Someone who seems fine may not be

Postpartum depression looks different for everyone, and for me it was almost invisible. I was active and smiling, and underneath I was slowly falling apart. I wasn’t hiding it on purpose. I was hiding it from myself too.

Everything is fine, everything is fine, everything has to be fine.

When the thought that something is badly wrong is too frightening to face, pretending becomes a way to survive.

I didn’t understand what was happening until I crashed completely. Looking back at things I’d said and done, it suddenly seemed obvious that what I’d been feeling wasn’t normal.

So if you’re close to someone who has just had a baby, don’t take a smile as the answer. It’s rarely black or white. One day can feel okay and the next can be awful. Keep asking, and let each day be what it is.

I wish someone had taken my sleep seriously. Exhaustion with a newborn gets shrugged off as normal, but long stretches without real sleep do damage and can feed into depression.

I wish someone had asked me to walk them through my nights in detail and then said: hold on, this is concerning. How do we get you at least four hours?

For me, the answer was to stop breastfeeding so my husband and I could share the night feeds with a bottle. I also moved into a separate bedroom, because my brain was on constant alert and reacted to every movement the baby made.

So if you’re close to someone who has just had a baby, don’t take a smile as the answer.

That gave me at least four hours a night. Together with antidepressants, it turned things around.

I clearly remember the day I saw the colors of the leaves again.

Getting there was hard in its own way. I believed that only I could take care of my babies. Realising that other people could care for them too, and that they’d be fine in someone else’s arms, was huge and humbling.

It really does take a village. Those of us without close family nearby are at extra risk, because there’s no one to quickly hand the baby to so we can get a much-needed nap.