Trigger warning #anger

Maybe you can relate… Feeling cumulatively exhausted in those raw months postpartum. You’ve been waking multiple times in the night, perhaps your baby is teething, has reflux, or is hard to settle for reasons you can’t fathom.

Trigger warning

Unwanted, intrusive worries of harm coming to our baby are REALLY common – even more so in the pandemic when our threat systems are dialled up.

Intrusive thoughts are REALLY common. These can be involuntary urges or impulses to do whatever it is you consider to be the most inappropriate, horrific or shameful thing.

Lee Baer, whose quote is this post’s title, adds: “These thoughts, urges, and images almost always fall into one of three categories: inappropriate aggressive thoughts, inappropriate sexual thoughts, or blasphemous religious thoughts.”

“What if I drop my baby? What if my baby stops breathing? What if my baby slips in the bath & drowns?”

I’m THRILLED about this wonderful collaboration with Dr Pooja Lakshmin @womensmentalhealthdoc. Thank you Pooja for this brilliant graphic and for sharing my research messages to help mums feel less alone.

The image shows some examples of intrusive, accidental harm thoughts about the baby. NEARLY ALL new parents have these. Disturbing & tormenting, these thoughts and images are taboo to talk about but they are normal!

Dear mums,

I wrote this four years ago after my second baby - and shared in May for Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week. #messycontradictions