Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Episode 107: Laura Lee Dockrill

Episode Date: September 18, 2023

Laura Lee Dockrill is an author of both adult and children's books. She went to Brit School, she's married to the love of her life, musician Hugo White, and her best friend is Adele.After giving birth to her son Jet, Laura suffered severe postpartum depression which saw her waking up alone in a psychiatric ward on her first Mother's Day. One of her books based on her experience is called What Have I Done?She also has a new children's picture book out next year called Gray. It's about depression and illustrated by Lauren Child.Laura is positive and funny and lovable and it is such a joy to see her recovered and happy while still able to share her experiences, which I know will go on to help the 1 in 1,000 new mothers who also suffer from postpartum psychosis. Trigger warning for references to suicidal thoughtsSpinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, produced by Claire Jones and post-production by Richard Jones Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Sophia Lispector and welcome to Spinning Plates, the podcast where I speak to busy working women who also happen to be mothers about how they make it work. I'm a singer and I've released seven albums in between having my five sons aged 16 months to 16 years, so I spin a few plates myself. Being a mother can be the most amazing thing, but can also be hard to find time for yourself and your own ambitions. I want to be a bit nosy and see how other people balance everything. Welcome to Spinning Plates. So, my dear listener, this is a very significant moment in my life. I've just this morning taken my youngest one to school for the first time. And honestly, I walked out with a pep in my step. I don't know if I was waiting to see if I would feel a bit weird, you know, oh, my baby's dying school. I was like, this is a milestone

and I've achieved something and I'm happy about it. He went in a bit wobbly, and then I could see through the window after it dropped him off. He was fine, and I feel like, yeah, okay. Fifth and final instalment of Jones Boy has started. School. Great. What a moment. And then in the nice juxtapositions that can happen in life, I don't know if it's nice, just, you know, a contrast. Last night, my eldest boy, Sonny, who's 19,

told me he's just finished packing his first box, ready to move out. And I don't know. It's obviously, I'm going to really miss having Sonny under my roof, but I do feel overwhelmingly that he's making the right move now. I think it's good for him and I think he's ready and I think he's excited. And I saw an Instagram post the other day and it said something like, parenthood is a series of goodbyes, you know, from womb to bringing them home from hospital,

from the cot at the side of the bed to their own room, from running away from me in the cot at the side of the bed to their own room from running away from me in the park to going to school and at first I thought oh that's really sweet and I thought hang on a minute I don't actually agree with that I actually don't agree with that it's not a series of goodbyes it's just stages of growth it's developing it's evolving it's moving together into new chapters and I'm actually okay with that because the opposite of that is things not moving forward so I'm all for it it's okay I think there's some if you want to think like that obviously that's fine but I just choose not

to and I also don't feel it in my bones and I think there's some slightly unhelpful rhetoric going on on the internet sometimes have you seen this stuff where it says oh you only have 18 summers with your kid or something I'm like that's just annoying don't be a sovereign to put much pressure plus Sonny the 19 year old he came on holiday with us this summer he didn't come on holiday last year or the one before so what am I now back to like 17 summers also my mom came on holiday with me this year is she up to like 19 summers however many it's been probably like 37 i spend a lot of time with my mom so i just think it's unhelpful so don't be if you're seeing that stuff and it's making you feel under pressure to make every moment like the most like cherished beautiful thing ever don't worry

about it it's much more important I think to keep in step with your nearest and dearest not just your kids your other half if you have one your friends your family relationships need to be fed in the here and now and not just like oh do you remember when we were really close 10 years ago you know that's that's the way it's supposed to be it's supposed to evolve anyway I think I'm feeling all of that stuff because I did have to drop off my kid at school and it's made me think about stuff and obviously there's lots of other back to school stuff going on at the moment but mainly I think growth is good and if your kid's ready for it and if they're feeling like they're going to cope with it, then you know it's the right thing, right? Anyway, so today's guest.

Oh, what a lovely woman. I'd met Laura at Dockwell very briefly. We went to the launch of a book of another previous podcast guest, the lovely Dawn O'Porter. So we'd met at dawn's book launch and we had this really brief chat because i've been following laura on her instagram and we had a few mutual friends and i'd also at that point read her book what have i done she's written lots of books lots of works of fiction for young adults for children uh she's just written one for adults but this was uh this is the first book she's written that was non-fiction about her, frankly, terrifying experience of postpartum psychosis. It's a read that knocked the wind out of me, both when I read it then and when I reread it before I spoke to Laura.

But it's also, I think for me, the magnitude of it is that postpartum psychosis affects one to women in a thousand. And there is nothing to say that that could not have been my experience of what happened to me, you know, and actually aspects of her descriptions of the beginnings of her feelings of slipping from reality to other feel very familiar you know when you're sleep deprived when you're if you're the other side of a traumatic birth these things can make you feel like you don't know quite which way is up and um i think that i could have easily slipped into those things you know who's to say there weren't hers breaths that meant i could have gone into different a different set of emotions for the beginning of

my journey into new parenthood. So Laura writes about it really well. Also, I think it's absolutely brilliant to break the taboo. You know, I'm sure everybody in their life, and it doesn't have to be related to parenthood at all, but everybody in their life might have a time where they feel they have just slipped below the radar and actually I suppose that harks back to what I was talking about with seeing the kids start school the wheel turning there's also times where you do feel you've stagnated or you've slipped into some other other aspect of life where everybody else is sort of moving forward in the normal trajectory and you're just not this can happen for many many reasons you know it could be um circumstance it could be illness it could be injury it could be something unexpected or something that just

already self tells you oh those milestones are not going to be the things that I hit because my life has gone in a different direction and or you know someone you care about life has and I think when I had my first baby and I had preeclampsia and I was very ill and I had him two months early and he was in you know neonatal for weeks on end months um I felt like I slipped into a chapter of the book that I didn't read the parenting book you know you in your body for the first nine months. That didn't happen for me. I stopped at chapter seven. I never got to months eight and nine.

And there was just a footnote at the bottom of the page saying for some women, they might get these things. So for some women, they might get postpartum psychosis. That's the footnote. But for some women, they don't just it's not a footnote it becomes their whole experience so I'm so grateful to Laura for coming to speak to me she looks amazing she's wearing she came to me wearing this incredible flamboyant um co-ord outfit that I would really quite like to own for myself as well it's beautiful she had bright lipstick on she looks incredible sunny happy positive person

but the story she told is of someone who's experienced something incredibly dark but also it's very powerful that she's able to speak about it because there'll be other women and in fact I have pressed her book into the hands of people that I think could maybe do with hearing about other you know what might be happening to them so yeah grateful to to Laura for sharing her experience grateful to the support around to the men that that's became something that she's the other side of um I'm very very grateful she came over to talk to me about it so I think uh aspects of this um chat might be a bit shocking. I should say there's a trigger warning because there's talk about suicidal thoughts

and very dark days and experiences. But overwhelmingly, there is a happy ending. So yeah, be braced, but be reassured, too. It all ends up okay in the end. And thank you to Laura for sharing it, and I'll see you on the other side. Laura, it's lovely to sit down with you. Thank you, Sophie. Thank you for coming in.

Firstly, for everybody listening in black and white, you look beautiful in all the colours you're wearing today. So do you, and your incredible, charming house. We've both gone a bit maximalist today, which thumbs up from me. Well, I want to speak to you first of all, what are you up to at the moment? What are your projects that you're working on?

Oh, thank you for asking. Well, I've got a new novel coming out in June, which I'm obviously biting my fingernails about, going through the crisis of confidence. day i'm like yes the next minute why am i doing this this is your first adult adult novel which is um it's called i love you i love you i love you and it's a love story about what's about hugo and i really based on there's truth in the um fiction of it so we've been best mates since we were 14 years old, my partner and I. And then a couple of little kids' plays.

And then I've got a children's book coming out with Lauren Child, which I'm super excited about because it's about depression, a picture book for kids, which is, nobody ever talked to me about this when I was young. So it's something I really wanted to try and tackle, especially after my lived experience. And to talk to Jet, I suppose, my little boy, about what we went through.

And to know also that this stuff is scary, but knowledge is power and recovery is so possible. And that was something I really wanted to write about for young people. I think that's a really important conversation because I think depression is something that affects so many people and there's still some barriers to break down. And particularly with kids, anything that's sort of like the i've been gray is a brilliant title the grayer areas of life the more you can bring them out into the light and talk about them the way more you can diminish those bits those corners where you think oh this is a fallen outside of what was expected

and i don't really know exactly what that means for me. Totally. And I think also the shame surrounding it. Like there's still, it's still seen that we can't cope, you know, shame, stress, anxiety, all these things. And yet, as you say, it's a universal topic that affects us all. And all we're doing by silencing it is actually inflaming the shame, making it harder to ask for help.

Yeah. And also we're actually not helping ourselves because when you talk about it, all you hear is someone else go, well, I had that too. And then you chill and you're like oh okay this isn't something to be embarrassed about so it's kind of perpetuating yeah um and the color gray is obviously I'm somebody that loves color that looks to color and I did not have a wardrobe for depression boy I had to scurry out there thinking what can I wear how can I be and learning that

actually I just had to be myself and accepting that. So yeah. Well, I mean, you've already alluded a little bit to what happened when you had your baby, your little boy Jet. But if I could go back a little bit further, I want to know a little bit more about your relationship with writing. What does writing mean to you? Oh, wow. Well, I've written since I was a little girl, since I was three years old, knew how to wrap my chubby hand around a pencil it's been my kind of the underscore of my life and it's only been well we can talk about this later but in my illness truly did I realize what a touchstone it is for me you know when I was ill I did consider all these great things in life I'm saying great as in the word huge religion or addiction anything

huge that kind of people look for for an anchor and I realized that mine is writing it's been that constant that has come like everywhere with me like the dregs of my life um and uh that's how I have digested and processed what has happened around me little things as a kid from a pet dying or my grandma dying my parents breaking up I would express it in that way through writing my spelling and grammar has never been strong and I always thought that to be a writer you kind of had to have incredible spelling grammar be an academic be best friends with Stephen Fry um and I identified writing as um you have to be studious and extremely smart maybe you've gone to Cambridge and certainly help if you're if you're a dead man not on the live girl and so um I just thinking about that

it's a brilliant way to start so I never really I mean we talked about the Brit school earlier didn't we and so the Brit school really was a place um that I thought oh maybe I can do this there is a gap in the market for uh female writers female stories um and why not me it has to be somebody why not me but I started learning the work off by heart because of my spelling and grammar I thought I would never get on you mean your own work yeah so I did um would do performance poetry storytelling one looking back as a children's author is now a massive mistake because it was a character who is a rolf harris obsessive which now i'm like oh but it was a character and um got published when i was

about 20 with harper collins um a handwritten i didn't even own a laptop or a computer it was a handwritten book that uh every day a motorbike would come and pick up the pages that it was sort of hand stitched together like that and that book you know I kind of almost thought that was going to be it and I'm still you know I try not to get too comfy in this job because I appreciate how privileged we are to be making art for our career it shouldn't be that way because everyone should have the arts accessible to them but it is a privilege and um but I'm always you know every kind of month I go okay maybe this is going to be the last one but I just I I believe that whatever I was was doing with my

life I would be telling stories I would be compelled to write about it so my imagination has always been there until I suppose it turned on me and then I could no longer access it I found like my brain had almost betrayed me and I had to realign with it get to know it again and that's what happened yeah that's where I'm at now we're in a full-blown romance again because how many books have you written now so I love you I love you I love you yeah I think it's 22 22 books including good whistle including children's but I was very impressed I can't do it I can't whistle so I'm like wow I love it when people put their two fingers in. I can't do that.

You know, really honk. God, Sophie. 22, but it's including children's books, poetry books, and each one, you know, is a baby to me. I feel like it sounds like a lot. And then I see Jacqueline Wilson and she's like, I'm on 110. And I'm like, what?

And she will speak about every single book with such love you know she'll know all the characters at child there's always some kid that will put their hand up some nine year old girl who'll be like what about and say this name that you think's gonna throw her and she'll know exactly who you're talking about and I've got a lot of respect for that because they are like your your babies you know as you know with music we've got our kids but we've got our art which is also pushing out our babies as well our creations yeah and as you know with music we've got our kids but we've got our art which is also pushing out our babies as well our creations yeah and as you say that touchstone and feeling like you and actually it's interesting you said you had this idea of what a writer would look like but actually

you know the way that people used to people like homer that was all written to be memorized and said aloud. That's actually how the birth of that sort of storytelling. A lot of people couldn't read, so it was actually exchanging stories. That was what it was all about. I visit a lot of schools and the amount of kids that are like, oh, I don't like reading or writing,

but they'll buy into adverts, they'll love music, they'll love gaming. And I'm like, don't you realise all of this have massive constructs of writing behind it where authors have and big writing rooms you know you like stranger things or squid games do you not think huge writing teams create this stuff yeah it's why it's such an exciting job and it is as you say the truth of it is conversation and communication absolutely I was actually talking about that with my 14 year old the other night we were talking about our favorite books and our favorite films and I was saying you know art is basically

storytelling like if you haven't got that way of to communicate things and to try and you know find what relates create a shared experience or to step into someone's life an experience you didn't have and feel like you did totally and I have to say, your writing is amazing. I've read What Have I Done twice now, and both times I'm blown away by the way you take me by the hand into your experience. So why don't we talk a little bit about what happened when you had your first baby? Yeah.

Yeah. Which makes me want to give you a hug. I was already, just for everyone listening, I was already crying the second to listen listening i was already crying the second i stepped in sophie's kitchen this is the kind of house this place is so there might be tears emotionally poor exactly yes um okay so i've never experienced poor mental health before obviously i've had going back to school dread sort of thing and worry anxiety but healthy I would say not unhealthy and um I had a healthy pregnancy no reason to be worried two weeks overdue this is my first born I was with

the love of my life like everything was kind of as it should be and um went in to get induced and I just ended up not coming out for over a week. I had a very traumatic labour. They basically detected, they think I might have had undiagnosed preeclampsia, but what had essentially happened is where Jet was cooking nicely in the womb. I mean, I was showing small and unsolicited, you know what it's like being pregnant.

People love to give you unsolicited advice, don't they? Yes, they really do. Shut the fuck up. So I thought I was going to give birth to this kind of prized pumpkin but i was showing small i kind of reassured myself he was sort of hiding in my rib cage or something and i was like it'll be fine um if anything looking back i think i was actually getting smaller so what was happening was the placenta had failed so he was essentially starving inside me and when he came out his skin was like stretchy where he'd had nutrients and then he'd lost it.

So I called, there was meconium, I had to have epidural, that massive needle in your spine, all this stuff. Bearing in mind, I have not only been to the hospital before for a broken wrist when I was 11 years old. So suddenly panic stations, doctors, they say, don't worry about all these midwives coming in, it's when you see a doctor.

Oh, I had doctors, all these midwives coming in it's when you see a doctor oh I had doctors nurses midwives everything um it was only what I could describe as hell then I realized no hell hadn't even begun um so one of the things I learned from this because there's got to be a silver lining is what a passenger I was just going to the nurses and doctors have you got a boyfriend have you eaten oh are you hungry kind of neglecting myself and not having any autonomy you were asking yeah checking they'd checking in them going have you had enough to drink completely no agency over myself or care because I trusted them yes quite rightly how do I know as well and being a patient and in a very medicalized situation especially when you've got no experience of hospital,

it's like, oh, I don't... I just sort of imagine everything is very smooth here, everybody knows what they're doing. I think you don't... I'd never really been to hospital before I had a baby either, and I actually did have pre-eclampsia in my first two, so I had them early. And I had this vision of hospital that is very sort of slick,

almost people who are sort of superhuman. And then you realise, I know these people are extraordinary, but they've trained, they've learnt their stuff, and sometimes things slip through the net or people don't know how to talk to you. And being very good at, you know, how you do something medically

might not mean you're as good at how to talk to a patient or explain what's going on with them. Totally. Yeah. And they're just human. Yeah, just humans. And we know as well,

they're understaffed, they're overworked. But you also know when you hear sirens and you like to see a kind of relaxed look on a midwife's face, the same you want to see an air stewardess in turbulence on an aeroplane, you want to see them look chilled. Yes. Like this happens all the time. You don't want to see them be panicked.

Yeah. One of them, I'd heard my midwife my home midwife was really loving and kind and reassuring and she had said to me before you know when you get there if you're not vibing with this she probably didn't say vibing obviously she didn't she said um it's okay not to vibe with your midwife ask for a different one but it's like in the moment how are you going to be a nuisance and go I'm so sorry not really vibing with this midwife can you do you know what i mean you're just going to get on with it like uh don't want to hurt anyone's feelings like and also my fanny is out right now and my life is at risk and so is my child

can you just make this smooth as possible and as you say maybe someone who isn't pleasant might be really great at delivering a baby yeah and. And keeping you alive. Anyway, I had to have my waters manually broken with like a Victorian spike that when I saw the size of it, nothing could prepare me for it. It was like something from horrible histories. And it scraped all of Jet's head. So the waters had apparently already broken.

So he came out with all these gashes on his head. I'm just there like, have I failed? What have I done wrong? Not being able to, I'm pooing all over the place. The poo just did not stop. Cut to emergency caesarean. As I said, never had an operation before. So even that was something.

And there was me going, well done everybody at the end. Wheeled around to the maternity ward. What made me think now I'd be able to just have a kind of sprite and chill. And well done, everybody, at the end. Wheeled around to the maternity ward. What made me think now I'd be able to just have a can of Sprite and chill? Obviously, I had this baby that was underweight that wanted to feed nonstop. As listeners might know, if you've had an emergency caesarean, or anyway, the milk can take a while to come in. So I had nothing to feed my baby.

That already, again, compounding your failure, you can't do this. So Hugo's there with this thing, this little pipette trying to get the colostrum out. And, yeah, then we're on this ward, this maternity ward. Have you been to a maternity ward before? Yeah, well, I had my first two, like, yeah, I had emergency caesareans and then I got taken to the place where it's like, this is where we put you with things that you haven't gone exactly as you planned. And you're sort of trying to eavesdrop,

not eavesdrop, that's the wrong thing. You can't help but eavesdrop, actually. These paper-thin little curtain walls. And you're sort of trying to work out the stories going on behind each one. And there's a weird air there because it's, I mean, I didn't have my baby with me. He was taken off.

I'm sorry. No, sorry. These things happen. But it's that thing of like, this isn't quite how i thought it would be i'm i've just had my baby but he's not here what do i how does this work out now this is not the chat i didn't read this chapter in my book this is not how the script goes exactly yeah that was exactly sounds like when you said weird air that's what i can really relate to um and And kind of a maternal whale song of pain where people are like, you know, we had people opposite us who had twins,

one of them didn't make it. The other one had the same scars that I had across their head. So we're there comparing these gashes in our child's head. It's not like how you see in the movies, this golden hour where you're meant to be having skin to skin and instantly falling in love. This is terror, pain, terror pain fright neglect abandonment um the basic instinct of being able to use the bathroom or fall asleep seem like something as far off as you know getting on an airplane and going to

another country and being in the maldives it's like yeah this isn't far out of my reach yeah you're not allowed to fall asleep with the baby on your chest because you're on like a high bed and it's a yeah floor but the baby wants to be with you all the time and you've got nothing to feed the baby and oh ironically catch 22 the only way to get the milk working is to put the baby on the tea yeah so you're just there like okay what do I actually do so I don't think I slept for days days and days and I'm not just exaggerating you don't really sleep before you give birth anyway because you're counting down you know your life's about to change you're scared you're apprehensive your back's hurting all these things so yeah I became I'm vegetarian but I was ripping apart chicken you know like a viking and glugging water from the jug like with

my hands and just desperate to get out there the temperature is so hot um and a rare sign of the epidural is that i wanted to scratch so i was i had that as well did you crazy itching crazy people don't tell you about that bit enough oh and don't forget the signs of epidural it's like you might die you might this you might like so yeah i was scratching till i was bleeding so anyway we came i felt like i'd been vacuum packed in a jungle or something I was like I need to get out of here and we finally did um I think what was scary about that moment as well was realizing that Jet and I were patients in our own right so I was discharged but he wasn't so that was like oh I'm he's not actually just mine he belongs to the world or society which is just strange made me realize of like how the value

of him and how special he was and that I'd nearly murdered him in my mind you know that doubt by not being able to maybe grow him properly all these moments of failure I suppose anyway taken out uh thought home would be like the Walt Disney Castle everything would calm down it was February outside there was this wild storm madly it was cool it was actually it's called Storm Emma she was called Storm Emma the storm and she was a great depression which is just really strange so in February when we're used to maybe the beginnings of spring going into March all of March it was like we were trapped in a kind of snow globe it felt like the glass was all kind of around us and we were encased and there was just a giant was just lobbing us this snow globe like knocking us off the shelf and nothing seemed to settle and my panic my kind

of state of my I guess the alarm system of my body was just pinging off and firing in all directions and as I said I'd never experienced this before so when we got back Hugo immediately my partner he was incredible the entire time his tolerance for BS is just ginormous he just fell asleep and I was like oh what do I do I need to look out for danger I need to look out the window I need to every ambulance I'm hearing must be for me I'm hearing racing thoughts somebody who obviously doesn't have a child bought us a six foot teddy bear as a present and I'm like that bear's watching me there's got CCTV in the camera and it's just like that kind of paranoia edge that first I mean I've never done a drug but it many of my friends have and I've sat with them in those moments where

they might say something and you can laugh it off or you know it isn't and you kind of say what if or blah blah but this was like I didn't have that kind of reins of intelligence to pull this back and say no Laura this is this maybe at this point I still did but it then it spiraled with the lack of sleep and um worry for Jet I didn't feel this bond um and I didn't know how I was ever going to get better. I honestly believe there was like a before version of me and an after version of me in what felt like hours. And I couldn't see how the gap had got so lost. So I did the right thing. And I asked for help. I was charging on my little merry way down to the GP every day. There was snow on the ground. It was so strange. it was coming into March and I was like this just doesn't feel right telling them how I was going through what I was going through

of course it was um severe adjustment disorder um baby blues PTSD all these things are thrown at me but I couldn't I was trying the best to find the language I could but I was like this is something else like I feel like I've done something extremely wrong yeah which is why the book's called what have I done like a dread sort of big time big time dread and I can't get to the point of it and a feeling of foreboding like something horrendous is about to happen foreboding 100 yes and she said do you feel like you're going to maybe turn around no could you hear maybe a voice behind you and you could turn around and like the voice isn't there and I was like I said I remember saying no that sounds mad but that was very close to kind of what I could imagine happening and it's like the makings of a horror film I kind of get home and I'm looking at myself in the

mirror and I'm like all you did was have a baby what we see in the movies is what you see in Catastrophe that program on TV and it's motherland it's so normalized it's domestic and boring it's boring why are you having this crazy kind of experience like a kind of horror yeah major horror movie um and then then i became extremely suicidal on many different levels mostly because who could live like that for a long time also because i was terrified of what my psychosis wanted me to do I should probably say the illness I was going through is called postpartum psychosis but I mean I wasn't diagnosed yet at this point um so I was terrified of what I was going to do so I guess I was suicidal which actually I'm proud of myself for this bit was thinking this is going to be really messy and horrible and probably and badly so let's nip it

in the bud in a way that I had control over um and then the other one was a storyline because if you're in psychosis often it can be a narrative or a storyline that you believe is real and you kind of have to follow the steps of that which is just as a storyteller probably does really doesn't help um so it was a combination of those things and cut to on my first mother's day waking up in a psychiatric ward separated from jet um in general psych I just remember waking up and um seeing somebody an eyeball that I didn't recognize watching me in this kind of strange travel lodge type room, thinking, oh my God, this is rock bottom. This is actually rock bottom. But also a sense of relief, like now,

because the only thing worse than mental illness is pretending that you're not mentally ill. Yeah. Holding it together. So it was like, okay, I'm here now. I just remember crawling across the floor to get my breakfast and that was the the end of that phase but the beginning of a whole new thing um in hospital yes and recovery

but I suppose also what you're talking about is your real eye of the storm obviously the concentric circles are Hugo and your baby and your family and everybody around you. Yeah. And, I mean, there's a bit where you said, oh, if I'd have been able to, I could have pulled myself back when I was thinking, what was it you were talking about, when you were saying you could have tried to normalise, you know, the big bear not having a camera. But actually, it's very obvious you were in the grip of something that actually was not, much bigger than you being able

to sort of choose a different option. And it would have, you know, this is, this was the spiral of this started from the chemistry of giving birth. Totally. And it's one in, yeah, but it's extraordinary. The neurology does change. It changes your brain. The primary care is, you know, brain mapping changes.

Birth does it too. It's like there's loads of things that happen in the process of bringing a new person into the world. And postpartum psychosis, as I understand it, affects one or two women in a thousand. I'm laughing. I'm so impressed by your research. Well, I tell you what, I'm interested in it for a lot of reasons. I think what's very powerful about the whole story of it in your writing

is that with a lot of mental health things, you don't feel that far away from what you experienced at so many points in becoming a new mum. Like the sleep deprivation, I mean, that's literally used as torture, the way it affects your mum. Yeah. Like, the sleep deprivation. I mean, that's literally used as torture, the way it affects your brain. Yeah. A traumatic birth, an underweight baby, feeding around the clock.

Yeah. The pressure of what's expected as being a new parent and your ability to nail it. What depression feels like. There's loads of stages of it that are really familiar. So I don't, I feel like it's, you know, like a lot of these things, the line of where it crosses into something darker, it's probably closer to most of us than we realise for a lot of things,

about loads of ways that we keep ourselves feeling on the right side of sane. Well, what's so lovely about what you just said is you said it wasn't, you know, you couldn't have done that. You took away the blame because that's something I didn't know about and it and the people around you as you said it is getting better these conversations but i had nobody saying to me this is not your fault this is chemical yeah this is a medical issue this is a medical emergency yeah this is not something you can try somebody tried to say to me i don't want to you know i'm not prescribing blame to the nhs but one of them said to me,

well, you spiralled yourself there, why don't you just unspiral back? And I was like... Whoa. Because then it puts all the blame on me and my shoulders. Like, if I unspiral myself back, then I can be a good mum. That's an extraordinarily ill-informed thing to say. And this is someone who's intelligent and young and creative, and, you know, I just thought, wow.

And those things just only make you realise if I didn't have family support, you know, all this around me, quite how isolating mental illness is. It's seen that we're the scary ones. We're the one that's scared. Yeah, petrified. Petrified because we're so isolated. So for somebody to then put the blame on us,

you spiralled yourself there, spiralled yourself back back that's just impossible that's impossible so i really love what you said there and a good doctor my my one of my friends the other day said that they had a meeting with a doctor who said we all have the we're all on the spectrum of all of these things you know it's such a vast kaleidoscopic spectrum it's not just you have this you have this you have that it's a problem with labeling we've all been close to the edge before exactly compounded by lack of sleep as you say stress an emergency whatever why does it feel you know i remember being in the psychiatric ward thinking oh shit what made me think i didn't belong in a place like this yeah what how silly me for thinking shit, what made me think I didn't belong in a place like this?

How silly me for thinking that's mentally ill people, I'm one of the ones untouched. Like, that's like saying that you're never going to end up in A&E. Yeah. Yeah. But I suppose we have... You know, things have come on a long way in our relationship with talking about mental illness, but we also have a sort of a light approach to certain aspects of depression that can be little messages people put on Instagram.

And obviously, there's a lot to be said for keeping check on yourself in the here and now and making sure you voice things and keeping that. But the depression that I've witnessed in people when they've really gone into something very heavy cannot be touched by a phrase that they read online or something like that what we're talking about is like other it's like a whole other yeah section yeah and i want to really stress as well that what you experienced as it's a medical emergency it's get yourself to a 100 you know and it's very very serious 100 and yet we're told oh just ride it out

it's like you know yourself i always say treat these things you know especially in new moms treat it like unattended luggage at a station you know it could be nothing but treat it like it's something dangerous treat it like worst case scenario. If you don't trust the professional you're talking to, get a second opinion. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, it's just so vital to voice it. And it does feel from, you know,

I've heard the podcast you did with Hugo where you both spoke about it. Thank you. Which is a lovely conversation and I bet quite good for you to have had that space to actually really do that, because sometimes you don't have every conversation in that really careful way. Yeah, I mean, we've talked about it over so much. You know, one of the biggest things was not being admitted to a mother and baby unit,

because that would have maybe, it was always something that I go through, like, would that have changed things? So, sorry, explain to me, what do you mean by that? So many people that have the illness, I was going to say mothers, but I don't want to, well, I suppose it is mothers. Many new mums that have postnatal depression or postpartum psychosis are admitted to a mother and baby unit, meaning that their baby can be with them.

Oh, I see. And nurses take care of the baby day to day, but I was admitted to general psych. So suddenly waking up, thinking what on earth's gone wrong with me, sat next to people with alcoholism, addiction, eating disorders, schizophrenia. I mean, it was just a total,

that just made me feel like I was in prison or in hell. Like what on earth is this? Strange waiting room, purgatory of life. Yes. And then, you know, I was also thinking, well, you're not bleeding on top of all of this because you bleed, don't you, after you had a baby? I was literally looking at them like I was at school.

Like, yeah, but has that happened to you? And leaking on my chair, you know, like in the group circles. And that's kind of the area where I feel Hugo and I, like like really had to go talk all that through like the decisions to keep me and Jet apart but I'm so glad because I didn't want him to be in a place like that you know I didn't want him to grow up and see me there um I suppose anything with that as well it's that means that for you it was almost like your pregnancy was a sort of other thing you'd experienced because now you were dealing with your mental health.

Oh, totally. But you're actually a really new mum. I mean, Jet was like four or five weeks, right? Yeah, he was three weeks old when I was there. I know. So people will be like, oh yeah, sorry, I forgot you just had a baby. We just thought we were treating you for how ill you are. That's it. I'm so glad you're saying that. I mean, I did this poetry workshop for, I work really closely with action on postpartum psychosis the organization they're incredible many of them have experienced it and um one of them wrote this amazing piece which I've it's so nuanced but I was like yes you'd only write this if you'd had that which is the description of um it's so sad the poem just so amazing but basically pumping your breast milk into the empty into the sink because it's so sad, the poem just so amazing, but basically pumping your breast milk empty into the sink

because it's not usable, because you've got to taking so much medication that it isn't usable in a psychiatric ward with no baby around and what that feels like. And especially if you have to have the door open all day long in your ward, which I did at that time, it is, yeah yeah demoralizing and especially when you milk is what is seen as you know even the word milk has this idea of being nectar of the gods

and so precious um you can't really get over that and I guess as well it makes you feel even further away from what you're trying to get back to which is feeling good about the new chapter of your life that's begun to be a baby totally like a million miles away from it yeah 100% yeah so I mean when you wrote about it how did you manage to keep so many... You write about it in such detail. How have you got the memories from it, if you were feeling so unlike yourself in those moments? Some people do forget it all. I'm jealous of them sometimes,

that people with psychosis manage to have a wipeout. I mean, I'm sure that's terrifying. It has its own cons, of course it does. But the memory... When I visited the hospital, every single sign saying, fire fire escape every bit of art it was so potent to me I could see it was like I was speeding on a high I mean my brain was thumping and working so hard because I believed I was um it's funny because I'm just the opposite of this person but I believed I had to was about to be a

lawyer in a big custody case to win my son back. So obviously I had to do all my research and preparation for that. My brain was working so hard that it would physically thump, you know, my brain had its own pulse. I was speeding like how to get out of this place,

which is why it's also a carbohydrate hell because you need to eat because you're just like buzzing on nothing mania um so I think my my senses were so overworked that's why I could remember it all um I've got a good memory anyway but processing it in this way writing it down so yeah I'm going back to my writing which you asked the beginning which was such a lovely way to interview to open the interview I've never had it done like that because it circles it back in such a nice way I guess my almost my the pen in my mind was like come on write about it write about it write about it and I was having this battle where I was like I don't trust you anymore like look what you've

done to me you've made me think that I was dying, that I was a psycho killer, that I was going to lose Jet, all these things, that my whole family were against me, all these horrible, dark things. And it just started happening bit by bit. And, you know, I was so happy to lose the writing. My number one love, you know, this touchstone I described to you at the beginning, gone. I was like, I will lose all of that.

I believed I was going to be, you know, all these stereotype sensation, like stereotypes we see in film, they don't help. at the beginning gone i was like i will lose all of that i believed i was going to be you know all these these um stereotype sensational stereotypes we see in film they don't help you know the sylvia plath and the jane eyre in the attic because you believe oh that's women and madness you know witchcraft asylums american horror story that's where you see yourself very quickly hysteria um i thought okay your writing has to be the first to go you're going to be an apple crumble eating zombie at your mum's house that's what's going to happen um and then it was like almost teasing like just see if you can write a couple of lines step away and I did a um a blog

piece with Clemmie Telford and that went viral overnight and then I the next day I just woke up being like what again what have you? What have I done part two? Because I feel like, or part 1,567,000. Because I'm now, it feels like I'm emotionally naked walking down the street. Everyone in my area knows what I've done, what I'm doing. I'm a bad mum.

And so, yeah, I really tossed, you know, kind of fought, battled with the idea of getting it down on paper. I did it all on my phone in the end and sent it off chapter by chapter with jet across my chest and I've only got to this new realization now but I think I was also writing that as um I still didn't truly believe the illness wasn't going to take me so it was like testimony you know an account like this was not my fault this is what happened here this wasn't because I was too weak or it was my first baby or I couldn't do the nappies and the late nights or

whatever I was really sick really sick and went through hell and traumatized so that was also probably what it was so how old was he when you were writing it then six months golly gosh so this I mean it's an extraordinary how much experience and trauma you can have in such a short space of time that's very very intense yeah it was intense and um but then getting like you know comment from you and all these other beautiful women that I look up to and always have admired the work of and them coming back to me it's saying that they'd read it or even identified with it whatever I can't explain each one is like a stepping stone that you're like oh this is not you know Sophie can have it people and just can slam their makeup on and get on tv and do all

these things and they have felt this it's just like whoa we're holding our shit together yeah like we are showing up day after day we're doing it and we're all pretending we're fine and then this conversation opens and it's an explosion look at your podcast because people need conversations like this they actually save lives they really i really do believe in the power of yeah conversation and i think also what i took away from it when you you know there's a photograph that you've posted a few times because it sort of becomes like this visual way of like reminding people the significance of what you see can be masking your thoughts and it's a picture of you it's a night out you had with Hugo where you went for dinner down the road

yeah first night out away from Jets me must have only been a couple of weeks old. Got your lipstick on. You're looking pretty fancy with your champagne, but you're not feeling anything like that on the inside. And I did have a touch of depression

when I was about 20. And I remember thinking, it's so easy to fool people that I'm okay. Like, people just don't really seem to notice that I'm clearly not really okay.

I'm sorry. It's horrible. Well, thank well thank you I mean it's nothing like experience and I'm not trying to say that you know that that's why but just that that glimmer of like the ability to put a front on and you must have been working so hard but I do want to talk about the recovery because obviously you're not the only one who's experienced this and there might be people out there who are a little bit closer to the eye of the storm so what does the recovery process look like how does that work um it's strange isn't it because I think the panic station is the illness is so bombastic and huge I'm grateful for that now because it was seen like I was having a heart attack of the brain and I just was lying there like a patient you know I it's those people my heart goes out to that have this low level like underscore that maybe years before it's diagnosed you have every

right you should be protecting yourself and asking for the help that you need. But in this instance, so obviously the labour was a casserole of nonsense and hell. The hospital, the psychiatric ward was surreal and scary and frightening and all those things. Obviously a bit lulls too, looking back. There is humour in your book, right? There's humour, yeah. I love the description of the consultant who looks like he's got tiny hands.

He's really funny. He had a heart attack as he was getting me off my meds. And I was like, sorry, I know you're having heart attacks, but before you go, could you just help me? Sorry, sorry, sorry. I understand that you're dying, but really, please help me. He was amazing. And humour is what helps.

Throwing these things into the light. Laughter physically relaxes me. I feel more relaxed when I laugh. We all do. That's hannah gadsby isn't it and netflix where she that comedy thing where you can handle trauma in that way um so uh yes well first of all recovery is possible that's the brilliant thing the only brilliant thing about postpartum psychosis is it's really treatable it responds really well to treatment but you have to act fast so is it seen as a medical emergency but with therapy medication basically being a little goody-goody doing every single thing the doctor tells you to do is kind of surprisingly the only way out but it is a little bit like a ship store a storm you know shipwreck where you come out and

you're like okay right i'm on the island now but what is left of my life in my case thank god because I was in the um no thank me actually I did it in the hospital I didn't say too many terrible things but people do people they can't help it they're sick you know but you might destroy relationships that you think are irreparable you might say bad you know hurtful things or act in a hurtful way embarrassing humiliation and that is something that is hard to get through I definitely did things that I felt ashamed of because I wasn't myself um but also there's a quietness to recovery that is difficult after such chaos and a little bit you feel like people are like oh you're still ill come on like tiktok you know you feel like you've kind of used your depression tokens yeah and now you're in debt

and it's like i'm trying i'm trying my best um so there are things that i've had to learn on this journey that i rely on even now in my everyday life CBT number one boyfriend you know having that in my back pocket has got me out of so many things just knowing now to push and pull if I feel exhausted or overworked I have to rest not drinking anymore which has just been it's going to be three years next week which is like huge for me yeah congratulations oh thanks that's very impressive and these all these things I wouldn't have got and to have these open conversations with my little boy he knows i was sick you know he keeps calling me a headache which is slightly offensive considering the gravity of the situation but sure headache right okay um or he sometimes goes my head's completely fine and i'm like okay um so but we've got such a bond

and hugo as well he's just, you know, his little bag that he used to have his wires and plectrums in was suddenly full of baby milk and wet wipes and muslins. Like he just did that overnight. You know, we are so bound because of this. So recovery is new things I learned. The number one thing I would say is it's so harsh, but acceptance, just accept.

This did not go as you expected expected but lots of things don't and you can feel very very very sorry for yourself but you will get better other stories shared stories i just gobbled up books podcasts of anyone that had gone through anything hard and made it through to the other side whether that be grief or addiction whatever yeah people have gone through incredible things the more we talk about it just the easier it gets and also the more you talk actually you get a bit bored which is quite magic as well you get bored of it um and and being kind to yourself it sounds so like cheesy and obvious but it's about real true self-compassion so removing as soon as I removed shame and guilt which is actually very easy to to remove once you practice it you're like oh this was you

know it was an amazing doctor that I met I you might have heard me say this before but um he was he's the lead psychiatrist the lead professor sorry in my illness and bipolar and had all these questions written down as to why me why this happened to me and he just said it just wasn't your day that's it it wasn't your day See it like you were hit by a car. And that just flooded me with relief. Like, oh, this wasn't my fault. It's just a catastrophe of chaos that all just happened and didn't work in my favour.

And so, yeah, hold on, because it does work out okay. And as you know, once the kid starts getting older and smiling and showing a grain of appreciation you find your groove a little bit and it might I don't think I'll ever be the same person that I was before I got unwell but good because there were loads of things about me that were um not not naive or played down mental illness, but just didn't understand it, didn't have the compassion to hold that space. And I'm so proud that now I love life just as hard as I did before,

but now I know that there are monsters exist and I still love it. I still know there's so much to live for. Oh, I love that very much, the way you phrased that. And I think it's interesting because I suppose for some people, they might experience it but then and look there's no right way to handle any of these things but I think the fact that

you've sort of made it normalized with your relationship with Jet that this thing happened I mean what was the way that you broached that I mean presumably this touches on what Grey is about and how you phrased it and that so So how did you talk to him about it? What was your way of approaching it? Well, my mum's adopted and she said to me, I said, when did you find out you were adopted? She went, I don't remember. And she said, but she remembers her grandad saying

you should never remember being told something across the kitchen table as a child. Oh, that's a brilliant thing to say. God, that's so smart. You should never have a kind of sit down. This is a big thing to say god that's so smart you should never have a kind of sit down this is a big moment for you so reveal yes and it's funny because this does feed it's not funny really painful but it does feed into postpartum psychosis because a lot of people do feel the need when their child is of a certain age to say look your mother have gone

through this or whatever and i didn't want to do that you know I wanted us to just kind of it to be in his understanding of why he's not going to have siblings because I come from big busy bustling annoying family and that's what I wanted and I'm not going to do that because there's 50% chance of me getting it again so I want wanted him to understand but also um I want mental illness you know in my autocorrect on my phone now if i go to type you know spaghetti my phone will go schizophrenia and i'm glad because these words these powerful scary words that would have frightened me before are you inside insomnia it's like it makes me be able to use these words i'm not terrified of them anymore they lose their

power i still recommend schizophrenia bolognese though schizophrenic bolognese i absolutely love it it's so good did you get the bipolar um no i having this language in my phone in my life and being able to talk to you about jet nobody ever came to my school and said this exists yeah this is but it's treatable and these the tools right here to be able to get better of course they're different for everybody and it's not always as easy for everyone and so much comes into it as you know history and life experience privilege of course it's a big big big conversation but why were they making me play around with a protractor at school yes i've never needed a protractor of you i've never ever once needed to add plus x with y with whatever it is an algebra

not once no i use the calculator on my phone i use google maps i don't need the compass i mean this is a whole other thing and anyone who listens to more than one episode my podcast knows i get very irate about the education system and the way things are taught and what's prioritised. Good. The arts are devalued. Good Sophie. In my next life I'm coming back to sort it all out. I'm here for you.

Have a psychotic break. Make a little schizophrenic bolognese and back to it. Actually, can I ask you though about language? Because I know you brought it up. People talk a lot about like, oh was crazy that was mad that was bonkers if you've actually crossed into the world of true you know chronic mental health disorder what does any of that change or do you still feel like the way we use language in that way is so glad you asked that I went to speak at um the biggest psychiatry congress last week it was in

liverpool which was with the doctor that said it wasn't your day he he was in conversation with us didn't quite know how big it was war crocs massive mistake in an auditorium and they were all in their suits i'm like why and um i i use it in my book i say i had a baby and then i went mad i will say the word mad and that is not even so much about ownership more because the word unwell just does not cut it unwell for me sounds like oh I've got a bit of a I'm feeling a bit unwell I'm poorly um ill even it just doesn't do it and it all it does is actually once again shroud the shame around the uncomfortable Britishness of saying oh I think they're ill right now it's like and that that kind of glimmer in the eye mysterious what do you mean they're ill you

know then a mind shoots off yeah yeah let's not talk about it any more than that you know whereas if someone has cancer it's like oh they have cancer or whatever but it's also in the recovery process too so we'll say this person lost their battle with cancer um they didn't lose they didn't lose anything you know or this person was fighting for their cancer. They didn't lose. They didn't lose anything, you know, or this person was fighting for their life. The very word fighting makes us feel like it was us versus them and it was this giant battle. And actually all it does for me,

people say, you know, you've got to fight this thing. You've got to fight it. It made me feel like I had to have this like strong woman armour of protection and my sword at the ready. Yeah. But actually the opposite. You need to be gooey like chocolate fondue and and let yourself trust yourself that you will land be kind be squidgy stop shooting off all the adrenaline systems and cortisol in your body and thinking this is something that it's you versus this monster

and that was like a very big lesson for me to learn in language. Also, it just doesn't quite catch what I'm trying to say. And if that's the only language that has been given to me, I don't love mental, but I wouldn't love mental anyway because it reminds me of the same people that you say random. Mental's a bit like that. But I do say mad. I went mad, yeah, because that kind of is what it is and for me it softens it people don't know what postpartum psychosis is and yet again this is another conversation

anything postpartum people always feel like they need to tread very gently like oh it's to do with babies and kids or does that mean you're a baby killer does that mean you're this or the poor baby it's always straight away the poor baby. No, the baby's absolutely fine. There's 110 people around the baby, feeding it, holding it, changing it, cuddling it, buying presents it doesn't need. The original title for the book was going to be The Broken Oven

because I felt like everyone had their face peered in at this screen watching this perfect cake rising and rising and rising. And I'd bake the cake and they all went off to eat the cake and I was just this oven like on my own kind of thrown out on the roadside just broken and kind of quietly cooling with all my parts broken and rusty that's how I felt and so yeah I don't mean to offend anybody I need to say that the language I use it's my own ownership I don't think you need to worry I need to say that. The language I use, it's my own ownership. I don't think you need to worry about offending, but it's very much your experience.

And the words, you can use whatever words to describe what happened to you, whatever words. And I want to also give a bit of a shout out to your family and Hugo, because they do sound like you were surrounded by a lot of very concerned and loving people. Oh, they were amazing. And the doctors, they all said, we knew you'd get better the second you came to the hospital because you had the support.

Yeah, that's so vital. And having that, you know, having that support around you, family, my family really did come through for me. And do you feel your relationship with writing is back to where it was? I just wrote a teen book called You Are a Story, which is a creative writing guide for young people about how to write about difficult stuff and come through the other side but also how writing is pretty much free and it's available to us all yet for some reason I mean we obviously did another discussion about this but writing is seen as a academic subject English but it's not it's an arts I believe and it seems like oh that's not my area because I'm not clever enough clever clever in these speech marks. It's available to everybody.

It's like dancing or painting. Yeah. And so, yes, me and writing are very much, it's just my normal inner critic now. Obviously, they're still there. They're not going anywhere, but that's part of the job, isn't it? Definitely part of the process. But I am kinder.

So when I do a stint, I'm like, it's time to cuddle yourself now, girl. That's good. And eat 100 beige things. That sounds good. And I don beige things. That sounds good. And I don't want to sound really creepy, but in my research, I did see that your mum recently met her birth mother

for the first time, which I think is amazing. She did. Oh, my goodness. Yes. Gosh, she digs deep. She digs deep. It's definitely a little on the creepy side.

I'm sorry. You've got all these other jobs. Yes, she did. Personal detective. the private. She did. And you know what? It has defrosted her so much as a person because I think, I mean, this isn't a whole other subject,

but I think the adoption made my mum a kind of lone wolf cockroach, which is what we all love about her. She seems like a really interesting woman. Oh, my goodness. I really do have tried to tackle about i've tried to i don't know if you've ever seen a portrait of a woman on fire of a lady on fire did you see that that that woman reminds me of my mum you can never quite as soon as you think you've captured her she'll move out of her position and you've lost all essence of what

you just nearly grasped and even as a child i that. And she's so formidable and inspiring and full of love and complicated. She caught a Pokemon on my face as I was giving birth. So, a Pikachu. I thought I was posing for a picture. Why did I try and do the little smile? And I was just like, you just caught a Pokemon on my face, didn't you?

She was like, maybe. She's in the top 7% Pokemon catchers. What, like in the UK? Yeah. Maybe even globally. You should get her on the podcast. You should. So that has been really...

It's Lem Sese, the poet, he had an amazing book called My Name Is Why about care system. And he said in it when you find your birth family you bring war but you also bring peace and I feel like my mum was just had just the peace really and it's brought her internal peace it's been really beautiful to see and my new grandma knits us crochet cushions oh brilliant yeah and we're trying to get her to make us crochet bikinis on order now

well that's got to be quicker than doing a cushion she's up for a cushion she's definitely that's true a little thong bikini um but it sounds like and obviously you would never wish going through something traumatic but when when something goes unexpected and dramatic I think with couples and families it can either kind of disperse things or make you this extra tight unit and it sounds like that's what's happened in your home yeah and also yes in home life and also uh in life you know, you get rejection letters, you get scared about normal life things. When life throws things your way, you are able to say, I have been through pretty much, you know,

I have stared suicide in the face and I've made it through. Yeah. And what an achievement that is. And none of these things worry me now because I can do that. I can do the unthinkable and I'm have so much more love and compassion and empathy to give than I ever did I can only say I have taken much more from this illness than what it took from me and for my family too so I'm I'm actually grateful for it I wouldn't wish on anyone but I am grateful I think that's pretty magnificent

there's a lot of strength in what you've been through and how you've managed it but also how you take an ownership of of the narrative of it and made it part of your family story but not something to be fearful of just the fire you will walk through and now you are can I finish by asking you for your book grey what's something that you've written in there as a if people are listening and they think oh I quite because I know it's not coming out till next year isn't it so is there something that's like a bit of advice for how to talk to kids about depression in there it's even more abstract than that but that is such a nice um question well at the end it just says um my love won't change for you when it's grey so really the message there is unconditional love we think sometimes that when we have depression or anxiety or we've got something on our minds that we're

unlovable and not only because the illness is kind of comes with for some stupid reason like weakness and even though you're daily weightlifting an athlete in your mind but But also because you feel like you're always going on about it or you're taking time and you're like, oh, I need to do this and meds and whatever it is. It's just knowing that the love is unconditional and remembering that if it's not you, it could very well be the person that's caring for you could one day also fall off track too.

And understanding this isn't just a personal experience, it's universal yeah um it's permission to be yourself really and I think that's what makes it such a lovely bedtime story and having Lauren Child who we know as Charlie and Lola who's so like colorful and she's now just like been incredibly honest about her own experience and having this idea as you'll know as well being a disco queen, that when they're identified with things that are meant to be fun and glittery,

children's authors are the same, we're meant to be sparkly and fun and all these things all the time. And actually we can't have these fun things unless we also are identifying the sorrow. Light doesn't come without dark. Yeah, but also children start to explore dark thoughts really little,

some more than others. And actually I think accepting that that's part of life is a really big part in childhood. Otherwise, you come to fear the parts of your brain that are darker and you start to think, oh, I'm not supposed to be having that thought. That's so true. So I think all the good children's books draw a little bit of that darkness in. So it's like, look, that's part of it too.

If you've had intrusive thoughts, if you'd had something pop into your head, I mean, I used to get that all the good children's books draw a little bit of that darkness in. So it's like, look, that's part of it too. If you've had intrusive thoughts, if you'd had something pop into your head, I mean, I used to get that all the time, like suddenly a dark thought and I think, oh, that's probably like, I should probably keep that really quiet because probably other people aren't thinking that because childhood gets supposed to be all sweet and glowy in the middle of it all.

But actually accepting the dark corners. And then you just can let it float past you. You don't have to latch onto it. You're just like, oh, that's just a thought. It's not a fact. Say it to your mate and they go, oh, yeah, I think about that too. Yeah. And then it's talked about and then it's not so scary.

It's just about dialing down the fear. So having Lauren do it has just been... But this, again, is another thing I've got from it. To have a book coming out of my... She's the whole reason I wrote children's books was because of Lauren. We studied her on my course. And now having a children's book coming out of my she's the whole reason i wrote children's books was because of lauren we studied her on my course and now having a children's book coming out with my dream person it's just like another thing to be like look what i'm here to live for another thing the illness has bought me yeah another thing the illness has brought you but also all the life that was waiting

there to be lived you thought you'd never get to. Totally. Yeah. There's still so many adventures ahead. Oh. Oh, well, cheers to you. Thank you so much. Thank you so, so much. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure, pleasure to talk to you. FBI need new staff.

I know. I probably revealed too much about the way I... She's got to go to the school. She's got to go to sort the school education system out first and she'll pop by my five and put them in their places. I love Googling stuff. I'm terrible for that. I can go down.

Somewhere out there there's information. It's very satisfying. Wow, what a story. See, even listening back to it now,'m like that is that is one hell of an experience and it does make me think about the concentric circles as well of when you know an experience that happens to someone and it affects all the people around them and how worried her other half must have been and her family and her siblings or her sister like just extraordinary but how strong you must feel when you survive it and live to tell the tale so that is is brilliant and

um and so yes laura's got her book that she did with lauren child um gray for children to talk about uh depression and that grey area of life so thank you so much to Laura uh I don't really I feel a bit speechless actually it's funny like I said at the beginning I think it's because I feel like the line sometimes I remember I've had one experience of depression very very long time ago when I was about 20 and I was just so shocked that I always thought the line between good mental health and bad you know feeling in a bad way with your mental health was it was a very long way away from me and then when I got unwell I realized I was walking very close to that line a lot not not because I was in a bad way but because that's just the truth of it actually the truth of it is it's easy to

step over the line if you don't keep an eye on yourself and do all the things that make you feel good so um i hope i hope that conversations help some people and um please do reach out and talk to someone if you're having any dark thoughts please do it's so important i know it's oft said and i know it's the biggest hurdle but it all does get better once people know what you're actually dealing with so if that's something you're living with postpartum or not just please please please talk to someone please please anyway I will leave you remembering it was a happy ending for Laura and um yeah I um what else am I dealing with at the moment other than schoolie things? Well, I've done my last festival now. I've got some fun extra projects in the

diary and I'm starting to write the new album. That's what I'm really excited about. I've got loads of ideas, actually. They're probably all crap. I'm feeling quite G'd up at the moment. I'm not being self-effacing when I say that it's just like literally the cycle of creativity you go oh my god this is amazing this is a good idea I think this might be the best thing I've ever done and then you've got to have the bit where the ferris wheel comes down the other side and you're like I've listened I've listened to these little voice notes I've put in my phone of like little song noodles and I'm like not sure that's the best thing I've ever done but anyway don't worry it's not all down to me I'm going to work with some amazing collaborators to um help me

edit myself and also to share their their talents so it's all going to be all right in the end promise and I'm also prepping for the Christmas tour which I know sounds insane but my head is filled with what I want to wear what I want sing, what I want the stage to look like, what Christmas songs have to be in there. Plus, I've been booking more guests because we're sort of heading towards the end of this series and I'm also starting the next one. So, all good, just chugging along.

Oh, and I've also been doing loads of throwing out. My charity shop is like, it's not going to know it's hit it when I take all those bin bags down there. I've done loads of clearing out, charity shop is like it's not gonna know what's hit it when I take all those bin bags down there I've done loads of clearing out like Mickey's stuff because he's four now and he's just suddenly done that thing where he's just shot up I always find kids growth is not like a little incremental it's suddenly like a dunk and you'll be like oh you've grown like a foot so I've taken out loads of his small clothing now. Oh, time to move on. Time to move on. But it's okay. As I said, the wheel turns.

And I hope you have a good week and whatever you're up to is going all right. And there's some good bits in there for you. And I will see you next week. All right, lots of love. Bye-bye. Thank you. you