The first year nobody prepared you forStep 1 of 9

Before you read on

If you have not slept at all and do not feel tired, if you are confused or things feel unreal, if you believe something about the baby that people around you say is not true, if you are seeing or hearing things others do not, or if you have thoughts of ending your life or of harming the baby, do not wait and do not finish this course. This can be postpartum psychosis. It is rare, it is not depression, it usually begins in the first two weeks, and it is a medical emergency. Someone should stay with you and the baby. Contact emergency services or your local crisis line now. The standard is assessment by a mental health service straight away, and in the UK the guidance names four hours.

Lesson 2 of 6

Nothing malfunctioned

There is a version of this where your body let you down, or your faith did, or you are simply not built for it. None of those is what happened.

Three ordinary things arrive at once after a birth, and each of them on its own would make anybody worse at managing feeling. They arrive together, in the same week, in a person who is also learning to keep a new human alive.

That is the whole mechanism. It is not mysterious and it is not a judgement. Read the three, and then look at the loop they make.