Kate Lawler has opened up about her postnatal depression struggles, which forced her to “leave” her baby at one particularly low point in order to stop herself from doing something she would regret.
The television personality, 41, welcomed her daughter Noa, one, with her partner Martin 'Boj' Bojtos, 38, last year.
In an interview about her debut novel Maybe Baby with ITV ’s Lorraine Kelly, the Big Brother star opened up about struggling to cope with her newborn after her birth, describing her first year of motherhood as “the hardest thing I’ve ever done”.
“I didn’t necessarily enjoy every aspect of it,” she told Lorraine on Thursday. “Obviously there were moments where my heart would be set on fire when she smiled at me for the first time and she cooed, but there are 24 hours in a day and for a lot of those early newborn days, I was struggling mentally, physically recovering from the birth and I found it overwhelmingly challenging.”
She added: “I just want to normalise those feelings that it’s perfectly okay to love your child with every fibre of your being but not necessarily enjoy the day to day experience of parenting.”
ITV host Lorraine replied: “It can be very very tough, even if you’ve got a wonderfully understanding partner and you wanted this child so much, it can still be overwhelming.”
Lorraine referred to the part of the book where Kate admits having to leave her daughter on the bed and go elsewhere in the house for fear of doing something she might “regret”.
Kate said: “That was the moment I hit rock bottom, when I was in the deepest, darkest depths of postnatal depression.
“I talk a lot about postnatal depression, but you can’t escape these feelings. I had terrible thoughts about what I might do to myself and to Noa.
“You can’t escape those feelings and it’s really hard. I feel awful for even feeling like I might have come close to doing something like that, but I didn’t do it.”
She continued: “I just feel for all those women in the past who have had those feelings and haven’t been able to share them.
“Social media was a bit of a rock for me during those night feeds where I couldn’t wind her, couldn’t get her to feed. I would open the app and there would be this army of women saying I went through the same.”
Lorraine airs weekdays at 9am on ITV
If you are struggling with mental health, you can speak to a trained advisor from Mind mental health charity on 0300 123 3393 or email info@mind.org.uk
