The Life Of Bryony - Sarah Hoover: 'I Felt Nothing for This Baby' - What People Aren’t Telling You About Motherhood

Episode Date: June 16, 2025

MY GUEST THIS WEEK: SARAH HOOVER This week, I’m joined by author Sarah Hoover—whose raw, raucously honest book The Motherload has become essential reading for anyone who’s struggled with early motherhood. We explore what happens when your mental health collapses but you still look “fine,” why therapy was a lifeline, and how Sarah finally started to feel like herself again. LET’S STAY IN TOUCH: 🗣 Got something to share? Text or send a voice note on 07796657512—just start your message with LOB. 💬 Use the WhatsApp shortcut: https://wa.me/447796657512?text=LOB 📧 Prefer email? Drop me a line at [e-mail]. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with someone who needs to hear Sarah’s honesty—it really makes a difference. Bryony xx BOOKS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE: 📚 The Motherload by Sarah Hoover A raw, surreal, and riotously honest account of what happens when a woman comes undone in the first year of motherhood. CREDITS: 🎙 Presenter: Bryony Gordon 🎙 Guest: Sarah Hoover 🎧 Content Producer: Jonathan O’Sullivan 🎥 Audio & Video Editor: Luke Shelley 📢 Executive Producer: Mike Wooller 🛠️Studio Manager: Sam Chisholm A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode of The Life of Briony is sponsored by Asda, celebrating 60 years of great family value. That's Asda Price. Welcome to The Life of Briony, the show where we talk honestly about the chaos of life and the strength it takes to keep going through it. Today, what happens when motherhood turns everything upside down? Sarah Hoover is a writer, academic and mum who's made her name in some of the most prestigious corners of the art world. But her memoir, The Motherlode, isn't about all the glamour. It's about what happened when her world quietly, brutally collapsed after having her

son. Postpartum psychosis, rage, resentment, a loss of identity so complete she barely recognized herself in the mirror. Get ready for one of the most honest conversations we've ever had on the show. I hated being a mother at this stage. I hated being a parent. I thought I had ruined my life. I didn't think I loved him and I didn't feel connected to him. And yet I had nightmares all night every night where I watched him die. On some level, I cared so deeply, obviously, you know? My chat with Sarah Hoover right after this. At Desjardins Insurance, we put the care in taking care of business. Your business to be exact. Our agents take the time to understand your company

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Well, it's a pleasure to have you here. You have written a book called The Motherlode. And this podcast, we like to talk about the things that people don't talk about. We like to sort of like expose shame to the light and you know kind of get into the nitty gritty, the things that we all go through but we are sometimes too ashamed to talk about. And I feel like the mother lode deals with like the number one almost taboo subject for women or for mothers. Right? You say ever since I'd had this, I've been lying constantly. It was the simple, unspeakable reality that from the moment he was born, this baby sometimes meant as much to me as

a stone-cold marble statue in the antiquity section of an art museum, aka something that I knew was valuable, but not so much to me. It didn't help that I found him so ugly with all my worst traits. Weird eyes and big ears, a mini replica of my own self-loathing. It sounds so much better when you read it. My accent is not up to par. I mean, talk to us about motherlode and talk to us about, because this, I'm sure we'll have a lot of people listening who it's quite relatable and yet we never talk about it. So that feeling, you know, it says we'll call it what you want,

postpartum depression, occasionally that veers into postpartum psychosis for some people, where you don't immediately fall head over heels in love with your baby. Yeah, I love that we're talking about shame because I chose when I started writing my book, like very purposefully said to myself,

you're not allowed to feel shame for any of this and you have to write from a place where you refuse to feel shame. And from the minute I started doing that, I felt like myself for the first time, felt such a lighter version of me. I had spent my whole life feeling shame about a million things,

and I can't imagine I'm the only woman who has experienced that. And it came to such a head for me with motherhood. Like I had for many years been embarrassed of things about my body or things about my face that I didn't like. This is pre-internet before there were trolls. I trolled myself for so long in my life.

So I just made the decision I'm not indulging that anymore. And there is such an ideal out in the world of what a mom is supposed to look like. She's like selfless, she's grateful. The reality of motherhood for me didn't match my expectation at all. And it was totally soul crushing. My baby was born after a labor that was normal by any standard,

medically safe. There was no emergency, and yet it traumatized me. I felt broken by my labor. I felt violated by it. And when they handed me that baby after being in the hospital for 19 hours, I was just so shut down inside that I felt nothing for him. No joy, no curiosity. And I had anticipated, because I believed in this like Disney version of motherhood, right?

The minute they put him in my arms, my heart would explode into a million hormonal fireworks, and that I would feel instantly connected to him, instantly bonded. It would all seem utterly worthwhile in that moment, and that my maternal instincts would kick in, and I would feel instantly connected to him, instantly bonded. It would all seem utterly worthwhile in that moment, and then my maternal instincts would kick in, and I would know exactly what to do and exactly how to be a mom. And I would turn into the next iteration of being a good girl.

I had spent so much of my life trying to be good and polite and proper and do the right thing and not be a slut and not be this and not be that and be all the right things. And I thought the minute my baby came into my arms, the next version of that would kick in for me. And it didn't. I didn't feel anything for him. I felt almost repulsed. Can we go, I would really love to go like back and just touch a bit because I think it's all very much related a bit on you that you've kind of alluded to them, which is that, you know, long before the

internet existed, long before you became a mother, you had that very, that sort of I often think that the baseline for a lot of women is self loathing. Yes. And there's a bit in the book where you talk about getting together with your husband, the father of your child, and you speak about suddenly, like, the kind of almost the terror of intimacy, you know, and the terror of sex and all of those things, you know, and how, and there's a bit which really kind of caught me, which is where you said, you know, and how, and there's a bit which really kind of caught me, which was where you said, you know, you were so uncomfortable in your body, and you

talked about how you couldn't like, you had no sense and in relationships, like, and this, I think this is so relatable and people really still, especially now don't talk about this, because we're all as women supposed to be independent, know our self-worth, know our value. But the truth is, and this is coming, for this 44-year-old woman, that was not the case. My teens, my 20s, and to a certain extent, until I met my husband in my early 30s,

all it was about was getting someone to like me. And you talk about how the, because that was what we were sold. Like we were bodies, we were vessels for other people's pleasure. And you talk about knowing your worth in any way other than I guess the pleasure it could give other people. I really wanted to like get into that

because I think that's something that people don't talk about enough. I don't know that it was specific to my upbringing. I grew up in the, you know, was a teenager in the early 2000s and culture was particularly, I think, pernicious towards women then. Like the song I remember most from high school

is Britney Spears, I'm a Slave for You. Yes. And like it's a great song, but when you think about the lyrics of that and like how you interpret that when you're 14. And I say that and then I'm like, God, culture's just always furnished us towards women. Like I don't know that 2004 or whatever

was particularly bad. It's bad now too, but. It was, there was a lot of stuff in the noughties. It was really specific, right? And I like I internalized so much of that. And I remember thinking that I could really only be validated as beautiful. And I knew from culture that beautiful was the most important thing a woman could be. And I felt I could only be validated as that if I had the

undivided attention of the right man. And like most people, it takes a long time to get to a place in your life where you're in comfortable, equitable relationships. I didn't have that in my teens. I didn't have it in my 20s. I was sexually assaulted in my 20s, as so many women are.

And it chipped away at my personhood. There was no world where someone who had absorbed the culture that I was absorbing and had had the experiences with men that I was having where I almost always felt unsafe and almost always felt like I couldn't really be myself. How was I ever going to mash those things up and come out a confident person who knew her boundaries?

How could I, culture my entire life told me to be polite, to never make anyone else uncomfortable, that saying no wasn't an option, to be a good girl and like fall in line. How was I ever going to know how as a young adult to advocate for myself? I felt like I was so set up for failure, you know? And set up to understand that women were only as valuable as objects.

Yeah. It really, it's, it's, I mean, like, you're so articulate, which shouldn't surprise me, given that I've read this book, but it's just, it's so much unlearning you have to do as you age as a woman. You're trained for so long from every source that to be good at being a woman looks like one thing. The good girl complex. We did a whole episode about this. And if anyone listening or watching wants to go back, good girl syndrome, people pleasing. And it is pernicious.

And it is dangerous. And I think, particularly, and the idea where you spoke about, you felt that to be a success, you know, you had to be attractive to a certain man. And then motherhood was always very much knitted into that, whereby I'm going to find this other bit. There's this little paragraph which really spoke to me, which said, in my defense, birth and motherhood did not match up to the narrative I'd been fed, and it felt like a nasty trick.

And while my mental breakdown was embarrassing at times, especially considering how it exposed me as a puerile and spoiled little fool, it also showed how pernicious it is to sell tales of motherhood being so distinctly wonderful and feminine, the very essence of womanhood. It wasn't all totally my fault, you know?

I'd been misled. And it's true, and I want to go to your pregnancy. Because the pregnancy I found incredibly relatable. My pregnancy was fucking awful. And I think it's why I only I was like one and done. Fair. I was so depressed. So, so depressed.

I was mad. I mean, like I actually had to go into under the care of psychiatric services. I have a history of mental illness and it got really bad. I was mad. I mean, like, I actually had to go into, um, under the care of psychiatric services. I have a history of mental illness and it got really bad, right? Yeah. It was not, it was not this glowing experience. And you talk about that so brilliantly in the book. Can you talk us a bit through your experience of pregnancy? Yeah. I mean, it's rough from every angle because no matter how much like body

positivity you have and like I'm not someone who has a lot of body issues, your body rapidly changing from what you've grown accustomed to in every possible way is a hard thing to experience. You feel totally out of control. Control my entire life has been sort of the way I battled patriarchy. Like at least I have my control over my own body, you know? The one thing I had learned from the experiences, especially of my 20s, was that I could keep myself safe by just like not letting men near me.

Like especially after I was sexually assaulted, I think my response to that, which is not everyone's response, was like, okay, well then I'm just, I'm not going to be promiscuous at all. I'm going to take really good care of my body and just keep it to myself. So I always like, you know, I wasn't one of those people who's like weight ballooned all the time or anything like that. Like I. That's still a kind of self blaming thing. Totally yeah. It's like it's its own coping mechanism for sure. But all this to say when

I was pregnant and all of a sudden everything about my body was changing and there was nothing I could do about it. It was its own weird trigger, you know, that was very strange for me. But also the loneliness. I remember feeling so lonely in my pregnancy because I didn't feel that my husband had the capacity to be truly empathetic to what I was experiencing. No, he didn't. No. I don't know that like most men do. I don't think like culture trains them for that level of empathy, you know. So from physically to what was going on in my brain and the ways that I knew I should be grateful

for being pregnant, but also felt so much guilt because I hated it and wasn't grateful. And you know, when you're in it, nine or 10 months seems like a long time. In retrospect, it's like, But it is a long time. It's a long time to be miserable. And I threw up constantly. I was so nauseous. I just had a million negative side effects and there were a million I didn't have. It's different for every woman.

I'm so envious of the women who are like, oh, I was never nauseous. I gained 12 pounds, blah, blah, blah. I wish I was like that. I sneezed and the baby came out. Totally. None of that happened for me. And it's not like, you know, everyone had said to me, oh, being pregnant's hard, but it's beautiful. Being a mother is hard, but it's beautiful.

And I was so depressed that I couldn't experience or see any of the beauty. I just remember being so lonely. I didn't have a lot of friends who already had babies, or if they did, they were farther enough along in their journey on motherhood that pregnancy was far behind them. I wasn't going through it with a best friend.

And I couldn't do any of the things that I had previously loved doing. I had massive food aversions. I loved eating. I loved the joy of going out to lunch with a girlfriend or having dinner with my husband. I felt that was taken from me. I didn't have the capacity for socializing.

And worst of all, I couldn't talk about any of this, you know? I think if I had been like more, therapy and had had a community that I could share all of this with, it would have been so much better, but I kept it all inside. And all of it made me feel like I was a bad fit for motherhood. There was a bit that made me, it made me go, which is when you were with your, I guess what you would call OB, gynecologist. So you were there to, you were pregnant, hooray.

And then the doctor or the gynecologist says to you, so you're due in October, you won't be able to travel after July. And you kind of look around and your October, you won't be able to travel after July, and you kind of look around and your husband, Tom, is crying. Yeah, kind of crying. There were like audible sobs. It's a miracle I kept him. And you say, and the doctor says...

She didn't have patients for him either. No, this is what I loved about it. When he was like, he said, you mean, I couldn't go to Spain in August. And she says, well, you can. You can do whatever you want. But if you don't want your wife to give birth in Spain, and then you have to stay there for another month afterwards, and then I probably wouldn't book a vacation in Spain.

And as you were saying, you didn't even have plans for it. It was totally his own little emotional it's like my equivalent of that was very different but he was having his own little emotional roller coaster too I think at that time but you know what like I didn't have space for his emotional roller coaster. No I remember when I was in labor my husband was like I'm gonna get some rest because this is to be really tiring for me. Sure. Yeah, buddy. Uh huh. Anyway, so there so then but then what really what I found deeply, deeply, deeply comforting was, obviously, I don't feel

comforted that you went through this, but you really describe the sense of like heightened emotion. And you talk about how you'd always felt things very heavily anyway, but like when you're pregnant, it's on another level. So you'll have- It's like your worst hour of PMS. It's like that moment once a month when you like cry in the shower or whatever,

but all day every day for 10 months. Everything upsets you. Yeah, it's the hormones are, they haven't been studied enough. It's a really, really wild roller coaster to be on. And it obviously was exacerbated by the fact that I think I was already experiencing mental illness at the time.

It wasn't just like normal hormonal roller coaster. It was also already really depressed. I think yeah We hear a lot about postnatal depression, but we don't talk about we don't hear about the the Perry the during I don't know fancy word for that, but I think a lot of women experience that I mean something I've realized from being on book tour is like I felt so alone in every single thought I had in this book and Actually, they're pretty universal. I meet hundreds of women who have very similar, identical experiences.

But the moments where I felt the most by myself and like I was the biggest anomaly and the biggest freak and the most monstrous have been things that I've had the most women say, oh my God, me too. Like I feel a bit teary even just kind of talking about it, you know, like again, cause it feels, my daughter's 12 now, so it was a long time ago, but it was really hard and scary,

but also just, you know, I was so, you know, like you, I was so, so deeply depressed and- Did you realize it at the time? I knew I was unwell because I, you know, because I was referred to like a psychiatric care unit kind of thing. But I don't think I had enough understanding of myself even then, you know, like it sounds ridiculous because I was like 31 or 32, you know, a lot like you. I'd had all these expectations that this was going to be the happiest moment.

And for me as well, I, you know, like, I'd had a lot of chaos, you know, like before I'd got pregnant, I'd been an active alcoholism and addiction. And so there was all sorts of stuff going on. But it was like, this is a good thing. This is all you've ever wanted, or you ever been told you wanted. Yeah. And you've got it. Like I was like, I have the bugaboo. So like, you've ever been told that you wanted. Yeah. And you've got it. I was like, I have the bugaboo. This is all you've ever wanted, Bryony. What the fuck is wrong with you? Exactly. Well, I feel that feeling all the time.

You're so lucky you got all the things that society told you you're supposed to want. You don't get to also complain. Keep your mouth shut. But I think that feeling, that fear of being the complainer, and that fear that if you complain, it could all get taken away. Because I was, something I remember is being so afraid

to say it out loud, like, I'm unhappy, I'm depressed, I don't like this, my body's a nightmare, everything's a nightmare. Like, what if then you miscarried? Wouldn't you blame yourself? It would be your fault. And I was so, that to me felt like I would be such a monster if I caused something like that. But isn't that incredible, isn't it? Because, I mean, this

really, I'm sure so many women listening or watching will know exactly what you're talking about. How punishing we are of ourselves. Yes. Like the narrative that just goes through our heads all day and it's like a normal soundtrack. Do you think that happens for men? I don't know. I'm sure it does for some. But I think that that thing where we think that we can cause a miscarriage, you know, like just with our thoughts. I mean, that is, that is unwell. That's a heavy burden to bear, though, that you're like having all of these conflicted feelings all the time and you genuinely think that you, you know, women are supposed to have control over their bodies.

We're supposed to be able to be this big if we want to be, we're supposed to be able to have big boobs if we like, you know, do things right. And all of a sudden you realize in pregnancy like, oh, actually, or when you're trying to get pregnant a lot of the time, oh, I have no control over what's going on here. This whole thing is a mystery to me.

These hormones have a mind of their fricking own. And if I lose this baby, the reality is it's almost never the fault of the carrier if if they have a miscarriage or something but you really do feel that pressure when you're pregnant and like at least the way a lot of doctors have spoken to me like they have you do this thing I don't know if you remember from your pregnancy or I don't know if they do this in the UK but in the States they have you do this thing at the end where you count kicks. Oh because and if he goes below a certain amount.

Yes you're supposed to like rush to the doctor and it's like it's such a burden to be thinking along those terms all the time and worrying like oh my god have I not felt a kick in 30 minutes? It's heavy. Yeah I'd forgotten that. I definitely and the thing that you just said which really too is that then and I'm not supposed to complain. I definitely, and the thing that you just said, which really too is that then, and I'm not supposed to complain, I can't complain because if I complain, everyone's going to think I'm an ungrateful cow. Yeah, I was an ungrateful cow.

Yeah, but that's okay. But that's okay. Totally. Like this is where we're here. It's a really nuanced thing to go through. There is bad, there are objectively bad things about pregnancy and birth and having a newborn. I think it will be a real relief though to hear, for a lot of people to hear you say that, because you know, that thing where we go, I felt like an ungrateful cow,

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Some regional exclusions apply. Learn more at TurboTax.ca slash business tax. So let us, let us move to your labor, your birth. It traumatized you. Totally. Can you talk me through that? So my birth, you know, I had no like preexisting conditions that would make it make me a c-section or something like that. I wanted to, I didn't really have a birth plan other than not dying, but I wanted to... Birth plans are such bullocks. Totally, because like, I don't know, a million different things could happen. There are so

many iterations of, there are so many ways it can go down. Like, a plan, I would plan for to do some golden thread breathing and to sneeze my baby out and sure, but in reality, I'm there for four days and I end up having an emergency C-section. Correct. And you kind of have to resign yourself to the fact that like the details may not go down the way you want. But it's my fault because I didn't have a birth plan. There you go.

You can't win. We're women are really set up not to win. But I was like, the one thing that I know is that I am weak and fragile and don't like pain. So I would like to not feel pain. And we're very fortunate because we have modern science and it can keep you from feeling pain. You can get an epidural, right? But I was very clear with my OB,

I just don't wanna feel pain. And I thought we were really on the same page with that. And the thing that messed me up the most in my birth experience was that she performed a procedure on me that was incredibly painful for me. She broke my water. Here you say waters which is so chic. So that's like literally shoving like sorry if this is triggering for anyone, like that she's just, it's almost like shoving a knitting needle. Yes. Into your vaginal canal, through your cervix, which for someone who hasn't had a baby before

having their cervix open can be very painful. I think for anyone. Yeah. Like. Have had a baby, you know, like. Yeah, no one actually likes having their internal organs touched. So having your. It's not my favorite thing.

No, it's absolutely not. It goes through your cervix and punctures your amniotic sac. Your amniotic sac itself doesn't have nerve endings, I don't think. So that part isn't the painful part, but it's usually like the going through the cervix. Also keep in mind, I have been sexually assaulted. So things going in there and doing weird stuff was already a trigger for me. So my doctor didn't say to me like, this might really hurt, but I think it's necessary for the safe delivery

of your baby, like there was no warning. And then when she did it, it really hurt, right? And I was like screaming, I was trying to back off the hospital bed away from her. And I was shaking and like, couldn't catch my breath. And I remember sobbing like couldn't catch my breath. And I remember sobbing and looking down at my hands and watching them tremble and saying, oh my god, that hurts so much. And she looked at me dead in the eyes. And this isn't in my book. And I don't remember why

I didn't put it in, but she looked at me right in my eyes. And she said, I've done this like two other times this week, and you're the only person that's gonna play. And in that moment, I was like, other times this week and you're the only person that's complained. And in that moment I was like, lights out. This woman does not care what happens to your emotional core in this birth. Like you're gonna get out of here alive maybe but you're not gonna get out if you're fully intact. And if you want to preserve your brain you need to like shut off your emotions right now because she's not gonna be nice to you. And I remember saying to myself, shut down your brain. And I did it. Like I remember the kind of walls coming down. I don't know if this makes sense to anyone,

but I remember saying, protect yourself because she doesn't care how you feel. So you'd sort of disassociate, you disassociated completely from your labor. But then when they handed me my baby and it was time to like re-associate, I couldn't. I didn't know how. And I just felt totally dead inside. Do you think that if you had had a more empathetic, compassionate birth experience that what happened next might have been

different? Yes. And I kick myself because I really buried my head in the sand during my pregnancy and I didn't take a birth class because I was so scared. And I think it was my way of feeling like I just kept kicking the can down the road. Birth is, okay, I have seven more months,

I have six more months, it's not here yet, I don't need to learn anything yet. Every time I would crack open a book to read about birth, I would get kind of triggered and freaked out, you know? And so I just purposely did not educate myself. And that was probably stupid. But I also, knowing that I didn't wanna know things that I didn't want to educate myself,

I think I should have hired a doula and had like a real advocate in the room with me. But I was mistaken, I thought that because, like I spent money on my doctor, I don't know that it's what the equivalent is here, but I have private medical care, so I paid out of pocket for her. And I thought that that would sort of ensure

that I was treated well. You chose the doctor that you wanted and you paid for them. I mean, here in the UK, we have state healthcare, so it's, I mean, we do also have private health care, but the most people tuning into this podcast who will, you know, will give birth in NHS National Health Service-backed hospitals where, you know, to be honest, all of the kind of recent research and statistics show that maternity services are, like a lot of the NHS actually, because it's just terribly underfunded by the government,

are sort of on their knees really. So it's kind of potluck really as to what you get. I hate that for women, you know, because it's incredibly difficult to be a mother when you are traumatized. Like the joy that I could have had upon seeing my new child was totally taken from me. And it is incredibly hard to parent under those conditions.

I have another kid and I had a joyful, beautiful, careful birth with empathetic doctors and an all female team, including two pregnant anesthesiologists who had fake eyelashes and fake nails. I was in great hands the second time, okay? And the moment that baby came out, it was a different experience.

Absolutely. And I had a horrible pregnancy with that one too. So. Well, that must've been pretty. But like, I have seen what it's like to give birth with doctors who have an attitude of kindness and care. And something that I really advocate for is for trauma-informed care. That's the terminology that we at least use in the states. My doctor was not particularly trauma-informed, right? She had never asked me about my traumas.

She didn't take care to not inflict new traumas upon me. And when you have, when you're totally disassociated and shut down, it's really hard to have like interest in your baby. And when you have, when you're totally disassociated and shut down, it's really hard to have like interest in your baby. And when you take care for a newborn, as everyone knows, you have to be like up all night changing diapers, and you know, you make sacrifices. But those sacrifices, I think are filled with a certain amount of like, joy and excitement. When you yourself are joyful and excited, I could not feel fulfilled by any of the requirements of mothering because I was so devastated inside. There was no way to feel like it was I was doing something great.

I just felt like I wanted to run away from my life. So Guy is born and this is also another thing we don't talk about, which is the kind of awful intrusive thoughts. Yeah, oh, I had them so badly. I actually have them this time too with my second, but I'm so much more aware of it. I had endless intrusive thoughts. I was so afraid that something bad would happen to me

and then there would be no one. And it's really strange. This is the paradox. I hated being a mother at this stage. I hated being a parent. I thought I had ruined my life. I didn't think I loved him and I didn't feel connected to him. And yet, I had nightmares all night every night where I watched him die. On some level, I cared so deeply, obviously, you know?

I was scared to, like, walk downstairs with him. I thought that if I took the baby carriage out in the street, a car would either take me out and then he'd be alone in the carriage and someone would steal him or the car would take the baby carriage out. I just had a jillion fears. I was constantly afraid I left the toaster plugged in or the phone plugged in and that was my house was going to be caught on fire, everything you could be afraid of. But I

also had this thought and it's so strange to describe now, it makes me feel like I had an alien in my brain. I had this idea that if I said any of this out loud, it would cause it to come true. That's a sort of magical thinking that is very common with people with anxiety, but I didn't know that for a year. So I was keeping it all in,

and I went to therapy in this time, and I wish that I had been able to say to my therapist, hey, I'm having these crazy thoughts, X, Y, and Z, because then I could have like gotten treatment for that. But I was so scared to say them to her because I thought it would cause the universe to make them happen. So when I would go to therapy, she would say like, do you have anxiety? And I'd be like, no, nothing, not at all, you know, because I was scared it would make it happen, which is such a weird trick your brain plays on you.

So it sounds like, and also having read it, like what you're talking about is kind of postnatal obsessive compulsive disorder, which it's really interesting that, I've had obsessive compulsive disorder since I was like 11, right? And so I was really actually on guard for it when I was pregnant, and it was really bad when I was pregnant, right? And so I was really actually on guard for it when I When I was pregnant and it was really bad when I was pregnant, right?

And then as soon as I gave birth it went it was like I knew I was like, oh, I mean I'm an high alert This is what I've been knowing my whole life. It was so bizarre how for the first few months I was like the OCD didn't even come in but really yeah, it was so weird It was like oh, this is what I've been prepping for my whole life, like checking that there's no bleach in the water or da da da da da. I was like, I was so used to that level, it didn't come as a shock to me,

because that's how my brain worked anyway, right? However, I did a lot of research into it because I was fascinated by this, and I learned that postnatal OCD is really common in women who have never had any history of mental illness and it comes on. So a labour birth can bring it on and that's a combination of things. But what I learnt about it as well is that in a weird way, and I hope this helps anyone who might be listening, who might be experiencing these violent intrusive thoughts about their children right now, I'm thinking, oh my god, I'm the worst person in the world. Because

I did later on, they did come in like that when my daughter was about 18 months old, and that was terrible. But it's to say that it is very normal as apparent and appalling as it feels, because it's weird. and I think once you can understand this, it starts to make some sort of like comforting sense, but your whole body when you have a baby is in like fight or flight, it's in survival mode, you know, and your job actually, I mean, this is what literally happens to you

as a human, as a mother, as a parent, is you become, your only purpose is to keep this thing alive. That's evolution at play. And so actually postnatal obsessive compulsive disorder and these in terrible intrusive thoughts are like an over reactive evolutionary response of our brains. And I think when I sort of started to understand that, I kind of was like, oh, this isn't actually, this isn't, as you just said, this isn't a sign that I don't care. It's actually the opposite. Our brains are so complex that they're capable of like all of those realities at once is

so nuts, you know, but that was the worst part because those nightmares of watching him die, which I'll never forget. I would wake up every 45 minutes. I would like shoot out of bed and be like, because I just watched him get shot by snipers, my tiny baby. Like your brain is capable of so much, I don't know, sick shit, like crazy things happening. It tortured me. And I it shares the word. Yes, I think about it a lot because I had a huge safety net. I had a lot of resources. I had a nanny who lived with me, who was wonderful. I never had to worry that my baby was going to be taken from me or that I was going to,

if something really bad happened, I knew there would be people there for me. And it makes me really sad for, imagine if you were a single mom who your parents live far away or whatever, knowing that you don't have a safety net can only compound that. And so many women don't. Like it all just felt too heavy for me once I recovered from all of it to like not write a book about or something.

Because I was like, this just has to be so much worse for so many other people. But also this is just awful. This is terrible. And it's happening all the time. And no one's talking about it. Like, what the fuck? I know.

What the fuck? Yeah, we're so well-trained. The amount of women I get who get in touch with me about, you know, that they developed OCD after they'd given birth, because I've written a lot about my own experiences with it, who, they send me messages, like I get probably a dozen or so messages a week on my Instagram, and the pain and the desperation in them,

like it's palpable, and I feel it, and I know that because I've been there, you know. And you can't trust your own brain. No. Thinking that you can't trust your own brain is such a precarious place to be. It opens. The book opens with this like incredible sort of scene where this is probably the most

unrelatable thing I've ever said on this podcast, which is where you're in the kind of like villa, the Chateau Marmont where Jean Belushi killed himself. I've been in that villa when I interviewed Justin Timberlake. Oh, OK. Oh okay. It's literally the most unrelatable sentence I've ever said in my life. Yeah wow. So you're in that villa and you're staying there and you basically and you have the nanny and the baby but you have like this kind of crazy kind of drugs party? Yeah, Osborne does. My baby needed to be introduced to all the people that I knew in LA. So I had, we call in the States a sip and see. Do you have those here? No.

Okay. It's very Southern in America. Okay. A sip and see, it's like, it's a baby shower after the baby's born. Okay, right. Which honestly makes more sense to me because like babies there. So I decided to have a sip and see for my son and I like didn't want a bunch of gifts because then I would have to write thank you notes. So I encourage people to just bring me drugs. Which by the way was a huge coping mechanism for me when I had postpartum. I partied so much. It was the only time I felt alive. We need to talk about this because I had a very similar situation, you know, and

that, the shame there, was like, oh my god I'm the worst person in the world. Yeah, but I didn't know what else to do. And looking back I'm like, okay girl, go to therapy and get antidepressants and get whatever. It didn't even occur to me. The only, the easiest path I thought to feeling alive was getting messed up, was doing whatever. I did drugs, I would never touch any of that now, you know? I was so uncaring about it. I felt like my agency with my body had been stripped of me.

I'm surprised I wasn't like cheating on my husband and being promiscuous because it felt along those lines. I was sort of like, this body's been through so much. It's been trashed. I'm just gonna keep going I would drink in the morning. It was horrible. The choices I was making were so unhealthy But I just needed to feel something I needed to feel somehow alive and I couldn't when I looked at my baby I felt dead inside and the only other times I felt alive I say this in the book or when I was filled with rage, when I was looking at my husband, who felt useless on purpose to me. I felt like he was trying to drive me nuts. Okay?

I mean, that will be very relatable to a lot of people. Oh, there is no woman married to a man. Well, there are very few, maybe, who are like, my husband was so helpful right after I gave birth. He was amazing. It's always like, yeah, he became another child, right? And so the only time I felt alive was when I was like raging at him and so mad at the world, or when I was like partying and having fun. And I had to be really, really messed up to be partying and having fun.

I was drinking and doing drugs at a level that I had never done before. Right. And not parenting. How did this... Because I feel like we've just been fucking bleak about labour, about pregnancy, about early motherhood. And I think we need, you know, if anyone is listening or watching and they're like, fuck. Because there was also, actually, that's what really surprised me was like the number of people when you were pregnant. And I remember this somebody who were like, this is a woman who you're at dinner and she takes you aside and she's like, it doesn't get better.

Yeah, she was like, it's actually easier to take care of a baby when it lives in your body. You don't have to like change its diapers and it eats automatically. When it comes out, you have to do it all. It's so much harder. And she was talking about having an episiotomy and being basically like slit from her anus to her... The whole way. Yeah. From hole to hole. Yeah. And she had twins and I remember being like, wait but that's because they were twins, right? She was like, no. And she was like, nope, it can happen to anyone. And I was like so terrified for this impending motherhood. I was so scared.

And like in a way she's right, it is obviously much harder when they're outside of your body because you have to do it all. It's not, none of it's automatic, but what she was missing in her explanation to me was the miracle level joy that kids can bring to your life. Okay, but so how you get from being in that very dark place where you are drinking in the place where you are taking,

you're drinking in the morning, you are taking drugs, you are filled with the most horrific intrusive thoughts, constant state of terror. How do you get from that to the joy stage? Look, it was a long road for me. The first thing I had to do that really helped was I had to go on antidepressants. I went on SSRIs.

Because once I got on them, I was so scared to take them, I had a huge stigma against them. Not on them now, but I've been on and off them many times over the years. The thing that they brought to my life was the ability to voice my intrusive thoughts out loud. It took away that feeling that I described where I thought if I said the worst things I was thinking out loud. It took away that feeling that I described where I thought if I said

the worst things I was thinking out loud that they would happen, that fear went away. Very quickly, within days of starting to take them. I think I got really lucky that my body chemistry like worked with this drug that I started with because I know it's not like that for everyone but it worked really quickly for me. And so I immediately could start telling my therapist, okay, actually, I've been lying. And these are kind of thoughts I've been having. Once I started saying those thoughts out loud, I was like, I felt lighter, like I felt something lift off my shoulders. And I was like, oh, it actually really helps to share all the dark stuff inside you. That was my first indication

that I needed to get rid of all the shame I had. It took me a really long time in therapy to tell her everything. It took me months to get through it all. But every single time I did, every time I said my darkest truth to anyone, I felt a little bit better. I felt incrementally better. And I would say two years of therapy and being on antidepressants later, I started to love parenting, but it took years. There were years where I didn't really feel that connected to my kid. It's not like I wanted something bad to happen to him,

but it was a very, very long process. Totally worth it. It involved so much discovery of how to advocate for myself, how to define the boundaries that I wanted in my life, and how to advocate for them. Just becoming an adult, becoming a person, a full person who lives their life with intention. It was the hardest work that you can emotionally do, I think. But doing it has meant that I know how to love my kid. And it's a massive gift. Seeing the world through his eyes every day is the most fun I've

ever had. You talk a lot about your own relationship with your own mother. Yes. And how she never seemed to enjoy motherhood. Yeah. And she said to you, I only really liked you when you turned 22. You could have a drink with me. That's like a really fucking awful thing to hear. Yeah it was kind of funny in the moment. We don't have to go there. I was like okay oh we can go anywhere. I have a complicated relationship with my mother who I adore she's like my best friend but she also has her own trauma. And her own narratives that she's absorbed about what it means to be a woman and a mother.

And like I grew up in middle America in the 90s, right? My mom was one of the very few mothers I knew who worked outside of the home and whose work was a huge passion, who wasn't, you know, like just doing a job just for it to make money. But she had a real career that she was hugely passionate about. And I saw that as a kid and interpreted it as her not loving being a mom. I felt as a child like I was just a duty and obligation and that I was a distraction from what she really wanted to be doing, which was her work. What I

understand now looking back and I have like so much empathy for it was how hard it was for her to be a woman who had something that she wanted in this world outside of a domestic life. Yeah. Especially at that time and in that cultural context, right? And she didn't have the resources that we have of like, she didn't have like TikTok psychotherapy babble. She didn't have a community of other women. She had, she didn't have a therapist of her own.

She didn't have the ability to say, I love you so much, but I also think that women deserve to fulfill all parts of their identity, and something that's really important to me is my job. And I'm not leaving for work every day because you're not valuable and precious to me. I'm leaving for work every day because it makes me able to be a better mother to you,

because it makes me happy and fulfilled in a different way. She could never have said that to me. So I couldn't understand it, you know? I interpreted her wrong and she also communicated incorrectly. Yeah. Well, as children, we do interpret things wrong, don't we? Always. It's really hard to learn how to read the room when you have no life experience. And yeah, like I wish that my mom had been in therapy in 1997 and had been able to say those things to me that I'm able to say to my kids, but it wasn't the case. And like, I resented it for a really long time.

And also my mom's like eccentric and strange and says shit like, I didn't like you until you were 22 and could have a martini with me. But she has her own humor. I am really empathetic to what her trajectory is and after reading my book, she and she's told me she's now in therapy and much more there for us and like becoming her own more fully realized person. And she she's realized that she had postpartum depression herself. And like that she was dealing with that totally

alone in Indiana in, you know, 3040 years 40 years ago, I felt really sorry for her. I know what that struggle's like even in the best of conditions. You know, there is something really beautiful and healing and full circle about it. Hearing you speak, it's almost like you had to go on it, if that makes sense. Yeah, people say to me often,

I'm so sorry you had postpartum depression. I'm like, sorry, this has been the coolest ride of my life. Like, yeah, it would have been great if I just like loved being a mom right away, okay. But I got to know myself so much more differently than I ever would have. Like the universe sent me on this path for a reason. And now maybe you feel this way too.

You get to connect with people in a whole new way. Yeah, absolutely. It's so worth it. Well, I'm connecting with you right now. Yeah. In a way that like, I guess 12 years ago or whatever, I couldn't ever imagine. You can't imagine. So like, what would you say to anyone listening who is going through it right now? I would say you absolutely have the ability within yourself to make this experience one that is filled with joy and that makes you love your life. You can get there. You have to be honest with yourself. You have to get

real about what makes you unhappy, what's triggering you, the traumas of your life. You have to remove the shame and you have to do work. I would say it's really hard to do without a therapist. And I know that that like costs money and I hate that, but it's also the quickest fix is to get into like real therapy and- See it as an investment. And see it as an investment and not be so afraid of these dark things within you and these bad things

that have happened to you and all the ways that living in a patriarchy chips away at you, you have to talk about them. You have to absolve yourself. You cannot let the guilt and shame that women have been trained to suffer under, you can't let that ruin you and take your life from you. You have to get real, you have to get in their beat,

you have to deal with all of that and your life will reward you with the ability to find joy in all of this and there is a light at the end of the tunnel that is coming for you if you work at it. It really is. Have you ever met anyone who's put that much work into figuring out who they are and who cannot find gratefulness and joy? No. Me either. Sarah Hoover, thank you so much. Massive thank you to Sarah. I am so grateful to her for telling the truth about an experience

that so many people still feel they have to hide. What I took from this is that you can be smart, successful, surrounded by help and still really struggle in motherhood. If this conversation helped you or made you feel less alone, please share it with someone who might need it. Be kind to yourself and I'll see you next time. This episode of The Life of Briony is sponsored by Asda, celebrating 60 years of great family value. That's Asda Price.