The Life Of Bryony - Sarah Vaughan Discusses ‘Little Disasters’: Maternal OCD, Motherhood Truths, and Breaking the Stigma

Episode Date: August 11, 2025

TRIGGER WARNING: Please be aware, this episode contains references to sensitive content around maternal mental health and mentions a potentially distressing fact around post-natal depression and harming children.   This week, I’m joined by Sarah Vaughan – acclaimed author and journalist – for an honest conversation about maternal mental health and parenting. Sarah opens up about her own experience with maternal OCD, shining a light on a subject that is so often misunderstood and left unspoken. We talk about the importance of sharing these stories, how being honest can help break down long-held stigmas, and the power of knowing you are not alone. Sarah shares her perspective on motherhood, the realities of navigating parenting alongside intrusive thoughts, and why talking openly can help others feel seen and supported. If you’ve ever felt isolated in your worries as a parent, or curious to understand more about maternal OCD, Sarah’s honestly and gentle wisdom will leave you feeling heard, supported, and far less alone. LINKS TO SUPPORT GROUPS If the content around maternal mental health and perinatal OCD resonated with you today and you would like support, please consider the following charities: Maternal OCD: https://maternalocd.org/ Maternal Mental Health Alliance: https://maternalmentalhealthalliance.org/   BOOKS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE 📚 Little Disasters by Sarah Vaughan Sarah’s novel referenced in our conversation is Little Disasters: a gripping novel exploring motherhood, judgment, and the silent struggles many women face. It’s available in all good book shops, and the screen adaptation is available to stream on Paramount+.   WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU 🗣️ 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 might find Sarah’s insights helpful – it really makes a difference! Bryony xx   Credits:  Host: Bryony Gordon Guest: Sarah Vaughan Producer: Laura Elwood-Craig & Jonathan O'Sullivan Assistant Producer: Ceyda Uzun Studio Manager: Sam Chisholm Editor: Luke Shelley Exec Producer: Mike Wooller  A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode of The Life of Briany is sponsored by George at Asda. Bring it on with George School Uniform. Shop now in store or at george.com. This week on The Life of Bryony. There's nothing more lonely than being at home with a screaming baby and a mind that's unraveling. This is our second Life of Briny book club and it's little disasters. It's a novel about postnatal obsessive compulsive disorder. That is the dark heart of the, yeah, of the novel.

I'd experience that sort of gaslighting of thoughts of yourself and it is terrifying. Your fear of it is so intense that you can sort of anticipate another reality, you can see another reality happening. I was in chronic pain to have a job. I was trying to validate myself by becoming a sort of domestic goddess, trying to keep a lid on everything that was boring me, I guess. I think birth is a real leveller, you know, that we are quite animal and it is going to hurt. Having a traumatic birth is a big sort of risk factor for getting perinatal OCD as well because you've, that illusion of control has completely gone. And OCD is a form of trying to control, isn't it?

You know, you feel in the form for healthister after your child's being born. And there was a question about, do you ever feel like throwing your baby out of the window? And technically I didn't out of the window did I was down the stairs. So I, but I just remember thinking, you know, you would never take that, would you even if you felt like that? But I do think the sleep deprivation that comes with that has got a lot to do. and the hormonal changes has got a lot to. Hormones, I think the hormones as well, you cannot underestimate the impact that hormones have on mental health.

In the actor writing, I kind of, you know, became myself again in a way, you know, in a way that wasn't just being another. Hi, I'm Briney Gordon, and this is The Life of Briney. It's the podcast where we talk honestly about life's messes, magic, and the moments that can feel a bit much. Today, it's another life of Briny Book Club, and it's a goodie. My guest is Sarah Vaughan, whose book about a mother-suffering postnatal obsessive compulsive disorder gave me great comfort when I first read it when it came out five years ago.

And it's now been turned into the Paramount Drama, Little Disasters, starring Diane Krueger. Today, Sarah and I are chatting about the real-life experiences that inspired the best. selling book. My chat was Sarah Vaughan right after this. Sarah Vaughan, welcome to The Life of Briney. Lovely to be here. This is our second Life of Briney Book Club and we are going to talk about, well, you've written loads of books. You have anatomy of a scandal, which people will know because most of them have been turned into huge blockbuster series. And that's me of a scandal, which was turned into a Netflix series starring Sianna Miller.

But the one I really want to talk about, because it's, I remember reading it when it came out in 2020, and you sent me a proof, and it's little disasters. And it has recently, it is now screening, as we say, streaming even. It's now streaming, as they say, in the industry, on Paralyver. amount plus. It's been turned into this drama series starring Diane Kruger. And it is, it's a novel about postnatal obsessive compulsive disorder. Pranatal OCD. Well, it's not just about that. It's about motherhood and judgment, but that is the secret. We're assuming everybody might have watched it and they don't mind the spoilers, but that is the dark heart of the, yeah.

Of the novel. novel yeah so it's about a um a woman who uh by all account you know looks like she's got her shit together she's dion and kruger she's dion grueger uh jess is her name and then she gives she has a quite traumatic birth with betsy and what i uh what i found so that really landed for me was this sense of a mother thinking like almost essentially gaslighting herself into believing she might have hurt her child. So the inciting incident is basically that Jess, who's the most seemingly perfect among a quartet of mothers who meet at an antinatal class, so they meet 10 years or 11 years previously before they have their first

babies. We've grown up together. They're sort of lots of tensions. They've only really got in common their due dates, but they've still become good friends. Relatable for most of us who've ever done NCD. You're so desperate, aren't you, to sort of this whole new world, so desperate to have friends in this new world. So they've become friends and there have been tensions with Liz and Jess, which we hear about later on. But the sort of inciting incident, really, the thing that kicks it all off is that Jess, who's the most seemingly perfect of all of them, you know, she's played by Diane Kruger, turns up an A&E on a Friday night with a baby with a bang to the back of her head and a story that doesn't add up. And the pediatrician

on call happens to be Liz, who's another member of the NCT group, who's played by Joe Joyner. she, you know, Jess is being a bit shifty, but frankly, she's being really evasive. Her story doesn't add up. She's got safeguarding protocol she has to follow. And so although it kicks against her instincts that, you know, this is a really good mother. This is the mother who has calmed her baby, you know, her own, you know, Liz's baby when she can't get her to settle, she calls social services in. And because that's what you have to do if there's a baby like this and she couldn't sustain that injury. And that obviously implode. their world and then the themes of judgment and the way in which all these mothers are judging

each other and themselves come to the fore and yes the the the jess's i guess core belief at this stage is that she's she's a bad mother because that's what her intrusive thoughts are telling her this is the thing and this is where it kind of like look i'm actually like grabbing my necklace now and like if i'm getting anxious about it well it's just that it's like this is why it's just I almost start to feel a bit teary when I think about perinatal obsessive compulsive disorder because we know obsessive compulsive disorder attaches to the most precious things to you, you know, and it is quite common in new mothers. And perhaps women who have never experienced, had any experience of mental illness before. So it comes quite a shock.

And these intrusive thoughts can be incredibly dark, worrying that you're going to hurt your baby, that maybe you might sexually abuse them. Really the darkest, grossest things that are completely, and it's really important to make this clear, completely the opposite of what you would actually ever do. Yeah, we were really clear. In fact, I've just recently written a piece of the Times, but I interviewed a perinatal psychiatrist who was at St Mary's and Imperial. She now does private stuff. And I'd interviewed her back in 2018 when I was writing the book. And she was so clear that there had never been an instance of a mother with perinatal OCD. They called it maternal OCD in those days harming their child and that it's actually a form of vigilance. She said it comes from

a place of love. You're catastrophizing. You're imagining your worst case scenario to try and protect your child. And that's exactly what it is. I mean, compared to there have been some instances of postnatal depression where women have killed their babies, you know, really sadly because They've been in such a, you know, they've then wanted, yeah, exorcocis, or they've wanted to take their own lives subsequently. But there's never been a recorded instance of this. It's actually like, it's an overdrive of sort of trying to protect your child. Well, it's a sort of evolutionary response on wild.

Yeah, a Malian response, you know, it's that fight or flight instinct. And when you talked about gaslighting, when I was thinking about my previous book, I'd set in anatomy, I'd set in Westminster and a court. and I wanted to do a more domestic setting with this. The classic domestic noir setting for a psychological thriller is that it's the husband gaslighting you. But I actually, you know, I had experienced, although I didn't really realize it

until I completed the first draft that I was writing about my own maternal OCD, but I'd experience that sort of gaslighting of thoughts of yourself. And it is terrifying because you know, on the one hand, you know this psychiatrist is called an ego-distonic. You know on one level that that isn't the reality, you're not really throwing your baby down the stairs. That was my thing that I was dropping my baby, which is a really classic one, throwing her down the stairs. You know you're not

throwing the baby down the stairs. You know you're holding him, but you can, you can almost see a vision makes it sound like a psychosis. It's not psychosis, but you can, your fear of it is so intense that you can sort of anticipate another reality. You can see another reality happening, can't you? It's really, it really is listening to you talk about it. It's that thing. I always say it's like the brain refusing to acknowledge what your eyes can see. That's how I kind of sum up, obsessive, compulsive disorder. So whether it is that your hands are clean, do you know what I mean, they're not dirty, your brain go, you're but what if?

It's the what if disease, the doubting disease. What if? I wonder if it's, you know, we're both journalists or originally journalists and, you know, writing a novel or writing a news story is what if, isn't it? You know, what's the next, what's the worst case scenario? And I wonder also for me, when I was a news reporter, I unfortunately, had a little niche of sort of doing dark cases. So I covered

Sarah Payne, the little girl who was snatched from Cornfield in West Sussex. I covered the soar murders. I covered little boy who was murdered by a paedophile in Norfolk. And I've covered a baby shaking case. And so whenever there's a, you know, my husband would say, well, that's never going to happen.

And I'd say, well, there was this new story. You know, because we do know, they are new. stories because they are so rare but I think you can kind of believe that they're more normal than they are because you happen to have covered those stories that you know like it's really interesting hearing you talk about the uh Sarah Payne and Holly and Jessica because and that was in the naughties wasn't yeah this is where the interesting thing about OCD is it will attach to the kind of and I hope this is helpful for anyone listening who may not have or anyone tuning in who may not know this and who may be just thinking they are you know like they're a bad person but obsessor

compulsive disorder will not only will it attach to the thing you love most but it will also attach to the big bad thing of the you know issue of the moment so there are lots of people who in the 80s and 90s thought they had AIDS because that was the big public fear of the time of ignorance and the leaflets with the lillism. Then the paedophilia of the naughties, that kind of thing, you know, because that is the worst thing, isn't it? It's really common. And I remember, and I literally takes my breath.

Sorry, like you talking about, I have all of these phrases in my head from that time about those girls and thinking of different Sarahs who were like, not who are like famous, but for like, like Sarah, Jessica Parker. It sounds nuts. Because it is, because it's a mental illness. And then, you know, it is the most exhausting illness and, you know, and talking and just hearing you talk about, I don't know, it's sort of like it's, it's, it's kind of come back to me how much of your brain space can be taken up by obsessing and compulsive disorder and how very misunderstood it is because then you're sitting there with these terrible people don't, I hear, when I talk about my experiences of OCD, people come to me and go, oh my God, I didn't know that was what it was. was because people think OCD is a code word for learning up tins. Yeah. And so I wanted to talk to you about your own, is it okay to talk about your own experience? Yeah, I mean, I can see in hindsight

with my pregnancy with my first daughter, I was very anxious, but I wasn't having those thoughts, but it was after I had my son, my second child. So my first child had been fine. And my second child, I then, yeah, started to have, which weren't diagnosed at the time. And I've actually gone through my notes, which have described me as having postnatal anxiety. And it was while writing this book that I interviewed this psychiatrist and said, I think I've, you know, I think I've had a lot of these thoughts, actually. I think maybe I had it mildly. And she said, oh, I think you probably had it moderately. You know, so it was kind of like, and that's quite sort of when you finished a draft of the book and you, my editor then put a circle around. I'd written

maternal OCD and she said, that's what this book's about. And I was like, yeah, that's That's what I'm doing with this book. But going back, I'm circumventing your question very nicely there on time. Classic journalist. So I think I had a perfect storm of circumstances that meant I was quite vulnerable to this having. You know, I had about six different trigger points, really. So I had, I collapsed 19 weeks in my second pregnancy in the street, pushing a child in a buggy. I had something called synthesis pelvic disorder where basically I have big babies, your ligament stretch, you know, your pelvic.

alters. I'd been behaving as if I was invincible, you know, kind of pushing a child to the child just and a buggy with my laptop and her stuff, getting a tube, working at the guard, going to do across London. Obviously my body couldn't allow me to do that anymore. So I was sort of bedridden for the rest of that pregnancy. When I was 30 weeks pregnant, my husband had already at 20 weeks pregnant had to move across the country for his job and I sort of joined him with a toddler and pregnant and couldn't walk. So no childcare, so I'd left my sort of support system. So it was very isolated, you know, didn't even have a nursery for the very active two-and-half-year-old. And then I had to give up, once I'd had the baby, I still couldn't walk very well.

I was in chronic pain. So I took voluntary dancy from the Guardian because a consultant said to me, gave me an MRI and said, you're mad. If you think you can commute to London with two small children and a back problem, you're going to be flat on your back within a week. frankly I wasn't paid enough either to commute and get a nanny and do that job so I'd given up the job

that had sort of validated me you know I'd been had a bylan since the age of 22 or whatever I was in chronic pain I couldn't walk I was isolated with no friends and my husband was in his job was working really long hours and so I was stuck at home

and then we moved to somewhere that was even more isolated in a village and it was lovely I did you know but not if you're at home with a there's a line in the book, there's nothing more lonely than being at home with a screaming baby and a mind that's unraveling. So if you're like that, I kind of had this sort of pressure cooker of circumstances. And for me, the classic way in which, or the strongest memory for me is that we were in this rented house with very steep Edwardian stairs, and I could not get to the bottom

of the stairs with my then 10-month-olds. And I did what Diane Kruger does in the book, except I sort of turned around and sort of did it like a toddler. So I sort of shifted my body and would hold the baby into me. So he was safest next to the stairs and go down these very steep stairs like that. And I would, things like I never got him to take a bottle because I was obsessed about, well, how will I know if the bottle is sufficiently sterile? Oh my God, that's so resonates. So that, yeah, I would spend, you know, so long trying to sterilise the bloody steriliser thing before.

I mean, obviously they wouldn't take form. I was so perfectionist. Oh, that's the other key thing. That's quite perfectionist. Yeah. It kind of impacts on people who are really perfectionist because you want to get everything right, just as Jess is in the show. You know, she's sort of, there's a line where someone says, you're making your vegan bento boxes of sushi. I mean, she's not, but she is kind of everything has to be immacular.

And while I was in chronic pain and had a job, I was trying to validate myself by becoming a sort of domestic goddess, but not sort of a forgiving one. So I would be racing chickens and making stock and making risotto and baking all the time and finger painting and doing all this stuff. you know, while trying to keep a lid on everything that was boring me, I guess. Yeah. But so, yeah, there's the sterilisation of things. I never got into sterilising because I would spend my entire time trying to sterilise it. And then not really working out the logic that actually is a breast sterile if you're breastfeeding. It's probably not sterile, but you don't have to do all that stuff, do you?

It's not logical, is it, OCG? I always remember having this fear with my daughter's bottles that I might have but bleach. Oh, I had that too. Yeah. I wonder if anyone tuning in is like, oh my God, yes, that's the, you know, like that thing of thinking that you might have hurt your own, or you might hurt your own child, which is what, and you talk about gaslighting yourself. And I think that is the case with mental illnesses. It is with so much, it's you gaslight yourself and you tell yourself, you don't have this or this isn't as bad as you think it is. Like depression, I always think, the biggest sign that someone is in depression is when you're like I'm not depressed I'm just lazy you know like that's that's your you know I just don't I'm just I'm just a failure as a human because I can't do these things that everyone else seems to be doing and I'm like honey that's depression and the voice in your head is is the voice of depression just as

with mental you know like but maybe you did hurt your child maybe this maybe this bruise on this child's head is because you shook this baby or you did something I didn't know as bad as that what my my thoughts were more and I and that and one of the interesting things I think about it was I knew I mean I didn't I didn't score at all for depression ever you know I was up every day with you know freshly washed hair and mascara and taking it to baby groups and things so I was thinking well I haven't got postnatal depression but I did have obviously extreme anxiety um you know so it's the sort of the flip to that so outwardly I would have looked I think I would have looked a bit anxious but you know I wouldn't have looked as if I had this because I clearly wasn't telling anybody that I was sterilising.

Well, I wasn't able to give them bottles because I couldn't go out with the sterilisation process. But, you know, I clearly wasn't telling anybody that I was going down the stairs on my bottom. Were there any other things that you were doing to sort of try and keep yourself safe? I think it was more a catastrophizing. So my daughter found out that the best way of getting a rise out of me.

So she was, by this stage, she was three and a half four, four and he was about one so he would be in I'd be pushing him in a buggy and she'd have a scooter and she knew the best way of getting a reaction out of me was to just scoot out of sight and we walked from her primary or her preschool to our village you kind of went down a road that was sort of wooded and then it had a turning point at the end of it around which there was always building work going on you know lots of white fans would do a turn you know builders would come back the other way And because Sarah Payne was snatched from boy writing in a white van and he did that circle around the, you know, I would run madly. I mean, that probably did look insane with his buggy after my child who thought she was getting this great rise out of her neurotic mother by scooting outside because I was convinced a man in a white fan was going to snatch her.

So it was more the sort of anticipatory racing ahead, which I think is more anxiety than me actually seeing myself doing, dropping him. dropping in cleanliness and I suppose things like I would see worst case scenarios like I'd be very anxious about pouring a kettle you know making sure you pour the kettle the other way so the water couldn't go near the baby which it wouldn't rationally yeah but it's not rational but it's not rational but just effectively in the book little disasters and in the show it's that thing of has she has she hurt her baby or not

you know and that that is as a mother the worst thing to confront yourself to tell you so in the book she which obviously you can't film some of this i think she imagines things like you know flinging the baby across you know against a fireplace and you know just doing more brutal things um and so when the baby has an injury and she has done something that's bad parenting so she is trying to i'm trying to sort of not create spoilers here but you know she has done something that makes her culpable um but she has done something that makes her culpable um but she can't, because she's been absent from the baby for a short period, she can't trust that she hasn't done something else

and that her thoughts, you know, haven't somehow ensured it's happened, you know. She knows rationally she hasn't, and she is also trying to avoid answering questions about something else, but she still can't completely trust herself because her thoughts are so different to her reality. And she's had, and it was important to me as well, she'd had two births that went absolutely fine and she has had the third birth is the sort of

classic precipitating birth which is uh you know traumatic birth so she in the book she and we show some of this and all the detail um the baby has her shoulder stuck so she has to kind of be manhandled out of her and then she has a massive um postpartum hemorrhage so she needs a blood transfusion so for somebody who's like you know her first births you know she's had George Michael playing in the show. I think it was Mozart in the book, but it was George Michael in the show. She's had, you know, this lovely home birth initially

and this control. Everything's gone perfectly. It's like... sneezed and the baby comes out. It's like me. I thought I was going to have, you know, lavender incense and Mozart's clarinet concert and it doesn't really happen like that.

No. It was a shock to me to discover that having a baby was painful. This is so interesting, isn't it? Because, you know, we don't talk about these traumatic births, you know. It's, again, it's another way. which women's health is sort of sidelined and underestimated. Well, as you're supposed to give birth, that's the way of, you know, that's the way of nature.

So if you do have a massive hemorrhage or you're torn open from vagina to asshole, like, well, just suck it up, babes, you know. But there are real world consequences of this, do you know what I mean? Which is that it is very traumatic for a woman's mental health. And, you know, and then afterwards you're, you've gone through this massive thing. then the hormones come in. And you're in a lot of pain. Yes.

Yes. Yeah. And then you bung in the fact that you're sleep deprived. Do you know what I mean? And she, just in the book, her husband's, we haven't quite said what he does in the city, but the whole point was that he is like sort of absent for 15 hours a day. And so they have, and I saw quite a lot of this in London when I had my first baby in London. they've fallen to quite sort of traditional gender roles

and there's a line in the book where she says sort of half-jackly, well you go and make the money you know, we need you to go out and make the money and he leaves her. I think when the baby's three or five days old, he hasn't taken his two weeks off paternity leave. But even we just talk about how even two weeks is just like, I mean I think it's different now.

I had a baby 8,000 years ago, do you know what I? Well, I had my first baby 20 years ago. So that's, yeah. So he was, Back, yeah. Well, I think because of the way his work fell and she was 11 days late, I think I got four days, yeah. So, yeah, he, but, but, you know, the sort of culture is she's, this is her third child. She knows what she's doing. So he's back at work, you know, and she's left alone with these three children. And she's because she's given the illusion that she's completely competent, the fact that she's kind of had a blood transfusion and, you know, it's clearly in pain isn't kind of factored in. But yeah, that's a big, that's a big, having a traumatic. birth is a big sort of risk factor for getting perinatal OCD as well because you've that illusion of control has completely gone and OCD is a form of trying to control isn't it so you're trying to sort of compensate for the complete loss of control and and it's um it's so brutal isn't it

I mean in her case having feeling some you know it's an emergency so she can although she's had some pain relief you know feeling somebody manhandling you out of that I mean I think I do think we did get this wrong actually I had bought into the whole NCT I didn't have any pain relief because I'd said naught on my birth plan and then the midwife sort of disappeared. So I just sort of had to get on with it. And I seriously had brought into that whole, it's going to be really calm, it's going to be really soothing. I'm going to be listening to Mozart's clarinet concerto and breathing. And how was it? No, it wasn't like that. No. I mean, it was it was seen as, oh, it's a natural birth, so that's fine. But it, but, you know, without giving

too many details, it was very painful. And it was, I didn't have, you know, I didn't have a seren or anything but I also had a nine-pound baby without any pain relief so I wouldn't recommend that okay and your second baby was that was well that was he was 8 to 11 but he um I hadn't been enough to walk for the last 20 weeks pregnancy so I was really anxious about giving birth to baby and again I didn't have a cesarean because you know that's not what you do on the NHS is even if you ask for one um and so um yeah there was a lot of anxiety about about that I do think we have an issue. We don't, I think possibly because we don't live in a village. You know, my mum lives 200 miles away. So we don't, we're not observing women close to us or having babies or

necessarily being with us. And I think probably we have, you know, I had my first baby at 32, my second at 35. I'd had a decade of being a, more than a decade of being a journalist. I'd, you know, it sounds a bit nauseating besides fertility treatment. I kind of, um, didn't work anywhere. I had her naturally. Um, I'd always been quite successful at everything, you know, So I'd always been really competent. Yeah, and so it's a bit of a shock then to, I think birth is a real leveler, you know, that we are quite animal and it is going to hurt. And it is, yeah, it is a problem in the way in which we all, maybe we don't now.

Maybe this was 20 years ago. But we don't recognize that birth is going to be painful. And that's just, you know, and brutal and barbaric. new school year georgia azda has you sorted with uniform that's made to last we're talking reinforced knees on trousers stain release polos and scuff resistant shoes all designed to handle whatever the school day throws at them and the prices two polos from just three pounds two packed trousers from just seven pounds and shoes from only 10 pounds everything comes with george's 100 day guarantee so you can shop with confidence. Pick up everything in store or order online at

george.com with free click and collect. Bring it on with george school uniform, in store and online at george.com. Available at selected as the stores and george.com. Delivery charges may apply subject to availability. Most news reports suggests that actually maternity care in this country is quite, you know, it's very patchy, do you know what I mean? And also there will be people listening who had babies 20 years ago, who, for whom still, you know, but that, you know, actually it's the distance for whom still their birth might trouble them, you know. Yeah. It's interesting because I was thinking, so my daughter is 12, so I gave birth 12 years ago. But I, you know, just listening to you, talk about your

birth, I still have that, and not as much anymore, because I don't, I don't define myself by, in the same way as you do in the early years of a baby, of, you know, those milestones of breastfeeding, or whatever, you know, and, and what birth did you have? But it was a huge, I remember going to NCT. And I remember the woman, the NCT teacher, going through all the different lovely ways that our bodies would take care of birth and, you know, there would be a water bath or there would be this way. And then I thought, well, hang, and she's like, right, well, we're done now. And I thought, well, no one's, she hasn't spoken about emergency cesareans. And statistically, one or two of us in this room are going to end up having an emergency C-section. So I put my hand up being, you know,

like the know-it-all journalist. And I said this. And she said, well, I don't really want to, I don't want to end this session on a down note. And it was like, I remember thinking, oh, okay, and then I ended up having an emergency cesarean section. And I remember the doctor, the, the, I remember the anaesthetic, the doctor or an anathist saying to me, oh, I'm so sorry, but your baby is in trouble. And I, and I remember thinking, well, no, don't apologize. Just get this thing out of me and get it out alive. you know by this point I'd been in labour for like four days or something I was exhausted and I had no shame about it do you know what I mean

because I'm quite like I'm quite a shame I mean I have lots of shame in my head about lots of different things but I also have a real sense of kind of justice and how I'm like no like this is I'm not this isn't a bad thing this is this is as long as my child is born and is healthy I'm okay with it but if I was a different kind of person, perhaps that might have sent me into a spiral. I don't know. Do you know what? It's interesting what sends you into a spiral and what it doesn't. But I still feel like there's still that bit in my brain that is like, oh, you kind of failed at birth. And maybe if you've done it again, you wouldn't have a natural birth. Like, yeah. And what would, and what would I have got if I'd

had a natural birth? Would I've been given a certificate that I could put on a mantelpiece? Do you what I mean? Like what, also, what does it even mean natural birth? Do you know, like I, I didn't, you know, the baby came out of me. The baby was birthed. I think there's lots of different terms for it now, you know. And I look at my glorious 12 year old now and I don't think, oh, you know, she, you know, she came out of my abdomen or, you know, like it's irrelevant. Do you know what I mean? These aren't the things that bother me. But there is still that tiny bit in my brain that is like, oh you didn't have a natural birth and I'm and I think that there will be and there will be women who've had natural births for whom it was traumatic as well do you know but it's like we just don't really talk about these things and we don't talk about you know being ripped or you know which can happen it with a natural birth or you know all the sort of the pain of that and yeah like I feel quite lucky having had an emergency C section because I was like thank fuck I didn't get an episiotomy which is where you're yeah you are like literally cut from uh vagina to anus. There's a lovely sentence that I didn't think I'd say on this podcast.

Maybe that won't be a soundbite. But you know, it was all those things and I, and I, yeah, but looking back, it's so, you know, breastfeeding, all of that stuff, just the pressure. Yeah, there's a good, there's a scene actually in the show really much, where, where, where we meet them all in an NCT group, which is actually at the start of the book, but this bit is a bit is a bit is a dialogue I didn't come up with and well I didn't come up with lots of the dialogue but this this bit is new and the doctor when they're talking about their birth plans the doctor says well I'd like not to die and I'd like the baby not to die and you can see these other mothers kind of going you know Jess has gone well you know

my doola will be there and someone is having an elective cesare into fit in with her work and that you know I'd like not to die and like the baby not to die kind of really cuts through all the airy, fairy, you know, ethereal, birth plan bullshit, basically, that Jess is having. And actually it's fine for Jess's first birth, as I say. But, you know, that is actually an obstetrician once said to me, this is another thing about being a news reporter or a health reporter as I was at the time. Birth is the most dangerous day of your life. And she meant for the baby, not for the mother.

She meant that birth canal, that short birth canal is actually the most tricky journey they're going to go on. That is the reality. Actually, birth can be dangerous. I know I sound like really sensationalising now and I'm sure the statistics are tiny for maternal, although they're quite high for this country given how wealthy we are, I think, comparatively, aren't they?

Maternal, mental, I'm sure we're going to have people saying that it's really, really minor now, but it's not just about it's not just about the death, it's about their trauma, really. But the birth plans as well, that notion of making a birth plan and I think this is important to say because what they don't say to you is you can make this birth plan, but please, please for the love of God,

don't feel like a failure if it doesn't go according to this because this isn't this isn't really none of it is up to us do you know what I mean it's biology and what will happen will happen and yeah I think that's that's a really important thing but let's get back to the book because that's what we're here to talk about and let's get back to you if that's okay I just wanted to speak to you about that episode of maternal OCD and how you started to get your life back and how it started to pass because I think that's really important because if there's someone listening who has experienced it or is experiencing it and feels sort of shame and it's always good to give that sort of hope of how this doesn't this this this

won't last forever and you won't experience this forever and things you know it's a remarkable to me to think about, you know, I had terrible OCD while I was pregnant as well to do with the father of the baby. I was convinced that maybe it wasn't my husband. Gosh. Yeah, and I went through this like whole. Did you vocalize that with him? I did. Yeah, I did on a beach in Barbados. We went on Barbic Baby Moon and I had, I was like, again, confessing things is a really a big subsection of OCD that people don't talk about the need to confess for reassurance actually and actually it's the worst thing giving people the reassurance is the worst thing you can do for OCD but yeah I had to I was like I need

to tell you I'm really worried this baby isn't yours and he said well even if it isn't I'll still stand by you and love you anyway and that was like I I remember being like oh my god and I and I think it is about for me now uh with a lot of therapy behind me and a lot of um you know, a lot of knowledge having met so many people with obsessive compulsive disorder. It is about, I realize OCD is about trying to feel safe, you know. And the more safe I feel, the less likely OCD is to come in, you know. And but OCD will also come in when things are going well because it's like, ooh, maybe things are going to go badly and you need to be hypervigilant, Brian.

You need to watch out for that, you know, and I think that's something for people to kind of bear in mind you know but how for you how did you sort of start to return to some sort of version of normal um i think i went i think i'd gone to the GPs about a child being ill and i think she was a nice female GP and it was a new surgery mutine she said something like and how are you doing or something and i think i i think i i think i said i'm just being very worried or something and she said life can be easier than this or something and she referred me to a, I checked, actually, you had four sessions with a trainee psychologist at the, at the hospital. And he basically said, you know, you've had all these different risk factors,

you've got postnatal anxiety. Any, he says like any one of those would have caused this and you've had six. So it's, you know, it's not a surprise, which kind of was quite validating. Like, you know, actually, I'm not this awful person. I don't, I've looked at my letter he sent back and He hasn't mentioned maternal OCD in that. So I don't think I was honest, really, about the extent to what I was feeling. But that's incredibly common because it's, and again, some people tuning in might find this, that fear of expressing to a professional a doctor about the intrusive thoughts that you're experiencing. Because actually, and it does happen, and obviously it happens in the book, you know,

social services get called. Well, I remember filling in the form after, you know, you fill in the form for Healthister after your child's being born. And there was a question about, do you ever feel like throwing your baby out of the window? And technically, I didn't, out of the window, did I was down the stairs. So I, but I just remember thinking, I mean, who in earth would be so stupid as to tick that box? I just remember thinking, you know, you would never take that, would you even if you felt like that? So he's, and he said, sleep, he said, do some exercise, do something for you, start to make friends.

friends. So I had one morning a week when I had some childcare for him and I would go for a swim. I got stronger. So a lot for me was about the chronic pain, you know, and lifting this big baby and being in, I had a sort of cocktail of pain relief until he was three, you know, that I was taking every day. So a lot for me was sleeping. The consultant who said you won't be able to go back to work told me to stop breastfeeding immediately. He was 11 months. So I did and he started walking that day. And so I wasn't sort of physically lifting. him as much and my ligaments, I suppose, were getting better. So for me, it was the physical improvement, I guess, meant that, and then sleep and starting to make friends in this new

place. Speaking to my husband, who obviously knew I was very anxious, I still don't think I was completely honest about the extent of them. So that all really helped. And also, yeah, I think, and in the sessions with him, I had CBT. When my youngest was four, I had 12 sessions of CBT, so I kind of clearly hadn't resolved it all. So I'd had, you know, those four when he was a year. And then when he went to start his school, I had 12 sessions. And I also started writing my first book.

And I think that the act of writing meant that I was finding a sense of self apart from being a mother as well. that was really critical. So actually the day after my CBT, second lot of CBT finished and I got my letter from the psychologist saying, how well I'd done. And, you know, I was completely different from the woman who'd first presented. My now agent called the next day. So there was a real sort of synchronicity between the two, I think. And my first novel, which, you know, I can't bear to look at now, but is about motherhood again. And so I think in the act of writing, I kind of, you know, became myself again in a way, you know, in a way that wasn't just being

another. But for me, I mean, a lot of, again, talking to this perinatal psychiatrist, she was saying, you know, some mild cases will resolve themselves. And I do think sleep and hormones and making friends and, you know, swimming and everything like that built up my sense of self. But mild to moderate require CBT, or not necessarily CBT, some form of therapy. And for me, I was very, you know, It was the age student who was, I took it really seriously. So I did have my, this was pre-phones. You know, I did have a notepad with columns and, you know, each thought that was challenged, I would write, I would write down and challenge it and rate it and then reassess it.

And so I really went through that process with these fearful thoughts, which then weren't so much about dropping him or, you know, the milk. It was then very focused, I think, on my daughter. So things like, this will sound mad, but then, you know. that's welcome here they often happen when my husband was away for work so I guess I was feeling more responsibility about parenthood just on myself and she said one night

I don't want to go to bed because the man comes into my room at night and I rang my husband at work and said do you think it's possible that someone's got into her bedroom and is abusing her do you think I need to call the place and

and he said what was she talking what does she mean a man's getting into her bedroom I mean, this was a year after Maddolea McCann as well. No, I think it was two years after Maddolea McCann. And I quizzed her at length, you know, what to me? I said, you know, the sandman. And so some nursery nurse at the free preschool she'd gone to had told her that the sandman comes into your bedroom at night

and puts sand in your eyes to make you go to sleep. Right. That's helpful. And so I was, you know, so it was completely. like she was this Irish nursery nurse who just told them, sung them a song about the Sandman coming into their bedrooms. But you know like again this will resonate with

I'm not sure it will. No I do I know I have so many friends who are like you should if I the things that my brain cycles through in a day of the things that might happen to my child I think it's really

relatable and I just think it's really good that you speak about it because you know in a way you know listening talking having this conversation with you and talking so much about it in a way it's a miracle that any women don't become seriously mentally mentally ill after they become mothers I do think sleep deprivationist got and if you're like me and completely perfectionist and if you are a breastfeeding mother you are the one who's getting up in the night because you're the only one who can do that job aren't you you know and you're trying to get them into a routine perhaps so

they're in a cot they're not close sleeping with you I mean there are all these things if I'd had a third baby i would have done differently um but i do think the sleep deprivation that comes with that has got a lot to and the hormonal changes has got a lot to hormones i think the hormones as well you cannot underestimate the impact that hormones have on mental health but we do know that maternal mental health services and this is for anyone listening now who might be going through it have actually got a lot better haven't they they've improved massively yeah there's been every every area now has a maternal mental health team um there was a report back in 2015 that talked about the economic impact of poor maternal mental health.

And so there's now a great provision. And in fact, there was a maternal mental health week recently. And there was a woman on Five Live who rang in, and she had really bad perinatal OCD. And she had had a specific nurse she could call at any time. And she said she would talk to him for hours a day when she was in that moment of crisis. So I think it is far better now. But I don't know the stats of how much money is being. spent on it. But that's good for anyone listening to know that you're in your area you should have

a specific maternal mental health. I just wanted to kind of bring it back to books as this is a book club episode. And I wanted to ask you, finish with two questions. Okay. The first question is, and you kind of touched on this, how does writing help you make sense of the world? Is it sort of almost a therapeutic tool writing a novel? It shouldn't be at all, should it? I know that you're not going to do that at all but um i think that certainly with anatomy of a scandal and little disasters i have exercised you know quite dark things that have happened to me and i've said i'm on the record of saying that i realized at the end of writing the first draft of anatomy that i was working through um a sexual assault i'd experienced at a party in my early 20s that you know i

never went to the police about because i didn't think i'd be understood and it wasn't obviously as extreme as the rapes in anatomy, but it was enough for me to feel really angry about the entitlement of men who feel they can get away with that. And I think a lot of us actually growing up in the noughties and the 90s, you know, I don't think any of us in the 80s, I don't think any of us are particularly unscathed by, you know, when Me Too came about, I remember totting up all the things that could conceivably be thought of as Me Too experiences from, you know, being flashed on, you know, it seems inconceivable now that if somebody flashes you on a tube, you wouldn't take a camera phone or you wouldn't, there wouldn't be some accountability.

Yeah, but also it was so common. But it was so common. But I think the last time it happened to me actually was when I was pregnant. And getting a late train back from working on the Guardian doing the political, so getting the 1035 back from French Street or whatever, 11 o'clock back from Fenchut Street and a man in a Mac on one of these really old trains just sort of exposing me thinking, what's that mouse in his hand? Oh my gosh. And I was pregnant. I was visibly pregnant. I mean, I mean, hopefully, camera phones means it's less. It's less prevalent. You know, like you're talking about that. I remember that happened to me as a school girl on the district line. And I think there were other people. Oh, there was other people around. Yeah.

Like that's, and you just think to yourself, whoa, the amount. And again, those things where, those sort of evenings where alcohol had been consumed and, you know, I don't really want to do this. But if I say no, will I be, you know, will I be seen as a tease? Or will I, you know, disappoint? And you think, oh my good God. How are any of us alive? But anyway, that was anatomy. Yeah. And there is a line actually where James says, don't be such a prick tease. And that's the kind of that exactly feeding into what you're saying. And then a little to us, as I say, when I finished the first draft, my editor said, this is what this book is actually about

and I hadn't really talked to people about it you know I'd kind of you know as I say in researching it it was the psychiatrist he said I think this is what you you know yes you did have this type thing so

I realise that yeah that was I think there's chapter 9 or 10 it's in Jess's viewpoint in the book and it basically it was the fastest chapter I've ever written because it was all about her thoughts she couldn't go to a park because they would obviously be paedophiles watching

You know, that was another one of mine as well. And I did go to parks, but I was obviously very vigilant for paedophiles and parks. But I hope that also, like, it's, does it give you some, a little bit of joy to know that people, women will be reading your book, reading Little Disasters? And now, obviously, it's going to reach an even bigger audience through the Paramount Plus show that they might watch it and go, oh, God. Yeah, so unfortunately, so Little Disasters was my lot. book. So it was published 10 days after the first lockdown when obviously all the bookshops were closed. I remember reading it. But you read it as a preview. You gave me an amazing quote. So I feel like I know you from that. And then it came out. It was a waterstone story of the month, but as a paperback.

But again, it was in the third lockdown. So all the bookshops were closed as well. So it didn't actually reach as many people as they wanted to reach, you know, at the time. So I'm hopeful the show will more. But what has been so gratifying about it has been getting messages at the time. from women, including somebody in my sort of extended family, saying, I didn't know there was a name for this, and I've experienced that. And even more so with the show, the amount of messages I've had from people saying, not necessarily about maternal obesity, more about postnatal anxiety, but some people as well saying, a lot of authors saying, I had really bad intrusive thoughts after my first child. It's a really bad place to be. And thank you for writing about this.

And I think that's why Roughcutt was so interested in it was because it had this sort of, it had a USP, which was that it's not about postnatal depression. It's about, there's a specificity to it. And I mean, when I had my baby, I think the thinking was it was like 1 to 2% of people get it. I think now the understanding is that it's actually might be up to 16% of women getting postnatal OCD.

And if you've had OCD before, it's something like 70% you're going to get it. So actually I think it's the stats, the latest stats are something like up to 9% pre-antinatally and postnatally it's something like 2 to 16% and the studies are all very different because some of it's about self-reporting and different criteria for assessing it. But you know, that's up to 16% of women are experiencing this. A lot of women. So actually it's a lot more common and the comments I'm getting unless it's just that

it's all affecting authors, you know, it does seem to be more prevalent than we might have might have thought. There are lots of organisations that help with it. One that helped me when I was pregnant was, and I think it's still around, is called the maternal OCD organization. They're really super helpful, but there are loads of OCD charities that exist and we will put links to them in the show notes because it's really important that people don't feel alone. And if you want to read little disasters, it's out now. But also go and watch it. And there's There's heaps of stuff. We've had, we've done, you know, also go back through the, the library of Old Life of Briny podcast because we had Kimberly Nixon on talking about maternal OCD. And I've written about my own experiences of OCD, a maternal OCD, a mad girl. Sarah Vaughan, thank you so much for being our second Life of Briny Book Club. Oh, thank you for having me.

I am so happy every time I get to have a conversation about OCD on this podcast because I spent so many decades of my life thinking I was the worst person in the world because my OCD told me I was and because I never heard other stories of other people suffering from it. So I'm really grateful to Sarah for coming and speaking to meet. today about her own personal experiences, but also for writing a book about the reality of what it can be like as a new mum with OCD. If this episode has helped you, why not share it with someone that you think might need to hear it? It may not necessarily be someone else who's experiencing OCD. It might be someone who needs to know what it's like to experience OCD. Also, remember to hit follow and subscribe. But most important, importantly, and above all, I want you to look after yourself. And I look forward to seeing you next week.

This episode of The Life of Briany is sponsored by George at Asda. Bring it on with George School Uniform. Shop now in store or at george.com.