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‘I can’t, I don’t know her, I don’t know what she wants, I’ll drop her, she doesn’t like me, I’m dirty, she’ll get poorly from me’, the rapid cycling thoughts shot through my head and I froze. My bundle had arrived, but the joy hadn’t.

I gave birth, via planned c-section, on the 8th January 2026 to our beautiful daughter, Blake Louise. A moment I’d longed for in the middle of dark nights, a dream I’d manifested into reality many times and there she was 7lbs 3oz of utter perfection. After two previous miscarriages I didn’t think Blake would ever be real, ever be in my arms, yet there she was and I should’ve been grateful. Right?

When I was 18, I went to the GP with low mood. Within three minutes, I left clutching a prescription for fluoxetine, more commonly known as Prozac. This was in 2004, when mental health was not as widely talked about. It was still a little taboo, judged by the ignorant and dismissed by the resilient.

I always wonder how many psychiatrists have lived experience. It takes a long time to train as a psychiatrist, and it’s tough going, which doesn’t leave much time for lived experience in my opinion. And these are the doctors dishing out the medication