearly made me vulnerable during this time of my life, and I accept that it has now passed the point where I am able to manage it alone.

I haven’t had therapy since I was discharged from the Eating Disorders Service in 2021. I was at that time a mental health nurse but had yet to qualify as a therapist, which means this is quite a unique experience in that I’m on the receiving end whilst having the exact same qualification as the person treating me. I wish, more than anything, that I was able to apply my learning to myself. I wish I could be my own therapist from the off and not have to feel reliant on the accountability of somebody else. But I do know from past experiences that I can thrive in therapy with the right person and the right approach.

I feel frustrated that the older I get the more problems I seem to collect, because it feels like a never ending whack-a-mole of symptoms that are never completely absent. However, my past record does show me that I can recover from difficult things. I can make progress with support, and as has been the case previously, I am extremely motivated to get better.

I have faith in myself this time. A driving force is that I want to raise a confident and content little boy. I want him to be carefree and happy, and to enjoy his life. I know that my ever increasing list of anxieties and how I respond to them is inevitably going to impact how he sees and experiences the world around him, and I won’t allow myself to do that. Not everything in the world is a threat to him, no matter what my mind currently tells me. I can continue to keep him safe by parenting in a healthy and responsible way, without causing both of us to live in fear.

So, therapy take 27592 here we go…